William returned to his empty cabinet with a pace that was more of a run than a walk, his breath hitching with a mix of exhaustion and desperate anticipation.
Outside the small, cramped structure, his meagre belongings—his rickety chair, his small table, and his thin mattress—lay piled in the dirt. He had to lift them back inside, a chore that took him roughly half an hour of grunting and straining, even with his improved physical strength.
Once the door was shut and the tiny space was secured, he couldn't wait any longer. The air in the cabinet was stale and hot, but William didn't notice. His eyes were fixed on the velvet pouch.
"Time to test things out," he whispered.
He didn't even spare a glance at the heavy bag full of the crystals he had earned from the merchant. To him, wealth was merely a tool; strength was the only true currency.
He reached into the smaller bag, took out one of the five white monster cores he had just purchased, and unsheathed his rusted sword. With a practised, grimace-inducing flick, he reopened the wound on his left hand.
The wound had already begun to heal during the past hours, leaving behind nothing but a faint, thin-lined scar—a testament to the vitality he had already absorbed.
Now, fresh blood gushed out once more, crimson and warm. William pressed the purchased monster core into his bloodied palm and waited. He waited for the sizzle, the heat, and the intoxicating surge of power.
He was doomed to be disappointed.
The core remained cold and inert in his hand. The blood simply pooled around it, dripping onto the floorboards without a single spark of resonance. There was no sizzle. No crumbling stone. No miracle.
"This… how come this doesn't work?!!"
William's voice cracked with a mixture of shock and burgeoning fear. What he had feared most in the back of his mind had actually happened.
He had tested this method last night over hundreds of cores, and not a single one had failed to respond to his touch. He tried the second core. Then the third. By the time all five lay blood-stained and useless on the floor, the reality had set in.
"Let me think calmly first…" He closed his eyes, forcing his racing heart to slow down. He sat cross-legged amidst his piles of loot and tried to think rationally about the mechanics of the spirit world. In his past life, he was a master of theory; there had to be a variable he was missing.
Soon, he found a thread that made sense.
"These monsters weren't killed by me…" he said, looking down at the dark blood staining the white porter's clothes he still wore. "So, I need to kill the monster myself before doing this again…"
This was the crux of the problem—the first logical explanation that accounted for the failure. Perhaps the "Devouring Ability" required a fresh connection between the slayer and the slain, a lingering spiritual tether that vanished once a core was harvested by another and put into trade.
He developed this theory as a shield against a much darker possibility. He wasn't sure about it yet, but he needed to put it to the test before raising his hopes once more.
If this theory was wrong, then there was only one other explanation left: the devouring method only worked on Scarlet Monkeys. The thought of being biologically tied to such low-grade creatures made him recoil. He was unwilling to accept such a limited fate.
Realising his current clothes were ruined beyond repair by the constant bleeding and forest grime, the first thing he did was change into his last clean set of porter whites.
While chewing on the few dry pieces of bread he had left in his cupboard, he began to map out his next move with the cold precision of a general.
"If I am going to kill monsters of a higher grade, then I need more weapons and better preparations," he muttered.
He looked at his current sword—the blade was rusted in several spots, the edge was irregular, and the tip was dull. He threw it aside with a clatter. It was a tool for a servant, not a hunter.
Killing weak monsters like those monkeys wasn't his aim anymore. Last night had been a windfall, but he knew the law of diminishing returns was already setting in.
He could keep slaughtering monkeys for a month, but he would end up with a mountain of useless cores that would give him nothing worthy in return as his spirit power climbed.
His spirit power had been incredibly low from the start, which was why the jump to thirty-five had been so dramatic. But he doubted the same leap would occur if he stayed in the "shallow water" of the forest. His target was to reach over a hundred points and cause a seismic shock throughout the entire Academy.
To gain sixty-five spirit points in a single week was a task that bordered on the impossible for a normal disciple. Depending solely on white-grade monster cores wouldn't cut it; eventually, they would lose their purpose as his meridians matured.
Of course, these were only his speculations, but given his vast experience from his past life, he trusted his instincts. He knew he had to go back to the market and buy the supplies necessary for a week-long disappearance. He planned to vanish into the deep forest and not emerge until his transformation was complete.
He knew the risks. If he disappeared for a week, the Academy would mark him as a deserter. He would be placed under investigation for neglecting his duties as a porter.
His only way to avoid punishment would be to return with such overwhelming strength that he could force an immediate enrollment as an official disciple. But until he reached that benchmark, he had to remain a ghost.
Putting aside the need for weapons and tactical tricks, he also needed enough rations to sustain himself. While monster meat wasn't terrible in terms of flavour, William was a disaster in the kitchen.
He knew if he tried to survive on his own cooking, he would likely end up poisoning himself or wasting precious time trying to make something edible.
"I have slightly over seven thousand crystals," he noted, checking his larger bag.
He found one hundred small, standard spirit crystals and seven larger, shimmering ones. Each of those larger crystals was a "High-Grade" stone worth a thousand standard ones. It was a small fortune for a boy of his standing, and it was the key to his survival.
The larger, more radiant stones in his pouch were known as Basic Crystals. In the currency of the spirit world, each one was equivalent to one thousand standard spirit crystals. William weighed the bag in his hand, feeling the solid density of his newfound wealth.
"I'm not that poor anymore. I can go and buy whatever I need," he muttered to himself, a sliver of confidence returning to his voice. He secured the bag and stepped out of his cabin, intent on returning to the market to properly arm himself for the deep forest.
However, his luck seemed to have run dry the moment he stepped into the main thoroughfare. After walking for barely ten minutes, his path was abruptly blocked.
At this hour, the Academy should have been quiet, with most disciples tucked away in lecture halls or training grounds, yet he had managed to run directly into a group he should have avoided at all costs.
"Well, well, well… Look at who we have here…"
As William locked eyes with the sneering face of Ganin, he knew this encounter wouldn't bode well. Ganin was still smarting from the humiliation of the previous night, and his eyes glinted with a predatory malice.
"Hey, Lang! Wasn't your clan looking for any clue regarding your young miss?" Ganin shouted, his voice echoing across the courtyard.
Unlike what William expected, Ganin didn't move to strike him directly. Instead, he signalled to another group of disciples standing in the shade of a nearby pagoda. "Come over here! I have an interesting piece of news for you."
William stood still, his senses heightening as he realised he was being boxed in. He didn't know the specifics of the Academy's current state, but he felt a cold dread pooling in his stomach.
A sly and dirty person like Ganin would never offer "help" unless it was a weapon to be used against someone else.
William tried to shift his weight, attempting to move aside and bypass the disciples led by Ganin. He wanted to get to the market, not play games with entitled teenagers.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Before he could take more than a few steps, one of Ganin's lackeys stepped into his path, glaring evilly at him. William stopped, his eyes darting between the two groups.
The newcomers approached with a sense of urgency and aggression that matched Ganin's group; they were all second-grade disciples, their superior uniforms marking them as bronze-level cultivators.
"What do you want, Ganin?" the leader of the second group asked. He was a tall, stern-faced youth whom Ganin had addressed as Lang. It was clear from his tone that he had a low opinion of Ganin; their rivalry was written in the tense lines of their shoulders.
"C'mon, don't be like this when I'm trying to help," Ganin said, offering a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He pointed a long, accusing finger directly at William.
"Last night, I met the young princess walking away with this porter. If anyone knows what happened to her, then he should be the one."
Sht!* The realisation hit William like a physical blow. Oblivious as he had been to the Academy's internal panic, he finally connected the dots.
He had known the transformation of Berry's Phoenix spirit would take time—likely a full day—to stabilise, but he hadn't considered the political fallout.
He couldn't be blamed for failing to link the details earlier; his mind had been entirely preoccupied with his own survival and the mechanics of his devouring ability. If he had been in his right mind, he would have instantly linked the name "Lang" to the Long Clan, and consequently, back to Berry.
Hearing Ganin's words, William understood the gravity of the situation. He had left the heiress of a Great Clan in a frozen, unresponsive state. To her family, this wasn't a spiritual breakthrough; it was an assassination attempt or a curse.
He had simply left her behind and moved on to his own training, never giving her another thought. Now, Ganin was throwing him directly into the centre of a political wildfire. What a bastard! William cursed internally.
He realised that Ganin's frame-up was dangerously close to the truth. No one else had been with them when Berry fell into her trance.
Ganin wanted payback for the previous night's embarrassment, and linking the lowly porter to the "injury" of the Long Clan's treasure was the perfect revenge. It was a death sentence delivered with a smile.
Unluckily for William, the accusation was factually correct. He was the only person who knew exactly what was happening inside Berry's body. But would William let a worm like Ganin frame him so easily? Not a chance.
"What happened to the young miss?" William asked, tilting his head and pulling an expression of wide-eyed innocence onto his face as he faced the sceptical, burning gazes of the two groups. He looked every bit the confused, harmless servant.
"You should be the one telling us about that!" Ganin harrumphed, crossing his arms. He felt a surge of triumph. He was the type of person who delighted in watching others do his dirty work; he would watch the Long Clan tear this porter apart and never have to lift a finger.