Chapter 86: On My Own Terms


    As the vision slowly faded away with the ''death'' of the technique''s creator, Evelyn found herself back in the dark murky sea with floating orbs. The giant ''core'' orb was gone now, however, and she would never be able to view the same vision again.


    This was not the inherent nature of the cultivation array itself, but something that the creator had intended.


    The more ''generous'' masters would sometimes allow their disciples to listen to their lectures over and over again until they have managed to grasp the essence of the topic. However, the ''headmistress'' was clearly not one of them.


    Evelyn understood that the creator of ''Searing Soul'' was the type of person who cherished their words like gold, and abhorred repeating them for anyone. If someone didn''t pay attention when they should have, it was their own loss, right?


    The cultivation techniques from these types of masters were often much harder to learn, since there would only be a single chance to grasp each concept from each of the master''s lessons.


    Moreover, being able to only go through each ''lesson'' once meant that it could be disastrous to go through multiple ''lessons'' at once. It was much better topletely grasp the previous concept before moving on to the next one.


    This was why Evelyn decisively exited the murky sea, even though she could have continued exploring the other glowing orbs.


    Her gains were not small, having witnessed the creation of ''Searing Soul'' from its conception topletion.


    However, Evelyn couldn''t help but regret that she couldn''t go through it again.


    With how poor her impression had been of the ''headmistress'' due to the first scene she witnessed, she had been unable to ''connect'' with her on a mental level until muchter into the vision.


    It was not something she could control, as the instinctual disgust of her actions came from deep within her soul.


    If anything, Evelyn''s own experience from her first life made her much more averse to mother figures in general, especially those who didn''t care for their children. Even Isabe was more of a friend in her heart than a mother figure, in the same way as she considered Bree as more of a daughter than her aunt.


    Evelyn sighed. "Compared to my so-called ''mother'' in the first life, she at least tried to undo the damage she caused to Aurora whenever she realized it, though she was still quite foolish. And unlike that woman, Aurora''s mother at least had the decency to take responsibility of ''raising'' her own daughter, regardless of anything else."


    With her current understanding of the creator''s desperation, motivation as well as internal thought, Evelyn would be able to have a much more thorough understanding of the ''Searing Soul'' and save up a lot of time in the future if she could go through it again.


    It didn''t mean she found what the woman did reasonable, of course. Evelyn and the ''headmistress'' were two different people, with two different sets of principles and thought processes. How could they agree on everything?


    But the ''depth'' of their connection didn''t depend on how simr their thoughts were, but how well she understood the thought process of the technique''s creator.


    For example, Evelyn herself would never ce her hopes of defeating this so called ''Lord of Bones'' on a child, let alone treat that child as a failure when she failed to meet such absurd expectations. But she understood how the headmistress thought about things at that time, and how she came to such conclusions.


    If she had been able to do so sooner, her grasp on her ''true thoughts'' while formting ''Searing Soul'' would have been much firmer, thus greatly increasing her gains in this session.


    Evelyn wasn''t the type to lose hope and regret endlessly, however. Wasn''t it much better to find a way to aplish what she wanted, instead?


    As she thought it through once more, Evelyn nodded as she made up her mind. ''I have already grasped the cultivation technique, so my current goal is more or less aplished. But if I continue from this point as normal, it will take me months, if not years, just to grasp the core of the ''Searing Soul'', right? That''s uneptable!''


    Of course, only she would think so, since grasping the ''core'' of such a high grade cultivation technique in less than a decade was already a major aplishment even for a genius in the Ancient Academy.


    This would mean advancing through the levels far faster than their peers, since both the depth ofprehension as well as the grade of the cultivation technique were equally important when it came to cultivation.


    But Evelyn never intended topete with her peers, that was never her goal. To be able to ensure the safety and independence of both herself and those she cared about, she needed to be at least stronger than Bree. And dying the matter for too long wasn''t an option, either.


    Moreover, there was still the so-called ''benefactor'' who could seek her out at any time, looking to collect their ''debt''. How could Evelyn rest assured, knowing that she had no hope of resisting them at all?


    If she had the ability to resist, she would at least have the right to decide to what extent she wished to repay the ''favor'' of giving her a second chance. Evelyn did not wish to be anyone''s puppet, regardless of how much she supposedly owed them. If there was a debt, she would rather clear it on her own terms.


    And what almost caused her to pull out her hair was that she discovered even more obstacles on her road to freedom from the visions. Evelyn truly never expected that she would discover ''enemies'' for herself in a memory from thousands of years ago.


    The pink haired girl couldn''t help but roll her eyes. ''I knew this Lotus Throne thing was going to have some downside. I guess it''s good to finally know what it is, though.''


    So far, she had only obtained benefit after benefit from being the ''Lotus Seat'', and Evelyn had already started to get quite uneasy as she wondered what the ''catch'' was.


    It wasn''t something she got from the ''benefactor'' who had given her the second chance, nor was it something she knew remotely anything about, so where exactly was it from, what exactly did it mean?


    The more powerful and mysterious her connection with Ruru and her abilities were, the more she dreaded one day discovering a downside that was perhaps too much for her to handle. And to make matters worse, she couldn''t prepare anything against that without even knowing what it is, right?


    But now that she more or less knew, no matter how powerful they were, Evelyn couldn''t help but feel slightly relieved. "So basically there are three of these ''Thrones'' in this world, right? ording to the conversation the headmistress had with that old fox, bing one probably depends on the initial stats of a baby, and I''m guessing my absurd soul stat yed some part in bing this ''Lotus Throne'', hm.


    And this so-called ''Lord of Bones'' is definitely going to be an issue in the future. I hope my hunch is wrong, and these two other thrones aren''t the two ''supreme beings'' everyone seems to revere."


    Evelyn shook her head wistfully. "Nah, that''s unlikely. But if so exactly what level are they? And more importantly, since these supreme beings are supposed to be the only source of ''blessing'' the spirit eggs, creating a superior version isn''t that too suspicious?"


    Unfortunately, she still didn''t know much about this topic, and couldn''te to a concrete conclusion.


    The one thing was sure of, however, was it was best to keep this ''Lotus Throne'' matter to herself. The longer she could keep it hidden from these potential all-powerful enemies, the better.


    Ideally, they would never even know of her being a ''Throne'' until she was strong enough to crush them at will. Of course, to the current her, that was but a pipe dream.


    Even after exiting the murky sea inside the cultivation array, Evelyn remained still in the lotus position, her eyes closed.


    No one in the room dared to disturb her, either, despite clearly knowing that the array had stopped channeling the energy from the spirit stones, with only around half of them being depleted. They assumed that she was lost inprehending the contents of her lessons from within the array.


    Evelyn''s mind, however, was on something else entirely. ''I got it Since this cultivation arrayes without any restrictions from the tower''s elder, it must allow for more maniptions than usual, right? How exactly does the array judge a ''unique'' individual? As long as I can pose as someone else, I should be able to go through the same test again.''


    Since the only two things that the array would actually interact with were her spirit power and her soul, and that too when she actively poured them in, that meant that as long as she changed them slightly, it should probably work.


    But although she had a solution in mind, Evelyn had no way of actually implementing it right now. At the very least, she would need to wait for her soul value to recover to its full strength before she could try anything else.


    Still, just this first trip alone had brought her plentiful rewards far more than she ever expected from simply starting on her cultivation journey.


    And that wasn''t even counting the bonus from the red mission.