Instructor Sheng then continued explaining in a serious tone, “This Nether Flame is something that will make all of the Saint’s unwilling to battle you and since Sovereigns won’t intervene before the Final Battle, having this Flame can guarantee your life.”

Curo was perplexed and asked, “Why won’t the Sovereigns join the fight?” Instructor Sheng sighed deeply as he said, “Because both sides want to root out the other while training their own people. By letting the weaker ones duke it out first, we can achieve both.” Curo nodded his head but he was still not quite satisfied with the answer. He then asked, “When will the Final Battle start?”

Instructor Sheng answered him, “It will start when one side runs out of options. When one side sees that they are losing badly and have no more options, only then will they send out Sovereign Experts. Once they do, the other side responds and the people below Sovereign Realm will be out of the fight.” Hearing this, Curo’s face was complex. “Wouldn’t it be easier and result in less losses if the Sovereigns headed out immediately?”

When this thought entered his mind, it rooted itself there. Instructor Sheng continued explaining, “Both sides are relatively even in terms of strength. For one side to gain the advantage, we need to let the Saints and Juniors duke it out amongst themselves. Once we cut off their supply or Qi Stones, Herbs and so on, we can draw the battle out for a bit so we can simply gain the advantage.” Hearing this, Curo sighed as he nodded his head.

He wasn’t stupid, even as a cripple he had waged some wars against the neighbouring counties, he knew how war went. However, he had thought that in a Cultivators War, those that hold up the Heavens will do all the work. However, it seemed like the wars between cultivators were the same as wars between mortals. Curo sighed heavily thinking about this.

Instructor Sheng didn’t pay it any heed and then said, slightly grimacing, “This war will be extremely dangerous for you. In their mind, you are the direct reason this war started, so the bounty on your head will be extremely high.” Hearing this, Curo smiled wryly. Although, he had been the one to provoke the Meng Clan that much, weren’t the ones that declared war the Five Academies.

Seeming to notice his thoughts, Instructor Sheng smiled bitterly and said, “They need someone to pin this all on. You tearing their face through the mud makes you the main candidate for it.” He then let out a laugh and asked jokingly, “Who else are they going to pin this on, Xi Zhao? Ancestor Jing?”

When Curo heard this, he smiled bitterly as well. Instructor Sheng then said, “From tomorrow onwards, you will spend three days inside the Undying Flame Formation to temper your body and increase your understanding of the fire. How it acts, how it moves, what moves it. Three days inside the Formation, then for the next two days, you will cultivate and digest your gains from the Formation. Then for the next two days, we will spend increasing your control over fire and doing sparring.”

Hearing this schedule Curo could only gulp. Although, he hadn’t been to the Undying Flame Formation yet, it was said that even Early Palace Building Stage people can stay inside for maximum a day. To stay inside the Formation for three days straight, wasn’t that suicide? However, seeing the serious and stern face on Instructor Sheng, he did not dare to voice any more objections. He could only grit his teeth and persevere.

It was like that, that his training in Hell started. By the end of the first week, he could see why all the other students that were assigned to him willingly changed Instructors. When it came to teaching and training, he did not relent one bit. When Curo couldn’t do one part of the training, another part was added on to that. Not only did Instructor Sheng continuously increase the difficulty of training, in the spars, he would not hold back one bit. Although, he lowered his cultivation to the Peak Core Formation Stage to make it a bit more fair, he couldn’t seal his insights, expertise with the Halberd or his battle knowledge.

Each sparring session ended with Curo being beaten black and blue. Given a few hours, he would be completely healed thanks to the Heavenly Treasure’s in his body and he would be beaten black and blue again. There were several times when he just thought to say, “Fuck you all, I am going to find a fucking mountain, get myself a flock of sheep and become a sheep herder. This is all you problem now.” There were many times that he wanted to scream that out however, he couldn’t do it.

Even though he wanted to stop, even though he wanted to run away, he couldn’t help but wonder what he would lose if he did. He would lose his home, he would lose his family and he would lose his own life. It took him nearly a month to get used to the severity of his training. Every now and then, Qing Zhao and Jing Fang would come by and see how he was doing.

However, seeing the severity of his training, even Jing Fang and Qing Zhao tried to persuade Instructor Sheng to stop it and go with something a bit less torturous. However, each time Instructor Sheng had coldly said, “Here, I can protect him, you can protect him. However, out there, he is on his own. I will not let a Student of mine die a dogs death on a battlefield. Not again.” Hearing this, Qing Zhao could only sigh deeply alongside Jing Fang. They both knew of his past, he used to be a gentle and well loved man. He even took many students under him but he only had one disciple.

That disciple was killed in the previous Realm War by the Nine Clans even though he hadn’t even been a part of the war. This had turned the gentle and well loved man into a cold, ruthless person. They could see the kindness in Instructor Sheng’s eyes every time he looked towards Curo. It was as plain as day that he cared a lot for him.

Once Curo awakened the Nether Flame, he would be virtually matchless under the Sovereign stage by relying on the Flame. If a Sovereign were to attack, they would dread the Flame enough to buy him enough time for one of them to arrive. With two months of this torturous training, Curo broke through to the Core Formation. Instructor Sheng then changed Curo’s training.

Now, he would spend one day inside the Divine Tempering Lightning Formation and four days days on cultivating his Core, then it was the usual two days of sparring. The Divine Tempering Lighting helped Curo temper his fleshly body while he himself spent four days cultivating the Core. This training wasn’t as harsh as before. It took only three months for Curo to reach the Peak Stage of Core Formation. The process of Core Formation was that when the Core had been formed, the person needed to inscribe their Cultivation Art into the Core to birth the Nascent Soul.

This process wasn’t difficult but rather, it was time consuming as one needed to ponder on their Art. However, Curo did not have that problem as when he had received he inheritance from Jing Fang, he had received it with all of his insights into the Art. On top of that, the Art was in itself a Top Grade Art, there were a few flaws to begin with in the Art and Curo had managed to fix the most of them, when he fought with the Clone in the Purgatory Formation. Curo could only sigh at all of the preparatory foundation that had been laid out for him unknowingly. I

n two months, he had gone from forming his Core to showing signs of the Nascent Soul Birth. No matter how anyone looked at it, this was a monstrous achievement. To go from being a cripple to being a Peak Core Formation expert in one and a half years…. If anyone else had told him a tale of such a figure, he would not believe it. However, he was the person this was happening to. It took him only a week to birth his Nascent Soul, however, it was only then that something completely unexpected happened. He had jumped straight from the Core Formation Stage to the Peak of Origin Realm. Instructor Sheng, Qing Zhao and Jing Fang looked at this dumbly.

Even they had no idea how this had happened. In the end, after much discussion and deliberation, they agreed on one explanation. It was because Curo’s Soul was stronger than your average person. If you counted in the various Heavenly treasure he had consumed and that he has the Soul of a Dragon, then it could be explained. His Soul was already strong enough to ascend to the Peak of Nascent Soul Stage because he didn’t have to continue strengthening his Soul. The Nascent Soul Stage was directly cultivating the Soul and unless ones Soul was Strong enough, they could never find ones Origin. However, as to ascending to the Peak of Origin Stage…. That was harder to deduce but finally, it had been Headmistress Xi that had provided an explanation.

It was because Curo’s training time was too short. He had been a mortal until a year and a half ago, it would not be hard to find that feeling again and find his Origin. When Jing Fang and the rest thought about it that way, it had made sense. Curo had been a cripple until a year and a half ago, the feeling of powerlessness, what he had back then, everything was still fresh in his mind. Even the most monstrous of geniuses took over ten or twenty years to reach the Nascent Soul Realm.

Even then, they had to use a few years to cultivate their Soul. It was harder for them to find the feeling of being a weak and powerless mortal again. It was especially hard for people that dominated the generation. Once one understood their Origin, they can ascend to Saint hood. The Origin Realm was a special, transition Realm. It did not give any obvious strength increase when one forms a Core, their Qi reservoir increases tenfold.

Neither did it give the cultivator an advantage in terms of cultivating speed like having a Nascent Soul. However, the reason Origin Realm cultivators were feared was because they knew their own weaknesses. The Origin Realm was finding ones faults, ones roots, ones weaknesses. Since this all was all fresh in Curo’s mind, the feeling of powerlessness, the feeling of not being able to walk his own path. Always living in his Fathers shadow….

Even though he never said anything, he always felt it. To other’s of his generation he would smile and talk as if there was nothing wrong, however, always, behind that smile was the sadness of not being able to cultivate. It had taken Curo only 5 months to reach the Peak of Origin Realm. This could not be explained with only talent. This was what a true nurture of a talent looked like. He got the best resources, a sturdy foundation before he even began all this and the best Instructor he could have. Instructor Sheng always pushed him to his limits but never over his limits.

When Curo would faint, he would spend the next few days, slightly lightening the training. He had calculated everything to push him to the limits but not harm him. He then gave him the most ample of time to digest the gains before testing them out in real battle. In the battle, he could test them out, see their flaws, see their strengths.

Then when the process of observing began again, he would have a new look and something specific to focus on.