The Temple of Lightning was the sacred temple of the Phimora family, located near the quarters of the Patriarch.
Only people with the Lightning talent could even step inside the temple and even then, very few could traverse it and reach the core monument.
In the entire Phimora family, only he and his father had the lightning talent left and that's why most people didn't even talk about the temple.
It used to be a place of worship in the time when the Phimora family was in its prime, when it had over a hundred people with the ability to call thunder, but as the time passed, the children of those experts stopped showing the thunder talent as it was very difficult to pass it on to your offspring.
'Even in my last life, I was not able to enter it because I was just too scared, and I had a lot of distractions, but now I think I am ready.'
"Senior Vittorio!"
Vittorio appeared in front of Aris at once and stood there, waiting for his command like a puppet.
"I request Senior to go to the Purge Wilderness and get me a Streaking Hawk. It is a rare lightning elemental beast and it will be very useful in my cultivation."
Vittorio stared at Aris for a couple of seconds before replying in an extremely distorted voice
"The request of the Young Master is logical. I will comply and get you the bird within 2 days as I don't need to go to the Purge Wilderness for it. The Patriarch's private beast sanctuary will have it. If you want to go somewhere in these 2 days, kindly take the Elite Guards with you."
Before Aris could even acknowledge Vittorio's words, he disappeared.
'My father has a Beast Sanctuary!? Even I never knew it. Just how powerful is he?
Anyways, well, It's time to test the system.'
'Load, Project Lightning Temple'
[Loading Save, Project Lightning Temple from Slot 01]
[Save Loaded Sucessfully]
Suddenly, Aris appeared in his mountain gardens where he made the save. Even the time of the day was also reverted back to the time he made the save.
It took him a little more than half an hour to check every possible evidence that supported the fact that his supposed golden finger of literally Saving and Loading of his life was real, and once he was satisfied, he repeated what he did earlier, and asked Vittorio to get him a Streaking Hawk.
Aris then went out alone in the dark of the night and since he lived near the Patriarch's courtyard, he soon reached the outside of The Temple of Lightning.
'Just where the hell is my father? Even in my last life, I never knew where he was. He would just randomly appear before me in a year or two and would give me some resources and leave.'
While thinking about his father, Aris directly entered the Temple through the main gate with no regard for his life and before long, a giant Panther leapt onto him.
Aris's defensive artefacts instantly flashed as they resisted the beast's attack, but alas, Since Aris was not consciously using them, and was also not doing anything to save himself, or hurt the panther, he soon felt the vicious teeth of the beast on his neck and saw the world turn upside down.
[Host Died]
[Loading the last available save file]
"Here we go again," Said Aris with a sigh as he remembered the excruciating pain he felt when the panther struck his jaws in his neck. That memory was just too vivid in his mind.
After again sending away Vittorio, he prepared something in advance and went back towards the temple.
Aris mused in his thoughts as he took out a large chunk of meat from his spatial ring and placed it outside the Temple.
He then sprinkled a powder over himself to mask his scent and went behind a boulder after which he threw a potion on the meat.
'Just a Potent Lure Potion, Sleep Potion and Paralysis Potion…How convenient' He thought as Aris waited, and soon enough, a giant panther, which had pure lightning for his eyeballs started to walk towards the meat from inside the temple.
Aris had carefully checked the vicinity of the temple the last time he came here, and found that the Panther Beast was the only residence of the Temple, as the temple itself was near the Patriarch's retreat…and absolutely no one had the guts to come here.
Aris did not look at the Panther as they have very acute senses, and could easily detect anyone who is spying on them.
Instead, He just listened to the beast's munching and soon, he could hear the very slow snoring sound of the Panther, who fell asleep after eating the meat.
"Well…Trial and error I guess."
Said Aris as he stepped inside the temple.
The temple was not that big, but one could feel hair raising tingling sensation when you enter it.
Aris was in the outer courtyard of the temple and as soon as he traversed the checkered floor of the open courtyard, a very thick pillar of lightning fell on him.
[Host Died]
[Loading the last available save file]
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"This is getting really irritating" Breathed Aris as he once again entered the temple and dodged a lightning pillar with extreme precision.
After which he kept dodging one after another trap with practised movements.
Sometimes it was a pillar of lightning, and sometimes it was a flying snake made up of pure lightning.
It felt like the entire temple was against him reaching the Core Monument but somehow Aris was predicting the world.
"Disadvantages of Organised Randomness," Said Aris as he dodged one last trap and exited the hallway, which led him up to a gate.
As soon as he opened the door, a pressure unlike any other struck Aris's mind. It was like millions of vaults of current wanted to tear his mind apart.
It was a mental attack that made Aris realize that he doesn't have any defence against psychic attacks yet.
[Host Died]
[Loading the last available save file]
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Yet again, Aris was standing before the door and this time, as soon as he pushed open the door, he instantly ducked and rolled inside the room and saw a bolt of Purple lightning being held by a statue of one of the Progenitors of the Phimora Family.
The purple bolt of lightning was sending out shockwave after shockwave as it tried to break free from the statue's hand, but it seemed like no matter how hard it tried, it just wasn't able to escape the grip of the said statue.
"So this is the Core Monument"
Aris had half expected his father to be cultivating here but upon seeing the bolt of lightning, he quickly moved and held it in his hand.
He expected unfathomable pain, but what he got was an indescribable pleasure as the lightning started to pour inside of his inner world.
His lightning talent was greedily devouring the purple lightning, and he could feel some changes in him on a molecular level.
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There was a disturbance in the Temple of Lightning, and the experts around the Patriarch's retreat could clearly feel it. They immediately rushed towards the temple only to see that the forcefield around the temple, which used to block anyone who didn't have an inherent lightning talent had disappeared. They quickly rushed inside of the temple to find Aris suspended in mid-air, as purple lightning was jumping around his body from time to time.
"Good Lord. Young Aris has subdued the Sacred Lightning…"
The old experts although were not able to get inside of the temple in the past, but since they were part of the family and its heritage for hundreds of years, they knew of the Sacred Lightning, which was preserved in this temple.
When Aris's father first became patriarch, everyone in the upper echelon of the family wanted him to subdue the Sacred Lightning, but he denied to do so; and now, his son did it.
"It was meant to be" They said with a feral grin as they saw their Family dominating the other founding families in coming years.
"Our Family is about to have a monster!"
An elderly figure went beside the still suspended Aris and touched his shoulder, after which they all teleported to Aris's mountain home.
"Be sure to start involving him in the key discussions of the family from now on." said an elder with a very fickle body. It felt like he could die if anyone slapped him too hard, but it was evident that he was not someone to be trifled with.
Aris had his eyes closed all this time but he was conscious. He was not nervous at all, as even if anything did go wrong, he could just load the last save with a completely broken ability that came out of nowhere.
He was checking the inner changes caused in him by the lightning and found that not only his lightning control and quality had increased drastically, but his physique has improved greatly as well.
'The reason why they are so impressed with me should be because I have advanced to Stage 3 of the first light realm so quickly. It should be because this bolt of lightning had something which I still don't know.
The elders didn't immediately go away and instead checked Aris for any sort of injury, after which they sent a full report of the incident to his father.
"I am extremely thankful to the elders for taking care of me, and am sorry to make you worry about me." Said Aris as he finally dropped his act of being in a 'stunned/comprehending' state.
"Aris! How do you feel? And why did you enter the temple? You know it's out of bounds for everyone, right?" Asked an elder.
"Elder Michael, I felt like something was calling me from the temple. It was very magnetic and once I reached the Ancestor's statue, A purple bolt of lightning slipped from the statue's hand and entered me on it's own!"
Aris made his perfect bullshit story which he had already prepared a while back.
He mentioned preparing a lure for the Panther beast as he needed to put much of the truth in the story to actually sell it.
But the elders surprisingly didn't cared for the story. They chatted with Aris for some minutes, after which they all exited one by one.
"Remember Aris, If you need anything in the future, Just come find us in the Roundtable Hall'
'There must be some other power in that bolt, otherwise, these old goats would not bother me so much. I need to experiment!'
After everyone left, Aris immediately went into cultivation position and started to stabilize his breakthrough to Stage 3.
His strength had increased sporadically since he started cultivating and he needed to control his energy before he could try learning new techniques.
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The Next day, Aris was standing in his garden when suddenly he flashed 1 meter to his right, leaving a purple streak of lightning in his path.
He was practising the 'Walk of Lightening', and wanted to at least understand its principle before Vittorio arrives.
After practising for a while, Aris went back to his house and quickly took a shower, before going to his personal library and opening a book.
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It was early in the morning and Aris could be seen eating breakfast on his dining table when suddenly the space beside him distorted and out came Vittorio.
"Young Master, The Patriarch has refused to give the Streaking hawk and has prohibited you from trying to use it for now. He said that you are not ready for it as it contains a lot of wild energy and it's soul would have beast intent which would break your inner world as it is a Tier 2 beast.
Hence he has sent these eggs which can conduce your inner world to accept the wild energy and understand how to purify it." Said Vittorio as he placed 12 eggs in front of Aris.
"My father is in his Beast Sanctuary?" Asked Aris as he finally knew where his father was.
"No. The Sanctuary caretake talked with the Respected Patriarch through Magical Link who then passed his orders over the Magical Link itself" replied Vittorio monotonously.
"oh…Thanks, Senior Vittorio"
And with that, Vittorio again disappeared.
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"You have already reached the 3rd Stage?" Exclaimed Severino as he checked Aris's cultivation.
"No wonder. The cultivation techniques of the founding families tend to have that effect, on top of that your talent in cultivation is amazing, and you also have that additional lightning talent. Good! Very Good! Now listen Aris, You already know hand to hand combat and can even use weapons, right?"
"That is correct, Senior Truglio. I was trained by our Elite Guards to be proficient in fighting." Replied Aris.
"Good! Now listen, No matter how viciously you try, you will be unable to hurt a cultivator with those techniques unless you infuse your attacks with your inner energy.
So pay attention!"
Severino then went up to a boulder in the garden, and just placed his hand gently on it, and the next second, it exploded into powder.
"See? We, cultivators, use our internal energy to make even the simplest of attacks deadly"
Aris already knew this and even knew offensive skills, but he still gave his full attention to the demonstration.
"Now come at me and attack. Remember what I taught you and try to channel your internal energy in your attacks."
Since Aris already knew how to do it, he didn't pretend to make mistakes and directly attacked Severino; After all, there are a lot of perks of being branded as a genius.
"Good! You did that on your first try! Now come, show me what you've got."
Aris literally went all out in his attempt to at least hurt Severino a little but it seemed like he was just playing with Aris.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't land a single hit on Severino and this went on till the sun went down.
"Enough! I see that your realm has stabilized completely and your control over your energy has become very good. This is great news. You really are a prodigy.
Now listen, From tomorrow onwards, you will go to your family's training area and spar with people there. I want you to be able to draw your inner energy to weapons as well before we meet the next time, as we will go to the Purge wilderness for your next class. Understood?"
Said Severino in a good mood as he was really happy with Aris's talent.
"Yes, Senior Truglio. I will do as you asked!"
"Good. Then I will take my leave, and remember to take proper rest. You are not at the level where you can go without sleep and food, only feeding yourself the energy from your surrounding.
Over-exerting yourself in this age will limit your future." Explained Severino as he bid his farewell and went away towards the exit.
'System, Save in Slot 01, overwrite the existing save and name it 'Rookie Training'
[Saving]
[Overwriting….Saving…]
[Success]
[Rookie Training]
[Slot 02 (Locked)]
[Slot 03 (Locked)]
[Slot 04 (Locked)]
[Slot 05 (Locked)]