Chapter 16: Finding the Third Black Core

“When are you going to cheer up, Benni? You know that even if we invited Zax to join us, when we had to leave he would stay”. Hason, the brown fox, tried to show the depressed Benni some reason.

The nine lingered in the Earthly Crater for a month and a half. Most of them wished to stay longer, but time was not on their side. They had to reach their destination in the Eastern Continent within twenty days and though it sounded like plenty of time, factoring certain obstacles, it turned out pretty short.

“Leave her alone. I can’t believe she actually fell for a guy she knows nothing about”. Vars glowered.

“Don’t be a jerk, Vars”, Bin Bin, who regained his freedom by learning his lesson, or at least pretended to, pitied Benni for knowing how it feels when everyone choose to make an unreasonable discoing, while the poor individual is the only sensible one – even if that was not accurately to say on the current case.

“Don’t mess with a Martial Mortal, ‘Bin Sprout’” Vars retorted. Her mood worsened since leaving the crater and the cause was, again, Zax.

Seeing him starts at the seventh ring while she at the sixth inflated her ego, but before she could sneer at him in her heart, he got up on his feet and moved to the sixth ring and then barely half a month later he proceeded to the fifth, where Enderta, Zenkai and Liminton were the only ones in their group capable of staying.

“What will you do, eh? Beat me up?” Bin Bin was not afraid, though also not stupid to neglect assurances. “Did you hear her, uncle Liminton? Vars said that she will beat me, does she even care about giving you face?!”

“It’s not what she said”. Liminton truly did not want to involve himself in Benni’s lovesickness, Vars’s bitterness and Bin Bin’s boredom. “But depend on how hard she will hit-”

“No, my bad, uncle Liminton, I misheard. She really did not say that she will beat me!” Surprisingly, the fear of Liminton allowing Vars to actually beat him, was the push needed for Bin Bin to make the first honest stride on the path of reflecting over one own mischief.

“Right, I won’t beat you, Bin Bin, never. I require healthy specimen to test my formations on”. Vars reminded Bin Bin that although he was previously tied to Liminton, it was her formation the constrained him and more importantly, silenced his voice.

“Wonderful big sister Vars, please don’t get angry. Little brother Bin Bin was just worried about your reputation getting tarnished by others’ misconception”. Bin Bin slowly drew to the back of the group.

“Well, it was you who associated her with the noun ‘Jerk’”. Zenkai held back his laugh, aware how much the lad wished to curse at him, which made him more amused.

“Hahaha”. Bin Bin laughed awkwardly, getting behind Liminton, trying to recall how that thing he always calls “keeping your mouth shut” works...

...

‘The problem is my soul. If I challenge those with superior cultivation, while my cultivation is at a halt until I’ll comprehend the sixth bottleneck of insight, I need to come up with a technique to compensate over the inferiority’. He assessed that his soul defensive formation could support no farther than the third ring, as well as not be much of help against the soul attack of forth level Martial Mortal and up.

When he exited the Earthly Crater he left though the Nidbuk Ocean, but as he followed the direction his gut feeling told him he will ding the third Black Core, he soon crossed to and proceeded to fly above the Seer Don Ocean.

‘Land!’ After a day of flight in moderate pace he finally saw it. It was not an island, like he wondered a while back, but a piece of earth that stretched far beyond his eyes could see, despite his distance from it.

Unbeknownst to Zax, he arrived to the middle part of the Eastern Continent.

‘Halt!’ A deeply voiced command sounded and a group of five beasts in animalistic forms, ranging in size from that of a human to that of a five storey building, flew from the continent to greet Zax.

The five were respectfully a Desert Cobra, Golden Sand Mink, Short Ears Caracal, Long Ears Caracal and Red Sun Oryx – though to Zax it did not matter since he was oblivious of their species’ names.

“Another one arrived so soon. The Overlords’ quarrel is making it too easy for experts to cross the sea”. The Golden Sand Mink growled, his bestial nature coercing him to expose his sharp teeth. “Look what he is wearing, are these clothes made out of seaweeds... ?”

“Maybe it is the humans’ fashion in the Western Continent”. The Desert Cobra suggested. “Though it doesn’t seems to be much of a protective wears, like what the others were wearing”.

After the White Coat was shredded, Zax indeed made himself something out of the sturdy seaweeds he found in the bottom of the sea, eventually coming up with clothing similar to the tunics that were common in the villages around Glorious Ground.

“State your name and intent of intruding on the Beasts Union’s territory!” The Red Sun Oryx ordered Zax. Since he could not sense fluctuations of mist energy from the human, he assumed that he was a Peak Core Master utilizing substandard flying technique.

‘Five Martial Mortals, that is more than the five powers bother to invest on the passageway home’s Curators’. The five exuded hostile fluctuations of four first level Martial Mortals and one second level Martial Mortal, so Zax did not need to use his Soul Sense to probe. ‘Moreover the speak Netherling’. From his welcome in Virgil’s Pasture and the things he learned there, he thought that Netherling was a language indigenous to the Western Continent or at least Selivereb. What he did not take into consideration was that his Intel originated from a simple village, while even most of the second realm experts in the Western Continent spend their lives never crossing the sea. ‘On second thought, knowing a few languages is not a big deal for cultivators’.

“My name is ‘Zax’. I didn’t come here to cause troubles to your Beasts Union or whatever, so move away and let me carry on with my business”. Zax paid back with his own hostile intent, just as a threat, and flew past them.