Cultivation Through Artifacts

As Liza felt a kind of ‘awkwardness’ in the air tilted her delicate eyes at her Master and asked, “Did I say something wrong, Master?”

Jane who was in deep thoughts until this moment because of the unexpected statement from her disciple, shook her head mildly and crossed her arms behind her back, “There is nothing you need to worry about, I was just simply mesmerized in my own thoughts. Anyway, how many people know about this ‘ability’ of yours?”

The reason Jane asked about this was that even though she would not, but in this world and especially in this Academy, several people would try to obtain and use Liza’s powers for their own interest if the news about her having a Hidden Talent would leak out.

“Three Talents, one individual… This must be the very first thing that happened in all history!” thought Jane with a quickened heart rate as she waited for Liza to answer.

If she told her that others knew about this, then she must do anything in her power to protect her; she was a priceless treasure that must not fall into wrong hands!

However, her concern about this matter was simply an unnecessary bother, “Except Master and myself, there is no one else. Why? Should I keep it as a secret?” asked Liza with a frown, not understanding why Jane asked such a question out of the blue.

But it was no wonder at all; Hidden Talents were extremely rare Talents, even rarer than Natural Born Talents, that could be said as non-existent abilities among Cultivators! So the fact that Liza didn’t know about what Hidden Talents were was not a surprise but instead normality.

Only a few knew about them and even they didn’t know what their real potential was.

And Jane knew this too, hence she grabbed Liza by her hand and said, “Let’s talk somewhere quieter.”

And just like that, the space around the two shook and the very next second they vanished without a sign, leaving the crowd in the arena with still dumbfounded expressions.

***

Two days have passed in a blink of an eye, and while the sun was still hanging high above the boundless sky, shining the earth below it with its scorching light, somewhere in the eastern part of Moon Academy a young man was slowly walking on the street while his body was trembling like leaves on a cold autumn day.

His dark black hair was ragged, black circles could be noticed under his eye sockets while both of his cheeks were a bit sunken on his pale face; this young man was no one else but Khal who practiced forging without getting even the slightest of rest through 2 whole days!

The only rest he got was the moments he could go to the toilet or got the permission to eat and drink, but except those two things, he needed to forge 2 days straight without an inch of sleep! This was madness!

From the continuous hammer swinging and standing hours straight without the chance to sit down before a scorching hot room, Khal’s body felt so numb that he almost began to cry!

“But at least, I was able to forge this successfully…” mumbled Khal in a low voice as he took out a chunk of metal with the shape of a cube and a size of a tiny fist.

Just under mere 2 days of straight forging and the help of a professional, Khal’s smithing skills improved leaps and bound compared to the first time.

In the beginning, he wasn’t able to hit a rod properly but after 2 days of nightmarish struggle, he was finally able to shape it into a cube shape!

Of course, the rod was without any quality and Soul Threads in it, meaning it was truly just a piece of crap, but nevertheless, for Khal, it was still an improvement!

“Now that I think about it, how much time do I have until I can use the Creation Mode again?” pondered Khal and after making sure no one was in his vicinity raised his right arm.

“Open Artifact Creation Status!”

In that very instant, the bracelet on his wrist lit up with white light and words began to form and shape before him below each other.

• Creation Mode: A half-automatic function, able to help the ‘Owner’ forge, refine and temper any kind of material after analysis. (Only usable every 168 hours!) (Remaining time: 88h, 18m, 41s)

“Close to 4 days huh?” sighed Khal deeply as he lowered his hand and began to ponder.

However, not even a minute has passed as he merged into his mind when suddenly his proximity darkened and a figure appeared before him, halting his movements.

“Eh?” 

Raising his head, Khal squinted his eyes slightly as he tried to take out the face looking down on him because of the sudden light change, but a second later his eyes widened and took several steps back hurriedly.

“Marx?” asked Khal calmly, but it was apparent he raised his guard. After fighting with Marx two days ago, he already understood his behavior completely; he was bad-tempered and loved to find trouble wherever he went. So watching that he came to find him personally Khal kind of felt alarmed.

Yet, what he did not expect was that the moment he mentioned Marx’s name, the giant figure before him began to lower his humongous body and started to kowtow before him in the middle of the street!

“!?”

“Little Brother, please let me give you my fullest respect!” spoken quietly but clearly Marx with his head lowered, shocking Khal beyond belief!

“Umm… I… What are you doing? Please stand up!” said Khal hurriedly as this act of Marx truly dumbfounded him.

Marx did as he was told and stood straight up, towering above Khal with almost a meter, and began to smile; the arrogant and aggressive complexion from two days ago could no longer be found on him, but only sheer respect which was quite strange.

Khal gazed at Marx, unknown what he should say, but even before he had the chance to speak, two more figures appeared from behind Marx; They were none others but Merlyn and Asur, Marx’s sister and childhood friend.

“I told you not to act this way! You are embarrassing us!” whispered Merlyn with a frown as she slapped Marx in the back powerfully and turned her head toward Khal, “I am sorry, my brother loves to do these kinds of things. He acts arrogant and mighty before people but once he has been taught a lesson by someone he will act respectfully toward that individual. Anyway, we didn’t have time to introduce ourselves, my name is Merlyn Eastfield and he is my brother Marx Eastfield. As for him,” pointed at Asur on the side, “He doesn’t really loves to reveal his family background so just simply call him Asur.”

“I see, nice to meet you guys,” smiled Khal as he realized that these three didn’t come to him to cause problems but just simply to talk, “My name is Khal Nevio but I guess you already know this.”

As he said that, Khal tilted his gaze at Marx and asked, this time a bit of confusion in his eyes, “But still, I am a bit surprised. Why did you come to find me?”

Asur who remained on the side all this time with an indifferent face now stepped forward and began to speak, “We came here to ask for your help.”

“My help?” asked Khal back in a flash, now really not understanding what 3 Fourth Stage Cultivators wanted that needed his help as a Second Stage Cultivator.