The green color quickly disappear, leaving my usual golden pupils. I left the lake putting my clothes again. Once outside I invoke my Nine Treasure Sword. I concentrated on it, at the same time remembering the sensation at the lake.
A weak green aura started forming around the sword. It was a formless, uncontrolled aura, so weak that I needed my superior senses to even sensed it "Life Intent". But this wisp, it was the first step to a new completely different intent. Starting a new path is extremely difficult, especially when you already developed one. However, if you could comprehend another path, this would be influenced by your previous one. This made the first step more difficult while doing the next ones would be easier.
This little wisp of life may seem weak, but it was the most difficult first step. If I concentrated on it, it wouldn't need much time to improve it. Life Intent, it wasn't one that I even considered. It a very esoteric intent, difficult to grasp. It was only possible for me to grasp a little of it thanks to this environment. It is mainly used as a healing factor or a support one, as such the best outcome would be to improve my own Protection Intent. This factor made me against the idea to develop it, making it rather tedious and being better focusing in my Protection Intent, as maybe it wouldn't be difficult to accomplish a domain in life, but for a Sword Heart, it would be extremely difficult.
The truth was that it only would be able to show its progress in the cases of me supporting others, in this case, it wouldn't be any help against Paul. The other case would be if I accomplish fusion both Protection and Life in one, effective but extremely difficult.
I stood there thoughtful concluding that it may be not an offensive intent, but, it's the perfect counter against Paul's one. Paul's intent was a combination of Death and Killing, Life would be the perfect counter to Death while my Protection to Killing. I'll need to develop both comprehensions, Life and Protection.
Having decided my course, I started creating a routine of training, swimming and resting. In this high vitality place, I could notice day by day improvements in my comprehension.
With this training routine, 1 year passed and I was 21 years old. As my main objective was increasing my comprehension to win against Paul, so I didn't focus on spirit cultivation. Paul had 3 years of training in Slaughter City and I'm not up to him with only one year in Star Lake. Spirit cultivation would only make the date of our clash nearly, so it would be better to delay it until I am confident of winning against him.
Even with all of this, my spirit cultivation experimented a growth, having attained the 66 rank. Even focusing on the foundation it seems that the speed of cultivation was high. 5 ranks a year was genius cultivation, more in the later realms, if this was a constant it would only take some 20 years for a spirit trainee rank 1 to become an ultimate douluo rank 99.
This boost in cultivation had 2 causes. The first one was that Star Lake was truly a blessing to cultivate. High vitality, high spirit energy concentration, best mimicry environment for 'white' spirits, without forgetting that the calmness here was perfect to cultivate. There was also the food that I ate here. In this place, it wasn't allowed to hunt so meat was impossible to get. On the other hand, plants were abundant. In this time I learned why Lingling laughed at me asking who I need to ask permission. Thanks to the rich essence here, most of the plants are sentient, having at least I little self-awareness. If you want a fruit or a vegetable you should ask them very politely and with respect, praising them to make them happy enough to comply. My ignorance and little tact caused having no food for the first week. It cost time and effort to finally make a friendly relationship with the plants. The products of this plant were highly concentration of spirit energy, making that eating was like cultivation.
The second was due to Paul, for some reason a could sense that he learned somehow to boost our cultivation. Even though Paul couldn't even cultivate alone without my help at first, he learned from me and it didn't take much time for him to learn. It seems that he had improved and now he could even boost my cultivation even without being in control. This created an unstoppable count-down for our clash. Of course, I could stop it damaging my own cultivation, however, I won't do it. I always wanted to be strong, have the power to protect my loved ones, I won't throw all my hard work in fright from Paul.
For my sword cultivation, I made great improvements. Not only I condensed the Life Intent, I even accomplished attaining the Life Domain. The Life Intent effects were a boost in vitality, making my body stronger, plus the help of Star Lake atmosphere my body strength escalated to a new level, I could also increase the natural regeneration of someone else, causing for injuries to heal faster. If I focused all my power on it, I could even instantly head someone, at least from external injuries, I didn't really try for severe internal ones.
For Protection comprehension, it greatly improved. I could finally stabilize the Sword Heart Realm, I could focus all my will and the world's will in my sword in one attack. The problem was that for now, I'm unable to even move after that attack, spending all my strength in one, powerful condensation of my heart. This Sword Heart kept the defensive nature of my Intent pushing away all that was considered harming.
I have a long way to accomplish what Paul could do. Paul was able to control his Sword Heart in a continuous state, causing something similar to a Spirit Tool Avatar, being able to boost in one attack and even continue fighting. Even if this was thanks to the Deathgod Domain obtained after completing the Hell Road, there's no doubt that Paul's comprehension was a realm over mine.
There was another important aspect. I could use both Life and Protection at the same time. The truth was that it was extremely simple, both Intent were related and worked fine together, the Life Intent boosting the effects of the Protection Intent. The Life Intent was known for its support capabilities making it easy to help others, similar to the Seven Treasure Pagoda, that was capable of supporting any other spirit. This also caused a problem, it was so easy for Life to support my Protection that trying to blend both only caused for Life to support Protection, without any clash between both. This makes extremely difficult to combine both intents in one. If I want to have a chance against Paul's Slaughter, I'll need to combine both Life and Protection. I'd need to work harder.
For the spirit beasts, my relationship with them had improved. At first, they were way of me, only letting my presence thanks to Lingling. But with this year living with them and my goodwill manifesting in my own sword they started to be less alert, I even helped some of them, healing little injures or with some other problems. So now I was, at least, accepted by them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I was in my usual training regime, I sensed someone coming closer to me, I realized that it was Lingling. I talked with her from time to time, but she was always a little distant and seemed very busy with something, so our conversations weren't long, she was usually going from one place to another.
"Hello, Bai" Lingling approached me "It seems that you really became stronger. Could you accompany me?"
"Where?" I asked.
"I have one of my duty near here. I usually accompanied by some 100.000 years beast, but I think that with you would be enough. It's not like I have ever been attacked by any beast, the only that would attack me would be the low intelligent beast and my companions made a good deterrent. Don't worry, it would be similar to a walk for the forest" She answered.
"Okay. I stayed here a lot of time, even with this fresh air, some change of air would be good for me" I said doing some stretches.
Lingling smiled "Great. It can be very monotonous and boring do the same things" she went to a nearby wall. From her hands a green glow was emitted, this caused the moss to react shining brighter. At the same time the rocks around started reconstructing forming a door, similar to the one at the Forest Portal "Let's go, Bai" she said crossing the door.
I followed her, crossing the hole I found myself surrounded by trees, by its vegetation there was no doubt that I was at Star Duo Forest, I would say at the Inner Area.
Lingling started walking in one direction "Today it will be lake number 3" she mumbled. She turned to me "There may be a familiar face there. Although, I doubt you have a close relationship with her" She said before continuing walking.