Safa had woken up and when she turned her head, as usual, Raze was still in a deep sleep. She pressed her hand on her chest and let out a big sigh of relief. She didn't know why, but she just felt that maybe one of these days, she would wake up, and he would no longer be by her side.
When she stood up, she could feel a slight breeze in the air around them. It felt almost fresh, and sniffing it in through her nostrils, it was almost like consuming a strong mint. It had supercharged her for the day.
Leaving the room, she had done so with a smile on her face and went ahead to join the others.
"Your brother's still asleep I see," Kron said. "Well, I suppose his weak body does need more rest than most. As long as you are happy to do his and your work for the upkeep of both of you, then I won't stop you."
Safa pumped her fist as she was ready to help out in the kitchen and cleaning. She was trying her best to help out her brother in whatever ways she could. This way, he could sleep in longer than the others.
When Raze eventually woke up, he could see that Safa had already left.
"I guess that means they're not too bothered about me sleeping in; otherwise, Kron would have come and woken me up himself."
Taking a peek outside of his door, he could hear everyone talking as they were eating breakfast. From the sounds of things, they had just been setting the table. Breakfast would usually take an hour, so he predicted he had an hour before someone would check up on him.
Sitting back down in his room, Raze activated his robe from his clothing and then pulled out the cultivation manual. He sat cross-legged as he opened the book and started to flick through the pages.
"I'm not sure why, but every mention of the technique's name has been scratched or rubbed out throughout the book. I have a feeling that what I'm about to learn might not be something he was meant to give out," Raze thought.
Instead of being disheartened, though, Raze had a large smile. Since when did he stop himself from learning new things because of that?
Reading through it, the steps were the same as the Dark essence technique. The main differences, though, were the imagery that one had to have in their head when trying to draw the energy to their dantian.
This one wanted the person to focus on the cycles. The feeling one gets when new life is born into this world, and the feeling of when life was taken away. The energy that is given when something is born and the energy that is taken when a life is lost.
"This technique would be hard for most young people who have yet to experience these types of things, but I have seen this cycle firsthand many times, but there is one other thing it notes as well."
In the manual, there were several times when it noted the importance of the location when using the technique.
"It works best in a place where any part of the cycle has occurred. So either where a lot of lives have come into this world or where death has been experienced multiple times."
Just thinking about it, Raze was starting to feel that this technique was incredibly dangerous. Other than a hospital, it was hard for Raze to think of areas where new life would come into this world.
However, death was easy to come by, and not only that, it was easy to make. One could use this technique on a battlefield of sorts, or if they really wanted to push it to its limits, they could create a den full of the dead.
Pushing that thought to the side, it still didn't discourage Raze to learn the technique; his path was one that was planned to be paved in blood either way.
Closing his eyes, he started to focus. He started with the steps that Mr. Kron had taught, breathing in through his nose, the energy around them. Raze had become quite good at this since he would do this whenever he got the chance with the Dark essence technique to improve his Dark attribute.
After the first part was done, it was time for him to picture the imagery in his head. The air that he was taking in now was starting to change. It felt dark, not like that of the Dark essence energy, but heavier in a sense.
As the energy started to accumulate in his body, he noticed when it entered his body, unlike the Dark essence, it didn't go to his mana core; it continued and went down past his belly button. The energy was starting to gather from deep within.
"Is it working? Is this it? Am I able to gather Qi with this technique?"
The energy started to grow through Raze's body, and a ball was forming in his stomach, but something strange started to happen. After a solid ball had been made, somewhat like that of his magic core, the energy started to spread out.
It was moving about, all over his body. He could feel it reacting with all of his muscles, cells, and it was almost fighting with himself.
"ARGH!" Raze grunted with pain.
The energy was going rampant, it felt like he was being hit from the inside. It wasn't just his muscles that were taking a beating from this energy, but even his organs. It felt like they were being twisted and pulled inside him, and he was finding it hard to breathe.
"KuK!" Raze coughed, and blood came shooting out from his mouth. It wasn't a small amount; as a puddle of it was on the floor, but it wasn't red. The blood looked almost black in color.
The energy continued to run rampant in his body, and that's when he could feel it was starting to head somewhere dangerous.
"Is it going for my Mana core? Is it going for my heart!"
"Shrouded heart!" Raze activated the spell in fear for his life.