Nuoding Academy, the back hill.
After leaving the cafeteria, Lin Mo hurried straight to Nuoding Academy's back hill with Charmander's egg in his arms.
He had visited this place often over the past six months and had long since familiarized himself with the surroundings.
Few people came here even during the day, and at night, it was so quiet that only the wind and the chirping of insects remained.
It could just about pass for a good place to cultivate, quiet enough and with few people coming to disturb him.
The woods on the back hill were not particularly deep. Following the little dirt path worn by passing feet uphill for a while would bring that solitary little pavilion into view.
The pavilion was small and looked some years old.
Whenever Lin Mo came to the back hill, he spent most of his time in this somewhat dilapidated pavilion, and this visit was no exception.
He found a reasonably clean stone stool and sat down, taking several deep breaths as he savored the rare stillness around him.
With a slight stir of his thoughts, the warm Charmander egg, its surface covered in peculiar patterns, appeared in Lin Mo's arms once more.
He lowered his head to look at the shell, gently stroking it with his fingertips. Under Lin Mo's touch, Charmander's egg trembled faintly, as though responding to him.
"Just that last little bit..." Lin Mo murmured, his gaze turning resolute.
He had come to the academy's back hill to break through the bottleneck to level ten Soul Power. His cultivation had already reached the peak of level nine.
He was only one step from crossing the threshold and smoothly completing his breakthrough.
But Lin Mo was not so impatient that he began assaulting the bottleneck immediately. Instead, he closed his eyes first and worked to regulate his breathing.
He calmed his heartbeat, which had quickened from hurrying here and his excessive excitement. The critical moment of his breakthrough was next, and he had to ensure that his essence, Qi, and spirit were all in peak condition.
While adjusting his mental state, he also diverted some of his attention to checking the panel that only he could see.
[Name: Lin Mo] [Age: Six] [Soul Power: Lv9 (Shared)] [Martial Soul: Heart (Blood)] [Self-Created Soul Skill: Blood Burst (First-Stage Boiling Blood)]
As his gaze swept over the panel, Lin Mo felt a little more confident.
Compared with when he had first awakened his Martial Soul over six months ago, the information on the panel had not changed much.
The most noticeable change was that his Soul Power Level had risen from lv6 to lv9, with the "Shared" notation still clearly displayed.
The increase in Soul Power meant that his six months of arduous cultivation had not been wasted. Moreover, the egg in his arms had been absorbing Soul Power alongside him all this time. With their cultivation speeds added together, they were indeed considerably faster than one person cultivating alone.
The extra line at the bottom of the panel, "Self-Created Soul Skill: Blood Burst (First-Stage Boiling Blood)," gave him particular satisfaction.
He had developed and refined this Blood Burst technique bit by bit, combining his understanding of the heart, meridians, Qi, and blood from his first life with his exploration of his Body Martial Soul in this life.
Its inclusion on the panel meant that the technique had gained recognition on some level, no longer merely the crude use of Qi and blood it had once been.
However, Lin Mo himself knew that Blood Burst was still immature at this stage, which was why he called it "First-Stage Boiling Blood." There would be opportunities to refine it further in the future.
The effect of First-Stage Blood Burst was to use his Heart Martial Soul to precisely mobilize the Bloodline Power throughout his body, briefly enhancing a particular body part or his entire body so that they could unleash greater strength or speed.
Its drawback was equally obvious. Once the burst ended, the enhanced area would fall into a period of weakness. The precise severity and duration were directly related to how much Bloodline Power he consumed.
It counted as a trump card for fighting for his life or catching an opponent off guard at a critical moment. For now, it could not be used as a routine measure.
Before long, Lin Mo's breathing had become long and steady, and his heartbeat had returned to its usual rhythm.
His condition was more or less ready.
Holding the egg, Lin Mo sat cross-legged on the stone stool, his palms, soles, and crown facing heaven as he assumed the standard cultivation posture.
He had long since learned Nuoding Academy's elementary meditation method by heart. Although it was not particularly efficient, it was reliable enough and would suffice for guiding his Soul Power to break through the bottleneck.
He had already touched that bottleneck several days ago, but he had not attempted a breakthrough because he had yet to bring himself into peak condition.
Tonight was different, however. Lin Mo could clearly feel that although the barrier remained sturdy, it had already begun to loosen.
He dared not be careless, repeatedly guiding the Soul Power within him to strike that barrier, until fine beads of sweat gradually seeped from his forehead.
He understood better than anyone what breaking through to level ten Soul Power meant.
It was not merely the first important threshold on his path as a Soul Master, or the prerequisite for obtaining his First Soul Ring. It was also the key to finding his old companion again!
Whether Charmander could hatch all depended on this moment.
That was precisely why he had chosen this secluded back hill for his breakthrough.
Had he been in Dorm Seven, the disturbance from his Soul Power breaking through to level ten might not have been too great. But with Charmander hatching on top of that, it would have been difficult not to draw anyone's attention.
The others would have been manageable. Lin Mo was confident he could fob them off with an explanation.
But the crux of the problem was that neither Tang San nor Xiao Wu was ordinary, and both had keen perceptions. He did not want to take that risk.
What was more, there was Tang Hao, who kept following behind Tang San during the early stages. He was the real reason Lin Mo had always needed to avoid them.
Until he had enough strength to protect himself, there was nothing wrong with keeping a low profile.
Time gradually passed amid Lin Mo's increasingly heavy breathing.
Even Charmander's egg in his arms seemed to sense the turbulence in Lin Mo's Soul Power. Its shell grew faintly hot, conveying a sense of encouragement and support.
A fish-belly white gradually tinged the distant sky. It was around three or four in the morning.
The Soul Power that had accumulated within Lin Mo for so long finally found the perfect opening. In a single instant, his surging Soul Power broke through every obstruction.
I broke through!
Almost at the very instant Lin Mo's Soul Power Level officially reached ten, Charmander's egg in his arms underwent a violent change.
The previously warm shell suddenly became scorching hot, and a dazzling white light abruptly blazed across its surface.
Lin Mo instinctively tightened his hold on the egg, his eyes fixed firmly on that mass of white light.
Crack...
The crisp sound of cracking rang out with particular clarity in the quiet morning.
A crack appeared in the shell, followed by a second and a third. More and more appeared, spreading across the entire shell like a spiderweb.
Before long, fragments of shell fell away, and a warm, somewhat weighty little fellow landed steadily on Lin Mo's legs, which he held together.
Then he nimbly hopped down and stood on the pavilion's somewhat rough stone-paved floor.
He was a small dragon-type Soul Beast with an orange-yellow body, a pale belly, and large blue eyes. The vigorous flame burning at the tip of his tail swayed gently with his breathing.
It was none other than Charmander, Lin Mo's starter companion from his previous life in the Pokémon world!