"Karo, you will enter the school for elementary runecraft starting from next week. This is a present for your fifth birthday and also for officially stepping on the path of rune cultivation," Morfas Crayson smiled and said, rubbing his son's head with one hand.
With his other hand, he held a cyan-colored gemstone that was the size of a quail egg, passing it to his son, Karo Crayson.
The gemstone was oval-shaped and had a slight glow to it. On the surface, strange patterns were carved on it.
"Wow, a soul-awakening spirit stone! Thanks, Dad!" Karo exclaimed in delight, picking up the gemstone with two fingers and holding it close to his eyes to observe.
"That's right, it's a soul-awakening spirit stone. To activate it, empty your thoughts, press it against your glabella, and sense it with your mind. If your soul strength is strong enough, it will open your soul space. If not, it will also increase your soul strength," Lin Ting reminded.
"Yes, Mum, I remember. You just taught me about it yesterday." Karo waved his hand, still looking at the gemstone happily.
"Alright then, you can go into the mediation room and use it now." Morfas laughed and gently patted Karo's shoulder.
Karo nodded and eagerly ran upstairs.
"Look at how delighted he is, I just hope he isn't too disappointed if he can't open his soul space," Lin Ting smiled gently, then sighed and said.
"Very few children can activate their soul space at such an age. It won't be a surprise even if Karo failed. But at least the soul-awakening spirit stone can strengthen his soul strength too, decreasing the time he needs to open his soul strength in the future." Morfas hugged his wife with one hand and laughed.
"I know that, I'm just worried that Karo will be sad, that's all." Lin Ting leaned against Morfas chest and sighed.
"He will get over it, learning to cope with disappointments and failures is also an important part of life. Besides, there's a chance he will succeed, isn't it."
Lin Ting just rolled her eyes and didn't reply. It was common knowledge that only a very talented few could open their soul space at the age of five. Of course, this was excluding those rich families that could afford to use expensive potions and treasures on their children.
Although Karo's family wasn't poor, Morfas and Lin Ting also need resources to cultivate too, so the overall savings in the family wasn't a large one.
...
Karo closed the door to the mediation room and sat cross-legged on the cushion in the center.
The mediation room was just a small-sized empty soundproof room with just a cushion in it. As the name implies, the function of this room was to provide a quiet environment for one to enter mediation mode and cultivate.
Seated on the cushion, Karo took long and deep breaths, trying to calm his excitement. The soul-awakening spirit stone was placed on the floor in front of him.
If he succeeded in opening his soul space, he could directly learn spellcasting in school. Otherwise, he would have to focus on physical training first.
For the soul-awakening spirit stone to open the soul space of a human, the user must have a minimum soul strength of 100. But for one to know his own soul strength, he must first open his soul space. Therefore, using the soul-awakening spirit stone to open the soul space was more like a gamble.
Karo knew that the chances of succeeding weren't high, but like every child of his age, he strongly hoped and believed that he was one of those talented few.
After about five minutes, Karo finally calmed himself down emptied his mind of all thought. Luckily, his parents had started to train him in mediating last year. If not, he would probably need a long time to calm his excitement and nervousness.
"Huff..."
Breathing out slowly and maintaining the state of emptiness with his eyes closed, Karo picked up the soul-awakening spirit stone and pressed it gently against his glabella. Then, he focused his senses on it.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then, the soft glow of the soul-awakening spirit stone started to intensify. At a certain point, the light suddenly retracted and seeped into Karo's brain!
Even though his eyes were closed, Karo could still see the brightening and dimming of the light. At the same time the light dimmed, he sensed a warm stream of energy entering his mind.
In his mind, it was originally just darkness. Then, Karo 'saw' a small stream of cyan energy wandering in this darkness.
When the stream of cyan wandered to the center of this darkness, it stopped and revolved around this area.
Karo noticed that with each revolution, the stream of cyan energy was decreasing bit by bit. He knew that this was the crucial point. If his soul space didn't open before the cyan energy completely disappeared, it means that he had failed.
As the cyan energy continues to revolve and decrease, Karo's heart also slowly sank more and more.
When the cyan energy was half-depleted, his entire mind suddenly seemed to shake. A second later, at the center of the cyan energy, a small white glow appeared. When this white glow stabilized, the remaining cyan energy flowed into the white glow and disappeared.
"This..." Surprised, Karo focused his consciousness on the white glow.
All of a sudden, the white glow expanded, covering his entire consciousness. The next second, the space in his mind changed.
Instead of darkness, the center was filled with a white glow, while the other areas were greyish. It was like a mist was surrounding the white glow.
Karo's consciousness was inside the white glow too. He realized that he could 'see' the entire situation of the white glow.
The space of this white glow was circular in shape, the outside being the greyish space. In the center of this white glow was transparent ball-like energy. From the books he read, Karo knew that this was his soul core.
The soul core was mainly shaped like a ball, but it wasn't exactly round, the surface wasn't even. The energy of the soul core seemed to be slowly flowing and moving within this ball-like area too.
Outside the soul core and within the area of the white glow were strands of string-like energy that were flying around the place. These were Karo's soul energy.
The soul energies were produced from the soul core by absorbing the cosmic energy of the outside world. The stronger the soul core, the larger the amount of soul energy. At the same time, the amount of soul energies also shows how strong the soul core was.
At low levels, soul energy exists in strands, so each strand was treated as one soul energy. Therefore, cultivators can count how much soul energy they have by counting the number of strands.
Because this was his own soul space, there wasn't a need for Karo to count one by one. With a thought, he immediately knew how many strands of soul energy he had.
'160 strands!'
Karo was quite surprised. The common soul energy for children of his age was below 100. Although he had hoped that he was one of those talented ones and had more than 100 strands of soul energy, 160 strands were much more than he had hoped for.
After all, he hadn't started cultivating his body, nor had he consumed any potions of treasures that could increase his soul strength. Therefore, he didn't expect to exceed the majority of other children by so much.
'Hehe, so I'm really a talented one...' Silly from happiness, Karo laughed. If his parents were also in the mediation room, they would be able to see his dumb-looking laughing face.
'Hm, what's that?' At this moment, Karo noticed that there seemed to be something strange in his soul core.
As he focused his consciousness on the strange object on his soul core, he saw that it was a crystal-like oval-shaped item.
Just as Karo's consciousness saw this item, the item seemed to sense his consciousness too. A dim light flashed on it, and something was suddenly injected into his memories.
'Wha-'
Before he could exclaim out loud, waves of memories appeared.
...
Living in an orphanage...
Dropping out of school at 12...
Working as an apprentice chef...
Getting cancer at the age of 25...
Lying on the hospital bed, breathing weakly...
Closing his eyes for the last time, feeling relieved that his suffering could finally end...
'If there's a next life, I hope that it won't be a terrible one like this one... But even if there's a next life, I won't remember about this life anyway... That's good too, just let the painful memories die with me...' With these last thoughts, Yang Mo's life ended...