Chapter 3: 2nd Star
Lin woke up, feeling his head throbbing as if it was being pounded with a hammer. 'What happened?' Lin questioned himself. 'And where am I?' Looking at his body, Lin was shocked. He did not have a body, his consciousness was floating.
Looking around himself, he found himself in an dark abyss. Even though it was dark, Lin did not feel like he was in danger, but instead felt safe. It was as if he was familiar with this place. Looking around, he saw nine bright lights, each smaller than the other. Lin went closer to inspect the closest and smallest of the peculiar balls of light. When he got close, the bright light pulsated, and suddenly rushed at him. Lin couldn't react, and the light merged into his consciousness. Lin felt a flow of memories appeared in his mind. It felt as if he had remembered some long lost memories at the back of his mind.
'What?' Lin was shocked, never having experienced such an anomaly before. He looked through his newfound memories, and understood that he was in his bloodline storage, and had received his unique bloodline techniques. Searching his memories, he found information on the path to the 3rd star, with the second part of the Shadow cultivation technique. There was a movement technique called the Unseen Shadow, which would increase his agility, using movements that are impossible for other creatures to replicate.
The 2nd star consisted of infusing demonic energy with one's cells. To become a middle rank, he had to infuse energy to his skin. The high rank required the infusion of energy to the muscles. Peak rank is reached when energy could be infused into the organs, strengthening every part of the body. The infusion of all parts of the body would increase the compatibility with energy, defensive ability, and the power and speed of which the energy flowed. There was also a new battle technique, called the Corroding Fang. After looking through his memory, Lin felt his mind clear of all the clutter he had felt at first.
Lin looked at the next ball of light with excitement, thinking of the new types of techniques he could get. He went up to the ball, but nothing happened. Disappointed, Lin understood that each ball of light corresponded to each ball of light. 'Eventually, I will get them' Lin consoled himself. Lin looked behind him, finding a door and a locked door. Lin intuitively knew the open door was the only one he could open, and that it was the exit. However, curious, Lin inspected the locked door. The door was covered in complicated runes which were crawling over the door like they were alive. He did not recognize any of the symbols that emitted an archaic feeling. Feeling overwhelmed with knowledge, Lin left his bloodline storage, back to his body.
Lin looked at his body, and noticed a difference. Lin had grown a third of a meter, to three meters and a third long. He was now seven centimeters thick. Pushing his body forward at a place a few meters in front of him, Lin flew forward at a much higher speed than expected. Unable to control his direction, Lin crashed into a tree. However, even though he had crashed into a tree, Lin had not received any damage, only feeling a small amount of pain. The star advancement had increased the strength of his muscles, increasing his speed had by a factor of about five times, to three hundred meters per second. He could launch his body at this speed over short distances. However, he could extend his body and bite at a speed of six hundred meters per second. With this speed, normal cultivators at the 2nd star weren't a threat to him.
Feeling his teeth, Lin could feel that the sharpness and length of his fangs had increased. The teeth could not puncture spiritual barriers, but would help in fighting without energy. Lin's scales had not increased much in defensive ability, but his defensive abilities had improved by a lot. His energy shield was more refined and smooth. He felt the strength of the barrier was multiple times stronger than before. It took less demonic energy, now only taking a tenth of his demonic energy for every hour, as compared to before, which took all his energy and mindpower just to create. Before, he had to force the demonic energy through his veins, but it now flowed through his veins smoothly with minimal effort.
Lin flicked his tongue to taste the surroundings, finding that he could sense the direction of beasts in a circle fifty meters in radius around him with their smell. This distance could fluctuate depending on the wind patterns and the type of climate. Spreading his demonic awareness, he found that he could sense everything in a two meter radius around him. He could feel a different aura for everything. The trees had a feeling of vitality, the ground had a feeling of strength, and the shadows lurking everywhere throughout the forest had a feeling of elusiveness and unpredictability.
'Why is it that everything has a different aura?' Lin thought, 'There are so many dif-' Lin was suddenly slammed by a strong feeling of exhaustion. His brain had overloaded from the use of his spiritual sense. Lin wasn't used to receiving this much data in his mind. He needed to practice in order to get used to it and be able to use it without repercussions.
'So this is the difference between stars. Just from this, I have already gained so much power. If I met those bandits now, I could easily dodge their attacks' Lin thought, 'I wouldn't be able to kill them, but they wouldn't be able to kill them.' After all, Lin had not practiced any techniques to use demonic energy to attack yet.
'Time to cultivate' Lin searched through his memory for the Unseen Shadow movement technique, but his stomach growled. 'Damn, I haven't eaten in a while' Lin thought, feeling down. 'I need to eat before I have enough energy to cultivate my new techniques. But, I really want to work on those new techniques.' As a snake, Lin needed to eat less than a normal human. Cultivating without sufficient energy could injure a cultivator. However, cultivation took more energy than normal, which made Lin have to eat at least once every two days.
Lin flicked his tongue, tasting the air. Sensing the smell of a demonic rat in front of him, Lin decided to go for it. Lin could not break demonic or spiritual shields as of now, but as long as he got his first bite in, it would be over for the rat. Lin's poison had only gotten more potent with his advancement. It would corrode the energy of living beings, and reaching the brain would kill most creatures.
Lin slithered through the forest, roughly passing through the terrain, bumping into trees along the way. As Lin got closer to his destination, his control over his body had fixed itself, and he no longer crashed into trees. Lin moved his tongue in profound ways, taking up all the smells around the area. The smell of the rat got stronger, and he slithered towards it cautiously.
The rat was standing while nibbling on a dead insect when Lin found it. The rat was around twenty centimeters tall and ten centimeters wide. It was big enough to fill Lin's appetite, but also small enough for him to digest. After all, Lin could not rip apart his prey. Lin circled around behind the rat, and silently snuck up. He then secretly sent a tendril of his demonic energy to the rat, finding an weak interference at a meter behind the rat. The interference was from the rat's 1 star demonic awareness range.
Lin snuck up to a meter behind the rat, just behind the maximum reach of its demonic awareness. In less than two milliseconds, Lin struck. The rat never knew where Lin was until it was bitten. Lin felt gleeful, tasting the sweet blood in his mouth. The rat struggled, trying to block the poison with its energy, but succumbed immediately to the toxidity of the venom. It stood no chance against the poison.
'So toxic!' Lin thought, shocked. It had usually taken him more time to hunt. In the past, he needed to make one bite, then immediately withdraw, waiting for it to succumb to the poison. Lin, starving, brought the rat to a safe spot on a tree, and swallowed it, quickly digesting his meal.
Suddenly, Lin was alarmed. He smelt something. Through his tongue, Lin felt the presence of something he had never met before. It had the same feeling of him but wasn't like him. 'What is it? An enemy?', Lin thought as he went to investigate the unknown smell.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
WorthlessThing
WorthlessThing Lin can't talk. Of course not- he's a snake. (He will be able to have conversations though, otherwise the story will be trash without any interaction). These first three chapters are basically prologue- the true story starts on next chapter. Should I make chapters longer?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone