Unsealing Emptiness

Seeing this occur before them, they couldn’t focus on their cultivation.

It was unprecedented to see someone in the second stage of the Core Formation Realm advancing to the next stage in mere minutes!

Unfortunately, Ozul had to stop as he noticed the increasing unrest in Raven’s body.

He hadn’t considered the fact that humans had different bodies than he did.

While he only felt better as his strength increased, the humans struggled because their muscles began to strain. It would take some time for them to adjust to the sudden changes that had occurred within them.

Sighing silently, Ozul told Raven to stop. The latter, albeit reluctantly, followed his orders. As she stopped feeding her Core streams of Spiritual Essence, Ozul retracted the Purity from inside her body.

.....

Breathing heavily, Raven questioned, “Didn’t you say Nascent Soul?”

Ozul nodded, and replied, “I didn’t consider the toll on your body. Get some rest. We will continue once your body has cooled down at least.” Raven was forced to stand up and move away.

Those young masters of rich families also had pills and elixirs to help their bodies adapt, but Ozul couldn’t replicate that with the Purity.

Alas, not everything would go according to the plans.

He wasn’t disappointed much because there won’t be a long delay, even with this.

Also, there were two more people lined up for the same treatment.

Before he could even call him, Blaze appeared before him, looking like a lost puppy asking for a treat.

Ozul wondered if he might be seeing a Beastkin right now.

Shaking his head, he told him to sit down.

As Ozul repeated the process with Blaze, Raven felt the changes inside her, ‘Third stage!!’

She didn’t complain about taking a break, because she was also beginning to feel overwhelmed. If she were to continue feeding stream after stream of Spiritual Essence to her Core, even if it didn’t break, her body would have started to show cracks.

Before long, she also felt wave after wave of Spiritual Essence coming from Blaze. And just like with her, it only took a few minutes before Blaze advanced to the third stage as well!

If Ember were to witness this scene, she would have been shocked out of her wits.

She also had some of those pills that immediately skyrocketed those young masters’ cultivation. However, those pills artificially stimulated the internal organs and Spiritual Essence.

The side effects of these would not be obvious at first, but in the later stages, these people would experience more excruciating pain than others. Some, if not drugged again, might even succumb to the pain and die!

Meanwhile, what Ozul was doing was completely different. The entire process was still naturally guided by Raven or Blaze, he had only removed the risk which affected the cultivation speed.

If other empires learned of this, they would almost certainly kidnap him for experimentation or reduce him to slavery to help their younger generations with cultivation!

Fortunately, there was no powerhouse nearby. Even if someone was, unless they paid extra attention to it, they wouldn’t realize what was going on.

As Blaze was told to rest for a while, it was Zier’s turn to cultivate. He was the weakest member of this small group, at only the first stage of the Core Formation.

With Ozul’s help, he cultivated until the second stage of the Core Formation Realm. He wanted to continue to catch up with others, but his physical condition was worse than Raven and Blaze’s when they reached the third stage. Hence, he wasn’t allowed to keep going either.

After helping them all, Ozul plopped on the bed as well.

He was going to get them all to at least the Nascent Soul Realm before he brought them to help him.

It was going to be a hard journey for the trio as despite there being no risk of harming themselves, the process of absorbing the Spiritual Essence was still taxing on their bodies.

The next few days passed with bubbling excitement in the trio.

Their cultivation rose as if they were time traveling.

As Raven and Blaze reached the peak of the Core Formation Realm, they were forced to stop.

The next part of their journey wasn’t the same as before.

Their Spiritual Cores had expanded a lot and a hardened Core had also formed inside their original Spiritual Core.

Ozul was confused by this transformation, but Raven explained to him that this was normal.

The outer layer of their Core, which they had expanded to its limits, was supposed to now spread out to their entire body.

“Basically allowing your entire bodies to hold the Spiritual Essence?” Ozul deduced while Raven nodded proudly.

This stage was known as Core Expansion for a reason.

Raven and Blaze would successfully step into the Nascent Soul Realm once they managed to expand their outer Core to envelope their entire bodies.

At this point, Ozul was little help since he couldn’t help them forcefully expand their outer Core. There was little danger during this process as well. At most, he could envelop their expanding outer Core with a layer of the Purity, giving them more freedom to force the process.

A few more days passed as Ozul helped both of them expand their outer Core.

‘I thought it would only take a few days at most...’ Ozul sighed tiredly. A week had passed and yet none of them had reached the Nascent Soul Realm.

While Raven and Blaze had expanded their Core to almost half of their bodies, around that time Zier had also caught up to them.

Now, they were all at the peak of the Core Formation Realm, but Raven and Blaze were already half a step into the next Realm.

While Ozul was disappointed with their speed, the trio, on the other hand, were on sky nine.

When had they ever felt such a euphoric rush of strength?!

. . .

Another week passed without any trouble.

In her room, surrounded with various reports of the plans she had set into motion, Ember tightly held a report with a determined gaze. Evidently, this was important to her.

As if she had suddenly remembered something, she stood up and walked out of her room.

Channeling her Spiritual Essence into one of her rings, she waited for a few seconds before speaking, “Tell him that he is needed.”

There was no response from the other side, but she didn’t mind. She understood they were always short of words.

Half an hour later, she felt the disturbance in their Spatial Gate and walked out of the building to greet Ozul.

What she didn’t expect was that he would be followed by the complete group.

Raven, Blaze, and Zier all strode behind Ozul.

She almost didn’t recognize them as the air of confidence shrouded them the smoke of mystery.

Except, it wasn’t a mystery to her.

Because in front of her bare eyes were not some dandy martial artists putting on airs, but three genuine Nascent Soul Realm cultivators!

Mouth agape, Ember blinked thrice to confirm that she wasn’t seeing things.

“This...” she wanted to say, wasn’t possible. However, the truth was in front of her!

They were definitely all in the Nascent Soul Realm!

Shocked out of her wits, Ember barely managed to mouth her words, “How??”

It hadn’t even been a complete month and these people were all at the Nascent Soul Realm!?

How absurd was that?

She had heard legends of the Dragon Hatchlings and how they so easily soured through the skies once given enough time, but this was simply unheard of!

It would have been more convincing if they had accepted the offer of those who had brought them here and been given ample resources, but she knew full well that this was not the case.

Her mind raced to form all kinds of conclusions, but they all lead to one answer.

The man leading their group.

Staring daggers at Ozul, Ember smiled awkwardly and spoke, “You never cease to amaze me.”

There was no other answer. She was keeping tabs on some of the other Dragon Hatchlings as well. Their growth wasn’t as exaggerated as theirs!

So the only thing these three of them had in common was Ozul-one of the only people she couldn’t understand in her centuries-long life.

As if he didn’t understand her words, Ozul looked at her with a confused face.

Taking the hint that he wouldn’t be revealing his secret even if she asked, Ember let go of the topic with a heavy sigh. How she wished that she could dissect his body and rob him of all his secrets. Alas, she couldn’t let go of her dignity.

For now, it didn’t matter how they had reached the Nascent Soul Realm in such a short period of time. They had reached an acceptable level of strength, which only meant more reliable people for her.

“What did you want now?” Ozul asked, seemingly ready to take on another task.

Not only did he want more Spiritual Cores, but the trio also needed some experience.

Although Raven and Blaze had already honed their battle instincts, they had to get used to dealing with people in this Realm.

Taking a deep breath, Ember spoke, “This is important to me,” before leading them all inside the building, into her office.

.....

Squinting his eyes at her back, Ozul focused on her emotions. Solemn. She was dead serious.

‘Finally,’ he smirked internally.

Since it was important to her, the reward would also not be anything less than desirable...