Chapter 40: The Rebellion

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” I said as a response to their question. David, in an almost shouting manner, said, “What do you mean by saying you beat Lance in one hit?” Oh right, no one can sense my mana fluctuations if I don’t want people to. And so, I released a bit of my aura, and they suddenly dropped what they were drinking. Topher shouted, “F*** YOU! Why are you already a Rank-6 Pinnacle? Weren’t you just at 3rd rank the other day? And how did you beat Lance? Wasn’t he already at the peak of the 7th rank?” I then replied, “Yeah, I was at 3rd rank a while ago. I don’t know, I suddenly got a surge of inspiration when I came home the other day. I continued to cultivate until I reached the 6th rank. "When Lance attacked me, I noticed that he was moving very slowly, so for him to not block our way anymore, I hit him, then he passed out.”

I personally don’t want to hide the Library with my friends, but it is a fact that you should only give your secrets to those who can defend it. I don’t want them to be needlessly hurt, that’s why I’m hiding this secret. We then continued talking and came upon the topic about how more than a decade has passed since they reached the 9th rank. I asked, "Why didn’t you try to make a breakthrough to the demi-human rank?" They just both laughed bitterly. David said that they have tried a lot, but ever since they separated from Franco, they felt that something in them isn’t right. Every time they push for a breakthrough, they always fall short at the very last moment.

I then asked David and Topher to humor me and show me their punching routines, since I am, after all, a teacher acknowledged the heavens. They agreed after throwing off some weird looks. I commanded the Library to compile a book on both of them. The book shows that the flaw that stopped them from pushing for a breakthrough is the fact that their souls were forcefully put back into their bodies, making their souls and bodies, not at all synced. “Why were your souls forcefully put back into your bodies? Were you also almost sacrificed as well?” David chuckled and replied, “No. Actually, in our last adventure with Franco, all of us died. Franco then raised our shadows and forcefully put it inside our bodies. It isn’t wrong to say that we are just shadows that are controlling our old meat bodies.” I guess that explains why Franco let them retire already since he couldn’t protect them anymore. Still, it is so sad to think my friends almost died.

Luckily, the Soul Arts of the Heavenly Way that I used in creating a cultivation path for Stephanie has been assimilated into me up to the 9th rank. This can help solve their troubles once I give them a lecture about the spirit of impartation. This will give their souls synchronicity with their bodies. Like in an organ transplant, once a new organ has been appended to the body, you would need medicine, so the body won’t reject the transplanted organs. The Soul Arts of the Heavenly Way lets the spirit leave the body and come back as it pleases without losing synchronicity or having any of the drawbacks of any soul practitioner. The rest of the lecture involves soul cultivation in various ways to improve both its quality and size, similar to how the body is being trained.

Regarding who will protest on behalf of Troy tomorrow, David said, “It is most likely the merchant faction of the kingdom. They have been wanting to become the most influential, saying the world is already at peace, and there’s no need to have military might as our main focus.” Topher added, “They don’t believe the word of the representative that someday, the rest of the outside world will come into our world and wreak havoc. They want to continue back on to living a peaceful life as if nothing wrong is going to happen.” In my mind, this merchant faction is so lazy, but I can’t blame them since they didn’t hear the words directly and they were just told by Topher and the others.

David and Topher's plan is to incite the people to become biased and start a revolution that will ultimately happen once they hear about Troy being executed. For Troy to be safe, they tasked Dianne to keep an eye on him tomorrow. I then suggested, "Won’t it be more believable if everyone was in the execution tomorrow as is the tradition of this place?" They agreed, and I volunteered to guard over Troy, he is my disciple after all. We all agreed that I should head back to my cage and protect him as a fellow prisoner. Before I headed back into my cell, I gave some of my Heavenly mana to Troy. In case he gets mortally injured tomorrow, he will be able to survive as long as he has one breath remaining on him.

While inside my cell, I started practicing my knowledge of cultivating my soul using the Heavenly Soul arts. With each rank, my soul becomes more powerful, but another unexpected event is that my soul can now leave my body. Similar to my mana, if I don’t permit it, no one can sense that there is a ghost in here. I wonder if the ghosts before the apocalypse are actually roaming around, and we just cannot sense them because only the extra spiritual people could. In this current era, the knowledge about powering oneself is heavily focused on mana cultivation and some on body cultivation. There is not much extra soul studying occurring since the research for the soul only started in this kingdom due to the illness that was plaguing the First Daughter.

By the time I reached the 7th rank of the Soul Arts, I sensed an enemy approaching. When I went to see it, I saw a person in a karate Gi outfit coming inside Troy's cell and was about to crush Troy's head. I then shouted, “Hey, sir! Let him go! Let him go!” He just said, "Pathetic!" After watching him stop Troy’s heart through a punch, I asked him for a duel. I predicted that he would agree on it, given that he is a martial artist bound to accept all forms of challenges. After bowing to one another, everything suddenly went blank.