In the middle of the forest, noises could be heard with the incessantly increasing sounds of footsteps. To the less informed, it might sound like the rhythmic steps of a marching army, but to those that were in the forest, it was a full-on search for an escaped captive. It wasn’t just an ordinary escaping victim, but one that had something to do with the death of their companion.

While the torches and people were frantically searching everywhere, a shadow was running rapidly through the forest. Baya ran with all the strength he could muster, occasionally, he would use the martial movement technique and afterwards, he would switch back to running. Memories of the past month flashed through his mind as he ran. He remembered the strange creatures he encountered at the red lagoon, his time with the slave trappers. This was the first time he had ever encountered such dangers. His formerly docile life gave way to the birth of a new kind of mentality, one he planned to embrace permanently. Within this month, he had reaped something far more valuable than the past 5 years of training. He was finally a level 9 natural energy warrior.

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It had been two full weeks since Willard started focusing on cultivating earth elemental energy. Sitting in a crossed leg position, light brown particles could be seen circulating around Willards being. The light brown particles were the earth elemental energy drawn from his surrounding. Willard was in a deep meditative state, he was currently monitoring his process of cultivating earth elemental energy.

Slowly, his milky core was changing to a light brown colored core. Willard was satisfied with his current rate progression. The vibrations that were occurring while he cultivated, had increased to a much higher degree. This tremors caused Willard to pay even more attention to his core. Even with the experience of his previous life, he had no clue as to why the surrounding space of his core was vibrating.

While cultivating, Willard realized that it was getting increasingly difficult to change the milky natural core to that of a brown elemental core. He knew right now, he had reached the peak of level 2 elemental energy. Willard increased his focus and forcefully pushed the earth elemental energy to his core. After about an hour of forcefully sucking in the earth elemental energy, a cracking sound came from his core, and just afterwards a slight ripple of earth elemental energy flowed outward. Right at this point, Willard had broken through to the 3rd level of earth elemental energy.

Willard had a confused look on his face, as he thought back to the moment of his breakthrough. He noticed a strange ruby red aura appear for a split second before it vanished into thin air. He was confused as to what had happened, he even came to the conclusion he probably saw wrong. While that strange event was occurring, Willard failed to notice a slight greenish glow on the ring his father had given him as a departing gift.

Willard opened his eyes and scanned his environment. He was happy with his current power increase. He stood up and stretched his body for a while, afterwards, he proceeded to leave his room. As he walked out of his room, Willard used his martial movement technique to make his way out of the living quarters. None of the maids noticed any movement, as they continued their regular routine. Willard made his way to the garden of the main house, he stared at the tranquil environment and bore into a silent smile.

“My movement technique has improved considerably since my elemental breakthrough.”

“There is no longer a dust trail when I use the technique,” Willard said self-approvingly.

The principles behind his movement technique had to do with earth gliding. While Willard was connected to the earth beneath his foot, he manipulated the earth itself to move him from one place to the other. The movement martial technique Willard was using applied the laws of the element of earth. When he was at a lower level, he couldn’t quite bring the exquisiteness of the technique. Even right now, it still wasn’t at its best, but none the less it had made major improvements. Willard could use the technique for a longer duration, and he could also cover a longer distance using it.

“I need to develop a low-level earth technique I could use at my current stage,” Willard said as he dropped into a state of self-thought.

Recalling his memories of his past life, Willard realized he had barely developed any earth technique. The earth element was not his dominant technique, so he mostly focused on developing techniques for the fire element.

While Willard was thinking of what technique to create, Arilis walked out of the main mansion. He was shocked to see Willard standing in front of the garden. Without saying a word, Arilis immediately walked back into the mansion.

“This damn earth element. There is no suitable technique I can think of at the moment. It requires a much stronger elemental base to create earth.” Willard said to himself, as he tried something out. The earth slightly trembled as Willard was concentrating earth elemental energy around himself. He seemed to be in a trance almost as if nothing else existed but the unyielding earth. While in this trance like state, Willard thought of the various techniques he had employed throughout his life as the god of destruction. Little by little scenes of the various fights he had been played out in his mind.

A fight scene, in particular, played over and over in Willards head. This was Thanus’s fight against the lesser goddess of earth Eris, She had used the earth to re-enforce her strength by moving the earth to form a complete golem form, in which she was at the core of the golem.

After a couple of minutes , Willard broke into a smile. “I was thinking about the whole thing wrong,” he said nodding his head self-approvingly.

“I am currently a mere mortal. There is no way I can employ an immortal level technique like creating my own earth.”

“I need to think of techniques suitable to mortals.” Willard said seeming to have gained some enlightenment.

“Rather than creating new earth like I did with the desolation rain, I can use the earth beneath my foot.”

Willard concentrated the earth elemental energy within five foot of himself. Slowly, the earth started to fracture and slowly pulling up the broken pieces of the earth into the air. As more earth floated to the air, Willard made a grabbing gesture with his right hand, squeezing it tightly. One by one, the chunked up pieces of earth that were floating around Willard started combining with each other to form a floating spherical ball of earth the size of a man’s head. Willard stared at the ball for some time as he observed the rough surface of the ball. After sometime, Willard made another gesture with his hand. This time, the spherical earth ball changed to an elongated triangular prism. This time around, the surface of the earth triangular prism were a lot smoother than the surface of the spherical ball. After observing the earth triangular prism, Willard moved his right hand in a slashing motion. The triangular earth prism flew to strike the earth itself like a nail to wood. Dust swelled up around the place of impact, and after a couple of seconds the dust settled. About fifty percent of the prism made its way past the surface of the earth.

Willard smiled looking at what had happened. He was currently pleased with the outcome. Willard straightened his palm, which caused the earth triangular prism to slowly break down to dust.

“I would have to test this technique against other mortals to gauge its level.” Willard thought to himself.

“It should be time I pay back some old debts.”

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