Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 374: Felt Warm.

As Ozul disappeared from the alley, he didn’t notice the unusual disturbance of Spiritual Essence in the atmosphere.

But even if he did, he wouldn’t have figured out that someone was keeping watch over the area. There was a curious eye, which despite him trying to hide his peculiarity, was able to notice something special in him.

Unaware of this fact, Ozul sped towards the forest to find a secluded area. If it was anything like consuming a Mana Core, he would cause quite a commotion if he tried to absorb the Spiritual Core inside the city.

Using The Purity could help contain it but he didn’t want to risk it now.

...

Soon he found a place with no disturbances in the Spiritual Essence. It meant that there wasn’t anything living in the area except for the trees.

On his way here, he had already washed off the blood from the Core as he had created quite a mess while taking it out from that woman’s body.

.....

Anxious to test this one last method he had in his mind, he quickly put it in his mouth.

As if glaciers melting and flowing into rivers, the Spiritual Core also melted. Like a stream of water, it rushed down his throat.

Before he could figure out what was happening with it, the stream of Spiritual Essence suddenly disappeared!

He couldn’t feel it anywhere in his body!

A hollowness filled his chest as he gasped involuntarily.

Something was churning inside of him, but he held himself up.

Instinctively, he willed The Purity to surround him and completely shut him off from the outside.

And like it always happened, a torrent of energy gushed out of his body, jumping in all possible directions.

A few moments later, The Purity receded back in his body, revealing the sweaty figure of Ozul who had complicated expressions on his face.

Consuming the Core had suddenly unlocked something in his body that he didn’t know was there. This unusual phenomenon always occurred when he allowed something in his body and it accepted the ‘offering’.

The feeling of being a resident in his own physical body was not in any way pleasant. However, he was still satisfied with the results.

He had at last figured out how to grow stronger again.

However, the feeling of satisfaction was short-lived because it was smothered by concerns about the future.

Even this might not last long, he reasoned, and he was already making plans to get something else to devour. He had at least established that ingesting suitable energy sources made him stronger.

His body, like a haughty aristocrat, preferred to receive the Spiritual Essence already filtered rather than attempt to purify it on its own.

Even then, almost 90% of it would be ejected in a matter of seconds!

The torrent of energy had already switched to a warm current that spread through his body.

Although he hadn’t gotten significantly stronger, he had understood that consuming the Spiritual Cores of higher-ranked cultivators would make a noticeable difference.

Now the question remained on how he would be able to acquire so many Spiritual Cores.

‘To achieve any significant growth, I would need the Core of someone at the Nascent Soul Realm... or no less than quite a few Cores of people at the peak of Core Formation Realm,’ he estimated in his head.

Considering that he barely felt the changes with someone at the second stage of Core Formation, it was clear that even a hundred of such Cores wouldn’t make much of a difference.

‘Killing so many people would be troublesome... Should I ask Ember?’ he pondered while slowly walking in the direction he had come from.

Having once been at the Sage Realm, she would surely collected many high quality Spiritual Cores, he assumed.

...

Ozul flew at a lightning speed, rushing back to the town he had left the trio in.

Before leaving, he expected it would at least take him a few days before he could test his theory about the Spiritual Core. With Jinx’s help, though, it only took a day for him to be able to get his hands on them.

Thinking about Jinx, a warm feeling arose inside his chest. That strange little cat always felt closer to him than anything else. Moreover, the fact that she would always come to help him only increased his fondness of her.

Arriving at the hotel, he sensed the presence of only Raven inside the room.

He stretched his sense to locate the two missing boys. Though he could tell their presence anywhere nearby.

He made his way towards the room with quickened steps.

The door opened before he could even put his hand on it. The familiar face greeted him with a beaming smile.

Raven was obviously glad that he had returned in just a single day.

Ozul swept his eyes around the room and asked, “Where are those two?” He found it interesting that she could tell it was him just from the footsteps.

“Blaze was itching to learn his Spiritual Arts and Zier also wanted to test his silver needles.”

“Why didn’t you go then?” He squinted his eyes at her-something was off but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Unpreturbed by the scrutiny, Raven smiled softly and shrugged, “I didn’t need to.”

His gaze lingered on her for a little longer before he sighed and chose not to say anything. He had no right to continue asking when he knew very well that he always replied the same way.

‘Did she learn that from me?’ he gave it a passing thought before locating the bed and throwing himself on it.

On his way here, he had already looked at the busy areas of this town and to his disappointment, there weren’t any artifact shops muchless an auction house. He wanted to see if he could buy Spiritual Cores with money.

If he remembered correctly, they did have about nine or ten of the Medium-grade Spirit Stones in total.

Now that he had found a bed to sleep on, he didn’t want to venture to a city where he could look for auction or a shop of cultivators.

‘That would be a hassle...’ he rejected the idea of going out before giving in to his desires and dozed off.

By his side, he seemed to have ignored a curious being who, if allowed to, could drill a hole in him with her intense stares only.

Though seeing him sleeping so peacefully, Raven let go of her curiosity and queitly inched towards the opposite corner to practice the Scarlet Eyes.

She had already gone through the entire book multiple times but hadn’t been able to menifest the Scarlet Eyes. After comprehending the logic and the steps behind the Spiritual Art, one would think that she only lacked in practice.

Sadly, it wasn’t the case.

The Scarlet Eyes were indeed a little special. One couldn’t simply learn the technique and become able to use it the next day.

Eyes were a sensitive organ that even the strongest of beings would have as a weakness hence a Spiritual Art pertaining to the eyes were few and rare.

This Spiritual Art created by Ember required for the cultivator to imbue their Spiritual Essence slowly to the tissues of their eyes first. Only once they were strengthened could they then reinforce certain nerves.

As of now, Raven was focused on strenghtening the tissues around the eyes and even that was proving to be extremely difficult.

At the beginning of the Core Formation, her control over the Spiritual Essence was far superior than the normal cultivator’s, yet it was hardly sufficient for carrying out this demanding work.

Even in the book Ember had stressed on it many times that if one didn’t have sufficient control over their Spiritual Essence, they would most probably be heading towards either blindness or even death.

After all, even a single string of Spiritual Essence when let out of control, could create a mess of one’s insides. Eyes would most probably burst the moment something like that happened.

So Raven only took the tiniest amount of Spiritual Essence at a time.

One would think that controlling a tiny trace of it would be easier than taking out a stream of Spiritual Essence, but they would be entirely wrong.

The Spiritual Essence gave off the impression of being self governing. The majority of cultivators could only very minimally move it at the Core Formation Realm before it began to flow on its own. At this point, it took a great deal of effort to direct its entire course.

She had already added the Spiritual Essence to the tissues several times by this point. A headache attacked her and her eyes were felt heavy, but she wasn’t about to give up just yet.

The viens protruding out from her temples throbbed rhythmically.

Despite the pain, she was planning to continue when a cold hand grasped her shoulder.

“Stop it.”

The indifferent voice rang out in the room with a hint of chilliness to it.

There was no room for negotiation, Raven knew that the moment her weary eyes met with his.

“I...” she wanted to say something, but no word came out of her mouth. Those words were used countless times before as well.

“If you want to die, leave now. I don’t want to look at your dead body,” Ozul spoke as his hand reached towards her face and wiped the tear of blood that trailed down to her cheeks.

Not giving her a chance to say anything, he turned around and went back to the bed.

Raven was left there staring at the emptiness, trying to contain her conflicting emotions.

‘His hand felt warm...’