Tainted will

On the stage, Su Ming fainted on the ground with no more movements from him.

Bai Ming however, continued with his cold expression, standing in the middle of the stage.

"This year's final exam, the first place goes to Bai Ming!" The announcer declared loudly, but his thoughts were clashing wildly "The script wasn't supposed to be like this!"

After a momentary silence, the crowd erupted.

"He's too shameless!"

"Completely unfair! there was nothing else junior Su could have done, this is so unfair!"

"I really can't bear to look at that guy, Did you see his wicked expression at having his villainous scheme succeeding!"

The spectators were going crazy, but some had solemn gazes as they contemplated Bai Ming's reckless fighting style.

"I'll go take a look." The academy elder could no longer stand it, and after saying so, he jumped onto the stage.

He squatted down and observed the fainted Su Ming, sighing in relief as he found that Su Ming was not in a life and death condition, but he was still heavily injured, the elder quickly took out a healing pill from his robes and fed it to him before handing Su Ming to the medical personnel.

"Unbelievable, Bai Ming this brat is truly daring and reckless, and scheming too, he was even smiling when the sword ray neared him, such absolute confidence in a situation as deadly as that, is he really a fourteen year old boy." The academy elder was shocked internally, raising his head and looking at Bai Ming, his eyes shining with a sharp light.

Bai Ming walked down the stage, his ears picking up the people's discussions as he smirked coldly inside his heart.

The Ye clan leader kept on standing and frowning deeply. This matter had developed out of his control.

Normally Bai Ming getting first place, he wouldn't care much. But he was worried about Su Ming.

Undeniably, today's impact was too great on Su Ming's psyche.

Not only did he lose to a person who was major realm below him, that said individual didn't only defeat him, he also made Su Ming question his morals, those thoughts of guilt which buried deep inside where mercilessly dug out again. Such a psychological trauma might negatively impact his growth.

"Under my guidance and arrangement, Su Ming was the first to advance to the peak of bone forging realm and then to elemental realm, continuously gaining success and confidence. But after this battle his confidence is probably gone by now, how troublesome. Sigh, my hard work has all gone up like smoke." Ye Qing han sighed deeply, he naturally gained a sense of disgust and loathing towards Bai Ming.

If Bai Ming had lost to Su Ming, everything would have been perfect. But he actually won, that is really infuriating.

"The rewards of this competition are wasted on him, even if he is a every cunning and daring individual. But with his lowly mid grade talent, how far can he go. At most he can reach the core formation realm in his lifetime, compared to Su Ming a superior grade talent he isn't worth much, and this year we also have the inter clan competition, sigh."

Not only the clan leader, but the other clan elders had solemn and complex gazes.

Bai Ming had just gotten down the stage when he was immediately surrounded by these martial artists, a moment ago many of them were showcasing their displeasure, but now these people wanted to recruit him into joining their group.

Bai Ming sighed lightly, he didn't want associate himself with others but he had no choice. There simply wasn't any benifit for him in joining these groups.

Why do people take on these clan missions, one was to earn spirit stones and another was to earn contribution points.

Let's start with contribution points, contribution points had only one use. It was to allow the said individual to enter the clans scripture hall for a certain period of time, this was an incredibly important in the eyes of the clansman. But this was basically useless for Bai Ming, why? because he will be allowed to spend 15 days in the clans scripture hall, with Bai Ming's comprehensive abilities this amount of time was more than enough for Bai Ming to learn everything he needed.

As for spirit stones, Bai Ming had enough confidence earn it by himself. Once he comprehends few mid grade techniques and cultivates in the spiritual pond, along with his diamond like body his strength would reach new heights. By then his need for teammate's wouldn't be much.

And there was one more problem, he wouldn't be able move freely, much of his activities would be restricted. If he could move alone it would be so much better for him.

But there was nothing he could do, the clan rules forced him to either join a existing team or create a team among his classmates.

Bai Ming quickly scanned his surroundings, his gaze landing on a certain individual. He had already decided to join a particular team.

....

Nightfall arrived.

Bai family house.

Bai Ming's door was shut tight. In the darkness, he was not asleep, but sitting on his bed. In front of him was small pile of spirit stone.

"I am just a step away from elemental realm, I might as well not sleep tonight, I'll rush straight for the elemental realm!" Bai Ming's eyes shone with determination.

Soon after, he shut his eyes, he held a spirit stone in both of his hands. He began to circulate the primeval star mantra, absorbing the essence from the spirit stone and storing it in his body, once the spirit stone in his hand turned into powder he would grab another one.

Usually, when a martial artist began the process of breaking through, even if they had the support of spirit stones or medicinal effects, they had to batter against the barrier repeatedly until it had somewhat loosened to be able to breach it. However, Bai Ming had absolute confidence that as long as he had stored up enough energy, he'd be able to successfully break through this barrier on his first attempt. His confidence stemmed from the fact that he was a superior grade talent, if he was only a mid grade talent this barrier would be like an iron wall, but for the current him it was only thin sheet of paper.

seven hours passed, his body was brimming with spiritual energy, and he felt as if his whole body was inflated.

This was of course but a misconception. It was just that he had stored too much energy within his body, causing him to have this kind of an "inflated" sensation. But should he still not break through or unleash this energy somehow, his body really might explode because of this accumulation of energy.

It was like a water pouch that had already been filled to the brim. If the pouch was not punctured to make a hole to release some water, or if the water wasn't transferred to a bigger pouch, then the only result would be that the pouch would explode.

"Its enough" Bai Ming thought. "Now all that's left is to guide this enormous amount of energy towards the Dantian and batter against the barrier."

In the Body forging realm one could only store a very tiny amount of spiritual qi in the Dantian, the rest was of the essence was stored in every bit of blood and flesh, and so it was actually very limited in quantity. As for Elemental realm, it meant to open up one's Dantian completely, and Expanding the mystical space within one's body.

Everyone possessed this kind of a small universe, or a small world, in their bodies. In terms of cultivation, this kind of small world was thought to exist within one's Dantian. For bone forging realm cultivators this space was only the size of a fist but once a martial artist reaches the elemental realm, it would expand by 100 times.

"Bang!"

Under the fierce barrage of energy, a pin sized hole appeared in his Dantian. For those less talented Individuals to break through, they would have to depend on a continuous, repeated barrage to endlessly widen and enlarge this hole or slit. However, Bai Ming was different. The energy he had accumulated was more than enough for him to immediately begin breaking through.

He mentally commanded the spiritual qi to push forward, the spiritual qi with much ease tore through the thin barrier entering the newly formed space.

Expanding the Dantian was only the first step. The next step was the most important one.

That was, to solidify the spiritual qi into a high-speed revolving nucleus.

This was something like installing a motor in one's Dantian. With a mental command, the spiritual nucleus revolving at high speeds would generate energy that would erupt with a horrifying attack.

How was it that the Elemental realm experts could easily crush the Body forging realm martial artists? That was because once the spiritual nucleus was formed, energy would gush out like a raging flood from it. Even if two fighters had accumulated equal amounts of qi, the one who had actually formed the origin nucleus would have faster, stronger attacks, possessing an overwhelming advantage over his opponent and there was also the fact that the spiritual qi would have a qualitative change.

Bai Ming's expanding his Dantian could only be considered as being halfway to Elemental realm. He had only raised the upper limit of his internal storage of spiritual qi, the power upgrade depended on whether he could form the origin nucleus or not.

Martial artists of the Elemental realm form a total of nine spiritual nuclei. Once they had succeeded in forming the ninth, they'd be able to start the process of forming the core and breakthrough to the core formation realm.

Bai Ming started to form the nucleus. The powerful spiritual qi stirred wildly like raging tsunami, then it intertwined like myriad slik threads and slowly Interfused together. This was a very delicate process, he had to be very careful or it could lead to disaster, Bai Ming made a few tiny mistakes but he quickly resolved them, every time that happened his heart would skip a beat. It was understandable, after all this was the first time he was going through such a process. After spending an hour he finally managed to solidify the spiritual energy within his body into a nucleus form, as tiny as a finger nail.

"I advanced to elemental realm!" Bai Ming laughed heartily, opening his eyes.

The bright sunlight creeped in through the opening between the curtains.

Unknowingly, the night had passed, and it was already morning.

"Taking advantage of the fact that the spiritual qi within me has not been completely exhausted, I'll cultivate for a while longer."

Bai Ming guided the remnants of the spiritual qi to expand and strengthen his spiritual nuclei.

The cultivation process of Elemental realm was to strengthen and expand the spiritual nucleus as much as possible.The larger the spiritual nucleus and the faster its rotation, the stronger the power that could instantly erupt from it would be. Thus, even if two martial artists possessed the same cultivation levels, there would still appear a gap between their individual battle prowess depending on their nuclei.

After half an hour of cultivation, Bai Ming slowly opened his eyes, which flickered with a stary light.

He spoke with a slight smile "Status"

_____

[𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚜]

[𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎 : 𝙱𝚊𝚒 𝙼𝚒𝚗𝚐]

[𝙲𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝚃𝚒𝚎𝚛 1 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚖 ]

[𝚂𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚝 𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚝: 𝚂𝚞𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚎 +]

[𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚑𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗: 4 +]

[𝚂𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚍𝚎: 5 +]

[𝚂𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚜: 0/5000]

_____

"The maximum capacity of skill points has indeed increased, but that isn't the main thing." Bai Ming paused for a moment before commanding "Open lucky spin!"