49 Flames of Neutrality

A ruthless expression dominated Arnin's face as he looked at Unuz. He didn't hesitate to hit her as soon as he found out that the duel had technically started. He wanted the room, and that was end of the discussion.

"You *cough cough*... shameless person!" Unuz got up from the ground and coughed up a little blood. She was hit extremely hard, and the crash into the wall made it even worse.

Surk, who was watching from the side, had a faint smile on his face. He didn't react when Arnin launched the sneak attack, rather he found the whole situation interesting. Unuz was laughing at Arnin just a while ago, and now she was coughing blood.

"Whatever. Shameless or not, this is not your room anymore." Arnin didn't give Unuz another chance to speak before he rushed towards her once again. The room was fairly small, about the size of his old house in Talonton village, and because of this, Arnin was in front of Unuz practically instantly.

"W-wait for m--" Before she could even say another word, a fist was planted directly onto her cheek. Again, she flew across the room and crashed into another the black wall.

*BOOM*

"Either give up and leave, or continue to get beaten. Pick one." Arnin looked at Unuz and spoke without a shred of emotions. He couldn't care less about the girl and wouldn't even mind killing her. However, the academy was still not a place where he could do what he wanted without restraint. His current body wasn't strong enough yet.

Unuz got up from the ground and lightly touched her swollen cheek. She felt the bump and couldn't help but feel enraged. Her aura began to climb up, and the hatred in her eyes also rose.

"I don't care if you're a kid, I'm going to kill you!" Unuz rushed towards Arnin without hesitation. She wanted to eradicate Arnin's existence. He didn't even let her speak and attacked her twice. How could she take this lying down?

"Hey Surk, since she wants to kill me, can I do the same?" Arnin looked towards Surk without paying any heed to the incoming Unuz. If this girl wanted to kill him, then that would be the perfect excuse to kill her instead.

"Haha, umm, she won't try and kill you. Just restrain yourselves a little, alright." Surk had a bitter look on his face. He knew that Arnin was a ruthless person, and would kill Unuz if he could. However, there shouldn't be any deaths during duels, especially just for first level rooms.

Arnin scoffed before looking back at the girl. Since he couldn't kill her, he would do something else. He patiently waited for her to get to him, his hands clenched into fists.

Just as she was about to land a punch on his face, Arnin ducked to the right, avoiding her arm, and then grabbed her head. He yanked it down, pulling her along with the force.

"AHHH!" Unuz couldn't help but scream out with pain. Having their hair pulled with so much force would cause many people to feel pain, especially someone with long hair like hers.

"Now then, let the duel begin." Arnin smiled wickedly before grabbing the girl's throat. He kept a tight grip on her neck and pinned her to the ground.

"Let *cough cough* go!" Unuz found it difficult to breath, let alone speak, but she still tried to force some words out of her mouth.

"I don't think so. You had your chance to quit." Arnin didn't release his grip, rather he tightened it. He then lifted his other hand and slapped her across the face.

*Slap*

"Arnin, I think you won…" Surk wanted to speak out, but Arnin had already landed more than five slaps onto her face. He then lifted Unuz up and threw her towards the door.

"Get out of here. I am going to cultivate now." Arnin looked at both Surk and Unuz with a glare. He wanted to quickly begin absorbing the essence components.

Surk nodded before walking towards the door. He helped Unuz up and walked out, leaving Arnin alone inside the dark room.

-Outside-

"Who *cough cough* is that… boy?" Unuz still found it difficult to speak, however she was horrified by Arnin's strength. Never had she imagined that she would find such a talented person, someone who could defeat an Essence Manifest cultivator while being in the Orb Birth. She had never heard of such a case.

"That kid is not someone you want to mess with, so just ignore what happened. That would be better for you. I will have someone send you to the medical department." Surk didn't try to dissolve much of Unuz's confusion since he himself didn't know the extent of Arnin's mysteries. Anyways, even if he did know something, he wouldn't tell Unuz. There was nothing to gain from that, instead he might even make his relations with Arnin worse.

Unuz stopped asking about Arnin when she saw that Surk didn't want to say more, however she was still curious. Although she felt hatred for Arnin due to his previous beating, she knew that nothing could be done about it. She just wanted to know more about this child, and understand how he got so strong at such a young age.

Reaching the front desk, Surk had someone take the injured Unuz to the medical department. He smiled at her before continuing with his own work.

Inside the black cultivation room, Arnin was sitting silently with his legs crossed. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing at a very steady pace.

The essence in his surroundings was very chaotic, however Arnin did not find anything wrong with such an environment. Not only could this chaos help temper his control over the absorption of essence, he could also find various types of essence components lingering inside the chaos.

Arnin had the white saber come out of his body once more, making it look almost like his bones were coming out of him. After the saber blades were out, Arnin began his absorption.

He was focusing on was finding the components of darkness, death, space and time, as these were what he wished to master as soon as possible. Of course, he was absorbing the excess components into his threads to increase his essence energy.

Time slowly passed, and Arnin was able to find a large amount of death, darkness and space essence. The rarest of the three was not space, but rather death. Darkness was extremely common, and space was also not too difficult to find. Arnin directly absorbed these three into his orb, making them a part of his powers. Sadly, he couldn't find any time components in the room, however he could feel it further up.

As he was engrossed in his own cultivation, he began to notice that there were some components that went into his orb without his approval. He didn't send them in, yet they were still directly absorbed. Arnin found this extremely weird, because he knew that his control over the essence absorption was very good, probably better than many of the people in the academy, however even he wasn't able to control these components that went into his orb.

'Let me see which components have made their way into my orb.' Arnin couldn't understand why this happened, so he wanted to at least check which components traveled into his orb. If they were components that would cause future problems, he would find a way to quickly remove them, however if they would help him, then he wouldn't.

Arnin looked at the new symbols that appeared in his orb and began to derive what elements they were. He discovered a total of three different components went into his orb without his personal efforts. They were namely withering, fire, and… blood.

Arnin was shocked to find a component that was related to blood. He didn't think that something like this would be a component, however what confused him more was why these three elements went into his orb.

The withering had relations to the death component, which could help to explain why it would go into his body, however why did fire and blood appear? Arnin pondered over this for a while before coming up with some theories. His saber had properties of fire, which could possibly attract the component of fire as well, however there was a flaw with this theory. The saber was created from the orb and the tattoos, however the orb was not created from the saber, so there shouldn't be much of a linkage.

'Is it because I controlled solar essence in the past?' Arnin did use the solar essence before, which was mostly composed of fire and life, made him think that maybe this caused it. Arnin wasn't too worried as to why he got the components, but he what made him somewhat apprehensive was whether these components were harmful to his cultivation or not.

Withering was something that fell in a similar category as death, so he didn't find any problem with it. Fire was a very peculiar component, since it was considered one of the major four elements. Although it was it's own component, it had many different types of properties. It could be used for healing, killing, mark making, and much more. It had many benefits, however fire also had another property… light.

One of the major components that Arnin wanted to cultivate was the darkness element, especially since he had cultivated something like darkness in his Demon Lord life. However if he simultaneously nurtured the fire component, there was a chance of these two elements conflicting with one another.

Arnin delved deep into his thoughts to figure out how to solve this problem. Although he could completely remove the fire component, he felt that this would not be a wise choice in the long run. Fire was extremely useful, and it might even help strengthen the saber, but he just couldn't think of a way to make it work with the darkness element.

'What if I tried to combine darkness and fire together to create… that flame?' Arnin suddenly got an idea. In the past, when he was roaming the universe as the Demon Lord, he ran across a particular person who could use an abnormal type of flame. Arnin had captured the person and experimented on his body and his flame to find out its origins.

Later, he found that the flame was composed of different elements that were completely contradictory towards one another. Fire was the core, while darkness and light were mixed to create the energy. The man called this type of flame 'Flames of Neutrality'.

Arnin began to ponder whether he should create such flames for himself. He didn't do so in the past since it was useless for him and it had only piqued his interest, however now was probably a good time to make use of that experiment.

Arnin decided to begin collecting the three different components for this flame. If he could create such a flame, he would have the ability to control three different components with one ability.

Arnin had the fire and darkness components move onto one side of the orb, which wasn't too difficult. He also began to absorb the light essence, and placed the marks on the same side. At the moment, the three different components would not conflict. Only when he progressed in power and realm, and when he had an abundance of the components would they conflict.

A few hours passed and Arnin had collected a good amount of the three components. He made sure that the light and darkness components were equally abundant, while the fire component was double in quantity.

Arnin wasn't able to bring out the three components from his body since he had yet to enter the Elemental Formation realm, however he was still able to combine them inside his body, but there was still a problem with this route. If a problem occurred, then his orb threads, and maybe even his orb could be damaged. Not only that, but his blood vessels, pores and organs could even be seriously hurt, which would cause major concerns in the future.

Arnin took a deep breath. Although there was a chance of injury, he still wanted to risk it and create the Flames of Neutrality.

Arnin delved into the orb and began to combine the components. The first components he would need to combine were those of light and darkness. After they reached an equilibrium,he would add them into the fire component.

He calmed his mind and began to combine the two components. It was extremely risky, but it would be worth it in the end. Arnin slowly pushed the two marks made from the darkness and light components towards each. They were the same size since he had absorbed the same amount of energy for each.

The second the two marks touched one another, sweat poured down his back as he heard his body made noises that resembled crashing waves. His heart pumped faster, and his orb began to shake. Arnin stayed calm, however his body was still going into chaos.

'You goddamned components, mix for me!' He couldn't help but scream inside his head. He slowly began to push the marks deeper into each other. They were overlapping by approximately half now.

If someone walked into the room, they would find that his body was releasing two different gaseous substances. One was black, while the other was white. It looked peculiar and they each gave off completely different auras.

Arnin's nose, eyes, ears and mouth were oozing blood. His body was already taking significant damage from the combination, however he was still extremely lucky. After his body created the octogonal symbols, it was much stronger than the average Orb Birth cultivator's, and probably even stronger than many Essence Manifest cultivators. If it wasn't for that, his body would have long been broken by now.

The two components were already overlapping completely, however they didn't combine yet. They were still two different entities that were in conflict with one another. Arnin had to think of a way to completely combine them, but was unsure as to how he should go about it. Plus, he had very little time to think.

'Wait, isn't this similar to mark making? I can just use the saber to redraw the marks and create a mixed mark.' Arnin suddenly thought of an idea. He remembered that when he first made marks with the saber, the life and fire component combined together to create one single mark. He was sure he could do the same with the darkness and light components.

Determining that this route was possible, he began to control the saber within his body. This time, it was much more difficult than before. Not only was his control over the saber less than amazing, he even had to control it within his body. The risk factor was extremely high, however the rewards would also be much higher.

'I should have tested this out beforehand! Such a dumb mistake!' Arnin cursed his own lack of preparation. He didn't think that there would be so many problems, however he couldn't stop it anymore and had to continue with the whole procedure. If he did stop, then the two components would repel like two opposing magnets, and that would severely damage his orb, possibly crippling it.

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Lilise and Elidia were in the same class, under the same teacher. Lilise had to work extremely hard since she had yet to break through into Orb Birth - Earth, however she could feel that the day was near.

Elidia was not the brightest in the class, however she was still considered very talented. Lilise, on the other hand, was not treated as well as her sister since her cultivation was lacking.

"How do you think she got accepted into the academy? She is not even in Orb Birth - Earth." One of the kids spoke with her friends. The class was only composed of females. "I heard that a Moth student helped her get in." Another child said.

"Wow, if only I could get a Moth student's help. I bet you she isn't even talented." Many of the kids were envious and jealous. Lilise heard what they were all saying and couldn't help but feel disheartened.

'It isn't my fault that I couldn't gather essence like all of you.' She pouted before sitting quietly in the corner. She paid attention to the classes with great interest, however nowhere near being considered popular like her sister. Elidia was very popular, but she was hard to speak to.

After the classes ended three hours later, Lilise walked out with a sullen face. This was the first class, and she was already disliked by so many people. Elidia was one of the most popular people in class, which made her excommunication even more unbearable.

Lilise didn't hang around, and decided to go home first. She felt as though she would get in the way of her older sister, so she walked home alone.

"Haha! My dad sent me here and I passed the exam very easily. I may not be a Moth student, but my talent isn't bad." Kids spoke to each other in the hallways, ignoring the existence of Lilise.

"My talent isn't too bad either. I didn't need to use the quotas since I am not untalented." Kids would usually make fun of others that used quotas, since they believed that having to use one was as sign of weakness. When Lilise heard people bad mouthing quotas, it hurt her even more. She had used a quota to get into the academy. Those remarks were like blades, and made her almost tear up.

Lilise silently walked home. She felt reluctant to go to the Moth residential area, since it felt as though she was leeching off of Arnin, however at the thought of him, she couldn't help but smile slightly. He treated her just like her grandpa did, making her feel safe. She didn't have romantic feelings for him since she didn't understand those kinds of emotions, however she still treated Arnin like a brother.

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Arnin had been in the cultivation room for over three hours now. The light and dark marks were finally completely incorporated. Arnin couldn't help but release a deep sigh of relief. The whole procedure was extremely dangerous, but he finally completed the most difficult part. Now the last thing left to do was to combine the fire essence with the fused component.

Arnin used the same procedure as last time, deciding to utilize his mark making skills. He still couldn't practice beforehand, as he didn't have any excess of light and dark mixture to experiment with. He had no choice but to directly mix them without any preparation.

This time, the level of difficulty was significantly lower, since the two marks being mixed together weren't completely contradictory to one another, however that didn't mean that there was no danger. If he failed to properly mix all three or if he made a mistake, his body could burst into flames and explode from the inside.

Arnin quickly calmed himself down and began the same process once more. This time he had to create a mark that incorporated the three components. Darkness and light were already at an equilibrium, however if he made a mistake, the equilibrium could easily be broken.

A few hours passed by and the situation became much more relaxed. Arnin was able to combine the fire component with the darkness and light component at last, albeit with some difficulty.

Although the three were finally combined, Arnin felt as though there was something missing. He assumed that he would be able to complete the process if he used the mark making method, however the new Flames of Neutrality didn't seem to be complete. It was as though there was still something left to add.

Arnin began to think. He knew everything he did was correct, and that it should be complete, but what was he missing? Suddenly, a thought hit him.

'I used the saber to make the Flames of Neutrality, which means that there are some bits of the saber flames inside of the mark as well. Do I have to add more of the saber flames to prevent the deficiency in the mark?' Arnin didn't think that such a situation would occur, however it wasn't entirely impossible. All three of the main components were integrated inside the mark, however because of the saber flames that were secretly inserted into it, the mark was now considered incomplete. The only possibly solution was to create an equilibrium with the saber flames as well.

Arnin couldn't help but shake his head, however he continued to add in the saber flames, making the mark brighter, and more vibrant. Gradually, it also began to change shape. Flames began to appear, taking the shape of a small oval ball, almost like a… seed!

Arnin was shocked. This new object that the mark transformed into was most likely what Xillar described as a Elemental Seed.

Right when the 'seed' was completed, Arnin felt his whole body heat up. He felt as though he was in a lava pool, however that wasn't everything. A sharp stabbing pain began to spread across his whole body. It was an extremely uncomfortable feeling, however Arnin gritted his teeth and tried to wait it out. This was most likely the last step.

Two colors of gas rushed out of his body, black and white. White and orange flames also began to slowly appear on his skin. Suddenly, all four of the different substances began to merge. The two gasses combined together, then the two flames, and then finally, the new grey gas combined with the cantaloupe orange flames.

*SRRSSHH BOOM*

The sound of an explosion reverberated across the room, however no one other than Arnin heard it.

Arnin had his eyes closed the whole time as he tried to fight against the pain, however after the explosive sound, the pain suddenly turned into a feeling of comfort. He felt as though he had just jumped into a cool lake.

Arnin opened his eyes and saw a flame in front of him. In the past, when he first saw the Flames of Neutrality, they simply looked like a grey fire, however this flame was different. Passed the grey exterior, there were also two small flames rotating around the core. One of the flames was a pure white, just like snow, while the other was an orange like sun.

"I-is this my Flames of Neutrality?"