The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

Amara couldn't really understand what kind of moves Cecilia had just based on the name of the cultivation technique, so she just nodded absently. "I wonder what mine will be…"

The redhead had almost never dared to think that this kind of day would ever come. While she was still thinking of how to distance herself from Evelyn to stop dragging her down, the girl was always thinking of a way to let her keep up.

Amara couldn't help but feel ashamed. 'I-I won't think like this anymore. Even if the cultivation technique I end up getting doesn't suit me, I'll work hard and make you proud! I'll never be useless anymore… I'll protect you, both of you…'

At this time, just before she activated the array, Evelyn received a system notification for a new mission.

[ Red Mission, Acquire a Cultivation Technique ]

-Clear Condition: Comprehend a Cultivation Technique of any grade.

—Use an array disc containing an existing cultivation technique to comprehend it.

—Create your own cultivation technique, which needs to be at least grade three or higher.

-Rewards vary depending on the grade of the cultivation technique!

—Lower Grade Cultivation Technique (Grade 1, Grade 2, or Grade 3)

-Experience: 100,000 points

-Random skill (low level)

—Mid Grade Cultivation Technique (Grade 4, Grade 5 or Grade 6)

-Experience: 125,000 points

-Random skill (mid level)

—High Grade Cultivation Technique (Grade 7 or higher)

-Experience: 150,000 points

-Random skill (high level)

Evelyn was of course ecstatic after looking at the rewards, but managed to calm herself down soon enough. Anyway, this mission was as good as done, and her first priority currently was to comprehend the cultivation technique from the array disc.

After she was certain her state of mind was right, Evelyn poured her spirit power into the array, fully activating it.

This was not the first time Evelyn had used an array, although it was the first she had activated it herself. Previously, Bree had used some sort of array to make the bonding process between herself and Ruru easier, though Evelyn didn't know how much it ended up helping in the end.

What she did know, however, was that unlike last time when she had remained fully conscious, her mind blurred almost as soon as the array was activated.

Constantly slipping between a conscious and unconscious state, Evelyn eventually found herself floating in a dark sea filled with glowing white orbs.

Her 'body' itself seemed to semi-transparent, and completely naked, and although the substance felt like water in terms of viscosity, Evelyn didn't feel like she was suffocating at all.

According to what Aurora had told her, each cultivation technique's creator decided on what the 'comprehension plane' inside the disc would be like, so it varied greatly from technique to technique. And there was no way to tell what it was going to be like without trying it out themselves.

For people who had already started on the path of cultivation, using another cultivation array disc was a strict taboo. This was because they could accidentally end up 'comprehending' a part of another technique, which might interfere with their own insights, and lay down major roadblocks on their path to the future.

Of course, it wasn't as if Aurora didn't know anything about 'Searing Soul' at all. But what she told her didn't help much.

Apparently, only three other students had been 'lucky' enough to pick this cultivation technique from the tower of solitude throughout the history of the Ancient Academy possessing it, and only one of them had experienced moderate success in their life.

Evelyn more or less understood that the higher level cultivation techniques had stricter requirements from their users. And the one for 'Searing Soul' was, apparently, a very high soul value.

The pink haired girl couldn't be any happier at those words, because if there was one thing she had an excess of, it was soul value.

After observing the glowing white orbs for a while, Evelyn started swimming through the dark waters to look for the biggest, brightest orb she could find.

According to Aurora, starting with the very core of the technique would make it much easier for her to comprehend the rest of it in the future. And for higher level techniques, this was an absolutely necessary step that she couldn't afford to miss.

Even after swimming for what felt like hours, however, Evelyn couldn't find any orbs that looked disproportionately larger than the others.

It truly wasn't easy to do it all by sight, because there were simply far too many of them floating around, and just navigating her way around in this murky dark water without any reference point to guide her was already quite daunting.

Moreover, she could only see around a dozen meters around herself, and the murkiness of the water obscured her vision beyond that point. In fact, her observation range would be even smaller if the orbs hadn't been glowing and easily noticeable.

"I don't have all day… the more time I spend in here, the more spirit stones the array will consume. Although Cecilia has plenty, it's still far from being unlimited, not to mention we still have to do this again for Amara and Vivian."

Suddenly, Evelyn realized that since this was her soul body, and she could swim by simply thinking about it… could she still use her 'spirit power'?

But unfortunately, no matter how she tried to find that same source of energy that she always used to form her spirit threads, use her probe skill, and everything else… it was just not there.

Her desperate struggles were not for naught, however, because she soon discovered another source of power that she had never felt before.

"What's this…?"

This 'pool' felt purer, and far more grand and regal than the pool of spirit power she was used to tapping into. However, this 'source' also gave her an ominous feeling.

This ominous feeling wasn't that it was a 'bad source', but that if she ever 'ran out' or broke this source, she herself would be doomed.

It certainly couldn't be another type of spirit power, because she knew that exhausting spirit power only led to a state of slight lethargy before it slowly recovered.

"This must be… soul! No one told me I can directly use the power of the soul just like spirit power?!"

Right up until then, Evelyn had been under the impression that much like physique and vitality, soul value was another stat that formed a base that affected many techniques and actions, but could not directly be used as 'energy', as spirit power could.

That is to say, she couldn't just pour out 'physique' or 'vitality' into something just because she wanted to, because they weren't something she could 'channel' as energy to begin with. Not as far as she was aware of, at least.

But clearly, she had been mistaken to think that soul value was also the same.

"Since this is so… let me try it out!"

The reason she had been trying to tap into her spirit power was simple. She wanted to try replicating the effect of 'Lotus Throne's Eternal Ripple' in an attempt to find the 'core' of this place.

Evelyn's first few attempts failed miserably, and the 'soul water' in the pool vanished a little with every failed attempt.

She could feel that it will recover, so she wasn't too worried. However, the more she depleted it with her failed attempts, the more she felt like it will take 'longer' to recover.

"So unlike Spirit Power, which recovers at a constant rate based on how much your maximum capacity is no matter what, the more I deplete my soul, the slower it will 'heal'."

But even if that was so, Evelyn had plenty of 'soul water' still left in her 'pool', and continued to attempt sending out a 'ripple' from her body.

Although her attempts kept failing, each one was a little bit more stable than the last. Eventually, a small ripple emerged from her body, traveling barely ten meters before vanishing.

Evelyn smiled.

It was much easier from that point, as she only had to pour in more of her 'soul water' each time into the technique while keeping it stable to the best of her ability to make sure that the ripple didn't fall apart.

In her second attempt, she managed to double her range, but found nothing worthy of her notice.

In her fifth attempt, she finally found a much larger orb than the ones she had seen so far, almost thirteen hundred meters away from her location, in another cluster of orbs she didn't even know existed in this murky, dark water body.

But Evelyn still had almost ninety percent of her soul value left, so she decided to 'splurge' this time just to make sure, until it was just over fifty.

In her last 'ripple', which nearly consumed a fourth of her soul value by itself, she found a shockingly large white orb floating by itself in the middle of nowhere, almost ten thousand meters away from her location.

Evelyn didn't know if she should be annoyed that she almost missed it, or ecstatic that she ended up not making the wrong choice. "Fuck…! Good thing I checked…"

Evelyn could only grit her teeth and start swimming. "Why is it so darn far away, anyway?"

Meanwhile, as Evelyn was fully indulged in her cultivation array, completely unaware of her surroundings, none of her friends realized that another person had entered the room not long after the array started.