Chapter 24: The Ghost of the Courtyard
Aiden Thorne kicked a loose piece of petrified bark, his frustration simmering. The Ashen Courtyard was supposed to be a treasure trove, a training ground for the disciples of their families.
When his team first arrived, it had been exactly that. They had been ambushed by terrifying shadowy beasts that fought with a ferocity he had never seen before.
Not only were they stronger than any Stage 1 monsters he had fought, but infuriatingly, they revived after each death.
His group suffered immense losses in the initial fights, losing twenty disciples among the two hundred.
Thinking about it made his heart bleed. They were all good men, the most talented youngsters the Thorne family had ever birthed.
But the rewards were immense.
The strange glowing crystals the monsters dropped were filled with pure life energy. Absorbing a single one increased his total lifespan by one hundred years.
Its value was immeasurable.
A hundred more years of lifespan wasn’t a small thing.
A Body Tempering cultivator could live up to one hundred and fifty years, an Essence Gathering cultivator to three hundred, and a Core Formation cultivator had a lifespan of five hundred years.
Each absorption of these crystals gained him one hundred years of lifespan, and it had the same value no matter how many times he had absorbed them.
He had five hundred years of lifespan now!