A Small Flaw

"Though the path of a bloodline sorcerer is smooth, it sometimes harbors tremendous danger."

"As I said before, not only might certain ancestors bear ill intent, but the power of Sin itself, so bitterly hated by the Church, is not easy to control."

"Sometimes, even if an ancestor bears no malice, a vast difference between their spiritual will and yours can still create danger."

"Therefore, bloodline sorcerers need to master certain techniques—techniques for dealing with spiritual will."

"But don't rush. I'll teach you all of them later." Jin spoke to Adam once more. "Don't be so impatient, Nesser. You still have plenty of time."

"I'll maintain the attic's soundproofing until dawn. The latter half of the night is yours. I have a feeling you'll be very busy next." Jin smiled, his body collapsing into a cloud of black smoke that drifted away.

A great deal of soil fell down and piled upon the floor. Adam narrowed his eyes at the heap of earth. He had to admit that Jin's move was indeed convenient: by attaching black smoke to soil, he could directly form a body that looked almost real.

"Then can I learn this move?" As soon as Jin left, the bird flew over and landed in Adam's hair. Unlike the others, it alone particularly liked the top of Adam's head.

Most bloodline sorcerer abilities were unearthed from one's bloodline, but that did not mean they could not be learned.

"Besides, the Nether Soil Meditation Method seems to help in this regard as well." The Fiftieth Child's body had been created by Yi from blood-stained soil, and the Nether Soil Meditation Method had extended from that. Looking at it from this angle, the possibility did not seem small.

After thinking for a moment, Adam set the matter aside. Even if he could learn it, it was not something he could use right now. What he needed was to strengthen his foundation.

Under Jin's guidance, Adam had previously tried the training method once. With his weight leaning toward the body, he had already vaguely sensed the power of life.

As Adam practiced the training method once more, breath after breath, heartbeat after heartbeat, he accurately grasped his own life force.

He merged his will into his life force, guiding it to circulate according to the Heart of Life's Lifeform Diagram.

Every detail of his body seemed unable to escape Adam's perception. Thanks to a werewolf's self-healing ability, there were not many hidden injuries inside him. Only the places where he had suffered fractures before might not have healed perfectly and needed adjustment.

"And..." Adam opened his eyes, ending his first knightly practice, and raised a hand to the scar on his face.

Normally, with a werewolf's self-healing ability, even if scars remained after being injured in human form, they would quickly disappear once one transformed into a werewolf.

But Adam had transformed many times already, and the scar on his face showed no sign of fading at all.

After Adam came into contact with the knight profession, this scar seemed to have become another obstacle.

"Maintain the circulation of life, let life force become complete and overflow—but what if it cannot become complete?" Adam furrowed his brow. If he did not resolve this scar, his path as a knight would be cut off entirely.

Back home, Jin pulled open his collar and looked at the scar on his neck.

"You should have discovered it by now, Nesser," Jin muttered to himself. Then the scar writhed. Jin's face instantly turned deathly pale, and beads of sweat the size of beans streamed down without cease. Black smoke flowed around the scar and wrapped it up, only then allowing it to settle again.

Constantly expending black smoke had left his seal on the scar insufficient.

"Grow quickly, Nesser. I don't have much time left."

Adam's face darkened, and he entered a meditative state.

The Nether Soil Meditation Method was a meditation method derived from Yi's revival of the Fiftieth Child.

As Adam adjusted his Soul Weight to favor the soul, he quickly grasped the key point. Under his nimble control, his spiritual power began to circulate.

Just as Adam had instinctively learned to bolster his bearing or enhance his charm before, this time, his spiritual power strengthened the connection between life and soul.

Life and soul were not wholly unrelated. They existed within the same body and overlapped in many domains, such as perception and charm.

If knightly cultivation began with the interaction between nature and life, then the cultivation of the Nether Soil Meditation Method began with the interaction between life and soul.

Every piece of external and internal information was transmitted to the brain through the body's neural responses, where it was processed collectively. The soul also interacted through this process. All kinds of bodily instincts and external perceptions influenced the soul at every moment, and the soul in turn influenced the human body through them.

Just as the Archbishop had said, people's experiences determined the paints their souls possessed upon that blank canvas.

And every choice determined the manner in which those paints were applied to the soul.

Soul and life influenced one another. Under the effects of the Nether Soil Meditation Method, Adam vaguely grasped this point. He used spiritual power to guard his own soul and interfere with that influence.

For the soul to accept this information, it needed to expend spiritual power, yet much of it was useless garbage information that brought no benefit whatsoever to the soul.

What the meditation method did was actively deal with that information, altering the instinctive operating pattern of spiritual power, establishing an effective new mechanism, prioritizing useful, high-quality information, and blocking out garbage information. Through this process, it gradually transformed the inner nature of spiritual power.

As the meditation continued, Adam gradually fell asleep.

Sleep was originally a state in which one's mind relaxed, allowing taut nerves to rest. The outward manifestation of the meditation method was sleep, but inwardly, Adam's mind was still at work.

Even in sleep, the soul and body exchanged information, only far less of it. For a beginner, this made interference easier.

The soul itself possessed an operating pattern for spiritual power. As Adam actively controlled his spiritual power to intervene, he discovered that his own spiritual power's operating pattern was exceptionally complete.

"Is it the adjustment of Soul Weight?" It was precisely because this operating pattern was already relatively complete that Adam's outward performance had been so outstanding, and it also made cultivating the meditation method easier for him.

Why were some people unsuited to the sorcerer profession? It was because their spiritual power's operating pattern was innately incomplete, or rather, unstable.

Cultivating a meditation method under such circumstances and actively altering that operating pattern was like a company with little capital to begin with, yet having to draw out a large portion of its funds to develop a new product.

If the new product succeeded, it would naturally give the company a whole new face. But more likely, the funds would run dry before development was even halfway complete, leaving even the original operating pattern unable to continue.

The cultivation of every profession depended on talent. If talent was lacking, forcing cultivation would only wreck one's body—unless, under such circumstances, one could bring in outside investment, meaning obtaining some rare resource that could make up for inadequate talent with external resources.

Adam's talent had never been weak. With the adjustment of Soul Weight, that talent had become even more prominent.

Projecting the modification of the operating pattern into the depths of his heart and turning it into a corresponding image, he saw a patch of soil, as though soaked in blood, slowly condense.

A great amount of useless information was absorbed by the soil, while beneficial information seeped through and was absorbed by the soul.

Of course, this did not mean that he could no longer recall that information, nor that he would ignore it. It simply no longer affected the soul.

When Adam woke, he felt light all over. Both his thoughts and body had become more nimble. Several birds were curled up beside him, asleep.

Adam's spiritual power surged out and spread over the little birds. He discovered that it had become easier for him to interfere with them.

He even vaguely sensed that he could regulate the birds' life conditions, or draw out their souls.

"Leaning toward creation or summoning." Adam smiled. Compared to the knight training method, where he had discovered a flaw difficult to remedy, his sorcerer meditation method had progressed well. He had initially condensed Nether Soil, causing a certain transformation in the nature of his spiritual power.

Opening the spellbook Anthony had given him, Adam looked at the spell Anthony had condensed within it.

"Dustless Shield."

Thanks to Zero_, Rainbow Taboo, and $_￥ for your tips. Thank you for your support.