Chapter 84: The 'Creator' in the Murky Seas

Chapter 84: The 'Creator' in the Murky Seas

Evelyn didn't know how long she had been swimming for before she finally managed to reach the giant glowing orb she had sensed, though to her it felt like an eternity.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like she could get physically tired while in this state, or it might have taken her even longer to get here.

In her attempts at finding this thing, Evelyn had ended up exhausting almost half of her soul value, and she knew that it would take a while to recover.

At first, her plan had been to simply confirm the orb's location, and then exit the array to wait for her soul value to recover. After all, wouldn't it be better if she was in her peak condition, at least in terms of soul value, when she attempted to comprehend a cultivation technique centered around the soul?

But on her way to the main orb, Evelyn had encountered many large orbs that had obviously been in other places before, and came to a realization.

This place was obviously meant as a 'test', and the better she performed, the better her rewards. The larger orbs had been moved to be in her way as she got closer to the main orb to pose as both a temptation and relief, and if she fell for these 'traps', her overall rewards would of course be lower.

These 'rewards' weren't anything material, of course, but the rate at which she could cultivate and comprehend the 'Searing Soul' in the future. As Aurora had emphasized to her repeatedly, Evelyn was determined to grasp nothing but the 'core' of the cultivation technique.

Since that was so, her previous 'rest first and return later' strategy would obviously not work. Even if she did so, the location of the orbs would simply change based on her starting location, and finding the core orb would simply be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Moreover, if she truly decided to forego using her 'Soul Ripple' method, how could she even be sure if she was going for the right one?

So Evelyn decided to just grit her teeth and go for it, even if her soul value was currently half depleted. Anyway, she still had almost seven hundred points, which was several times what anyone her age was supposed to have.

Evelyn didn't hesitate any longer, and as soon as her hand made contact with the giant orb, the world around her warped as the dark waters disappeared, and she appeared in White Lily Palace.

==========

Aurora had already told Evelyn that only three other students had acquired the searing soul, and only one of them had moderate success with the technique, but she never told her where the technique came from.

It wasn't that Aurora didn't know, but that she simply did not wish for Evelyn, or anyone else, to know of such a thing.

After all, the one who created the technique was the woman she hated the most in her life.

The pink haired girl couldn't help but tilt her head. 'These are all academy teachers or something, right? How come they actually WANT something to go wrong with this baby's birth?'

Evelyn's mild curiosity was replaced with shock, however, because when the adorable little baby head finally popped out of the egg with a 'wuh!', the platinum blonde hair and mystical purple eyes finally made her realize whose 'birth' she might be witnessing.

And what a tragic scene it was, because as soon as she came into the world, the already anxious red haired lady snatched her up by her hair, lifting the tiny little toddler up to her face despite her mournful screams.

Unlike Evelyn, who had almost waist length hair right as she got out of her egg, Aurora's hair was barely two to three inches in length, and the woman's hasty movements had obviously scratched her scalp somewhere, because blood was already trickling down the baby's face as she sobbed and tried to wriggle her powerless limbs to get free.

But the woman's face was even more full of despair as she looked at the child, as if it had shattered all her hopes and dreams. "No Soul Ripples No otherworldly aura Even this one is a failure!"

The other 'professors', or whatever they were supposed to be, didn't seem concerned about the baby's well-being at all, and consoled the woman instead.

"Don't lose hope, headmistress."

"The Lotus Throne may have some other requirements we don't know of, we can keep working on it, right?"

"If nothing else, she's still an excellent seed worthy of nurturing as a talent, our efforts weren't pointless!"

The lady shook her head before putting the baby back in her shell and healing her wounds with a wave of her hand. She then proceeded to shove all of the shell pieces in Aurora's mouth one by one, almost vengeful, as she started instructing the professors.

"Halt the Lotus project. We can't afford any more failures. This is the last one."

The others seemed reluctant to 'give up' on whatever their plans had been, but could only agree to the woman's will.

The baby Aurora was as docile as her adult counterpart, and seemed to have 'forgiven' the lady's previous transgressions as she chewed on the shell pieces she kept getting roughly shoved in her face.

Evelyn vaguely remembered her own father mentioning that the shell couldn't be touched by anyone but the baby when her mother had begun getting impatient, and she wondered if that was wrong, or if the red haired lady simply didn't care to be so patient with Aurora.

The latter seemed far more likely, and the pink haired girl sighed as she hoped that whatever 'contamination' her father had mentioned wasn't something too serious.

As Aurora gazed at her 'mother' pitifully, Evelyn felt a chill run up her spine as she wondered what sort of life she had lived. It couldn't be any worse than her own hell on earth in her past life, right?UppTodated from nô/v/e/lb(i)n.c(o)/m