The old beggar explained to Red that the mental locks are mutually exclusive. The second mental lock doesn't follow the first mental lock, it is a different path that he would have to pursue from the very beginning. The first lock focused on the five senses, while the second lock focused on a cultivators analytical capabilities.
Later Red returned to the dorm and his roommates were looking at him like he was an alien. "What happened?" Red asked. Zhu patted Red's shoulder with pity in his eyes. "We heard that the old beggar who took you as a student is crazy." Red heard that and nodded. "He certainly is a crazy old man."
Sven looked at Red and thought for a bit before opening his mouth. "My family said that he is a retired warrior who received a medal. But couldn't find any other information. Yet, the principal was fawning on him." Red shrugged when he heard that. He had tasted the old man's powers first hand and knew that he wasn't ordinary. He was also interested in the mental cultivation technique he promised. He decided to go do missions to collect points.
In the missions hall, Red looked through the missions and began with the missions which were on Redmond planet itself. He went through the missions and picked up few of the the easier missions. They were missions to gather certain herbs from the wild area far out of the city. The wild area had countless wild beasts indigenous to the planets. While some are peaceful herbivores, many are dangerous wild beasts.
Without any fan fare, Red went to the wild area where the herbs would be found. The task would normally be somewhat challenging for freshmen, but with Red's combat experience it wasn't really a challenge. Red spent whatever free time he had during his missions practicing the Profound Asura Scripture. Once he had enough points he began challenging the names on the Rankings. Even though he had only opened four Chakra points at this point, and crossed half way post Beyond Mortal Stage, he was able to fight and beat with the Foundation Establishment ranker who was ranked last on the rankings.
When the rankings changed and people noticed Red's name in the rankings murmurs began spreading, but most of the rankers had ignored it. After all Red was just a freshman. Red did not forget to practice the Asura exercises. Now with four points unlocked, Red was now practicing four exercises, a punch, a kick, a movement composition and a finger flexibility exercise. Combining the four exercises Red often realized formed a potent martial art for combat that he would often finesse while killing wild beasts.
Most of his recent missions had been to kill beasts and he was also constantly rising through the ranks. Red was now within the top 100 with one month having passed by and most of the missions which could be done within the trading block. He had now chosen a mission where he had to investigate a black market.
Redmond was the capital of a prominent Trading nation and pirates often came to the planet for smuggling and black markets. Usually the country would turn a blind eye to these black markets, but rumors had abound that this market was going to auction slaves, which was extremely illegal in the human alliance.
After reading up on the mission information, he made his way to the black market auction. The curious thing about the auction was how heavily secured it was. Red was just supposed to investigate the auction, so he did not really have to act. Even the guards were at peak of Foundation Establishment and entry to the auction was a deposit of fifty thousand units, which was a lot.
Red wasn't lacking money and easily made his way to the auction in a disguise. He was wearing an overstuffed jacket that filled out his physique and wore a fedora and shades sitting within the common auction area.
The intial items just seemed like stolen goods which were being bought. But most of the bidders had remained silent until now. Soon the announcer, who was wearing a mask had a change in tone. "Now that we've dispensed with the ordinary goods, let us move on to the real auction. We have ten items here, which will be quite valuable and I am certain the esteemed guests would find them very interesting."
"The first item is an Angel's feather. Everyone knows the terrifying regenerative abilities and this feather was actually obtained in the war. It belongs to a dark angel of some reputation, with many people interested in this item."
Following the display of the glowing black feather, rapid bids immediately began. The bids didn't stop until an authoritative voice in the back bid five hundred thousand units which silenced any competition. Red was shocked by the price. He had heard about the Angel race, it was another of Humanity's enemies. They weren't as many in number as the humans or the Asura, but they had terrifying regenerative abilities which made them very hard to kill.
A couple of similar alien related items were auctioned with equally high demand. Then the fourth item the auctioneer brought out was a scabbard for a dagger. The scabbard looked extremely old and almost on the verge of falling apart.
"This object's identity is unknown. It was recovered by a tomb raider in a mysterious relic. The scabbard is somewhat infamous among treasure collectors as being cursed. Many of those who have had the ownership of this scabbard have disappeared from this world. The current seller, afraid of this curse wishes to rid of it here."
When people heard that murmurs began across the hall. However, Red's eyes were stuck upon scabbard. The scabbard had been emitting a terrifying but extremely faint intent, much like the Asura Scripture. However, this intent was not filled with any information and was very different from the Asura's, it was filled with the power of blood and massacre. It immediately overwhelmed Red's mind and all he could see was a bloody red world and felt like he was dying. His mind was being eroded but suddenly the chain in his mind shined and the blue energy which had acted as the glue to form the chain with five threads shone in blue light and the terrifying intent subsided and Red regained his consciousness. Suddenly Red realized that his mind had become firmer and his mental chain had become stronger. However, the scabbard was already being heavily bid for and reached over a million units.
Red could bid for over a million units, but the current dominant bidder, the authoritative person who had spent five hundred thousand units didn't sound like he would lose, and so Red didn't bid. He felt unfortunate at losing out on this scabbard which he felt could give him insights into a different kind of intent. In that moment of confusion he had seen hints of a man who was like the sharpest blade and with a single finger he had sliced up a mountain into two.
The next few items were equally mysterious, but none that caught Red's eye. However, the final item brought a chill to everyone's heart. The auctioneer spoke with a bit of fear as well.
"This final item in our special auction is a beast. As you can sense from the atmosphere itself, it is a terrifying soul beast that was captured because it got severely injured while trying to evolve to Core Formation Stage but it was intercepted and failed."
"Soul Beast..." the auctions murmured. However, before anyone could eve respond a cold voice boomed inside everyone's soul. There was no actual sound though, it was just thoughts vibrating within every individual's soul in the auction.
"To dare to injure my pet and dare to auction it as a slave, you smugglers have become too bold. I don't care which fool is backing you all, leave all your treasures and items you got from this auction. Otherwise Die!" When this vibrated in everyone's soul a man suddenly stood up beside Red and floated into the air. His body gave out a terrifying energy that immediately put pressure on everyone else.