“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He picked up the ominous booklet that he’d obtained from a disciple of the Bloodhand Sect, which was titled Crippling Blood Palm and opened it up to the first page. He scanned through the book with a curious eye and then raised it up for the transparent ghost to look at. “Should I learn this one? Every time someone’s used it on me I’ve really felt the pressure.”

“It’s certainly a better option than the other offensive skill.”

“Really?” Nolan picked up the book titled Emerald Thorn Piercing Technique and asked, “Why do you say that?”

“It’s an extremely simple technique that condenses and shapes inner essence into projectiles, small ones if the name is any indication. Not only that, judging by its simplistic nature it’s very likely that these projectiles can only travel along a single trajectory. In comparison, think of the utility of the other technique.”

If the old ghost’s words were true then the reasoning behind his statement was sound. After witnessing the power of the ominous martial skill several times over he’d learned that the dangerous hands of demonic energy were perfectly ambidextrous in regards to offence and defence. He had even seen disciples rely on these hands to launch their bodies forward as if they were human projectiles.

“What about that one?” He pointed to the final book, which was titled Emerald Skin. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess it’s some sort of defensive technique?”

“How perceptive of you. Yes, it’s a defensive martial skill, one that will prove quite useful to you on the island where you live.”

“Why do you always call it an island? You’ve seen my maps, it’s a huge continent.” It was several times the size of Asia, after all.

“I suggest you learn the defensive skill,” the old ghost said, brushing past his comment like an adult when questioned by a child about complicated content. He waved an ashy, transparent arm and the battered skill manual flew up to hover in front of his face, its pages turning rapidly until the book closed with a light clasp just ten seconds later. “Ah, you won’t be able to learn this without an emerald gemstone to reference.”

My ass he just read that. Mocking his teacher, Nolan waved a hand in an unnecessary motion and over twenty verdant gemstones clattered atop each other on the grass below.

“So you’ve settled on the defensive manual, then?”

Without a word Nolan urged the book away from the ghost with a small bubble of spiritual energy and spent twenty minutes scanning through its pages. Once he’d confirmed the suggestion to use physical stones as reference for the formation and movement of inner essence, he tossed it to the ground and looked up with a shrug of acknowledgement. “How long would it have taken one of your average disciples to learn this skill?”

The old ghost let out a conceited laugh. “I assure you that I would never allow them to learn such a thing.” When Nolan gave him a bland, unimpressed look, Uncle Grey coughed into his fist and then straightened his robes. “Of course, the same would go for you were you strong enough to inherit my teachings.”

“I learned the Tranquil Void Step, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t, and I suspect that you won’t be able to make proper use of it until you reach a certain level. As things are, your body and mind aren’t capable of providing the energy and focus that it requires, as will be the case with any martial skills that I might teach you.

“How long?”

“A month, perhaps longer.”

“And the thorn skill?”

“No more than a week, I should think. It’s one of the simplest skills that you will encounter, easy to learn, largely inaccurate, inefficiently draining—”

“What about the last one?”

“Around a month or so, though I’m sure they would have been able to use an incomplete version within a week or two.”

“So any random disciple in your sect could have learned all three in a little over two months…” Nolan muttered. “Great! I’m feeling the defensive skill, so let’s start with that one.”

“While I don’t doubt that you can learn all three, your time in this realm is limited. You should focus on raising your cultivation and tempering your spiritual sense.”

“In the event that I don’t cut our stay short, I’ve still got over a year in this place. I’ve got plenty of time.”

Uncle Grey lowered himself to the ground to sit beside him. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, lad, but don’t think to compare yourself to the former disciples of my sect. Even the most useless one could have been the overlord of your huge continent, and the most outstanding ones could learn any of these techniques on the spot.”

“I bet they could have. But I also bet that they wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between an isotope and an ion, or what an atom is and how to split one. My point is that I’m aware of my place in the world, but I’m also confident in my comprehension abilities. Don’t forget that I have knowledge from a completely different world, and a decent amount of it.”

The old ghost rolled his ashen eyes and then motioned for Nolan to stand. “The defensive skill it is, then.”

As far as Nolan had been able to tell the average person in this world was significantly uneducated, most likely due to the fact that only the aristocracy and merchant classes could provide their progeny with quality education, an extreme minority of the local populations. In contrast, humanity on Earth had progressed by leaps and bounds in terms of global literacy rates and levels of learned individuals around the world. Nolan couldn’t help but suspect that it would prove much easier to tutor people from his home world on sophisticated means such as the complexities of cultivation than it would be to teach an average commoner from Venara who was likely to be illiterate and extremely limited in general knowledge.

Nolan scanned through the training manual with scrutiny. The first half documented the inner essence circulation routes that were necessary in order to activate the technique, as well as the alternating speeds and densities of the inner essence in question. The second half discussed the theory behind cloaking one’s body in a malleable layer of hardened inner essence.

“How am I supposed to use these gems? It just says that ‘It is wise to consult with an actual emerald in order to familiarize oneself with the inner essence guidelines,’ but it doesn’t say anything about what actually needs to happen.”

Uncle Grey caused one of the pretty stones to levitate in front of Nolan. “Inject a thread of spiritual energy into this one and take note of what happens to it once contact is made.”

He focused on the gemstone and complied. After injecting a small amount of iridescent energy, he waited for several moments but nothing happened.

“What’s the deal? My spiritual energy just disappeared and then that was all.”

“But did you take note of how it disappeared?”

He repeated the process only to arrive at the same result, and so heightened his focus and then gave it another go. Again, his energy vanished and then nothing more. Half an hour passed with no success, only two uneventful dips into the Divine Spirit Fountain in order to replenish his spiritual energy.

Uncle Grey had quietly drifted upward and gradually reclined into his usual position of leisure. At least eleven hours passed without Nolan seeing any improvements, though his determination didn’t waver in the slightest as he continued on with the occasional curse.

“You need to focus,” said the old ghost as Nolan was soaking in the fountain. “I know it must frustrate you to hear this time and again, but you simply have not reached the level of mental clarity necessary to follow through with the technique.”

“Hey Ian,” Nolan said. “Have you made any headway in breaking through to the next phase?”

The boy spoke without opening his eyes from where he sat peacefully within the glistening waters. “Hardly. No matter how much Origin Energy I absorb into my dantian it doesn’t seem to make a dent.” He sighed, blinked a few times and then looked over at Nolan. “I’ve never experienced a phase that was so much more difficult to cultivate than the one before it.”

“Man, have you tried focusing? Just do that and you’ll be set, I’m telling you.”

Ian let out a peel of laughter which he quickly stifled and said, “He is just trying to help, Nolan.” He turned to look at their ghostly mentor. “I’m sorry for laughing Mr. Grey, but it was quite funny.”

“Clear your mind, hone in your mental gaze and observe what happens when you inject your spiritual energy into the emerald. That’s all that I can say.” Uncle Grey floated away toward where Sean and Esteban were training on the other side of the glade.

Nolan decided to remain in the fountain and quickly went to work. Two days passed before the old ghost returned, his arrival almost in tandem with Nolan’s first instance of progress. This time around his spiritual energy dissipated within seconds after he severed contact with it, but that was long enough for him to take note of the lightning-like way that it branched off in all directions before it completely dispersed. His breath caught in his lungs as he stared blankly at his feet.

“Are these…are these inner essence channels that I’m sensing?”

“For argument’s sake, yes,” said Uncle Grey, arranging a healthy stalk to idle in front of Nolan’s face. “It’s the same with this blade of grass, as it is with all other plants and nearly everything else in existence. Humans have inner essence channels, and demonic beasts have internal setups that are quite similar. Everything has some sort of system, though you really have to focus on the object in order to delve deep enough into its anatomy to detect it. Origin Energy is the source of all life, so it stands to reason that all living things contain it. And yet it also possesses the inanimate, like gemstones or any other mineral. Quite mysterious, don’t you think?”

Nolan had never focused on a single object with enough clarity to sense anything beyond its physical anatomy, because doing so was many times more difficult than sensing the inner workings of his own body.

He snapped his fingers several times, as if attempting to recall a phrase that was on the tip of his tongue. The moment Uncle Grey finished speaking it was as if something important had clicked into place.

“Ah, so if I inject inner essence into this emerald and track it with my spiritual sense then it should help me understand the methods described in this book.” He gazed at the other two skill manuals. “What about martial skills that aren’t based on other things, like the Crippling Blood Palm?”

“Such skills are more heavily based upon the particular mindsets that cultivators struggle to conceptualize when experimenting with inner essence. The process of creating a technique is extremely complicated, and usually involves long periods of trial and error.” Uncle Grey’s eyes lingered on the ominous copy of the Bloodhand Sect’s most noteworthy martial skill. “The goal is to achieve a state of mind similar to that which the skill's creator had nurtured, as they would have concentrated on a specific set of thoughts when developing the technique.”