With the cue from Fabian, Bruno carefully stood up and walked over to Leonard. He held out a potion bottle containing a sloshing liquid as red as pomegranate juice.
"Take this. Swallow it in one gulp," he instructed.
"And this is...?"
"It is the catalyst that awakens the powers in the Cardenas bloodline. We have exactly one dose, so you have to take it correctly."
As soon as he took hold of the bottle, Leonard felt his blood grow warm. The lineage carved into his body thirsted for the substance, urged by some ancient memory.
He pulled off the stopper with a pop. As soon as he did, a bewitching aroma resembling Pure Stalactite Milk pricked his nose. Though the substance looked like blood, it smelled completely different. The boy poured it down his throat in one swing.
It's hot.
Though the bottle felt cool in his hand, as soon as its contents entered his body, he felt as if someone had set fire to his insides. It was a scorching sensation that felt as if molten lava were dripping down his throat!
Despite the burning pain, Leonard didn't stumble or scream. His first priority was to meditate on the changes occurring within him.
The liquid didn't go down to the stomach. Instead, it entered the venules and fused with my lifeblood, and now it's heading toward my heart. Every time it passes through a vein, it changes the blood into something completely different.
The effects were similar to the ones caused by the Shaolin Body Cleansing Transformation when one performed it at the highest level. It made the muscles and bones beyond strong and even strengthened the meridians. At that point, it became difficult to sustain any internal injuries, and it even created a barrier that could reflect any attacks that hit. Though it was very slight, the potion had a similar effect on his body.
Thump... Thump... Thump!
His heart began to beat harder. At first, it was only a little faster, but now it was pounding with such force that it felt as if it would break through his ribs.
At some point, the potion deposited near his heart and began to condense his blood as if to create another organ. It didn't take long.
One!
The first orb of blood was red, flaring so intensely that it felt as if it would burn him. It was a fire mana core.
Two!
The second mana core was black. Unlike the first, it sent a chill through his insides, cooling him down. It was a water mana core.
With that, the mana cores started forming faster.
Three! Four!
The third and fourth quickly formed in succession, stabilizing and reinforcing his body. He felt vitality surge through him as the earth core and wood core were created. They were yellow and green. Then, the last one came.
Five!
As soon as the white core came into being, Leonard's bones became so resilient that it seemed as if they could withstand the blow of a sword. A faint breeze ran through him and disappeared. What remained was a metal core.
Leonard had a penta-core, but he took it in stride. He'd known this would happen from the very beginning.
My soul still resides in the Creation Realm because I trained in the One Origin Five Elements Style in my previous life. Therefore, I will inevitably have access to all five elements.
Even though a penta-core required twenty-five times as many mana sources as a single core, it didn't pose that big of a problem for him because he already knew how to process naturally occurring energy.
The One Origin Five Elements Style allowed one to become intimately familiar with the five types of qi. It was also possible to combine two or three types and amplify the output of power.
However, the Sword Emperor had still been far from unlocking the Five Element qi when he died.
"Hoo..."
As Leonard was savoring the power, the magic circle around his feet began to glow. It had over ten gems embedded into it to represent the elements. In a few seconds, it detected the types of cores that had formed within him and lit up five gems in the order of red, black, yellow, green, and white.
Everyone's face was grave.
"Your talent with the sword is divine, but it is not so with your blood. It is truly a shame!" Fabian said aloud what everyone was thinking. If the boy could see heart swords at the age of fourteen, he would have become a monstrously powerful commander by the time he reached twenty, had he a single core!
Fabian's voice was filled with disappointment. After combing through Seven Great Orders, he had settled on asking Leonard to be his apprentice, but if Leonard had a penta-core, that wouldn't be possible.
"But what I said still stands. You deserve to receive special treatment, so do not linger so much on the number of cores you have," the Commander said.
"I understand," Leonard said, unperturbed. His attitude pleased the man.
"I look forward to seeing your growth in the Order of the Fledgling Dragon. You will not see me often, but allow me to introduce myself. I am the Commander of the Order, Fabian."
"Thank you, Commander Fabian."
"You may exit through that door over there."
Leonard nodded to him and the others and left with the same impassive expression he always had. It did not look at all like the face of someone heartbroken over obtaining a penta-core.
Once the door closed behind him, the adults began to chatter.
"... He must be quite disappointed, but it is commendable how determined he was not to show it. I suppose no one is born with everything," Fabian remarked.
"Um, Sir Fabian?" Bruno began to ask from beside him, unable to hold back any longer.
"What is it?"
"I was curious about what you meant when you said he could wield a sword from his heart."
There was not a single person who actually understood that exchange between the Commander and Leonard, but that only made Leonard seem even more brilliant.
"Once you figure it out, you will be able to become a Swordmaster," Fabian stated.
The first step was to physically train with the sword, and the second was honing and learning to manipulate augmented sword energy. That was where most swordsmen settled. Bruno was also at the tail end of that stage.
"Fostered in the heart and channeled through the body. What wise words." Fabian couldn't have described the third stage if he tried. Only once someone could see the sword in their heart could they become a Swordmaster.
No matter how many times he tried, Fabian simply couldn't stop thinking of how much of a waste it was that Leonard had a penta-core. He unconsciously stroked the hilt of his sword.
O Great Ancestor Cardenas, is this your will?
Naturally, there was no reply.
***
Creak.
The door didn't seem often used, as it made a loud noise. When Leonard stepped out of the room where the Blood Awakening Ceremony took place, a knight was waiting for him outside. His armor had a Fledgling Dragon engraved on it like Fabian's. He was a member of the Order of the Fledgling Dragon.
"You were the highest-ranking trainee in this class, correct? That took quite some time. How many do you have?" he asked.
"I have a penta-core," Leonard replied casually.
"What?!" The knight jumped in surprise. He'd been planning to take the boy down a notch.
Geniuses with single cores only came around once a decade at most, but on the other end, penta-cores were equally rare. In fact, the knight was now worried that he'd beaten down an already-downtrodden child.
"I-I see. Don't be so down about it. If you were at the top of your class, you still have a bright future ahead of you. You can't be discouraged so early on."
"Yes, sir...?"
The knight cleared his throat. "Ahem. Follow me. Typically, you would have gone along with your friends, but your Blood Awakening Ceremony took longer than anticipated, so we sent them ahead."
"Where are we going?" Leonard asked.
"To a spatial portal used by the family. The empire is so vast that it would be impossible to get there on time with a normal vehicle," the knight explained.
Leonard followed him down a few flights of steps to an underground path he'd never been down before as a trainee, leaving the estate behind. The tunnel system was as complex as a maze, and it would be impossible for someone who didn't know the layout to find their way out.
They went past another door and down another flight of stairs and finally arrived in front of a carriage that seemed to be waiting for them.
"Get in. If you're hungry, have some of this," the knight said, handing Leonard the bread he'd brought as his own lunch.
"... Thank you."
The knight climbed onto the coach box and grabbed the reins.
That young man has a good heart, Leonard thought. He was strangely kind.
The boy climbed into the carriage and leaned into the seat. Even when the horses started moving, the carriage barely shook, allowing him to concentrate.
Leonard closed his eyes and observed his heart. There was a faint ringing sound that only he could hear. The five cores were interconnected without a single note of dissonance. The mana in the air was pulled in by the flow and spilled into his body. It was nothing compared to proper cultivation methods, but it was wonderful how the energy flowed as easily as he breathed. It was likely because the mana cores were in sync with the flow of his blood.
No, there's more. Leonard realized that there was no sense of imbalance even though he'd just developed an unfamiliar organ. It feels like it's always been there and has merely been awakened.
He still had no idea about the workings of the Cardenas bloodline. In fact, he only had more questions now.
But so far, his blood had only benefitted him, so it wasn't a bad feeling.
Having been distracted by other thoughts, Leonard regained his focus and grabbed hold of the natural energy flowing around him. Breath Circulation was more important to martial artists than food, and it was the first time he'd done this since he transmigrated.
"Hm... Hoo..."
He held his breath for several minutes before letting it out. The mana gradually flowed toward him more and more in accordance with the rhythm of his breathing. If Fabian had been there, he would have been scared out of his wits. The only people in this world who could control naturally occurring mana while breathing were those who surpassed the level of a Swordmaster.
I'm going three times faster than before I developed the cores.
Leonard's eyebrows furrowed. He could not only take in energy three times faster but also circulate it at an even higher rate. On one hand, that meant he could become stronger at three times the speed, but that also meant he was in three times more danger.
If his blood vessels hadn't been reinforced through the Blood Awakening Ceremony, he would have started bleeding from all the orifices in his body before he even finished one cycle.
But... He had a Creation Realm martial artist's fine control skills over mana, and he wasn't the least bit shaken even though he'd already died once.
If the mana was circulating three times faster, he simply needed to keep up with it. It was an unsophisticated conclusion, but he had a precise hold over the energy. He delivered each type to its corresponding core without letting a single drop mix.
The five mana cores glistened in five brilliant colors like crystals. For a moment, the power stopped flowing into them, but then they suddenly began to thrum even harder, like fish that had found water.
And it was at that moment that Heavenly Demon's words flickered through his mind: "If purity is the basis of the Chaos Origin, then balance is the basis of the five elements. If they are not in harmony, the manifestation will be fragile."
The advice from someone in the Profound Realm: "You laid the foundation for the Five Elements Qi after you were able to achieve Sword Qi Transformation, causing the qi to become unbalanced."
Heavenly Demon had been referring to Yeon Mu-Hyuk's sword manifestation, which was a mass of energy created by channeling one's internal qi. However, that technique could be used even by First-Class martial artists. Yeon Mu-Hyuk, being naturally gifted in controlling sword qi, had been able to unify the five elements, but that had been his limit. He had trouble gathering an equal amount of each element in the first place. If he'd been more than mediocre at it, he would have been able to create a balanced foundation of energy when he reached the Apex Realm.
However, Dan Mok-Jin judged that it was too late to reach a state of completion. In fact, it still wouldn't have been possible had Yeon Mu-Hyuk been a First-Class martial artist.
But what if I try to unify the five elemental qis right after I've gained access to mana? What would the outcome be?
The five elemental energies within him swirled inside him according to his will.
One Origin Five Elements Style
Five-Star Creation Sutra: Shrink
In his past life, he'd learned that the five elements didn't necessarily represent five fundamental materials but rather five basic relationships.[1]
Wood begot fire. Fire begot earth. Earth begot metal. Metal begot water. Water begot wood.
Wood dominated earth. Earth dominated water. Water dominated fire. Fire dominated metal. Metal dominated wood.
The principle stated that as long as the cycle continued, it would sustain the world forever. In reverse, it would halt this principle and have the inverse effect.
According to the ancient texts, when all five elemental energies are tamed, they can be gathered to condense the energy into one.
The five elements flowed as one and existed as one.
In response to his realization, the mana cores inside him interlocked as if to become a singular entity.
Leonard's eyes shot open and glowed with five colors for just a moment.
He had unified the elements. It was something he only achieved after becoming a First-Class martial artist in his past life.
The energy of the five elements flowed through his eight extraordinary meridians like a rushing river, gathering mana at a rate that shouldn't have been possible with a penta-core.
"So this is it."
Leonard resolved to reach the Profound Realm in this life—no, he'd ascend even higher.
Unbeknownst to the nervous knight sitting in the coach box, a mysterious smile bloomed on the boy's face.
New powers. New martial arts. New grounds.
His heart thumped with excitement as he wondered what his next destination would hold.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxing_(Chinese_philosophy) ☜