A Failure's hopeful Journey

Sasha, the elf who greeted You Xi Wang and the others near the big holographic tree was leading them again. Their destination was the underground spirit lake. You Zhichi asked Sasha, "Lady Sasha, can you tell us how the underground reservoir is formed?" her soft voice echoed slightly throughout the passage.

Sasha who was walking ahead spoke in an equally soft tone, "This passageway actually used to be occupied by the roots of our sacred tree. The tree withers after a millennium. The elders that time collected the seed of the sacred tree and they planted it inside the forbidden grounds of the Elves. These underground passageways remained the same after the roots were collected. All the roots of the sacred tree combined and gathered together at the end. This end is where the spirit energy was dumped and stored by the Fallen prince. That is where the spirit energy turned into spirit lake over the years."

The team was surprised and they sucked in a cold breath as they heard Sasha's explanation. Turned out this big tunnel had such a deep origin. They have been walking for more than an hour. Their pace was not slow, nor were they climbing. They could tell that the tunnel was sloping downwards and it seemed to be winding in one direction. 

You Xi Wang walked at the back of the team observing the surroundings. The tunnel ceiling was embedded with night pearls. These night pearls were different from the ones in Metropia. the size was bigger and the light was more intense than the one in metropia. The tunnel walls were all-natural, coarse-textured, grayish appearance. You Xi Wang raised his hand and gently caressed the wall as he walked the trail of the team. 

The system spoke, [If possible, take some of this soil back with yourself. It can help in nurturing the blood shackle tree.]

You Xi Wang nodded and the team kept walking. After a total of three hours, Sasha stopped in her tracks. In front of the team, a glowing pond emerged. They all sensed the constitution of spirit energy in the air has gone up by several hundred percent. Sasha spoke, "This is the spirit lake. You all can use it as you wish."

She was instructed by the queen to say this. It was a gesture of friendship and a test of heart at the same time for the team. You Xi Wang spoke, "Convey our gratitude to the Elven Council." his tone was bland. Sasha nodded and left to attend to the queen. 

You Xi Wang saw his team engrossed in appreciating the surroundings. From the ceiling of this cave hung countless shiny stalagmites. There were a lot of entrances to this place. The system spoke, [This spirit lake is a pond in reality. It is just a bit too big that they called it a lake.]

You Xi Wang curiously asked, "How big?"

The system replied, [At least 50 gallons of spirit liquid. Mind you one gallon is enough to promote the whole team to the top of the Core Formation realm or initial Primal Soul realm.]

You Xi Wang sucked in a cold breath. The air he sucked in contained spirit energy and refreshed him thoroughly. He spoke while he addressed the team, "Girls on the left and boys on the right. I will be putting up a partition between the two. Wolves will guard the girls and prevent anyone from peeping. Get inside the pond soak in it and cleanse yourself. The second thing, don't dare to be greedy. Intake more than your capacity and you will become a blood mist. Do you understand?"

The team nodded, both genders separated from each other, and waited for You Xi Wang to put up a barrier in between. The boys had ideas obviously but they knew that You Xi Wang will make them shed a layer of skin if they did anything silly so they all became honest. You Xi Wang took out some spirit stones from his space ring and tossed them in the air. This action seemed casual, but if any array master were to witness it, they would have screamed with horror. 

You Xi Wang used the mental array deployment method which was very difficult to learn. You needed a certain degree of control and proficiency in mental power to successfully use this method. The spirit stones fell inside the pond and soon a white film formed between the spirit pond splitting it into two. 

As the captain, he did not waste any moment and took off his clothes and jumped inside the pond. The rest of the boys followed his example and moved. The girls on the other side were still the better ones. They all elegantly entered the pond and started to cultivate. You Xi Wang had already informed the girls that the barrier did not barge the sound so they all could only be honest and did not tease each other. Otherwise, there might be nose bleeds in the boy camp.

...

You Xi Wang sat inside the pond with his eyes closed and his hands joined together. He was covered with a bright golden glow. This time the intensity of the glow was higher than all the previous times. The liquid spirit energy was washing the body from both inside and the outside simultaneously. The same was happening to the whole team, but they all had different potential, and thus the result would be different. 

According to You Xi Wang's instruction as soon as one reached their limit they would come out of the spirit pond and digest the gains at the bank. You Xi Wang himself only lasted for six hours before he took a break for an hour and then repeated the process again. Whenever he was bored of regular meditation to enhance his cultivation he would start practicing his martial skills, ponder over array skills.

He cut himself off from the others as he cultivated. Sasha would come to deliver food thrice in a day but You Xi Wang never ate food, he filled himself with spirit energy. The team all noticed his behavior and felt inspired. They all understood that You Xi Wang was talented because he was hard working. They also started to work hard but their scale of intensity was still not as high as that of the handsome devil. 

Time flew in a blink. The team had spent 6 months in Elven time under the ground. At first, the elven council was worried about the exhaustion of the spirit lake but when You Xi Wang told them the math they all calmed down. These people even offered You Xi Wang an extra 2 gallons of liquid spirit energy as a gift. Why would You Xi Wang reject such a good present? He shamelessly accepted it. Last night the team of humans received the notification of the Survival tournament ending. 

The rest of the team walked out of the pond and decided to visit the elven city and click some pictures. They wanted to buy some souvenirs to bring back home. Only, You Xi Wang sat at the bank of the spirit pond. In the past six months, he has reached the peak of the core formation realm. His sister has entered the first level of the primal soul realm. Now it was his turn to breakthrough. 

His soul sea was brimming with spirit energy. All that he needed to do was to converge that spirit energy inside his avatar. The avatar will awaken when the energy inside the soul sea converges with him. Later on, the avatar will grow on its own, and You Xi Wang will only have to expand his would sea. This convergence was an act of linking the avatar with the soul sea. This seemingly insignificant process was the most crucial step. If the practitioner was disturbed, he would become a wood stick for like. You Xi Wang had the five wolf beasts guarding him. He also set up three arrays around him including two defense barriers and one killing formation. 

...

You Xi Wang's consciousness was now focused inside his soul sea. He manipulated the spirit energy inside the soul sea to transform into a thread and started wrapping the golden thread around his avatar. As the avatar was wrapped a pain channeled through his body. The pain was so sharp that cold sweat beads formed on his head. The system spoke, [Don't give up. I am here.]

The system acted decisively and blocked off all the nerves of his body. The system knew that You Xi Wang may be able to handle the pain caused by this convergence and thus followed the current decision. You Xi Wang followed what the system said yet the process was very long and careful. To be careful he needed to be slow. Even after blocking off the receptors. The pain only eased for an amount of time and returned later. The system tried its best to keep the pain from spreading as You Xi Wang started to wrap the avatar.

You Xi Wang knew that the road of cultivation was not smooth. Still, he strived forward with no complaints. He knew that those who die trying are still better than those who just wait for it to come and give them a chance to flee the field.