The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

The classes in the academy generally only started at around ten in the morning, and with Evelyn having only spent around three hours with Aurora from seven, she could have barely made it to the first 'physical combat' class if she tried.

However, Evelyn decided to completely skip the classes for the rest of the day. And it wasn't because she was tired, but that she had much better things to do.

She hadn't forgotten that the academy was just a stepping stone for her to grow stronger. Compared to the introductory lectures of 'physical combat' and 'elemental mastery', Evelyn would of course prioritize things that could boost her strength further.

She would have even skipped out on Aurora's lectures today, but given that Evelyn was still a little unsure of the platinum blonde's attitude towards herself, she decided it was better to tread with caution.

After all, she didn't know just how much Aurora really favored her, and whether or not she was on 'her side'. Falling out of her favor, or revealing that she knew more than she should, would both be counterproductive.

Evelyn still remembered the 'story' about the other throne that Aurora had off-handedly mentioned, and there were still some doubts that lingered in her mind regarding where Aurora's true loyalty remained.

After returning to the White Lily Palace, Evelyn greeted the two Gilmore sisters briefly before retreating back to her room. Bree was still sound asleep on the bed, and Evelyn put Ruru down next to her before she placed the cultivation array disc for 'Searing Soul' on the floor.

After feeding it with roughly ten points of spirit power, deep blue lines expanded from the stone disc as a much larger 'circuit' showed up on the floor, indicating the positions where the spirit stones should be placed.

Of course, Cecilia was still dutifully attending her classes, and Mister Chonkers was nowhere to be seen as well. But Evelyn still had her own stash of spirit stones, and it was more than enough to power the array.

Though it was considered customary to have a 'guardian' while entering an array, since the person would be completely defenseless at that time, Evelyn didn't bother asking for Vivian or Amara's help. She was perfectly fine with just Ruru making sure Bree didn't create a ruckus if she woke up.

With her 'lucky chance' Evelyn had already managed to 'reshape' her soul, and there was no need for her to do anything further to fool the array into believing her to be someone else, because the 'key' to identifying her, which was her soul form, had already drastically changed. From the array's perspective, she was already a completely different person.

And as the array fully activated, Evelyn soon found herself back in the familiar murky dark sea full of those glowing orbs.

Her soul value had recovered a little, going from 589 to 612 with just one day of rest, and Evelyn knew that the speed of recovery would get much faster as it got higher, and perhaps 'waiting' would have been the most sensible strategy.

However, knowing that it would still take her weeks to recover fully, Evelyn couldn't bring herself to do so. She would rather take this hit head-on and suffer a little, especially when she knew how many benefits she could be getting in return.

Of course, there was no need to fumble around like before, and Evelyn directly sent out a wave of soul power imitating the 'Lotus Throne's Eternal Ripple', quickly zoning in on the 'core' of the place.

Soul Value: [612 / 1,546] → [324 / 1,546]

Evelyn could already feel a lingering pain from deep inside herself from the moment her soul value dropped so low, and she knew she would continue experiencing it until it recovered to at least a third of its original value. 

As she had expected, the positioning of the orbs was randomized every time the array activated, but Evelyn didn't mind the extra expenditure of her soul power at this time.

Once she finally reached the central orb of the place and re-entered the familiar scene of Aurora's birth, this time around, Evelyn could clearly experience what the headmistress was actually going through. Even some of her thoughts rang out clear in her mind, opening her up to a completely different perspective.

What made this opportunity so incredible, however, was not being able to observe the emotional ups and downs of the headmistress, but being able to familiarize herself with her thought process while she was coming up with the 'Searing Soul'.

If she had to compare it with her understanding from before, the difference between her two trips was like watching a teacher write down a concept while just mumbling to themselves compared to having them clearly explain each of their steps out loud.

The difference in what she managed to harvest was like night and day.

When someone first comprehended their cultivation technique, if they were successful, generally their level of comprehension lay somewhere between five and fifteen percent.

Of course, the higher the grade of the technique, the more difficult it was to comprehend it.

When she had first gone through Searing Soul, Evelyn's level of comprehension was roughly around ten percent, which could be considered excellent for her first attempt at a grade nine technique.

Anyone who managed to reach fifty percent comprehension of a high-grade technique within a hundred years was already considered a monstrous genius. With her previous record, Evelyn might have been able to reach that goal in just fifty years, provided that she continued to improve.

However, with this 'cheat', her comprehension of 'Searing Soul' shot up directly to almost fifty percent in one go.

Considering how little she actually knew about how spirit power worked, and everything that could be done with it, this meant that even if she never bothered looking into it ever again, she would one day naturally reach complete comprehension of her cultivation technique.

This was something that was supposed to be almost impossible, as when she reached such a high comprehension, Evelyn could actually create a copy of the 'Searing Soul' to teach anyone she wanted. Something that only the original creator of the technique could do.

Evelyn was of course more than happy with these results. The price she paid, including the increased time required for her to recover, was completely worth it.

But just increasing her comprehension wasn't the only reason she had been in such a hurry to re-enter the array disc.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Evelyn took a few minutes to calm herself after exiting the array. Taking a look at the bed, Bree was still peacefully asleep, while Ruru was staring at her in worry.

She guessed that Ruru must have sensed how far she had depleted her soul power, and the pink haired girl smiled. "Don't worry, Ruru, I know how far I can go."

Although the pain due to her depleted soul power was constant, it wasn't yet sharp enough to truly distract her constantly. Perhaps only when she depleted it to a fifth of the full capacity would it get so bad, and Evelyn made sure to keep that in mind.

"Ruru, get ready, I might need your help later, okay?"

The little pink fox immediately jumped into an alert state, her fluffy tail standing up as she looked around vigilantly.

Evelyn giggled, and after making sure that both herself and Ruru were ready, she turned her focus within herself, locating the foreign fragment of soul power she had detected earlier during her out-of-body experience.

Although she still had no idea who it originally belonged to, allowing it to remain dormant inside herself would be the same as entrusting her life and death, and even that of those close to her, to whoever owned this fragment.

However, wanting to get rid of it and actually being able to do so were two completely different concepts, and Evelyn knew this very well. She knew that if she really tried to destroy it right now, it was fully capable of obliterating her soul.

Fortunately for her, however, whoever planted this thing inside of her never seemed to have expected her to be able to discover it. And maybe she really wouldn't have, if not for her special circumstances.

Had she not had such a ridiculously high amount of soul power, learned a high grade soul related cultivation technique, and had an out-of-body experience that allowed her to separate her body and soul, would she have ever managed to discover this thing? Naturally not.

Currently, this fragment was in an 'inactive' state, completely disconnected from its owner, and would only 'activate' when it received a signal.

Of course, it also had another 'function', which was to signal its 'owner' if 'triggered', establishing a connection that way once the other side responded. As for what this 'trigger' was, there seemed to be multiple 'conditions', but Evelyn could only determine one of them, which was 'when she reaches level ninety-nine'.

Now that she knew all of this, of course, Evelyn would never allow it to remain inside her as long as she could prevent it.

If it had been before, she would have been truly a little helpless against this situation. But after her 'lucky chance' as well as her comprehension of 'Searing Soul' reaching such a level, Evelyn was no longer so helpless.

Of course, there was always a chance for things to 'go wrong', which is why she had told Ruru to stay alert and be ready for her signal. Because in case the soul fragment really 'triggered' while she was taking care of it, she would have to obliterate it using the 'Lotus Throne's Nirvana', regardless of the cost.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

~To be continued~

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

DustyDream:  Thank you for all your support!

discord.gg/WXvd68bK9K