The Almighty Cultivator

Chapter 3

The old man finally loosened his grip.

“You have one chance,” he warned. “If you make the poison worse, I will kill you myself.”

Chris looked at the dark substance moving closer to the man’s heart. “If I make it worse, I doubt you will still be alive to do that.”

The old man glared at him but said nothing more.

Chris knelt beside him and pulled open the front of his robe. There were no wounds on his chest, yet the skin around his heart had already turned dark. Beneath it, the poison moved through his essence channels like black water spreading through cracks.

He placed his palm against the darkest part.

The black core reacted immediately.

A strong hunger rose inside Chris, followed by a pull so sudden that his hand became fixed against the man’s chest. He tried to lift it, but his fingers would not move.

“What are you doing?” the old man demanded.

“I am not sure yet, so please shut up and let's not make things more worse for you than it is already.”

Before the man could respond, the poison changed direction.

The dark streams that had been moving towards his heart stopped and began flowing backwards. They passed through his channels, gathered beneath Chris’s palm, and pushed against the old man’s skin as though trying to escape.

Chris was the only one who could see what was happening.

The black core beat harder, and the pull became stronger. A thin stream of poisoned energy left the old man’s body and entered Chris through his palm.

Chris clenched his teeth as the poison reached his chest. He expected it to attack his heart, but the black core drew it in before it could spread anywhere else.

The cracked core consumed the poison.

As soon as the dark energy entered it, the core released a warmer force into Chris’s body. The weakness left behind by Diego’s extraction began to fade, and several damaged essence channels repaired themselves.

The poison was strengthening him.

Chris barely had time to understand what that meant before the old man shuddered beneath his hand.

“What have you done to me?” he growled.

His back lifted from the tree, and a violent tremor passed through his body. He grabbed Chris’s arm, but the poison was still flowing between them, making it impossible for either of them to pull away.

“Remain still,” Chris said. “The poison is leaving your body.”

The old man tried to answer, but a painful cry tore from his mouth instead. His entire body jerked, his heels digging into the ground as the remaining poison rushed towards Chris’s hand.

The black veins beneath his skin began to disappear one after another.

Chris could feel every part of the process. He saw the poison leave the man’s heart first, then his core and essence channels. Each dark stream entered Chris and vanished into the hungry core inside his chest.

However, the final part resisted.

A thick knot of poison had wrapped itself around the old man’s core. When Chris tried to draw it out, it tightened and sent a violent wave of energy through both of them.

Chris was thrown forward, but his palm remained fixed against the man.

The old man screamed.

His head struck the tree behind him, and blood ran from his nose. His grip on Chris’s arm became weak as the knot of poison fought to remain inside him.

Chris could have stopped. He had already absorbed enough energy to strengthen the black core, and the old man was a stranger who had threatened him only moments earlier.

Then he remembered lying inside the cave while Rachel walked away.

Nobody had returned for him. Nobody had cared whether he lived.

Chris refused to become the kind of person who could leave someone else in the same condition.

“You are not dying here,” he said.

He pressed his hand harder against the man’s chest and allowed the black core to pull with all its strength.

The knot finally broke.

A rush of dark energy tore out of the old man and entered Chris at once. It burned through his arm, crossed his chest, and crashed into the black core.

Chris’s vision darkened.

For several seconds, he could not hear anything except the heavy beating inside his chest. The core took the poison apart and sent its purified energy through his channels, filling him with more strength than he had ever possessed.

Then everything became quiet.

Chris opened his eyes.

The old man’s hand had fallen away from his arm. His body rested against the tree, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open.

He was no longer screaming and his chest wasn't even moving.

“He's dead?” Chris murmured under a hushed breath.

Chris quickly removed his hand and checked the man’s neck. He waited for a pulse, shifted his fingers, and checked again, however, there was nothing.

“No, this cannot be happening.”

He used his new sight and looked through the man’s body. Every trace of poison was gone. His core and channels were clean, but no energy was moving through them.

Chris had removed the poison, yet the man appeared to be dead.

“Shit.”

“I was stupid to believe I could save him. I have not even entered the academy, yet I tried to do what a Grandmaster Healer could not.”

The old man had warned him that his people would come. If they found Chris beside the body, nobody would believe that he had been trying to help.

They would only see a dead powerful cultivator and an unknown boy standing over him.

Chris forced himself to his feet. The treatment had left him pale and unsteady, but the black core was stronger now. Its steady beating reminded him that remaining there would only place his new life in danger.

“I am sorry,” he said, looking at the motionless man. “I truly thought I could save you.”

Chris turned and hurried down the forest path.

He had only taken a few steps when a loud cough came from behind him.

Chris stopped at once.

Another cough followed, rougher than the first, and then the old man’s voice travelled through the trees.

“Do not dare take another step.”