It was a towering and flourishing tree that reached all the way into the sky. People couldn’t see the tip of it, but they still felt their minds soothed as the tree leaves rustled gently in the wind.
Slowly, countless green spots emerged from the tree, and when the tree finally stopped growing, the spots went scattering away like dandelion bristles.
The magic array protecting the area glowed and forced all the shiny spots to come to the ground. Each spot would then enter someone’s body. Those staying in the golden zone was, of course, the first ones to enjoy the green spots. But this time, instead of the pleasurable and divine sensation, they were immediately tortured by great agony. Someone with weaker endurance was already writhing and rolling on the ground.
The silence in the area was soon replaced by painful screaming.
Even Keely, who usually remain calm and unruffled, was sweating badly as her eyebrows knitted into a twisted frown.
Compared to most people, Angor seemed rather fine.
The green spots basically had no effect on him. These spots were essentially used for purifying impurities hidden in energy entities. To wizards, their “energy” referred to their mana and spiritual power. However, thanks to Singularity Dispersive Meditation, Angor’s mana capacity was greater than what the green spots could manage. And since the green spots couldn’t work against such a large amount of mana reserve, Angor wasn’t affected by their power at all.
The spots did affect Angor’s spirit power just a little. And to Angor, such mild pain was completely manageable since it was almost nothing compared to what the strange wall inside Nightmare Realm brought to him.
The second phase of purification lasted five minutes. People usually used this chance to purify their mana, while Angor had his spirit cleansed instead.
Such an outcome helped Angor gain another level in his spirit capacity. He might be unable to compete with apprentices who majored in spiritual power, but his spirit was already better and purer than most people at the same level.
Naturally, Angor’s “uncommon” demeanor raised a lot of attention among the wizards.
Those who watched the garden promotion were all experienced enough to conclude that this boy had found a special channeling method, which allowed him to develop his mana pool beyond the effective threshold of the green spots. This meant Angor was a lot more likely to become a wizard compared to the other apprentices.
Angor was not the only one who managed to stay put under the purification power. But he was the only one who was completely unaffected, whereas the other ones were more or less disturbed.
“That’s Mister Phantom’s student for you... Another miracle,” a wizard commented. “I think it’s only a matter of time for this one to become a true wizard now.”
“Sunders’ keen eye never failed once. Just think about Sumesh and Flora! They’re both wizards with great achievements.”
Lawson also paid close attention to Angor’s appearance. “Angor studied Montaus’ Octahedrite Channeling? That’s the best channeling method offered in Brute Cavern, and it’s possible to go beyond the purification power limit by using it.”
Muse nodded nonchalantly. He didn’t really care about Angor’s channeling method since he was still disappointed at failing to catch Angor’s scandal again.
When the second purification phase ended, something changed on the tree.
A single white flower bloomed on a tree branch and released a mind-soothing aroma that covered the entire Altar of Demise area.
This was the third and the final purification phase—the purification of souls.
Ever since the purification garden was constructed, the third phase had only been activated three times. People already knew that the garden promotion would bring such an opportunity again, and this was the reason why so many apprentices came to Floating Mech City.
To become a real wizard, an apprentice needed a decent aggregation of knowledge as well as several non-bypassable factors such as one’s energy capacity, physical strength, and soul quality.
Energy capacity and bodily strength were both easier to achieve since they only required enough training and time. One could even enhance physical properties overnight by organ implantations or using a proper bloodline.
Compared to these, strengthening one’s soul was extremely difficult. There were only a few known potions or other means with such an effect, which were both hard to find and unaffordable for apprentices.
The officials of Floating Mech City openly told everyone that a soul-improving chance was guaranteed inside the purification garden, thus attracting huge groups of apprentices to come.
The sweet aroma released by the Flower of Purification was exactly what they needed right now.
Instantly, the aroma traveled to every corner of the altar plaza and reached everyone. The locations of apprentices would greatly affect the final outcome this time; those in the golden zone could take in most of the aroma, while apprentices in the outer areas could only acquire a decreased amount.
Soon, the magical aroma reached Angor’s soul space and found his soul.
Before his soul was cleansed, however, something happened to the Green Velvet first.
After receiving an early purification in Soul Genesis Garden, the Green Velvet had given birth to a small patch of grassland that acted as a perfect barrier that protected Angor’s soul.
As the aroma approached him, Angor could see a number of tiny flowers growing on the grass, which quickly turned the otherwise empty grassland into a colorful garden.
As the purification power approached the center, the giant flower bud, which had always been floating quietly above the grassland, moved a little as if a giant blossom were in the making.
Angor frowned a little as he remembered Felicia’s words. When examining his soul, Felicia mentioned something like “allowing the Green Velvet to fully mature may not be a good thing”.
Angor never took those words to heart since the Green Velvet looked pretty far from maturity. But it seemed the purification power unexpectedly quickened its growth.
Angor wasn’t sure if Felicia was telling him the truth back then. He assumed that after the incident when examining his soul, Felicia should have no reason to lie to him. Angor was planning to ask Sunders about it, yet he never found a chance for it.
As he considered the question, the aroma had traveled through the garden and reached his soul.
The aroma slowly entered his soul...
And... nothing happened.
The visible aroma with the power of purification simply vanished. Precisely speaking, it vanished around the strange scar behind Angor’s soul.
What’s going on??
Another small lump of aroma entered Angor’s soul space probably because it wanted to continue its job. But again, it disappeared and became nothing.
As the other apprentices were enjoying the only drift they received, over ten units of aroma had entered Angor’s body and were still going.
Another minute had passed, with another dozen drifts of aroma sank into Angor’s soul. Rather than cleansing Angor’s soul, the aroma kept nourishing his Green Velvet.
The aroma created by the law of purification was originally the power to cultivate someone’s soul, and at the same time, the best fertilizer for Green Velvet. Angor could clearly sense that the strange plant in his soul space, which required at least ten years to attain its full growth, was developing at an insane speed.
Angor watched the flower bud slowly opening up and felt his mind getting anxious.
He opened his eyes and noticed that those around him were all showing painful looks. The one closest to him, Keely, had several thick blood veins pulsing on her forehead.
Opposite them, Jebra looked pretty miserable as he tumbled back and forth on the ground while yelling loudly. As he could no longer keep up his vapor barrier, his bald head was fully exposed for everyone to see.
The other apprentices didn’t look any better.
Angor felt his ears troubled by all the terrible screaming coming from everywhere and didn’t know what to do next.
He might go to Sunders later and ask about the Green Velvet. But what now?
Should I pretend that I’m in pain? Otherwise, people will think that I didn’t get anything from the purification. That would be sad.
He made up his mind and made an “ahh” sound as loudly as he could.
Despite his true intention, it looked more like he just got a brain fart. Luckily, no one was in the right condition to see his foolish act.
He then cleared his throat and decided not to make any sound. He copied Keely’s expression by frowning as best as he could so that people would assume that he was distressed.
Unknown to him, everything was fully recorded by the giant screen.
Again, Angor was lucky enough that only a few people noticed his attempt since Lawson ordered the screen to show the entire Altar of Demise. Among all the suffering apprentices, Angor was not really eye-catching.
These few people included several wizards who always focused on Angor’s condition, such as Mithra and Muse.
And when they saw Angor feigning his “painful scream”, they were all at a loss of words at the boy’s stupid performance.
Sabot escaped from the great embarrassment first by rubbing his temples. So that’s why Sunders didn’t come... He knew that his new student is a little nitwit.
Mithra finally lost it and began to laugh out loud. “HA! Such a pity that Yeliya isn’t here to watch the boy!”
Muse was also smiling joyfully, but with a completely different reason—what he recorded just now could be well used to threaten the boy later.
Angor’s funny act was only a trifle matter that they would soon forget. Compared to this, they all silently noted down a bigger question in their minds—Why is this boy completely unaffected by soul purification?
The only explanation for this was that Angor’s soul quality was extremely good and was probably at the same level as some of the strongest soul-manipulator apprentices.
But is that possible?
Nobody could tell for sure.
In the end, people made a conclusion that Angor had been intentionally training his soul because the boy seemed pretty good at soul ejection.