Chapter 71 - Black Sun

Asil moved nonstop for thirty minutes. Although he had seen many profound monsters, they were already dead. But their cores were still where they should be. Obviously, what caused something like this was the terrible energy wave that had occurred before. Some of the profound monsters were completely destroyed, leaving only their cores on the ground; others were thrown into a corner with their dead bodies. Asil took the cores from all the profound monsters he saw, and then put them in his ring, as his master said. Then he looked around and found a safe place, and after looking around a few more times and being completely sure that it was safe, he went inside the necklace that his master had been sealed.

The inside of the necklace was as dark as ever and there were again numerous chains on the floor. Since Asil came here before, he knew where Sirius was. So he went in his direction at maximum speed without wasting any time.

Asil quickly arrived at the bright spot where Sirius was, and by the time he got there, the regret in his soul had grown stronger. A small strip of blood floated down from the edge of Sirius's mouth. There was an unspeakable intensity in his eyes, and the mysterious atmosphere that used to be in this area had completely disappeared.

After Asil arrived there, he immediately came before Sirius and asked nervously. "Master, I have found forty-nine profound monster cores in the elementary profound realm and sixteen profound monster cores in the nascent profound realm. What do I do now?"

Sirius looked at him slowly and then replied: "Brat...Put the profound cores around you. Then absorb the energy in them and mix it with your own energy in dantian. After you've done that, you can collect this impure energy you've created and pass it on to me. When you do that I'm going to absorb the energy and that's going to make my energy situation a little bit better. That way, even if I sleep for a while, I'll be able to wake up again in three months at most. But since you're going to break the purity of energy in your dantian, the increases in your profound level are going to be very difficult, and you may never reach to the Natural profound realm. If you want to change your mind, you can do it now..."

Before Sirius had finished his speech, Asil sat down on the ground, removed the core of the profound monster in his spatial ring, put it around him, and began to concentrate and absorb the energy in them.

When Sirius saw this, there was a moment of tiny surprise on his face. Then this bewilderment was replaced by a light and warm smile. He knew that because he was very experienced, Asil could not absorb much energy from what he was doing and that the energy he was absorbing would do a great deal of damage to the density of his own energy. As a result of this, it would be impossible for him to go up a certain level in the future, but his student started to do what he said without paying any attention to it. Even though Sirius seemed tough and ruthless and liked to fight, he was only killing people who deserved it.

Although he had never told Asil these things before, his student's character actually reminded him of his own youth. So helping his student and spending time with him were pleasurable things for him. In this world where the profound power dictates everything, Asil's act without caring about the consequences made his heart a little softer and strengthened his love for Asil in his heart.

As Sirius continued to watch his student, Asil's absorption of energy from the profound monster cores continued. However, Sirius's facial expression slowly changed and became serious as Asil continued to absorb energy with his eyes closed and to transfer the energy he absorbed into his dantian.

At first, he saw a completely black spot on Asil's forehead that had not been there before, but he thought he saw it because of exhaustion and did not pay much attention. However, as Asil was absorbing energy from the cores of the profound monsters, this point had also grown, and not only that, another point five fingers away from it appeared on either side of the black spot. When Asil reached halfway through the absorption process, the point that appeared at first had grown to a round about three fingers in diameter. Despite this, the other two spots had only grown by half a centimeter and then stopped growing.

After Asil absorbed all the energy inside the profound monster cores, he mixed it with the energy inside his dantian. Since the purity of the energy in his dantian deteriorated in this mixing process, he felt that, even though the amount of energy was increased, the power of his energy decreased. But the feeling was very short-lived. Strangely enough, the impurity had disappeared almost instantly after it emerged, his energy was pure again. In fact, it had become purer than before. Asil could clearly feel his energy getting stronger. This surprised him but did not distract him so that there was no mistake in what he had to do to save his master, and he went through the final stage of gathering energy in his palms with his eyes closed.

Sirius's facial expression had become ugly when Asil went through this phase, and his eyes had very strong disbelief. The reason for this was the three dots that mysteriously appeared on Asil's forehead and the changes in them. The round spots, half a centimeter in diameter, on the right and left of the large point in the middle, did not grow, but a straight line appeared on the right and left sides of these points, which could hardly be seen. But it wasn't these two little dots or what occurred in them that caused Sirius' reaction. In fact, Sirius was hardly interested in them at this time. All of his attention was on the changes in the center of Asil's forehead and the round spot which had a diameter that is equal to his pointing, middle and ring finger in diameter that he just brought side by side. When Asil transferred the energy he collected from the profound monster cores to his dantian, the diameter of this large round spot was suddenly halved, followed by eight pairs of spiral lines, black like round dots, whose ends gradually thinned from the outer part of the round spot. These eight pairs of spiral lines were long enough to reach a few centimeters from their starting point, and since the starting point of each spiral pair began from the outer part of the round point in the middle of Asil's forehead, the spiral pairs and the large point in the middle together looked like a sun with black flames around it.

Just a second after the final version of this sign appeared, the changes to Asil's forehead suddenly shrank at an incredible rate, eventually disappearing as if it had never appeared.

Asil, unaware of these, mixed the energy he had absorbed with his own energy and collected it in his palms. After he collected it, he opened his eyes and sent the energy towards Sirius. The energy he sent was absorbed in the blink of an eye when it came into contact with Sirius's body, and then Sirius's weary expression slowly began to wane. Although he saw intense astonishment on his master's face as Asil sent the energy, he thought it was because he achieved what he said in a short time, and he did not pay much attention.

When Sirius's condition became much better than before, Asil could not bear it any longer, and asked nervously: "Master, are you all right?"

After asking his question, Asil waited for his master's answer, but his master kept looking at him without answering. Asil asked the same question again a few seconds later, but Sirius again did not answer. After that, although Asil did not understand what had happened, he raised his voice and asked again, and this time Sirius responded in a pensive manner.

"What? Ye... Yes, I'm okay. Child, the energy you gave me has made my condition much better. Although I don't need to fall asleep anymore, it'll take me at least four months to recover my strength. In the meantime, I'll try to recover without giving you my energy. So think of yourself as being on your own for four months. And I will wait until you return to your inn so that you will not suffer any harm when I release this mysterious energy that has suddenly appeared in your soul. Then I'll stop suppressing that energy. But it's hard to hold that energy for long. So make sure you get out of here fast. Other than that..."

When Sirius spoke this much, his facial expression and tone of voice got serious and he kept talking. "You will never absorb the energy of any profound beast's core until I let you. I absolutely forbid you that. I want you to promise me that.. Unless I give my permission, for whatever reason, you will not use the profound monster cores for any purpose except for selling them. Understand?"