The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

There were multiple sources from which people in this world were able to gain levels, and Evelyn was well aware of most of them.

The first one was a passive acquisition of energy that naturally flowed into their bodies with time. This meant that the older someone was, the more experience they would acquire simply by existing. This was how most non-cultivators gained their levels, and it was how most people who leveled up before they even acquired their cultivation technique got their 'experience' or 'energy'.

Of course, this 'passive trickle' also varied from person to person. A human with a regular body would have a much lower rate of acquiring experience like this naturally than someone with a spirit physique. This was why most of the commoner children that Evelyn had encountered on her way to the ancient academy were still level one.

Aside from their inherent advantages in cultivating and progressing later on, this 'early start' that the children with spirit physiques got was also a great cause of envy among the commoners.

As someone got higher up the levels, however, and their cultivation advanced, they would soon realize that the passive trickle actually didn't matter that much, and what mattered much more was the experience they harvested from the world using their cultivation technique.

And this was where the grade of the cultivation technique, as well as their comprehension of its core principles, came into play.

Although her system showed her the actual grade of the cultivation techniques, and the academy classified them as such too, Evelyn knew that they were commonly separated by ranks.

Her red mission rewards, for example, were separated into three categories – one from grade one to three, one from grade four to six, and the last one from grade seven to nine. The cultivation techniques in these three categories were generally referred to as rank B, rank A and rank S cultivation techniques, respectively.

There was an even lower grade of cultivation techniques, rank C.

These categorizations weren't meaningless, they existed to make it easy to know at a glance what the 'peak' point of the cultivation technique was.

A rank C cultivation technique would allow one to become a rank C ranger at most, which meant that realistically, that person would never be able to exceed level seventy in their lifetime.

This meant that not only would their rate of growth be slower, but the limits of their growth would also be lower. Considering all this, Evelyn knew how enviable she was to be able to acquire a grade nine cultivation technique – one of the best even among rank S.

However, she already knew all of this.

The reason she was shocked, was because this grade nine cultivation technique, which was already the very best among those in rank S… allowed her to further increase her efficiency of acquiring experience through cultivation.

If she cultivated normally using 'Searing Soul', or another cultivation technique of the same grade, the rate at which she would 'acquire' experience would be around forty to fifty experience points in a day.

However, that is where the combat ability of the 'Searing Soul' – Soul Avatar came into play.

Soul Avatar was an ability that allowed her to consume a part of her soul power to create temporary ethereal clones of herself.

Not only were these clones capable of executing all the techniques that she could with her real body, but they could also be used to cultivate!

To put it into perspective, cultivating with ten clones for one year… was the same as cultivating for ten years!

Of course, it wasn't actually as simple as it seemed, since the clones did not have thoughts of their own, and she still had to focus to be able to make them work. But Evelyn never expected things to be so convenient anyway.

And this was just one of the uses of Soul Avatar. The ability was incredibly versatile, and Evelyn knew that she had made a wise choice in picking 'Searing Soul'. Although it seemed to rely entirely on her pool of soul power, which was much harder to replenish than spirit power, the potency of its skills and abilities was on another level entirely when compared to those that were commonly known.

For Evelyn, just this single ability alone was worth much more than ten, or even twenty levels of experience as a 'reward'.

The pink-haired girl opened her eyes with a content sigh, and just as she was about to move on to check and claim her red mission, she realized that there was one more presence in the room than she expected.

Evelyn didn't panic, because she had already become a little 'familiar' with this presence through her visions inside the array.

As she turned her gaze to Aurora, the others in the room also turned around to look in her direction, only then realizing with some horror that someone had been just standing there watching without them ever realizing it.

Even Cecilia couldn't help but gulp. "M-Miss Aurora, why did you sneak up on us?"

Aurora tilted her head with some confusion. Although she hadn't announced her entrance, it wasn't like she had hidden herself from their sight either, right? Or else, Evelyn would never have noticed her either. She just didn't make any commotion when she arrived, and the others never turned to look.

Evelyn cleared her throat as she greeted her 'mentor', though she felt a little complicated in her heart after going through the visions.

There was a great mismatch between the two images of the naïve, abused little girl Aurora and the ancient and mysterious sage with unfathomable motives in front of her. Moreover, now that she had an inkling of the reason for which Aurora could be helping her out, Evelyn felt that things had gotten even more complex.

The matter of being the 'Lotus Throne' was something that she wanted to keep secret at any cost, and the fact that Aurora already knew put her at great unease. Although the lady had never said it out loud, why else would she favor her so much?

And if Aurora knew, did she tell anyone else?

But now was not the right time for Evelyn to ask such questions, and she knew that very well.

Aurora, who had completely ignored Cecilia's previous questions, much to the ash blonde's shock actually took the initiative to approach Evelyn. "How was your 'vision'? Did everything go well?"

Cecilia could only lament in her heart. 'Really! The inheritors are treated quite differently from us lowly plebs! Hmph. I'm gonna have to annoy her at least twice as much as revenge!'

If Aurora knew what the girl was thinking, she would surely feel a little wronged. Didn't she treat everyone the same? Where was this 'discrimination' that this girl kept thinking about?

Fortunately, she was too focused on Evelyn to bother guessing Cecilia's thoughts.

Evelyn didn't think she should let Aurora know exactly what happened in the visions. It might make things quite awkward, after all.

But when she thought about the fact that there had been others who had previously used this array to learn the same cultivation technique, even if Aurora didn't already know about it now, which was already unlikely, she might know of it in the future.

So knowingly concealing it would just make things more awkward between them.

Evelyn cleared her throat before deciding to just come clean. "My vision was about the headmistress…"

Aurora nodded, not looking very surprised, and Evelyn was relieved in her heart. Thankfully, she didn't try to lie. Even if Aurora didn't mind at that time, she would have felt a little awkward, and it might create needless distrust between the two of them.

As someone she was probably going to be 'learning' from, Evelyn thought it would be quite detrimental to her growth.

Evelyn continued recounting a little of what she went through in her vision, and Aurora didn't interrupt her much, other than clarifying a few of the past events that Evelyn hadn't been quite sure of – such as the invasion of the spirit lands, as well as what the courtyard of spirits was. The latter was a topic of great interest to Evelyn, considering it seemed to be the source of the headmistress knowing about the lotus throne.

"This courtyard of spirits is…?"

Aurora waved her hand as a 'map' of what Evelyn assumed to be the continent they were in appeared in the air formed from sparkling particles.

Considering that all the maps Evelyn had been able to find so far were heavily localized to just certain limited zones, and even then did not contain much information, she knew how terrifyingly valuable the information in front of her was.

Aurora pointed to one corner of the map as it lit up brighter than the others. "This is the area that is commonly referred to as the 'Spirit Lands', a holy land for the spirit beasts, and the group of beasts who rule over it call themselves the 'Courtyard of Spirits'. In the past, it was led by an old fox, but she already passed away when I was but a child."