For a moment, Tyr sat there simply contemplating how amazing this technique could be.

‘In the future, I could just sit down to cultivate and have dozens of crows gathering Aura for me at once. The most significant thing when it comes to seeing this technique’s true potential is how fast a hollow crow can turn into a real Aura crow.’

Tyr decided to call the crows that weren’t visible to the naked eye ‘hollow’ crows.

This was because he already knew what they looked like, having absorbed the cultivation technique and understanding how it all worked.

Before leveling up to permanent crows, the hollow crows would be like black-outlined figures with a see-through body.

Their wings and beaks were prominent, but the rest wasn’t there. They had a wispy, shadowy energy that followed them.

As with every other cultivation technique, only the user, Tyr, could see these hollow crows.

After leveling up to the ‘shadow crows,’ as Tyr decided to call them in Tyr’s soon-to-be

Shadow Flock,

these crows would look like normal crows except with glowing purple eyes.

They would also still retain that shadowy black energy.

Thinking about all of this made Tyr eager to try it out.

Not wanting to wait any longer, he sucked down his two S Grade pills and took in a deep breath to begin his meditation.

As Tyr began to meditate, he observed himself from a third-person perspective.

He could see nothing but blackness all around. At the center of it all was his outlined white figure.

Like being traced with chalk on a blackboard, all that existed of Tyr was the lining of his body.

More, Tyr’s Aura Core was fully visible due to this transparent outlining.

It was small, but filled with colorful Aura.

Along with that, Tyr could see what looked to be the outlining of his veins stretching throughout his body.

Upon closer observation, Tyr noticed that these lines represented something else rather than veins.

They were slightly thicker and fewer in branches.

‘These must be my meridians. I’m surprised this is the first time I’ve ever seen them,’ Tyr mused, remembering what meridians were from word of mouth.

All that he knew about them was that, like veins carried and transported blood to the heart and throughout the body, meridians carried and transported Aura to the core and throughout the body all the same.

After visualizing using the

Shadow Flock

Cultivation Technique for a minute or so, a slight smidgen of Aura slowly evacuated Tyr’s core.

It traveled through a meridian route before exiting and floating. Within seconds, it transformed into a black, shadowy crow outline.

‘My first hollow crow…’ Tyr mused, ‘Go… fetch me Aura.’

The crow had already begun to hunt for the good stuff before Tyr’s order, that being all it knew how to do.

Tyr looked at the crow’s movements very closely.

‘I wonder how exactly it works. Is it some sort of preprogrammed intelligence using the Aura Array, like AI? Or… does it have a mind of its own?’

The crow flew by small drops of Aura floating around in the air.

‘Huh? It ignored the Aura?’

As soon as Tyr said this to himself in puzzlement, the crow grabbed a large, condensed blob of Aura with both its talons and its mouth.

It turned swiftly, returning to Tyr without delay.

Tyr was amazed by this.

‘So it sees the different Aura options and goes for what gives it the best return on investment for the time it takes to reach the Aura… that’s impressive.’

The more that time passed, the more Tyr was loving this technique.

The crow didn’t slow down while torpedoing toward Tyr, spiraling right through his body.

It flew across as though Tyr was just a hologram, but most of the Aura was swiftly inserted into Tyr’s core.

The leftovers scattered around Tyr’s body were quickly gathered by the meridians and carried to the core in an efficient manner.

The crow, on the other hand, did not stop even once, already on the hunt for the next Aura glob.

After half an hour or so, Tyr finally began to see the Aura releasing from the two pills he had consumed.

‘I guess the better the cultivation technique, the faster I’ll be able to absorb these spells. The mastery of the technique also matters, it seems, since many crows will most likely speed up the process as well.’

As soon as the fairly abundant Aura oozed out from the pills, the hollow crow swooped in, circling around Tyr as it continuously thrust all the Aura that it could catch into Tyr’s core.

‘It seems to catch about half of the Aura for now… but after getting more hollow crows, or advancing this one to a greater shadow crow, I should be able to fully absorb the Aura.’

Despite this, what Tyr absorbed now was close to double from the day prior.

Time continued to pass as Tyr cultivated. After an hour of total cultivation, Tyr had gained three levels’ worth of Aura.

‘Not too bad at all.’ Tyr smirked.

‘One level from the crow alone, and two this time from the pills instead of just one. As I get more crows and advance my technique, I’ll get power even more efficiently.’

He was quite satisfied, opening his eyes as he distributed his status points.

[Vitality: 127/127–>130]

[Strength: 136–>137]

[Stamina: 125/125–>126]

[Aura: 124–>125]

After closing the Status panel, he noticed the stares of dozens around him.

His brow raised.

“What do you want?” he stood up.

There were ten monks in front of him, whispering to each other while staring at him.

Behind him were double the amount as compared to in front, all intrigued by the young man.

“Those techniques… you absorbed all of them?” one of the younger monks asked.

“Huh? Oh, those ones? Yeah. I made sure to get every last one,” Tyr replied.

The monk who asked the question frowned.

“Tsk… couldn’t save any for the rest, huh? We never get cultivation techniques like those in our temple. That merchant was the last in years…”

Tyr looked around, recognizing that most of the crowd shared the same sentiment.

“That merchant was no merchant. He was a scammer,” Tyr said with a straight face, capturing everyone’s attention.

“If I hadn’t gotten these, no one would have. You would all have lost your techniques instead. Be thankful that at least one of the people in this monastery got to use the techniques,” Tyr exclaimed before walking off.

He knew this was a bit harsh to say, but it was the truth. Plus, Tyr didn’t find it right that these so-called ‘monks’ were getting so damn greedy.

‘Or maybe it’s just me who’s too greedy… I don’t feel like giving a single cultivation technique to anyone other than myself right now… whatever. I’m not a monk. I can be as greedy as I want… if my dream is still my dream, that is.’

Tyr made it back to the plum blossom garden, ready to practice.

After taking his clothes off—everything except his underwear—he walked toward the plum tree he always trained under and took in a deep breath before exhaling.

A gust of wind flew past him, sucking in a petal.

Tyr remained steady, waiting for the petal to be carried away by the wind before swiftly moving his finger behind it.

‘A perfect catch…’ Tyr said to himself. Explore more adventures at mvl

But then, the petal moved slightly to the left—avoiding Tyr’s finger.

His brows immediately furrowed.

‘Impossible… I felt no wind coming from the right.’

As his eyes darted toward the right, he saw a bullet come mere inches from penetrating through his skull.

Because he had looked to the right just milliseconds early, he was able to barely dodge the bullet.

‘Blink Step.’

“Who is it!” he shouted aggressively.

‘I knew I wasn’t wrong there. It would be impossible for that petal to avoid me without some sort of outside influence.’

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