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After all, Kaida had completed his evolution and wasn't so small anymore. Diana had spent a long time with Kaida in the Mystic Realm, but he had been a little ink snake unable to do anything but eat and nibble on her hair back then.

Diana glanced to the side and saw Stella intently reading the flames flickering on Ashlock's trunk in the ancient runic language that she was sure Stella would force her to learn later.

"Mhm, I see. How impressive sounding." Stella said as she turned to face her, "Alright, according to Tree, Kaida is now an Ebonflow Serpent Sovereign. He also mentioned something about Kaida's ink affinity merging with water and darkness. Errr... supposedly, this evolution also seems to boost Kaida's offensive capabilities, allowing him to attack with torrents of ink and water? Sounds pretty menacing if you ask me."

Diana nodded and looked down at the snake trying to coil around her leg. Crouching down, she patted Kaida on the head and tried to think about his rare combination of affinities.

Actually, even with Ashlock's power, there's no way that Kaida could access three affinities simultaneously.

Diana placed her palm on Kaida's head and closed her eyes. She confirmed her suspicion by sending a pulse of Qi into the snake's body, which made Kaida hiss.

"Kaida has a Soul Core with ink affinity and is somewhere near the bottom of the Soul Fire Realm." Diana opened her eyes and stood back up, "But he likely has a strong Dao comprehension of water and darkness."

"That was my thought as well." Stella said, "Three separate affinities sounded unlikely." She then tapped her chin as she looked at the two-meter-long snake. Kaida looked between them curiously, his tongue flickering out nervously.

"Diana, do you know anything about ink affinity?"

"Not a lot, to be honest—nobody in the Blood Lotus Sect has the affinity. But there are some merchants and tales about ink affinity cultivators." Diana crossed her arms as she tried to scrape her mind for those distant memories she had picked up through stories and books over the years.

"Let me see... I believe ink affinity is very similar to water, except it has a magical ability to alter reality and manifest things."

Stella stared at her, confused, "What does that even mean?"

"For example, I could create an elemental out of the water Qi to fight for me, whereas Kaida could draw creatures with the spiritual ink, and these creatures would then come to life as manifestations and fight."

"Isn't ink just a better version of water, then?" Stella asked, "No offense, of course. But if ink can act just like water and even manipulate reality..."

Diana chuckled, "No offense taken. The simple answer is the environment." A ball of swirling water condensed into a cloud, and finally, a ball above Diana's palm, "Water is all around us. In the air, rivers, oceans, and even your body. But where is ink?"

"Oh... Yeah, I see now." Stella frowned, "So Kaida has to conjure all of this spiritual ink straight from his Soul Core?"

"Yeah, and that's not the only problem. Cultivating ink Qi is impossible as it doesn't exist around us, so he has to convert the ambient chaotic untamed Qi into ink Qi inside his Soul Core, making cultivation ten times slower." Diana sighed.

Stella still didn't seem convinced entirely that ink was worse than water, so Diana felt the need to add, "Rare affinities, although powerful, have so many downsides that most sects prefer to populate themselves with basic affinities like earth, water, fire, and air."

Diana then gestured around, "You can only practice and use a rare affinity like spatial as much as you do because Ashlock is passively releasing spatial Qi everywhere."

"Mhm, that's true." Stella nodded, "Anyway, we are getting off-topic. Ink affinity... What else can it be used for besides drawing creatures and having them come to life?"

You're the reason I got off-topic! How can you think ink is better than water affinity?

Diana paused her thoughts. Why was she getting so mad over Stella accidentally insulting her affinity? Ugh, whatever.

With a sigh, Diana replied, "As I said before, the spiritual ink can bend reality to make anything possible. One of the greatest legends regarding an ink affinity cultivator was when a man went insane and painted heaven's gaze with his own blood. Upon the final stroke of his bloody brush on the white canvas, it glowed with power as the spiritual ink manifested into a giant golden eye that obliterated him with lightning."

"Right..." Stella eyed Kaida with a dubious look. "That does sound ridiculously strong. Do you have any ideas for a more basic skill, perhaps? One we could try and coax Kaida into learning?"

"Sure, I would say anything to do with calligraphy would be his best place to start. If he could write something in his spiritual ink like a runic word, something might happen?" Diana shrugged, "This is all speculation, though. I did some background research regarding ink affinity because it's so close to water affinity, and I thought the stories about it sounded interesting. Still, I only spent a few hours reading a few books."

Stella crouched down and tried to pat the snake, but it swerved its body to avoid her hand. "Little guy, let me pet you... please? Sigh." Lowering her hand in defeat, she continued, "Well, if we get stuck, I'm sure we can ask Elaine to sneak some technique manuals out of the Academy for us, assuming there are any for ink affinity."

Standing back up, Stella took a few steps back and arrived under the shade of the nearby demonic tree, "Kaida seems to only like you, so I will stand back here and observe. Maybe try to get him to write something in the ancient language."

"Will he know it?" Diana asked.

"Perhaps," Stella leaned against the tree, "Larry seemed to be able to understand it, so I don't see why the snake wouldn't be able to either. They are both pets of Tree, after all!"

Diana turned and eyed the snake, "Can you?"

Kaida tilted his head and flickered out his tongue. His black scales already appeared to have a sticky texture, making Diana think if she placed her hands on Kaida, they would return covered in black paint. This staring contest went on for a while until Kaida brought his tail between them.

He slowly scraped his tail across the bare stone, and Diana saw ink left in a trail behind. Kaida was really using his tail as a brush to write!

There was a silence only broken by the sound of Kaida scratching his tail against the stone. Diana and Stella exchanged surprised glances a few times, but neither dared to disturb the snake.

Eventually, Kaida withdrew his tail, gave his work a once over, and then glanced back at Diana with his golden eyes as if asking her to read it.

Diana tried deciphering the black squiggles but couldn't make heads or tails of their possible meaning. "Hey Stella, what does this say?"

Stella snorted, "If you bothered to learn the ancient language instead of sleeping and reading random history books, then maybe you could read it."

"Don't use this opportunity as a way to make fun of me," Diana rolled her eyes, "Just come and translate it already."

"Fine..." Stella pushed herself off the tree and walked over, "But this should be a good reason to actually sit down and learn it! You can take the language comprehension fruit. It will be over before you even know it."

"Yeah, yeah." Diana stood back to give Stella space, "Whatever you say."

"Now let's see..." Stella leaned over the runic words, "This translates to... explosion?"

Kaida tapped the words with his tail, and Diana saw a rush of Qi spread throughout the ink, causing it to briefly glow and then... explode upwards.

Right into Stella's face.

Stella stumbled back, more surprised than hurt. Her hair was all over the place and drenched in sticky black ink. "What the..." Stella mumbled as she blinked away the confusion.

Diana glanced back at Kaida and saw the snake having the time of his life. He slapped his tail excitedly against the floor while hissing in a way Diana interpreted as laughing.

"Tree, your pet is bullying me!" Stella glared at the snake as she tried to pull out the ink that drenched her hair. Diana gave the snake a playful wink and then turned to Stella, "Come here. Let me help you with that."

As Diana had expected, ink was close enough to water that she could manipulate it without much issue. With a mere thought, the ink was pulled from Stella's hair into a swirling ball above her palm. Diana then passed the ball of ink back to Kaida as she knew how hard it must have been to cultivate that amount of ink Qi.

I can easily gather water Qi from the air, but any ink Qi Kaida uses on techniques sets his cultivation progress backward. So it's best to return it to him when possible.

Kaida stopped his happy hissing and opened his mouth to gobble up the tiny floating ball of ink.

Diana approached the snake with a smile. While playfully scratching his chin, she whispered, "You're a little troublemaker, aren't you? Don't be so mean to Stella. She is a nice person... sometimes."

Kaida returned a blank stare that made Diana softly laugh.

Stella tapped Diana on the shoulder. "Yeah?" Diana asked over her shoulder, and Stella handed over a stack of parchments with a single fruit placed on top.

"Since you want to take that rascal's side," She smiled, but it wasn't a sweet and kind smile at all, "Then you can practice the ancient language with him!"

Diana took the parchments with a sigh. Even she could see the immense value of learning the ancient language now. Not only to communicate with Ashlock directly but also to be able to translate Kaida's ink.

Hopefully, the language comprehension fruit will make this more tolerable.

Lowering her arm so Kaida could coil himself around it, Diana took off to the corner of the mountain peak to pick a demonic tree within the high water Qi area so she could cultivate and learn the ancient language simultaneously.

"Come on, Kaida, we got some work to do."

***

Ashlock couldn't believe it. His little pet snake had really used his powers for the first time!

"Wow, ink affinity is far more versatile than I first thought if Diana's story about the guy who painted heaven's eye is true. Can it really manifest anything? I assume there are limits to its power, but what are they?" Ashlock was fascinated.

Of course, he could already identify the many drawbacks of ink affinity.

"The amount of ink that Diana managed to gather from Stella's hair was a mere fraction of the total ink he expelled to create that... array? Would array be the correct term? It acts like an array but more of a one-time thing."

Ink affinity's high cost aside, just the fact that it took Kaida a few minutes to draw out the ancient runes for such a harmless effect was concerning.

"Obviously, he will get faster with time, but what if the opponent can read the ancient script from afar? He got lucky this time because Stella was careless, but I doubt he could catch Stella with a prank like that again."

However, downsides naturally come with upsides. Ashlock had picked the ink affinity for Kaida over the others because he believed it had great future potential and how well he would work alongside Diana.

"The fact Diana was able to gather the expelled ink into a ball like that and return it to Kaida is already proof that maybe Kaida could use Diana's mist as a canvas for his spiritual ink?" Ashlock could already picture the scene of Diana dashing through her haunted mist with Kaida wrapped around her demonic form or slithering through the mist beside her and filling the mist with floating arrays of spiritual ink that do a wild variety of things.

While Ashlock was lost in his fantasies, Stella returned to sit on the bench and closed her eyes to cultivate. With nothing to do other than watch the sun traverse through the sky, Ashlock also decided to get some cultivating done for once, as repairing Titus was taking a real strain on his Qi reserves, and he hadn't conversed deeply with heaven for a long while.

***

Elaine awoke to the birds chirping and warm sunlight on her face. "Ugh... it's morning already?" She groaned as she turned over and buried her face in the fluffy pillow.

She had slept like a log as she had yearned for a comfortable place to sleep ever since arriving at the Ashfallen Sect.

They were all good people, but they were also cultivators. They could ignore the temptation of sleep for days, weeks, or even months. But Elaine was barely

a cultivator. She still had many mortal needs.

Actually, Stella should be able to stay up indefinitely now that she is in the Star Core Realm. And she is so young too... I'm jealous.

With a sigh, she rolled over a little more, and the sudden feeling of warm skin next to her shocked her slowly awakening mind. Her eyes shot open, and she saw Douglas's hulking form sleeping peacefully beside her.

They hadn't done the deed last night as she hadn't felt ready after a single date. But she still felt terribly embarrassed to sleep half-naked with someone else for the first time. Carefully exiting the blanket one leg at a time, Elaine tried to sneak over to the corner of the room where her clothes had been tossed, but the floorboards of the inn they were staying at creaked underfoot.

"Morning," Douglas said as his eyes sleepily opened.

Elaine was frozen in place, her arm reaching to grab her dress. To her relief, Douglas seemed to take even longer than her to free himself from the drowsiness of sleep, so she quickly got dressed.

"Leaving so soon?" Douglas said with a yawn as he sat up in bed, causing the poor bedframe to creak loudly.

"I need to get to the Academy before morning registration." Elaine replied with a weary smile, "And it's already late morning. You are welcome to come and see me at lunch, though?"

Douglas grinned, "Sounds good. I always wondered what the Academy was like from the inside."

"Cool." Elaine said, feeling awkward standing there, "Well... see you later then."

Turning to leave, she made it halfway out the door when Douglas shouted after her, "This inn does killer sandwiches, so don't forget to grab one on your way out. Wouldn't want you to go hungry."

Elaine wasn't sure why, but Douglas's care warmed her heart.

"Thanks, will do." She replied with a smile and then closed the door carefully behind her.

***

Elaine strode through the campus grounds with a sandwich in hand. Honestly, she wouldn't describe it as 'killer,' but it wasn't bad at all. Perhaps she had been spoiled with high-grade cultivator food made from powerful beasts her whole life, so much so that a genuinely good sandwich like this made from mortal ingredients tasted so... bland.

There was also the chance that her appetite was being soured by all the stares she was getting. Every group of students she walked by seemed to pause in their tracks to gawk at her as if she were some caged animal on display for their pleasure.

Initially, she thought it was because she had been away from campus for a while, and they were amazed to see her return, but then she reality-checked herself.

You spent every waking hour, every day, in that study with uncle. There's no way even half these people know of me, and my disappearance for a few weeks shouldn't warrant this type of reaction.

Was there something on her face? Had Douglas left a mark on her or something? She decided to soldier on and check herself out in the mirror in her office.

Alas, as Elaine rounded a corner to cut across the gardens to get to the library that dominated the skyline, she bumped into someone she didn't want to see.

"Cousin?" A man she knew all too well was standing before her, and his jaw was practically on the floor.

"Hey, Jasper," Elaine replied with a tired smile, still not knowing what made everyone freak out. "Long time no see. Where's my brother?"

Since they were little, Jasper had been her brother's friend, and the three would often hang out. However, once Jasper was found to have lackluster talent in cultivation, he was sent off to the Academy here in Darklight City alongside Elaine.

If I remember correctly, Jasper is supposed to graduate this year. But despite being older than me, he is only at the 3rd stage of the Soul Fire Realm.

"Gosh, I hardly recognized you," Jasper schooled his expression and straightened up, "Funny you should mention your brother... I was just on the way to meet up with him. The Voidmind airship should be arriving within the hour. Do you want to come with me to meet him?"

Elaine felt a terrible sinking feeling brewing in her chest. She knew her brother would be arriving soon. But now that the moment was here, she didn't want to face him.

"I have something to check up on in my study," Elaine weakly brushed off the request and shuffled past Jasper, "But I will be right behind you."

"Oh... okay." Jasper ran a hand through his pitch-black hair, a trait many of the Voidmind family had. "Well, see you later then."

Elaine breathed out a sigh of relief as she saw Jasper leave. Now more than ever, she wanted nothing more than to reach her study and find out what the hell was wrong with her face.