To Walk The Mist

The great spill council sat almost immediately. When Lord Kan walked in and saw the gathering, he paled.

"Lord Kan..." one of the councilmen started to say.

"Please.. spare me... I have no idea how it happened!" Lord Kan fell on his knees and started to beg.

"So, you mean to say, this was not some joke? The branch vein you are in charge of dried?" a woman seated amongst the council asked with a frown.

"Yes..." Lord Kan answered.

"Do you think we are children? Even a great sect outside the demon lands would be unable to dry a branch vein as quickly as you said!" another councilman said.

"How long did it take for the branch vein to dry?" asked the the second of the only two woman on the council. She unlike the others, did not seem panicked at all. Instead, she looked completely calm.

"Ten breaths of time..." Lord Kan bowed his head and said in a whisper.

"What!" the first councilman raged.

"Do you think we will take your word for it because you say so? Lady Aj. You said you sent your disciple to take a look. What was the result?" one of the councilmen asked the second woman.

"She will return with the answer." Lady Aj said.

"If what he said is true, then we have a big problem."

"Do you really believe such a thing? It is not possible!" One could understand why most of the council did not want to believe what they were hearing. This was unheard of, both in the demon lands and outside.

"Master." a young girl arrived before the council.

"What did you see?" Lady Aj asked her. She took out a record stone and activated it. The stone glowed a dark orange. Soon everyone in the room sank into a picture. They were suddenly standing before the branch vein. They could see that the vein was completely clear. Not even a strand of astral energy remained.

The whole room sunk into silence after. What could cause this? Were the other cities attacking the south side?

Sitting in his bedroom, Ed was unaware of the commotion that was thundering through the great spill, nor did he know he was the culprit. He retracted from his contemplation. He could no more feel astral energy in the pond safe a few strands, but those strands seemed to far from him to reach. He sighed. He wondered where the pond leads to. Are there more of it? Without astral energy to contemplate, he decided to learn more sword skills.

He looked through the spatial rings of those disciples again. It then dawned on him that he had not taken the rings of the elders that had come after them. There must have been great materials inside. Sighing, he looked through jade slip after jade slip. Non of these skills were as good as shifting space.

He had seen everything in these rings before, so he was less expectant checking through them again. After a while, he noticed something in one of the rings. He had seen this before, but had paid no attention to it. It was a soft cloth with symbols drawn on it. Inscriptions? He wondered.

Inscription masters were rarer than alchemists. This was a discipline hard learn. To be an inscription master, one must be able to perceive many energies. When someone reached the soul awakening stage, they can perceive all the energies, but can not feel it or absorb it. At this stage, one could distort the energy flow of someone of a lower cultivation because he can perceive the way it flows in him.

With this ability, a soul awakened master would be able to send the right kind of vibrations to through a cultivator to cripple him instantly. The lower the cultivation was from the soul awakening stage, the more effective this skill could be.

That is why it was so hard to be an inscription master. Because the average cultivator had to wait till he is at the soul awakening stage to start learning.