Kanoru returned to his house in the evening and did not enter to practise immediately. He and Asuna talk, mainly he talks, informing her of what was discussed with the highest council.
Asuna, after listening to him, says," Then for the next six months you will not participate in the war. When the war starts after 12 days. Then what about us."
Kanoru says," They did not mention anything about you guys."
Asuna replies," Except you, anyone in our army may not enter their eyes. So, they did not mention anything about us."
Kanoru nods, thinking she is right. As the councillors are the highest decision-makers, they cannot think of the 100 or so forces now in the Sacred Continent like theirs.
He says," They did not send us any order to move to the coastline and left us here. So maybe they would not let you guys participate before I fully mastered the grey energy."
Seeing Asuna's thoughtful look.
He continues to reassure her, saying," If they send you to battle during my practice. I would not be able to fully concentrate on mastering the grey energy."
" My mind will always wander to worrying about you guys."
Asuna nods, her expression easing. She worried about participating in the war without Kanoru because the upcoming war would be more brutal. People whose cultivation realm is below Spirit King will be cannon fodder.
Even Spirit Kings would not be safe and can only guarantee their lives. Only people with strength similar to Kanoru can protect themselves and even take care of others.
So, thinking of Kanoru not participating in the war with them makes her worry. After getting assurances from Kanoru, her worry somehow eased. But it will always remain till Kanoru fully masters the grey energy.
So, she says," The dinner is already ready. So, after having dinner, you quickly enter your retreat room."
Kanoru is aware of why Asuna wants him to quickly enter his retreat room. He too quickly enters his retreat room, but he has to meet some people. He says," I should meet Hideyo and his two friends. They are in the spirit king realms, it would be rude if I did not meet them after they join us."
He senses their aura inside the city, and after that, he leaves his house to meet them. He met them in Hideyo's house in the city, and after some pleasantry, and told them about the meeting of the highest council.
He requested them not to leave the army before he came out of retreat. As he is aware, they join and become part of his army for Kanoru's protection. In the coming six months, or before he mastered the grey energy, he would not be able to participate in the war if the order came from above calling his army to participate.
They agreed with him and reassured him they would not leave. After that, Kanoru returned to his house and had a hearty dinner, and he entered his retreat room.
Inside his retreat room, sitting cross-legged, Kanoru starts to comprehend the rest of the explosive aspects of the fire elemental energy. His spiritual energy feels the fire elemental energy particles. And he feels particles one by one to find which contains the explosive aspects.
He did not find any fire elemental particle containing explosive aspects in the outer layer of fire elemental energy. So, his spiritual energy starts to feel the fire elemental particles in the inner layer.
He quickly discovers the three particles that contain the explosive aspect. But he already comprehended them. So, without wasting any time on them, he searched the 28 other fire elemental particles in the inner region. He can tell the difference between each particle by its frequency.
Particles that contain the same rule vibrate at the same frequency. So he did not waste time sensing the particles with the same rule. After carefully searching and sensing each particle, he found two particles containing the explosive aspects.
But he did not start to comprehend them, but entered the core layer of the fire elemental energy to check if any of the particles inside the core layer contained explosive aspects. Checking the core layer is harder and time-consuming because even if his strength reaches the limit of the Spirit King realm.
But the fact is, he recently entered the Spirit King realm. Only two months passed he entered the spirit king realm. His spiritual energy is not powerful enough to it can easily sense the rules contained in each of the particles in the core area of the fire elemental energy.
He did not find an explosive aspect in the core area. So, then he started comprehending the two particles containing the explosive aspects.
" Boom!" Dust spreads, trees uproot, and cries of beasts as they run away from the explosion. When everything settles, Kanoru looks at the hole he created in the side of a hill while creating a new spell, he tests their power.
The spell he tested is powerful enough that if a spirit king is directly hit by the spell. The spirit king would be injured. It contains all the explosive runes of fire and wind elements. Mastering the spell, Asuna would comprehend all the explosive runes, and this spell may even help her to advance to the spirit king realm.
He says," But, I am not satisfied with the power of the spell." The spell only contains explosive runes, so it can only absorb free fire and wind elemental particles in the air to increase its spell power.
To make the spell more powerful, he needs to add absorption, transformation, and control runes. The absorption runes absorb the spiritual energy around the world, the transformation runes convert the spiritual energy to fire and wind elemental energy, and the control runes control the fire and wind elemental energies.
Only adding them will not work; he has to create the spell model in a way that everything increases the power of the spells. Before he starts to create the spell, he jumps on a boulder and sits on top of it.
He cannot create the spell in a short time, and it will take days. So, he takes a comfortable position to create the spell. He then started to create the spell.
Two passed, and again he opened his eyes and stood at the top of the boulder. He opens his palm toward the previous hill where he tested the spell. In the beginning, spiritual energy to gathered and slowly transformed the spiritual energy into fire and wind elemental energies.
Then, a spherical orange runic formation appears, trapping the hill in the middle. The runic formation has nine small circular runic formations inside it, and runic chains connect them, forming a large sphere trapping the hill inside.
The fire and wind elemental energies start to gather in the nine circles, and as they gather together, they form an orange energy ball, and the ball starts to grow larger. The trees, rocks and soils outside the hill start to be pulled toward the nine orange energy balls.
The nine orange energy balls, as they grow larger and more elements are condensed inside them, acquire a gravitational pull. Outside the formation, nearby objects are attracted to the nine energy balls. But inside the formation, attraction from the nine energy balls together makes it objects inside difficult to move, as the pull from the nine sides traps them inside the formation.
Then it happens, a sun rose from the ground, the light that appears blinds Kanoru. That, in instinct, he closes his eyes. Then comes the shockwave and the sound of the explosion. They did not do any harm to him, even though he was standing close to the explosion.
He also did not feel much heat from the explosion. As the spell formation concentrates the explosion inside the formation, only little damage radiates outside the formation.
When he feels the light disappear, he opens his eyes and looks at the dust cloud obscuring his vision. Then he senses the spiritual energy of others scanning the place.
He understands that the aftermath of the explosion is felt by people in the cities and towns around the explosion site. When, with their spiritual energy, they discover him and the reason behind the explosion, they take back their spiritual energy.
After the dust settles, what remains in the place of the hill is a large dust mound. The hill vanishes because of the explosion, and what remains is nothing but dust. That settles down together, forming a mound.
Seeing the damage from the spell, Konaru is satisfied. The damage from the spell would even injure him means it can damage the enemy even if they are protected by their phantasm. And they may even die if they take the damage to their real body.
Because not many people have refined their bodies like Kanoru to the level of the Spirit King realm. The only shortcoming is the time it takes from when the spell starts to absorb spiritual energy to the final explosion.
He did not fully master the spell, even if he created the spell. Some tweaks are still needed. But even after perfecting the spell, it would still take some time to activate, as it is a powerful spell. The spiritual energy needed for the spell is massive, and it takes time to gather.
He can perform the spell with his chakra, but then half of his chakra would be consumed by the spell. It would not be dangerous for him with his strong body and devouring aspect from the devouring water, his chakra would return quickly. But it would be dangerous for Asuna.
As the spell is not for him, it is for her.
So, he made a note in his mind to later remind her when he taught her this spell. He would also not perfect the spell. Give the spell as it is, because it will help understanding of fire and elemental energy, as she perfects the spell makes it her own.
Kanoru finishes creating the spell, so he flies to return to his house and gives Asuna the gift. In no time, he reaches his house and lands in front of the house's door. Before entering the house, he scanned the house, not finding Asuna, and the lock of Gu Mingzhu's retreat room was still present. Meaning Gu Mingzhu is still in retreat, but he thinks the time of her coming out is getting close.
Because she did not know about the agreement of Kanoru with the councillors. And she would come out thinking she had to participate in the war. Inside the retreat room, she may not be aware passing of time, but she would feel that the time of the war starting again is coming closer.
Today is the last day of the truce; from tomorrow, the war will start again. So, even if she is aware of the time passing inside the retreat room, she would feel the 30 days of truce are coming to an end, and anytime Asuna would call her to come out of the retreat room. In that situation, she would not be able to practice with all her attention.
Kanoru enters the living room, sits on a sofa, and waits for Asuna. Thinking that the creation of the spell for Asuna is finished. Now, he comprehends the other four aspects. It would not matter in which order he comprehends them, but still, he decided to comprehend the devouring aspect first.
With a full understanding of the devouring aspects of the Water and Fire elemental energy. His power of devouring would increase, and his endurance during battle would increase. After that, he would comprehend the heat aspect of the Fire and Water elemental energy.
The next is the heat aspect because he wants to see if he can further improve his body. Now the steam energy is not able to damage his body anymore. And if the heat aspect can then the devouring aspect would also come into play to recover his energy quickly.
Then the next would be the freezing aspect of the Water and Wind elemental energy. He wants to see if the freezing aspect can refine his body because, without phantasm, now with his strong body, he can fight against those who use their phantasm. And the stronger his body gets, his chakra reserve would also increase.
He understands little of the freezing aspects of the Bone Freezing alien energy. He had tried it after his body level reached the Spirit King realm. But because his body had already reached the spirit king level, there was no effect.
And, the last and final would be the infectious aspect of the Fire and Wind elemental energies. After comprehending the infectious aspect, he would be able to master the grey energy and become aware of the rune structure that makes the grey energy.
After knowing the rune structure of the grey energy, he would have to change the rune structure in his spiritual space. Then he would be able to directly transform his chakra into the grey energy. Then start connecting runes to reach the end of the spirit king realm. Connecting any rune will not do; only those runes that increase the power of grey energy.
Kanoru finishes his planning, and then a thoughtful look appears on his face as he thinks," Where is she?" Kanoru already knows she is at her mother's house. He senses her when he arrives and enters the city. She also should be aware that he returned, but an hour passed, and she still did not return from her mother's house.
" Did something happen?" he carefully senses her mother's house, and he senses along with Asuna, her two elder brothers and both their wives and her mother. But he also senses three people's aura in her house. And the aura is not from the people in his force, but he feels among the three, one person's aura is familiar to him.
He knows the person.
So, to inquire what happened, he gets up and walks out of his home and toward Asuna's mother's house. As Kanoru opens the front door, he hears the sound of crying coming from inside the house. And not from one person but at least three people, and among the crying sounds, he recognises one is from Asuna.
Thinking of Asuna crying. He quickly closes the door behind him and makes his way to Asuna. Entering a room full of people, but his eyes are only on Asuna, and he quickly walks beside her and gathers her into a hug. He asks her softly," What happened?"
But Asuna is unable to answer amid her crying.
So, he looks at others in the room, and at that moment, he spots a man he feels familiar with. The man's cultivation realm is the spirit lord realm, and he looks like a middle-aged man. But his face is similar to Asuna's two elder brothers, and then it clicked.
He remembers Asuna's father, uncle and her third brother Takenaka were coming to meet them. The man is Takenaka, and his friend was when he was a teenager and was living in Entori. But he did not spot her father and her uncle in the room, and did not sense them in the entire city.
It means two things, one, they are late and are on the way, but seeing Asuna and her mother crying means the second thing happened. They are dead. Kanoru, with his spiritual sense, send a message to Takenaka's mind asking," How?"
Takenaka understood what he was asking and received Takenaka's message in his mind: Father and Uncle died when the reinforcement of the Greyrose Circus came. They died protecting me. A Spirit King targets us, Father and Uncle, to protect me and my family sacrificed themselves by performing a spell that traps the enemy. Because of them, my family and I can come here.
Learning the news, Kanoru stayed there consoling her, and they stayed for an hour. Then, they returned to their house. Kanoru carried back Asuna, and he did not enter his retreat room to practise. He stayed with her in their bed, hugging her and using the vibration aspect to make her fall asleep.
Kanoru is wide-awake as Asuna fall asleep in his arms. Once again, two people died who helped him at the start of his life. But like his parents, he felt sad that they had died, but for more than fifty years, he had not met them. Even if he remembers everything, the emotion in them dulls as time passes.
He stops thinking of them and closes his eyes, and immediately falls asleep.
The next morning, Kanoru is writing on a parchment without moving his attention from the parchment. He says," You are awake."
Kanoru feels Asuna's head move away from his thigh and feels her eyes on him. He hears," How did I fall asleep?"
She is a cultivator of the spirit lord realm, she may go a month without any sleep. And now she sleeps daily at night, and so yesterday, without her wish, she would not have fallen asleep.
Before Kanoru can answer, she says with certainty in her voice," You made me sleep by a spell."
Kanoru, without stopping his writing, says," Are you angry?"
Asuna says," No, I understand why you did it."
Kanoru glances at her eyes for a moment and says," Tell me how you want to spend the day after I finish writing this. I will spend the entire day with you."
Kanoru did not hear Asuna's answer for some time. So, he looks at her, finding her staring outside through the window from which the blood moon can be seen. Kanoru asks," What happened? Tell me today, I'll give you my entire day."
Kanoru sees Asuna turning her head and, while looking into his eyes, she says," I want you to enter your retreat room to practise."
Kanoru, while writing, shakes his head and says," Today I will not enter the practised room and spend the entire day with you. Both you and Gu Mingzhu spent the entire day with me when you heard my parents had died."
" So, today I will spend the entire day with you."
Asuna says," No, I do not want anyone anymore, and the stronger you are. You will be able to protect me and my close ones and, more importantly, yourselves. I cannot lose you."
Kanoru raises his hands holding the parchments as Asusa dives to hug him. While hugging, she says," So, I want to enter your retreat room and practise. And become so strong that you will end the invasion."
Kanoru patting her back and kissing the top of her head, he says," Yes, I will."
Asuna, after a minute, releases him and says," Then go, or do you want to have breakfast before entering the retreat room?"
Before Kanoru can answer, she gets down from their bed, saying," I do not know when you will come out of the retreat room. So, I cannot send you empty stomach to the retreat room."
" Wait here, I will come back with your breakfast shortly."
Kanoru replies with a yes and starts writing again. After some time, Asuna brings both of their breakfast. Kanoru gets up and eats with her, and after that, he says," Check the parchments in the bed. It is your gift."
Asuna asks," What is it?"
Kanoru, walking out of the room, says," You can check it yourself."
Asuna watched Kanoru leave their room and get up from the chair with curiosity, making her way to their bed. She picks up the parchments, and the front page of the parchments is written- Nine Sun Burst Spell.