Unsealing Emptiness

397 Soul Liberation.

“You are not allowed to be near the palace!”

Being shouted at by someone weaker made her hands itch, but Rose only showed an apologetic smile before turning around. The guards didn’t see her twisted face that seethed with anger after she started walking away.

‘I even showed them the guard’s medallion! What more do I have to do?!’ Rose clutched that piece of metal as if it was useless now.

To the guards, it only seemed like she was curiously looking around the palace, thinking she could go anywhere.

‘I will have to be careful from now on,’ Rose thought disappointedly.

. . .

For a few days, nothing really happened.

The recruits were taught the basics of how things worked for the soldiers and were shown the basic facilities provided to them.

Raven, Blaze, and Zier made full use of this opportunity to either hone their Spiritual Arts or do cultivation in hopes of reaching the next realm.

.....

The barriers which shackled their soul were already showing cracks in them. It wouldn’t be long before they broke into the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, the Soul Liberation stage.

What surprised Ozul was the fact that Zier had made to most progress in that regard!

The three of them hadn’t noticed, but he regularly checked their bodies. If they kept up this pace, Zier would be the first one to break into the next stage.

Meanwhile, he himself had nothing else to do but sleep and pass the time. His control over Purity was as good as it could get. He only needed to find something that he could consume to strengthen himself.

After the first day, Kumaou also started training and could be seen cultivating at all times. He also didn’t hide his disappointment with Ozul as the latter had always been laying around, putting in no effort to improve himself.

Though Ozul could feel that man distancing himself from him, he didn’t feel the need to wonder about the reason. The fewer people around him, the better he felt.

He also wasn’t entirely lazing around all day. From his ‘casual’ strolls at nights, he had gotten a general understanding of how people inside the royal estate moved about. They had also learned that they couldn’t approach the palace itself.

While they had been accepted as soldiers under the Imperial Prince, they weren’t trusted just yet.

After a few days, when Ozul had started getting bored, a senior soldier who was at the peak of Nascent Soul arrived and gathered some 15 of them. They were briefed on a simple mission that they had to take care of some mountain bandits harassing a small city.

They weren’t the only ones given such tasks. They formed a couple of groups consisting mostly of the new recruits and mixed in some of the old soldiers.

Now Ozul could be sure that these new recruits were simply there to provide them some temporary manpower. After all, the Blue Lion Kingdom was vast, and they couldn’t send all of their soldiers, leaving the important duties unattended.

Ozul and his group were only sent once on a mission to subdue the mountain bandits. After that, they were again back to living in the soldier’s quarters.

It continued for a few weeks. They were given tasks at random times and rewarded with money if it was done well. These rewards were separate from the monthly salary that they were offered.

To everyone else, these were truly blissful days.

However, Ozul was annoyed to no end.

There was nothing better to do, and there was always some kind of commotion around him.

After the second week, there had also been another recruitment test. The number of new recruits had more than doubled now. He wasn’t privy to what kind of test they had gone through, but the new batch had more people in the Nascent Soul Realm. There was no one in the Origin Realm which wasn’t really a surprise. Kumaou was actually the oddball trying to join as a normal soldier while he had such considerable strength.

Whatever his reasons were, he didn’t care. The Imperial family did care though. Along with Ozul and his group, Kumaou was also always being monitored.

The only consolation for both him and Ozul was the fact that each time they completed their task, the next task assigned to them would be more difficult.

Kumaou wanted to battle stronger people while Ozul sought denser Spiritual Cores.

Alas, only the former got to have some fun. The strongest people they ever faced were in the Nascent Soul Realm and even then, their Spiritual Cores would almost always break. Not that they would have mattered anyway.

Finding himself back in his room again, Ozul looked lazily at the three people sitting on their beds with their eyes closed and crossed legs.

He lay there with Jinx, his hands slowly caressing her soft fur as he occasionally sighed out of sheer boredom.

But just then, he felt something. It was as if something was being broken.

Raising his eyes, he looked at Zier while furrowing his brow.

‘Nice...Finally, something interesting is happening,’ he thought, a small smile surfacing on his face unknowingly.

As he had predicted, Zier was breaking through to the next stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.

Ozul got off the bed, leaving Jinx in an uncomfortable position as she stopped purring. He walked toward Zier and put his hand on his back.

At this moment, both Blaze and Kumaou had opened stopped their cultivation as they had also started feeling the rise in Spiritual Essence from Zier.

Both looked wide-eyed at the scene, but for different reasons.

Blaze was shocked that Zier was ahead of him while Kumaou was focusing on Ozul’s strange actions.

He had seen that quiet guy putting his hand on the sickly guy’s back and also closing his eyes.

“Hey! Do ya know what that kid’s doing?” Kumaou questioned Blaze, but the latter had no intentions of giving an answer.

He shook his head in response, but he knew that Ozul was probably easing the process for Zier.

And he was right. Ozul had first tested if the Purity could even interact with the ‘soul’ being unshackled. Since he found that he indeed could interact with the source, he helped Zier contain the pressure.

The first step into the Soul Liberation stage was to sense their soul. After sensing their soul, they had to break the barriers surrounding it. But they couldn’t just hammer it all and be done with it. They had to nibble at it piece by piece, so their body could handle all that pressure.

With Ozul’s help in containing the pressure of the ‘soul’, Zier ripped apart the last barrier in a matter of seconds, thus finally stepping into the Soul Liberation stage.

Opening his eyes, Zier finally smiled before dropping on his back, drenched in his sweat.

“I can feel it!!” he shouted before smiling foolishly.

Ozul sighed and stood up before walking to his bed. Sure enough, it wouldn’t be long before his people would be strong enough to do the work for him.

“Hey!”

The shout stopped him in his track.

Turning around to face Kumaou, he answered, “Yeah?”

“What was that? What did you do with him? It should have taken him half an hour at least!”

To say that Kumaou was surprised was an understatement. He hadn’t felt any Spiritual Essence from him this time either, but it was clear that he helped that sickly guy.

“Mhm? I just made sure everything went alright?”

Kumaou squinted his eyes at Ozul’s answer, but there was nothing he could do if he was suspicious.

He grunted in frustration before going back to his cultivation.

Ozul also sighed before jumping on the bed again. He felt like telling that man anything out of the ordinary would make him more clingy.

Turning to face Blaze, he spoke, “You guys have a new competition.”

In response, Blaze quickly got into the lotus position and resumed his cultivation. He couldn’t let himself be surpassed by the kid!

Ozul eyed Zier carefully before reconsidering his talent. He knew that the kid was special with his strange blood which had healing properties, but he didn’t think he could surpass Blaze.

He hadn’t come across anyone more talented than Blaze as of yet. Maybe it was the elemental favoritism or just his innate adaptability, there was no doubt that he was a genius. But after starting from the same point as Zier, he had been left behind.

‘Finally, something good happened,’ he thought before closing his eyes. After all, what was better than two people working for him? The answer was obvious; three people working for him.

The next day, however, Blaze also made a breakthrough. That came as a surprise to Ozul since he guessed it would take another day at least.

“Tch!” Raven clicked her tongue when she saw them both on the training field.

To say that she wasn’t annoyed would be a lie. But she wasn’t discouraged either. Two days was all it took before she also stepped into the Soul Liberation stage.