Chapter 22 - 22 : Martial Soul

Long Chen now had two supreme grade Mana crystals in his hand.

"If I exchange these two supreme grade Mana crystals, I will have around twenty million poor grade Mana crystals. If I use these as money, I'll probably be the richest person in this kingdom, and not even the emperor will be able to compare to me. But their main value is their help in cultivation." Long Chen was amazed as he wondered how much these two crystals were worth.

After considering for a while, Long Chen decided not to use this crystal as money but as a cultivation resource. Long Chen needed to break through faster so that he could fly up and go back home.

"Using these Mana crystals, my strength can be upgraded a lot," Long Chen thought, looking at these deep blue crystals. 

Long Chen sat down and took one supreme grade Mana crystal in his hands as he started cultivating as per his unnamed Cultivation technique. He kept absorbing the Qi, but the Qi inside Mana crystal was vast and would last for a long time.

Long Chen knew that he needed to upgrade his soul seed into a Martial soul to break through to the second stage of Spirit Establishment realm, so he kept cultivating. Hours passed as Long Chen kept absorbing the Qi from Mana crystal and using his cultivating method.

Long Chen cultivated for 6 hours before there was a slight change in his soul seed. His soul seed started increasing in size. After a few minutes, its increase in size stopped, but the change did not stop there. Small cracks started developing on the surface of his soul seed. These cracks kept extending slowly until they covered the whole surface of his soul seed.

After these cracks covered the soul seed completely, there was a blinding flash of light. After everything returned to normal, there was no soul seed there, only a small humanoid spiritual body. Long Chen stopped as he smiled and used his consciousness to look at his Martial soul.

"Finally, I'm in the second stage of the Spirit Establishment realm. But why is this Martial soul so different from what I've heard?" At first Long Chen was happy at his breakthrough, but when he looked at his Martial soul, he was amazed as well as confused.

Long Chen knew that when a Martial soul of a cultivator came into existence, it would be wearing a normal cultivator's robe and wouldn't have anything else. But Long Chen's martial soul was different. It had golden armor on its body, and a blood-red sword in its hands, looking like a war god ready to fight against the world.

Long Chen had never known about anything like this happening before. There was nothing like it written in any of the books Long Tian had read. But Long Chen thought that maybe it was because of his cultivation technique. Long Chen thought that it was even better if he had a unique Martial soul as there might be some benefits to it.

"Putting aside its armor and sword, what is more, confusing is its looks. I thought it would look more like me since now my soul is in Long Tian, but it still looks like him?" Long Chen looked as if he was talking to himself.

Long Chen was confused about the looks of his Martial soul. He thought that since it is his soul in Long Tian's body, his Martial soul would look like him from his original life, but it looked more like Long Tian. It had shiny golden eyes, black hair, and a beautiful face. 

But Long Chen's Martial soul still looked a little bit different when compared to Long Chen's original appearance, and Long Chen knew that he would need to break through more for the similarities to increase. Long Chen decided to continue cultivation and stopped using his consciousness to observe his Martial soul.

As Long Chen got his consciousness out, he could not notice his Martial soul's eye color changing from golden to red for a microsecond and returning back to normal.

Long Chen looked at the Mana crystal in his hand and noticed that it was only depleted by around 20 percent and there were plenty more to be used for further cultivation. But Long Chen didn't know that even a normal gold core cultivator would only be able to absorb 20 percent Qi in a supreme Mana crystal after cultivation for three whole days, while Long Chen only took 6 hours. 

Long Chen did not know this, but some of this fast absorption speed was due to his own talent, some due to his godly Cultivation technique, but mostly because of his violet blood. Although only a small portion of Long Chen's blood had turned violet, it was still enough to increase his speed of absorption by a lot.

Long Chen didn't know anything about it, as he continued his cultivation.

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While Long Chen was cultivating at the bottom of the heavenly cliff and becoming stronger, the Long Clan was searching throughout the city for him and Tu Yue. There was someone else who was worried as well, but not for Long Chen, rather for his own safety.

Inside the Long clan in his own courtyard, Long Su was walking back and forth with a worried look on his face. 

'That stupid Tu Yue, it's all her fault for not controlling her people properly. If she weren't so incompetent, I would not need to be worried today. How can she have such stupid people in her squad who told everything to Long Ren? If they were doubtful, they should've just stayed silent until that trash Long Chen's search ended!!' Long Su thought in anger while walking back and forth.

Long Su was staying in his own courtyard, while everyone was searching for Long Chen. He wasn't worried as he thought no one would find Long Chen, as he was already dead at the bottom of the heavenly cliff. He wasn't worried until Long Su heard the Long clan had started searching for Tu Yue as well. 

Long Su was frightened and went to his father's courtyard. Before entering the house, Long Su changed his expression from worried to calm. He asked Long Hua about the search for Long Chen, acting like he was worried about Long Chen. 

Long Hua told him every update, from a soldier doubting Tu Yue to that soldier informing Long Ren about it and about those 20 minutes lapse of security at the South gate. 

Long Hua also told him that he thought that there was a good chance Tu Yue was the one responsible for Long Chen's disappearance, but he could not understand why she would do such a thing. Long Su acted oblivious as he excused himself and went back to his own courtyard. Since then Long Su was walking worriedly around his courtyard.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.