Six men, six stopped hearts, six pasts, six potential futures, six... This number began to appear in Yujin's dream constantly after he killed them, but as time passed and as he matured and steeled his heart, it began to disappear.
Another year passed, and Yujin turned twelve and entered a phase of quick growth, puberty hit in full force. His voice began to turn rougher and his face became sharper, his slightly wavy hair was now waist-length. Although it was wavy, it was smooth as silk and also gave others the impression of good health.
But the most remarkable thing was that he finally made a friend, Long Xue. She was the great-granddaughter of Long Tian and was seven years old. She liked animals very much and had many cats and dogs.
When Yujin saved her lost dog, she thanked him with a sweet dessert and began to talk to him frequently for random reasons, she seemed very comfortable around about just anyone and was very free-spirited, she was popular in the manor.
Yujin also liked animals, despite once being a hunter, and he began to help her take care of her pets after she asked for help. He learned a lot from her and also taught him a few things he knew about wild dangerous animals.
After just a year of friendship, Yujin began to treat her as his younger sister, and she called him "elder brother." They were surprisingly close and no one bothered to point that out.
Yujin's only concern was that her family wouldn't like his proximity to her and would end their friendship forcefully, but it never happened.
He would be very sad to lose a friend he finally made, it was his first real friend.
During that year, despite not advancing his cultivation base, he reached the level of comprehensive mastery in basically all of the secret techniques he was practicing. It was a huge and unexpected progress for him, and he didn't know why his comprehension suddenly increased so much, the Furnace didn't have that ability.
When he used his body technique, the increase in strength was much greater than when it was in initial mastery, about two times greater.
The same happened with the escape technique, he could run so fast that he wondered how much damage he would suffer if he tripped.
Because comprehension wasn't something that could be stolen, Yujin wasn't afraid of showing his attainments in the secret techniques and received a few rare praises from some people.
The small healing spell that reached comprehensive mastery was capable of healing any kind of superficial wound quickly and could stop bleeding even if unable to heal deeper wounds.
He was much stronger compared to a year before without even the need to increase his cultivation base, this made Yujin understand that there might be people out there who could jump ranks to fight and kill opponents. This thought made him more careful and he didn't dare to underestimate anyone.
Although he killed someone in the fifth layer of the Qi Refining Realm with ease, he was just the lowest scum in the sect, without any praiseworthy talent. Compared to geniuses, that disciple was utter trash! If it was a genius in the fifth layer, the fight might have been harder for Yujin.
On an uneventful day, with a clear sky and fresh breeze, after ending all the chores, Yujin was ready to go back to his quarter and resume his practice but was stopped by a cheerful figure.
"Elder brother, let's go play!" Long Xue smiled foolishly at him, she was holding the leashes of three dogs and two cats at the same time.
She was a petite small girl with long and smooth pitch-black hair and gem-like crimson eyes, she had a very cute face and was full of youthful energy.
She smiled at him like a blooming flower and was full of expectation for the rest of the day.
"I'm sorry, today I can't," Yujin caressed her head with a happy smile, "I need to cultivate and practice more."
"Cultivation is boring, playing with them is fun!" Long Xue pouted and pointed to the cheerful pets.
"If you don't cultivate, you will eventually die of old age and be unable to play more," Yujin said after a moment, "Don't you want to play forever? You need to cultivate to do this!"
"This..." Ling Xue was deep in thought and seemed to be struggling.
"Moreover, you cultivate, you can pet even more animals, like dragons and phoenixes!" Yujin began to seduce her with sweet lies.
"Really?" Long Xue's eyes glowed, "Aren't you trying to trick me like my father?"
"Of course not, don't you believe me?" Yujin stuffed his chest and smiled confidently.
Long Xue grinned and happily said, "Okay then, I will cultivate a bit. I want to tame dragons one day!"
"You better don't disappoint me!" Yujin said with a serious face and silently watched the little girl running away in high spirits.
"She is cheerful," an old voice entered Yujin" 's left ear, surprising and making him tilt his head to see who it was.
Long Tian was looking in the direction where Long Xue just ran to and said, "I'm glad she made a friend."
"S-Senior, no... Branch Master Long!" Yujin was flustered but quickly greeted him.
Long Tian waved his hand and said, "You did well by convincing her to cultivate, she is real trouble when it comes to practice and even her parents don't know what to do."
Long Tian smiled meaningfully and glanced at him playfully, "Of course, the difference between you and her parents is not mere cunningness, but the fact she trusts you more than them when it comes to cultivation."
"I'm sorry for betraying her trust!" Yujin said in a hurry but almost immediately understood what Long Tian really meant.
"Thanks for incentivizing her, it wasn't in vain that I allowed her to get close to you," Long Tian patted his shoulder and began to walk, "Oh, by the way...
"You are horrible at cleaning up criminal scenes, you better try harder next time, daring one."
When Long Tian left, Yujin could feel a waterfall of sweat on his back, he was genuinely afraid. He never expected that the branchmaster master knew about the truth but still allowed him to get by without consequences.
Not only that, he even allowed Yujin, who had just killed six men, to approach his great-granddaughter. Yujin couldn't understand why that old man trusted him so much.
"No, it's not that he trusts me..." Yujin suddenly realized, "I never posed a risk, to begin with, there should be masters protecting her in the shadows."
Yujin took a deep breath and returned to his living quarter, he forcefully calmed his turbulent heart and began to practice. But his practice was clearly impaired by his mood swings. It would take him a day to fully recover.
After that day, Yujin was much more careful with his words and deeds when around Long Xue, he was afraid of teaching her something bad and then acquiring hate from her powerful family.
Unfortunately, it impaired their relationship without him noticing. His interactions with her weren't as natural as before, and Long Xue could feel hesitation in his eyes during many moments.
"Elder brother, did I do something wrong?" Long Xue asked with a dejected face.
"Of course not!" Yujin shook his head quickly, "Why would you think that?"
"You feel unnatural," Long Xue pouted with a sad face, "Don't you like me anymore? Am I bothering you?"
Yujin was surprised by her questions and thought hard, he finally understood what was happening and sighed bitterly.
"It's not your fault... I'm just... Having some troubles with my cultivation and so my mood has been down those days..." Yujin lied while making it sound natural, "Don't worry, I will get back to normal after a few days."
"Really?" Long Xue looked at him with a dubious gaze, her small hands were clenched hard on the leashes of her pets.
"Did I ever lie to you?" Yujin laughed and patted her head, "Let's play more, okay?"
Long Xue was finally convinced by him and stopped suspecting things, she was very smart compared to other kids her age.
Yujin tried even harder from that day on to not show any inappropriate behavior and always tried his best to act and speak naturally around her.
Only Yujin knew how suffocating it became for him to maintain that relationship, he found it hard to accept the reality but could do nothing about it.
Another year quickly passed, and Yujin was now thirteen years old. He was growing up very quickly and had the height of an adult already, although his face still had a lot of childish traces.
He developed his secret techniques tremendously and all of them reached the level of complete mastery. His body technique could give him two times more strength and defense than before. His escape technique enabled him to walk on run on calm water at max speed and he was two times faster using it when compared to when it was at the previous mastery level.
His small healing spell could not only quickly heal any kind of superficial wound, but could also stabilize his and other people's condition in case of great and deep damage, preventing the physical state from deteriorating.
Yujin was shocked with his speed of comprehension, it was not logical to him. Normally, reaching complete mastery took two to three more times than the time used to reach comprehensive mastery from initial mastery.
The fact it took him a single year to reach complete mastery in not just one, but three different techniques, made it obvious something was wrong with him.
His comprehension capability was increasing, something that normally only occurred to others after a great realm breakthrough. It was illogical.
When the people of the sect discovered his fast progress, he received many praises for his powerful comprehension. It was rare for a registered disciple to have such an achievement.
It was unavoidable for him to be discovered since his small quarter was not enough for him to practice, he had to constantly use the training grounds of the sect.
When he found he could practice nothing since he reached complete mastery over all his secret techniques, he decided to think, it was about time anyway and no one would find it strange.
He sat on his bed and began to regulate his breathing. After a few minutes, he began to use the "Small Abyss Formation Technique."
He circulated his true qi through specific meridians and began to form a vortex in his Dantian at the same time. Spiritual qi began to get absorbed by him little by little, but his bottleneck was easily broken, he didn't even need to use the Furnace.
His accumulation was deep and his true qi was extremely powerful to his level, the barrier blocking him was shattered after a few seconds.
He continued to run the cultivation technique while his spirit root entered into a state of frenzy because of the breakthrough and a large amount of spiritual qi was absorbed from the surroundings, forming a small vortex around Yujin.
His Dantian began to tremble violently and slowly expand as if something was giving it a great stimulus. His meridians also began to expand and turn stronger along the Dantian, since they were a single system.
The Dantian and Meridians shared the same fate. If one was destroyed, the other would not survive. If one prospered, the other would grow along.
When the Dantian expanded about two times the size of before, the rate of expansion slowed down but continued. Slowly but surely, it reached three times the size of before.
At the same time, the spirit root was engulfed into a round pond of true qi, it was the "small abyss" mentioned in the manual. The small abyss had the effect of nurturing the spirit root, albeit very little.
Another characteristic of the cultivation technique was that it was still non-elemental, like the technique he used before. The true qi had all the seven elements in balance, and no element overcame the other.
The small abyss also granted the true qi great lethal capacity, since it enabled the cultivator to channel true qi more violently through the body without damaging it.
All in all, it wasn't an incredible technique but was still considered very good. The fact it was easily given to registered disciples showed the might of the sect.
Yujin stabilized his condition and hung a wooden board outside close to his door, the words 'critical moment' were written on it.
The sect allowed disciples to use that wood board to excuse them from chores for a whole week after a major breakthrough.
After he spent a day studying the changes and improvements in himself, Yujin was still stupified.
Too strong!!
His true qi was three times more dense, pure, and abundant, and it cleansed his body of its impurities constantly.
Non-stop, impurities were expelled from his body through his pores and urine. Only after two days, his condition stabilized and the transformation came to an end.
Overall, his overall physical prowess improved about three times compared to before.
Faster and stronger!
Yujin suddenly felt an itching in his spirit root, which was embedded in his true qi, and discovered that his true qi began to show signs of turning liquid!
But liquid true qi was something normally only found on Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators, while he had just advanced to the fourth layer of the Qi Refining Realm!