Chapter 18 - Martial Artist’s Path (1/2)

Several hours passed before Hei, and his two little sisters could wake up. His body wasn't hurting like before, even though fatigue was still partly present.

Since he hadn't put anything in his stomach since last night, he was incredibly hungry. After all, the various events that occurred at Leaf Village had drained entirely the energy accumulated with the festival's big banquet.

When they woke up, the three of them found themselves in a place unknown to them. When they woke up for the first time at dawn, they didn't pay it so much attention. But now, they could see that it wasn't the Multicolored Leaf Forest but another forest. Seeing this, they became slightly nervous, but fortunately, their mother was behind them sleeping.

To prevent them from being bothered or suddenly attacked, Bao Bei had placed various spiderwebs, each one connected to the tips of her legs. If someone had touched one of those spiderwebs, the contact would have pulled the wire tight, warning Bao Bei about it.

It was a less secure system than the continuous surveillance with spirit power, but it was more hidden and appropriate when you didn't want to waste energy. Moreover, the enemy wouldn't be able to notice that he had been detected, thus coming to a nasty surprise.

Noticing movements from her cubs, Bao Bei awoke. She saw that the three of them had woken up and were hungry. With her legs, she took three bowls of food and handed them to them. Since she knew they would be hungry after finishing sleeping, she had prepared accordingly and hunted some prey nearby.

Once they finished eating, Bao Bei looked seriously at Hei, Ye, and Xing, while examining their status. Then she prepared to begin the talk she had mentioned earlier in the morning but which she had left unanswered.

'My little ones, listen to me well, especially you, Hei. Now that you all have awakened your spirit power, it is time to understand what it is and how it is structured. It is important that you understand these notions well, but before that, I want to ask you something Hei. Do you want to become a martial artist?'

Hei was amazed by this question but then replied immediately. ”I don't know what exactly a martial artist is or what spirit power is. I only know that I want to become stronger. This incident made me realize how weak I am and how many are my limits. When I awakened my spirit power, I felt an energy filling my body. If I can become stronger, then I will become a martial artist. Never again, I will put my little sisters in such danger. I will never be so helpless again while the people I care about are hurt.”

Hearing this answer, Bao Bei smiled inwardly. Given Hei's talent, it would have been a pity not to let him develop his spirit power. But the cultivator's path was an arduous path littered with dangers and death. It wouldn't have served much if she had imposed it to him. Only if he really wanted to improve with his whole being, Hei could reach ever-higher peaks.

Bao Bei, therefore, took a serious tone and began her speech. Hearing their mother's voice, the three listened in silence. Ever since they had remembered, their mother had always omitted various things saying that it wasn't the time to talk about it.

Although they trusted her and asked no more questions about it, the curiosity behind these terms had only increased.

Now that Bao Bei had decided to reveal their meaning, how could they miss this opportunity?

First, she started with the definition of spirit power: it was nothing but the natural energy that fuel the world. Every living being was endowed with it, yet only a part was able to awaken it. Even inanimate objects could awaken it, but there were several conditions to be met for this to happen.

The human beings who awakened it were called cultivators or martial artists. To increase one's spirit power, one had to go through the process of cultivation. In order to do this, cultivation methods were needed that were used during meditation alongside with breathing techniques.

It was also possible to cultivate without cultivation methods, going purely by instinct as the humans of the past had done when they first discovered this power. However, cultivation based on intuition was very dangerous. A small mistake during cultivation would bring severe damage to one's body, with some permanent or even fatal. It took an indefinite number of trials and deaths before enough knowledge was formed to create a cultivation method.

The martial artists were divided into ranks according to the amount of spirit power and other characteristics; these ranks were, in turn, subdivided into various stages. At the end of each stage, there was a small block. Then, and a large one when advancing to the next rank. These blocks were called bottlenecks.

These happened because cultivation alone wasn't sufficient to move from one stage to another or from one rank to another. Other energy stimuli were required to make this jump. This usually needed the help of medicinal pills or other resources. One could also advance with more extreme training or new insights obtained during meditation. Lastly, one could engage in life and death fights or go around the world to experience new things.

Once the human side was dealt with in general, Bao Bei then turned to spirit beasts, explaining the differences in cultivation and how they were classified.

There was a first distinction between animals and spirit beasts: the former didn't possess spirit power while the latter did. However, it should be pointed out that the definition of spirit beasts didn't mean exclusively animals endowed with spirit power. But rather anything other than humans and demons that possessed spirit power, including therefore plants and inanimate objects.

Incidentally, it should be known that the demons followed a system similar to the human one, even if with some diversifications. They were quite similar to each other, differing mostly from a somatic point of view.

As far as classification according to spirit power was concerned, spirit beasts were differentiated both by humans and by demons in levels. There were a total of 7 levels that were the same number of ranks as human and demon martial artists.