Astral Apostle
chapter-229

The opening of the dark cave was as tall as a person and sat on the mountainside of a high peak. Strong winds blew in and out, and the ground in front of the cave was barren, devoid of life.

This place was like the breathing hole of a mountain range. It spat out clouds and storms, and its voice was shrill and sharp.

The two of them stood in front of the hole, their clothes and hair fluttering in the wind. The strong wind made them almost unable to open their eyes.

Roman raised his hand to shade his eyes and spoke loudly, his words tearing up in the wind.

“This is it. This is a wind vent. Inside is a complicated karst cave. I’ve already sensed it. The nature spirit is inside!”

“I might have sensed it too!”

Zhou Jing replied loudly. He grabbed the eagle’s claws with one hand as if he was flying a kite, preventing it from being blown up. With his other hand, he held the dog’s neck to prevent it from turning into a rolling gourd.

The two of them walked into the cave against the wind. Inside was a karst cave terrain that extended in all directions.

After finding a place where the wind was weaker, Roman took out the psychic ointment and applied it on Zhou Jing again, letting him activate his Elemental Vision.

Zhou Jing looked around and realized that the entire karst cave had been dyed green. It was filled with the wind element that emitted a cold cyan light, making him suspect that he was having glaucoma.

(TL Note: Wordplay, because the word cyan and glaucoma have the chinese word for green/cyan within.)

In the large expanse of green light, a special light mark attracted his attention. It was brighter than ordinary wind elements and was extremely conspicuous.

“That’s a sign that a nature spirit passed through. It should be inside,” Roman explained.

The two of them did not delay and followed the traces. Soon, they arrived in front of a karst cave. Under the Elemental Vision, it appeared as though a sun was inside.

A green ball of light that emitted a strong light slowly circled in the cave like a little elf, leaving traces of light wherever it passed.

“This is the nature spirit?” Zhou Jing’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, fuse it according to what I taught you previously,” Roman said as he took out a few herbs and a mortar from his luggage.

Zhou Jing composed himself and placed the herbs into the mortar. He crushed them all into a juice-like form and drank it with difficulty. The taste was sour and astringent, and it was also a little numb. This was a supplementary medicine used for fusion.

Then, he carefully approached the slowly circling nature spirit and grabbed it when it was caught off guard.

With a whoosh, the nature spirit turned into a liquid cyan light that flowed along his arm and into Zhou Jing’s body.

An indescribable coldness instantly filled his body.

Zhou Jing hurriedly sat down and tried his best to empty his mind according to Roman’s experience.

His body gradually emitted light from the inside out as the nature spirit gradually fused within.

The particle-like wind elements around him seemed to be attracted. The little cyan particles slowly floated towards him and fused into his body.

Unlike the pain he felt when he took the blood potion, the fusion process of the nature spirit was quite gentle and comfortable. His entire body felt light, as if he was lying in a vacuum with nowhere to exert his strength.

In his meditation, his consciousness seemed to slowly sink into the water, falling into a daze.

After an unknown period of time, Zhou Jing’s body jolted, and he suddenly woke up from his daze.

He felt as though he was in high spirits, as if he had just woken up from a nap.

In his eyes, it was still a world of elemental vision. Zhou Jing looked down and realized that his entire body was emitting an intense cyan light. It was very eye-catching, showing that he possessed the characteristics of a sorcerer.

“How do you feel?” Roman had sat down at some point, with a thin blanket covering his legs.

“It feels like an indescribable change.” Zhou Jing clenched his fists and realized that his physique had not improved much. He asked curiously, “How long has it been?”

“We entered the cave in the evening, but you fused with it for half a day. It’s late at night now.”

“It feels like only a few minutes have passed.”

Zhou Jing muttered.

“It’s normal.” Roman waved his hand and noted, “If you’re energetic, then the fusion has succeeded. You should already be able to turn on and off the Elemental Vision at will, which means you are able to perform Merging Thoughts with your mental strength. As long as you focus, you can do it. Try it.”

Hearing this, Zhou Jing thought about Roman’s guidance and stared at one of the places where the wind elements were dense, trying to release his mental strength.

Soon, the space between his eyebrows itched as if something was throbbing.

Pop!

Suddenly, he felt as if he had broken through a maze. Something invisible shot out from between his eyebrows.

At this moment, he seemed to have a new and additional sense that had appeared out of thin air, as if there was an invisible hand controlling it.

His mental strength poured out and quickly seeped into the wind elements everywhere he looked, giving him the feeling that they were being commanded by his own arms.

Zhou Jing’s thoughts moved.

Whoosh—

A strong wind immediately swept up in the cave, emitting a whistling sound.

“Wow, interesting.” Zhou Jing’s eyes lit up. He felt like he was controlling it remotely through his mental senses. This sort of feeling was addictive.

A strange wind suddenly went left and then right.

He tried to focus, pouring in more mental strength. The destructive power of this wind suddenly increased, turning into wind bullets that shot left and right, colliding against the rock wall with loud bangs.

With another thought, the wind bullets turned into wind blades according to his instructions, leaving white scratches of varying depths on the rock wall.

After testing for a while, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. Only then did Zhou Jing realize that he had consumed too much mental energy. He quickly ended his Merging Thoughts state and immediately felt a little dispirited.

Roman had been watching from the side and did not stop him. Seeing this, he smiled,

“This is the power of sorcery. You’re already a wind sorcerer. The characteristic of a wind sorcerer is that they can activate sorcery silently and are rarely restricted by the environment. Their lethality is not weak either. In addition, they can barely fly in the air. This is something that other sorcerers can’t do.”

“It does feel good.”

Zhou Jing was delighted. The wind sorcerer had many methods and was quite versatile. Other than their restraining ability being ordinary, he was good at everything else.

Although the wind did not have a specific physical form, the ability to control it through Merging Thoughts was said to be the best. In fact, the operating mechanism in the Elemental Vision was to use mental strength to infiltrate the corresponding elements. The higher the concentration of elements in the corresponding objective matter, the more energy-saving it was to be able to manipulate and mold its form based on one’s Merging Thoughts.

As for the wind element, it existed in almost any environment, and the concentration was not low. It was easy to find a target to fuse with.

If it really did not work, he could easily create a breeze with a swing of his palm. Therefore, he was unlike sorcerers who focused on flames and flowing water, partially restricted by the environment.

At this moment, Roman slowly said, “You’ve just fused with the nature spirit and haven’t developed it in depth, so its power is limited now. I have experience and will teach you.”

Zhou Jing nodded.

Every nature spirit had a certain difference in development methods, and Roman also had a Wind nature spirit. It was just nice that he was a professional and could teach him. This was also one of the reasons why he chose the Gale Spirit earlier on.

After the fusion was successful, he would possess some characteristics of an elemental body. Just like the Gale Spirit taking in human form, his sensitivity and affinity to elements would greatly increase.

There was no need for the Psychic Ointment now. With a thought, Zhou Jing put away his Elemental Vision and his vision returned to normal.

He quietly opened the interface and checked his attributes. There were already new changes.

___________________

[Obtained Extraordinary Power System [Elemental Sorcerer] ]

[Current Nature Spirit: Gale]

[Development: 0/100]

[Sorcery Points: 0]

[Note: For every 100 Development points accumulated, it will reset to 0 and be converted to 1 sorcery point.]

[Level of Development: Tier 1]

[Tier 1 Available Abilities: [Wind Enhancement I], [Spirit Enhancement I], [Merging Thoughts I]]

[Developed Abilities: [Merging Thoughts I] Lv1]

[Note: Every 1 Sorcery Point can unlock an ability or increase the level of an ability that has been developed (Ability Level 3 is the highest). When you invest 3 Sorcery Points into a certain Tier 1 ability, you can unlock the next tier of the ability and obtain additional bonuses (adding points to abilities below your tier do not count). The upper limit of the development for an ability depends on the relevant aptitude. If the aptitude is insufficient, even if you reach the unlocking conditions, you will not be able to unlock a new ability tier.]

[Elemental Sorcerer cumulative bonuses: Perception +5, Spirit +10, Energy +10]

[Current Attributes: Physical Fitness 18, Resistance 14, Perception 15, Spirit 17, Energy 10]

________________________

“Oh, it’s in this form.”

Zhou Jing’s eyes flickered as he realized that the mechanism of this supernatural system was different. The format on the interface seemed to change based on the supernatural route..

The Mutant Blood Warrior rose to the sky in a single bound. As long as he took drugs, he would directly inherit all kinds of powerful characteristics.

As for the Elemental Sorcerer, he had only obtained the catalyst to become stronger after successfully fusing with the nature spirit. He needed to train for a long time to increase the power of sorcery and unlock various abilities.

Therefore, the interface format of the Elemental Sorcerer system was very different from that of the Mutant Blood Warrior.

Previously, he had thought that a nature spirit was like a skill tree. He did not expect the display on the interface to be similar to his guess.

The core of increasing the strength of the sorcerer system was to “develop”. Training, meditation, combat, and other actions could all produce development points.

The development points were then converted into sorcery points to unlock the various passive and active abilities of the “Skill Tree”, obtaining various enhancement and attribute bonuses. The limit of the development of a natural spirit was related to aptitude, which determined one’s upper limit.

There seemed to be no shortcut in this system. He could only learn diligently.

“Although Elemental Sorcerers are a relatively primitive form of magic and use mental strength to drive the natural power, not paying attention to all kinds of magic knowledge, in terms of bitter cultivation, they should be of the same lineage as ordinary spell systems.”?Zhou Jing thought to himself.

If there was no shortcut, increasing the strength of the sorcerers could only be done through painstaking effort… Although there was a huge difference in the flow of time between the main world and the Mutant World, which could indirectly accelerate the growth of the Astral Apostle and allow the main body to benefit, it still took a lot of time.

At this moment, Zhou Jing suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Training skills required a long period of cultivation, but it could activate the Accelerated Learning function and enter a state that surpassed the flow of thoughts… And the cultivation of sorcerers was also in the form of accumulation over time. He wondered if he could activate this function…

With a thought, he chose the [Elemental Sorcerer] system on the interface and silently thought about Accelerated Learning.

The next moment, the interface popped up.

[Superpower System – Elemental Sorcerer]

[A Super in the Rule System who can unleash the power of nature through the “Merging Thoughts” ability.]

[Accelerated Learning can be performed to increase cultivation efficiency.]

[Accelerated Learning Cost: 500 Astral Points]

[Accumulated activation times: 0]

[Note: Every time you complete a development cycle, the acceleration effect will disappear. You will need to restart Accelerated Learning. For every three uses, the activation cost will increase by 100 Astral Points.]

“Good lord, it works!”?Zhou Jing was overjoyed.

It seemed that his judgment was right. For most abilities that required time to increase proficiency, be it skills or the superpower system, the Astral Apostle could activate “Accelerated Learning”, strengthen his learning ability, and quickly master it.

Just as Zhou Jing was feeling happy, Roman cleared his throat and spoke.

“Master Bill, you’re a sorcerer now. I’ve done what I promised you. Now it’s up to you to fulfill your promise.”

Zhou Jing came back to his senses and pretended to be solemn, “Since you’ve given me strength, I’m willing to work for you. Leave your potion research to me in the future.”

“It’s a pleasure to work with you.”

Roman smiled and held out his fat palm.

Zhou Jing took a look and stretched out his hand.

“Me too.”

The two hands tightly grasped the other.