The Almighty Cultivator

Chapter 2

The moment the black core entered the empty chamber beneath Chris’s breastbone, his back slammed against the ground.

A violent power spread through him, tearing through the channels Diego’s blade had damaged.

Chris tried to scream from the pain that instant tore through his body, but his throat had tightened so completely that no sound escaped.

He was certain the power would tear him apart. Then, it suddenly stopped. It was followed by a strange warmth poured from the black core and entered the wound beneath his chest.

Unlike the first force, this one carried life. It flowed through every damaged channel, sealing the cuts and restoring feeling to his freezing limbs. Heat returned to his skin, his fading heartbeat became steady, and the weakness almost stopped.

Chris had believed his perfect silver core was powerful. But it was nothing close to this. The power of whatever this was stretching him from every side. This time, not with pain but with an overflowing life force that crashed into his body faster than his legs could carry.

The pressure continued building until Chris' consciousness gradually slipped away.

When Chris opened his eyes, pale sunlight had entered the cave. Dry leaves gathered near the entrance, and birds called from the trees outside, but he had no idea whether he had been unconscious for hours or days.

The memory of Diego’s blade tore through his memories.

Chris grabbed his chest and expected to find torn flesh. Instead, his fingers moved across smooth skin. There was no wound, scar, or pain beneath his torn shirt, although the dried blood covering it proved that the betrayal had not been a nightmare.

“How did this happen?”

As the question left his mouth, thin streams of light appeared beneath the cave floor.

They travelled through the roots of the surrounding trees, climbed their trunks, and separated into every branch and leaf. Fainter currents moved inside the birds, insects, and even the worm burrowing beneath the soil.

Chris blinked repeatedly, but the strange sight remained.

He could see how energy moved, where it weakened, and what prevented it from flowing properly.

Chris turned towards the skeleton. Its ribs were empty, and the black core was gone.

His hand returned to his chest as a second rhythm answered his heartbeat.

“That core entered my body.”

He closed his eyes and felt it resting inside the space Diego had emptied. Chris did not know what the core was, why it had been buried with a dead cultivator, or why it had chosen him. He only knew that it had saved his life and awakened an ability he had never possessed before.

Cultis Academy’s selection could already have begun, and Diego would be there carrying the core he had stolen. The thoughts of what they had done to him caused his teeth to gnash tightly against each other.

“I'm going to make sure that they pay for it.” He muttered under his breath.

He followed the forest path down the mountain. His body felt lighter with every step, and although he had eaten nothing for days, the weakness that crashed into his body after seven days in the formation was suddenly gone.

Chris had not travelled far when a low groan reached him from somewhere ahead.

He left the path and found an old man sitting against a tree. Grey hair hung across the stranger’s face, and dirt covered his dark robe.

Chris first assumed that the man had been wounded from the way that his breath was laboured.

Then his new sight revealed a dark current moving through the stranger’s body.

It crawled along his energy channels like thick smoke, poisoning every current it touched. Most of his body had already been infected, and the darkness was slowly approaching his heart.

The man was dying.

Chris did not know how he understood the poison so clearly. He had never studied healing and could not even name the substance, yet the weaknesses in its flow stood before him as plainly as the forest path.

The black core moved inside his chest.

A terrible hunger spread through Chris as he watched the poison. His throat became dry, and every breath carried the urge to move closer.

Chris took one step backwards.

He had only just escaped death, and interfering with a poisoned stranger could destroy the second chance he had been given. Judging from the strength still surrounding the old man, whoever had brought him to this condition had to be terrifying.

The dark current moved closer to the man’s heart. Chris shut his eyes tightly.

“I cannot leave him here. He must be as helpless as I was when I first came to the village.”

He approached and reached for the old man’s robe, intending to examine the point where the poison had entered. The stranger appeared barely conscious, but his eyes opened the instant Chris came within reach.

A hand shot forward and tightened around Chris’s wrist.

The grip forced a wince from him. Even while dying, this man possessed more strength than most cultivators Chris had encountered.

“What do you think you are doing?” the stranger asked between laboured breaths.

“I am trying to save you, obviously.”

The old man stared at him before a painful laugh escaped his lips. The movement became a cough, and a thin line of black blood ran down his chin.

“You want to save me?” His gaze travelled over Chris’s torn clothes. “A Grandmaster Healer examined this poison and failed to remove it. What could an untrained boy possibly do?”

“I can see where the poison is moving.”

For the first time, the old man’s grip loosened. Surprise entered his eyes, but it disappeared behind a cold expression almost immediately.

“Walk away before your curiosity gets you killed. You have no idea how powerful the person who poisoned me is.”

“Okay cool.” Chris replied flatly.

He saw another proud elite who looked on others like trash and people like him weren't worth saving.

He had already turned around to leave when the black core struck against his chest again.

Its hunger intensified as the poison reached the last channel before the old man’s heart. Someone, Chris knew that the core wanted to consume whatever was destroying the man and it frightened him more than anything else.

After a few seconds, Chris's spine straightened as his eye met with that of the stranger’s eyes.

“You may be right about the person who poisoned you,” he said. “But you are clearly not powerful enough to save yourself, so you might as well let me try.”

The old man tightened his grip again.

“If anything happens to me, my people will track you down. And they have painful methods to make sure you regret everything touching me.”

Chris looked at the black blood running down the man’s chin, then at the poison moving towards his heart.

“We both know which of us will be dead first.”