Infinite Mana Cultivation-Chapter 20: Monstrous stranger

Tia crossed the first, innermost ring of her formation consisting of just the strongest of her guards within the same second that she detached her nascent soul.

Riding the flow of the spiritual energy of the world, her body barely would have the chance to blink by the time she arrived at the second ring, where the small army of her tutors stood in their designated spots, manning special obelisks and moderating the flow of energy within the formation.

It was only thanks to their control, their moderation, that Tia could immerse herself in the world's spirituality so easily. Even then, without those hefty, black obelisks, this job would be too heavy for those mostly rank five and six cultivators to complete.

Reaching the third and last ring of her formation took Tia's consciousness a few seconds, once again reminding her just how massive of an exercise her cultivation was not only for her but also everyone included.

In the incorporeal state, she didn't need to worry about the resistance of air, the conservation of momentum, or any other forces that normally limited one's speed of travel. And yet, by moving at the best speed her mind could justify, she still took several seconds to reach the limit of the formation she deployed!

'And that's exactly why only nobles can afford to become powerful cultivators,' the girl thought, her mood souring a little.

As someone relatively close with the people that worked for her, she couldn't care less about her status.

Sure, she was willing to grit her teeth and accept the expectations her status placed on her just as much as she was willing to accept the compensation in the form of a comfortable and secure life.

When it came to everyday life, however, she would normally be too busy to pay attention to how different her life as a noble would be to the lives of her teachers, her guards, her servants. freēnovelkiss.com

Weren't they all eating together, training together, spending most of their time together anyway? On an everyday basis, her real advantages were limited to just a slightly more spacious bedroom and softer mattress.

Food? Sure, she could eat as much as she wanted of the most expensive dishes... but only for as long as she could maintain her perfect figure as to not grow too fat and make her family look bad in the process.

Cultivation? But wouldn't her chase for strength ultimately end with her on a battlefield, with Tia becoming a priority target for the powerhouses of the opposing force?

In the end, it was precisely at moments like this, where she truly saw the scope of investment her family put into her, that she understood the legitimate weight of her position.

Which in turn made her only all the more pressed to ensure her scouts would be safe!

Tia's formation only consisted of three rings. Rings of passive guards directly nearby, a ring of moderators that ensured a steady flow of spiritual energy into the formation's inner circle, and then the third ring, where a whole treasury of artifacts ensured the steady intake of spiritual energy into the massive field that her formation covered.

But that still wasn't all. Beyond the third ring, spread out into the bushes, hills, ravines, and all sorts of terrains that surrounded Tia's formations, were the scouts.

People that didn't have anything directly to do with the formation, tasked with the simple job of ensuring no unforeseen danger would befall any of those behind them.

And as Tia's spirit arrived at where she could see her scouts constantly monitor their assigned sectors, she couldn't help but notice one obvious detail.

The men were as vigilant as always, determined to do their jobs well to earn the respectable wage Tia paid them out of her own pocket.

But by no means were they alarmed, even though the sector she inspected in particular was directly in line with the danger she sensed from all the way over at the center of her formation!

'I've crossed like...' Tia took a moment to focus on the fluctuations in the spiritual flow around her, 'half of the distance from the source?' she made a rough guess, gritting the imaginary teeth of her ephemeral form as her nascent soul shivered in cold fear.

What kind of a monster could not only cause those fluctuations... but also somehow escape the attention of her elite scouts?!

Quelling her fear and pushing it down her imaginary throat, Tia pushed forth.

'What kind of a cultivator would I be if I allowed my fear to hold me back?' she thought, her nascent soul stirring. 'Wouldn't that make all those efforts, all those investments, all the hard work of all those people... a waste?'

For some, cultivation was all about just chasing the greater height, an eternal race to reach levels others could not. A chase focused more on one's societal status than anything.

And becoming that kind of person was the idea Tia despised the most!

Pushing through her fear, Tia prepared to break her connection to the mystical realm at any moment.

It was one thing to brave through her fears in a bid to check out what this commotion was all about, but a whole other topic for her to foolishly doom herself by challenging this unknown monster with just the limited powers of her nascent soul!

With but a simple want of her mind, Tia picked up the pace, once again allowing her consciousness to ride the flow of the spiritual energy, crossing the distance at a rate no mortal could ever hope to do.

And then...?

She saw it.

Not some kind of a monster on the level only heard about in myths and legends. Heck, it wasn't any kind of a monster to begin with, but... just a human?

And yet...

'A monster...'

Tia froze in place the very moment the ephemeral eyes of her soul locked in on the figure of the foreign man in the distance.

The mana stirring all around him was... of an impossible magnitude, many times greater than what she thought she felt before.

A stupid mistake, really, given how the spiritual energy flew towards the man from every direction, rather than just the one Tia arrived from herself!

And yet, right as the terror caused by this impossible sight nearly made Tia lose control over her nascent soul, causing it to dissipate into pure spiritual energy and set her back an entire cultivation stage...

The flow of the mana suddenly stopped, as if this strange, black-haired man finally had his fill.

Too scared... No, too reasonable to even dare approaching any closer than she was watching the scene from, Tia couldn't really see the details of what happened next. All she could see was the man gesture around for a bit, only for the world's spiritual energy to start... convulsing?

'What now?!'

Tia groaned in her mind, suddenly forced to put a lot more effort to just maintain her nascent soul in the peace of the mystical world suddenly turned into a nearly total chaos.

Caring not for her opinions, fear, or safety, the foreign man grasped at what felt like the physical manifestation of raw spiritual energy... and started to stretch it out.

With a chain of spirituality connecting each of his hands to two points ahead of him, he continued to walk backwards for a while, forcing the mystical realm all around into a greater and greater chaos with every step he took, all the way to the point where it started to crack apart.

'Heavens, save me...'

Stunlocked by the sight of everything unraveling all around her, Tia could only watch.

By now, any attempt at breaking her connection with her nascent soul would only result in it eroding in the chaotic mess of the mystical all around.

Heck, staying as she was only slightly increased the odds that she could somehow save her vulnerable, young soul...

But with the impossible, wonderful sight displayed right before her eyes?

Something in Tia's mind snapped. The possibility of losing an entire realm of cultivation didn't feel like that big of a price for the privilege of watching this magical sight.

'So the spiritual energy could be stirred like that...' Tia soon started to just melt in wonder and amazement, her eyes jumping from one detail to another, each holding an immense amount of inspiration that could greatly benefit her cultivation.

Something flickered.

And just like that, she saw a whole slew of tiny, shiny points that outlined an elegant, impossibly simplistic formation.

A formation that was the fraction of the size of the array Tia herself deployed.

Then, the shine vanished. And with it, something in the world around the girl... snapped.

The spiritual energy violently stirred... and then returned to its normal, everyday state. But its rebound?

It dragged the stranger to his starting point within a single instant, almost faster than Tia could perceive reality. And then, with the chains of spiritual energy snapping, his momentum ejected him into the air at speeds far greater than Tia could travel at while in her nascent soul form!