As Lin Hai was putting on a new shirt, all the orphans around him looked at him in shock. There wasn't a single one of them here who didn't know Lin Hai, because he was the one who saved all of them from having to serve the prince.
However, he was known to them to be the weakest of the weak, someone who could be beaten in a single hit if any of them chose to do so.
But at this moment, his body seemed to be bigger than before, both physically and structurally, with his height increasing by three to six inches and his weight increasing by at least twenty to thirty pounds.
He had broken through to the second stage of the martial arts path, shocking all of them. They knew that he would be lucky to reach the second stage in five to ten years, let alone reach it without any warning on a seemingly random day for no reason.
On top of that, the change in his demeanor shocked them, going from someone who was under no circumstances confident in anything he did, to someone whose every move radiated a confidence that they could only look up to.
Suddenly, the one who poured water on his head walked up to him and spoke, "So you finally broke through to the second stage? I don't think that gives you the right to be confident! HAHA!"
Laughing, he slapped Lin Hai's back, but this time, instead of stumbling forwards, Lin Hai barely moved while the boy's hand hurt like hell.
He even felt like he had slapped a wooden pole, because Lin Hai had barely moved while his own bones felt like they were going to break in his hand and wrist.
Lin Hai himself was aware of this change, and he was shocked, but when he thought about it, what was the thing that the heart affected the most? It was the body, of course, which meant that this 'Ruby Heart' he had gotten likely affected his body the most.
He was clearly aware that the reason for these changes was the 'Ruby Heart' because he had never had a 'dream' like that before, and there were too many other coincidences other than that for it to be just a normal dream.
What he didn't know was that his soul had been transported to that place, along with the soul of the girl who gave him the Ruby Heart, but she had been dragged out of there by an outside force, hence why she asked for his help.
His soul only returned from that place once he had touched the ruby ball and it went into his body.
He was quite curious as to why she had been dragged off and why she asked him to help her despite him knowing nothing about her, but that didn't matter for now since he couldn't even protect himself currently.
As for the Ruby Heart, he didn't know anything about it, so he couldn't do anything to experiment with it since he didn't even know what it was.
In fact, he was curious as to how this thing had even managed to affect his physical body if he got in a 'dream' like he had. He even had the idea that it was his soul, but even that wouldn't explain it.
But he quickly moved on with his day, not wondering about how his body seemed to be so strong, and he ate his disgusting breakfast before heading to the prince's courtyard.
After all, he was no longer hurt, and although he didn't really know why, he couldn't get out of working since he was a slave and would be killed if he didn't.
If he was too injured to work, he would just be either forced to work or killed since an injured slave was useless and would just take up precious resources and space.
On his way, he still accepted the offerings of those he passed by, but he realized that he was given less this time, and it was barely half of what he received before.
He wasn't too concerned about it, but he was curious as to why this was the case. It wasn't like he lived off of this money anyway.
He was the only orphan who no matter what happened, he would be paid for even if he didn't get any money himself. It just went to show just how important he was to the survival of the orphan slaves.
But he just quickly ignored it and continued on his way.
He soon arrived and started with his chores, and luckily, the prince didn't seem to be around today, and although he had to do the work of the other slaves as well since they were still badly injured and had to do different tasks from normal, he felt that it was actually easier than normal.
This feeling didn't only come from his having broken through and his stronger body, but it also came from the fact that something about his body had fundamentally changed, and he felt that it was nearly impossible for him to get tired anymore.
Finally, he finished his tasks, much faster than normal, and was about to head home, but he suddenly felt pain as he was thrown forward onto the ground.
He didn't need to look to know that it was the prince, but he was surprised that he only got thrown forwards to the ground a little bit.
Normally, a hit that strong would have sent someone at the second stage of the martial arts path like him flying into the nearby wall, but he only fell forwards a bit.
"You asshole! What the hell is wrong with you? Getting healed by my sister? Do you think that you have the right to interact with her?" The prince's furious voice rang out as Lin Hai heard the approaching kick coming towards his side.
However, his instinct took over as he rolled over to his side and dodged the kick before quickly standing up.
He then looked the prince straight in the eyes as he spoke, "She did that of her own volition. I have nothing to do with her. Now if you don't mind, I'm done with my tasks and am going to head back."
Lin Hai's voice was somewhat unnatural at this moment, and his eyes, which had locked onto the prince, seemed to lead to the depth of hell.
Seeing Lin Hai act like this, the prince was at first angry, but when he looked into his eyes, he felt instinctual fear as he was actually intimidated by this boy who was younger than him and two stages lower than him.
However, he quickly reacted and regained his calm as he looked at Lin Hai in anger.
"How dare you talk back to me! You will be severely punished for that!"
With that, he charged towards Lin Hai with a murderous attitude. It was clear that he was already pissed off today, and he was now especially pissed off because of Lin Hai's arrogance.
However, this time, instead of using purely physical strength to attack Lin Hai, he used his inner energy, which was a power that all cultivators had, to attack him.
Inner energy was the power within one's own body, and it could be imbued with elements and at a high enough level, it could kill someone with just the aura of its existence.
Seeing that the prince was going to use his inner energy due to Lin Hai's obvious improvements in terms of his body, he also prepared to use his own inner energy to defend himself.
This was the first time he was ever going to defend himself from somebody, and it was invigorating, with his blood coursing through his body despite his heart not beating, which for some reason calmed him down and increased his reaction speed.
Obviously, he wasn't going to attack the prince. He was simply tensing up his body and preparing for the hit by gathering his inner energy into the area that was about to be hit.
If he hit the prince, that would be the same as asking for death. Instead, he was just going to defend himself, making sure that he didn't get as hurt as he normally would if he didn't defend himself.
This was the one privilege that slaves were offered; they were allowed to defend themselves to the best of their ability as long as they didn't fight back.
As long as the person who employed them didn't get hurt, they could defend themselves in any way. And for their protection, injuries to the hands didn't count as injuries since you could hurt your hand by punching someone.
What happened next was based entirely on Lin Hai's instincts as he lowered his center of gravity, put up his arms to block, and pushed all the inner energy in his body to his forearms.
At the same time, his blood flowed faster, and his entire body seemed to tense up and get denser as he lunged forwards.
However, the opponent was simply too strong, and despite his preparations, he was still pushed back nearly ten feet from the impact, with his arm feeling like it had broken into pieces and his joints screeching at him.
But the most impressive part was that he managed to stay on his feet despite sliding backwards, shocking the prince beyond what he had felt in a while.
But nobody was more shocked than Lin Hai himself, because he had just managed to take a single hit from somebody at the fourth stage of the martial arts path without breaking any bones or falling over.
As he looked at his arm, however, he was shocked to find that his flesh had been burned and mangled. It wasn't bad, but it still qualified as an injury.
However, despite that, Lin Hai could feel that his arm was still mostly intact and aside from the small chunk of flesh that was missing.
But aside from that, he could feel a burning power inside his arm, and it felt like it was on fire, with there even being a chunk of his flesh that was burned.
This was the prince's inner energy, and it had the element of fire, meaning that it could burn Lin Hai's flesh and bones.
Lin Hai even faintly realized that the only reason his arm hadn't been completely burned was because of the inner energy he had put into his arm and also because of the newfound solidness of his body composition.
But unfortunately for Lin Hai, this was the prince, and he had likely not used his full strength just now for fear of severely injuring Lin Hai and preventing him from coming back here again for more beatings.
As expected, "Haha, brat! I didn't expect you to become so resilient after breaking through! Looks like I'll finally get to use some of my strength!"
His deranged laughs sounded through the whole area where they were.
He then once again charged at Lin Hai, this time with even greater momentum and strength, and Lin Hai could even see a glow of red on his wrists and fists as he prepared to use at least half of the strength of his inner energy in this strike.
Yes, that's right, he didn't even use half of his strength in the previous strike.
In reality, most of the strength of a cultivator came from their inner energy, and the body was only the foundation and what you used to control the inner energy.
This was why there was such a massive difference between the stages; each stage increased the quantity and the quality of the cultivator's inner energy, increasing their strength much more than just the increase in physical strength.
Most people only fought those of a lower stage than them with their physical bodies because the difference was so big, hence why this was the first time he ever had to defend himself from inner energy.
Even those other orphans who picked on him didn't use inner energy, and even those of the same rank didn't use inner energy because of how weak he was.
It could be said that others younger than him could beat him in terms of a physical body because he was just that weak and small.
Now, facing the second ever attack from the prince using fifty percent of his inner energy, he felt a sense of danger that he hadn't felt before, and his body reacted on instinct.
Suddenly, in the middle of his attack, the prince felt a shiver run down his spine as Lin Hai's calm eyes locked onto his, and he couldn't help but think, 'He's different from before' in shock.