181 One Month

Ed waited patiently within the lava cavern. Soon, one of the remaining Fire Dragon Sect cultivators brought in an ordinary human. A short moment later, a flash of fire sparked from the lava, and a mutant appeared. The mutant looked like a type of mountain lion, and its limbs were severed. It couldn't fight back even if it wanted to.

Ed examined the mutant and saw that it had a mana-core. He opted to get started right away, as he couldn't afford to fall behind over the coming month. The human knelt down in front of him, seemingly already aware of why he was here. Ed activated his chimera form and bit into the human with his Camazotz fangs. Two strange liquids flowed through his fangs into the human's body and rapidly reconstructed it to be suitable for mana.

Glancing at the crippled mutant mountain lion, Ed shot his Camazotz tail towards it. The mutant's mana flowed through Ed's tail and travelled through his fangs into the human's body. A short moment later, the human had transformed into a new esper! Unfortunately, the esper didn't have any abilities as of yet. The mountain lion mutant had been so weak that the new esper was given zero shortcuts. He would have no choice but to cultivate from the very beginning, starting with the meridians.

With the first human done, another soon entered. Again, a mutant was teleported inside through flames. This mutant seemed to be a type of monkey. Ed repeated the same process as before, and another new esper was created. Unfortunately, this one also had no starting powers.

One after another, the power transfers continued. Interestingly, every single newly awakened esper started at zero, not awakening any unique powers. It seemed that Huo was purposely targeting weak mutants with this idea in mind. 'Maybe it's because he wants to create a uniform army?' Ed guessed. 'Or our enemies could be making it too difficult for him to hunt stronger mutants...'

Days passed, followed by weeks. Before long, an entire month had passed. One had to admit that Huo was extremely efficient. In just thirty days he had managed to send in 10,000 mutants with mana-cores. That was an average of one captured and teleported almost every four minutes! Fortunately, Ed had a lot of prior experience doing these power transfers, and he had just barely been able to keep up.

With 10,000 newly created espers, the job was finished. Huo appeared in the cavern in a flash of flames. His body was ragged and covered in scars. There was no way the mutants were strong enough to do such damage, so he had obviously been targeted by his enemies during this trial. "It's done." He grinned while snapping his fingers. Another stream of flame appeared, teleporting Tao and Flair next to him. "Ready to go to India?" He asked.

"Mm." Ed nodded. He was more than eager to get to India and find a way to heal his soul. He also hoped to find a way to keep his current personality as opposed to returning to his old one.

"Alright." Huo nodded. "However, let me warn you first. The world is growing even more chaotic. There are rumors of war potentially breaking out between eastern and western Europe. Nexus has rapidly been increasing the pace of their plans." He smiled. "Though India should still be relatively safe. If there's anywhere in the world Nexus would fail to gain a foothold, then it's there."

Ed rose an eyebrow, curious as to why, but he didn't bother to ask. He'd find out soon enough himself by going there.

Huo clapped his hands and a ball of flames engulfed their group. They appeared near a small forest fire on a wide empty plain. However, this didn't seem to be their final destination, as Huo immediately teleported them again. It seemed that Huo couldn't teleport all the way to India in one go, which made sense when considering the vast distance.

The group teleported several times. Once near a volcano, another time near a nearly depleted campfire, and most awkwardly, within someone's kitchen by their stove. A woman had screamed in terror upon seeing them, but Huo had teleported them away just as soon as they arrived.

With one final teleport, they arrived at their destination. Ed curiously looked at their surroundings. Some red lanterns had candles burning in them nearby. A variety of people traveled the streets in different clothes. Some looked like Buddhist monks wearing red and yellow robes. Others were dressed in more ordinary clothing one would typically see in an American city. Surprisingly, there were quite a few foreigners of every race wherever he looked. They too wore their own types of clothing. Some foreigners adopted monk robes similar to the ones the Buddhist monks wore, and others wore clothes from their homelands. There was even a Russian-looking man that wore heavy warm clothes despite the miserable heat.

Looking forward, Ed saw a tall golden temple. It had a tall pointed peak with a smaller peak on each side. Buddhist carvings and engravings decorated the temple, and pillars decorated the path that lead towards it. While staring at the temple, Ed felt a strange connection to it. His golden faith energy, which he had never managed even an ounce of control over, stirred, seemingly reacting to the strange temple. He turned towards Huo. "This is the place?" He asked.

"Mm." Huo nodded. "Here, you can learn golden faith cultivation." He pointed towards one of the foreigners. "Almost all foreigners here have come to learn it, as it is the only place it can be learned. But learning is a time-consuming process, and so the waiting list is usually very long. That being said, you need to be careful here. Any esper that has obtained golden faith energy and managed to make their way here cannot be underestimated. In fact, the city of Bodh Gaya likely holds the highest number of strong espers in the world."

"I see." Ed nodded while examining the various foreigners. He could sense that most were strong, but he didn't feel too worried. He had dealt with plenty of strong espers before. As he continued looking at them, a red flash of greed sparked in his eyes. 'How strong would I get if I stole all their powers?' He quickly took a deep breath to calm down. Such a treasure was hard to resist, but it would only get him killed if he took it. At the very least, he needed to heal his soul first.

Huo pointed towards the temple. "I've already informed Buddha of your arrival. Just walk towards the temple and tell them your name. They'll take care of the rest."

"Buddha?!" Ed replied in surprise. "The real Buddha?"

"Haha, of course not!" Huo laughed while shaking his head. "It's merely a nickname for the head of the temple. It's a relatively recent tradition from after golden faith energy reappeared in the world."

"Oh." Ed nodded, feeling somewhat relieved. If Buddha really existed, it would throw a big loop in everything he had ever believed. "Is this Buddha strong?" He asked.

"He's the strongest human in the world." Huo answered.

"Human?" Ed repeated in confusion. 'How could a human be strong?'

"Right." Huo nodded. "Human." He smiled while turning towards Ed. "Did you know that mana isn't even required to cultivate golden faith energy? It's an entirely separate system. That being said, I'm definitely not a match for Buddha. Some say he's the 2nd strongest man in the world, only falling behind Tama."

Ed remained speechless at the new information. The thought that golden faith energy could be cultivated by ordinary humans had never really occurred to him, and the idea that a human was the 2nd strongest in the world was mind-blowing. His excitement grew even greater at the prospect of finally learning the truth about golden faith energy.

"Well, I'll take my leave now." Huo smiled. "I've got a lot of work to do raising my army. I'm sure we'll meet again someday as powerful leaders of our countries." He reached his hand out towards Ed.

Ed shook Huo's hand and nodded. "Good luck."

"To you as well." Huo replied as he vanished in a ball of flames.

Ed glanced at Flair and Tao on each side of him. "Let's go." He said as he took his first step towards the golden temple.