Additionally, Barbara was right. The two of them were trapped on this island. This was another major problem to solve. No matter how many resources the Mystic Realm had, she didn't want to be here for the rest of her life with no people around. She might be bad at socializing, but that didn't mean she wanted to be isolated.
Looking at the dispirited Ava, Barbara felt bad as well, so she decided to at least give her some hope.
"Um… actually, it's possible to touch and hold the spiritual vein…"
"Really? How?" Ava impatiently cut off her words and grabbed her hands again.
"Ow, ow. Ava, my hands! My delicate and fragile hands! I won't be able to get married if they're broken!"
"Oops, sorry, Barbara. I'm too excited," Ava said, releasing her grip.
Barbara pouted, rubbing her wrists. "Don't get too excited. It's possible, but I don't think you can do it. That's why I didn't mention it earlier," she said, clarifying the situation.
"Is that so? What is the method then?"
Barbara perked up, ready to explain. "The state of a spiritual vein is similar to a spiritual entity, for example, a Nascent Soul. We can't touch it with a physical body, but if you can use spiritual touch, then touching it is possible. After all, spiritual touch can make contact with both physical and spiritual states," she revealed.
"Spiritual touch? Isn't that something only Soul Formation Realm experts can use? I'm just a pure body cultivator. How am I supposed to achieve that? Barbara, your method is not helping at all," Ava complained.
"Hehe. That's where you're wrong. It's true that once a Qi cultivator reaches the Soul Formation Realm, the spiritual touch ability will unlock automatically, but it doesn't mean it can't be learned earlier," Barbara explained with a wide smile.
Ava's eyes brightened. "I can learn it? Teach me!"
"Calm down, calm down." Barbara waved her hands. "This spiritual touch stuff is supposed to be a secret, too…"
"Another secret?" Ava's smile faded. Why is everything a secret?
"But don't worry, this secret isn't that closely guarded, and I'm not under oath for this. Our institute just doesn't let it out to the public yet because it's still under research, and the Protectors want to make sure they have perfect countermeasures for this ability first. But we're in this situation right now, so I think it's fine," Barbara said.
Ava was dumbfounded. Is anyone's secret safe with this girl? It seemed like she would tell any secret to anyone. This girl was a walking leak.
"Heee…" Barbara smiled wide. "Actually, we are on the verge of a groundbreaking breakthrough! In the future, there might be another classification of cultivator aside from Qi and Body Cultivator! We call it the Spiritual Cultivator!" She declared, looking proud.
"Spiritual Cultivator?" Ava paused, thinking a little. "Are you saying… cultivating the spiritual sense? Is that possible?"
"Of course it's possible! In the past, there was this absolutely terrifying Spiritual Cultivator who appeared near the end of the lawless era, terrorizing the Cloud Continent with her formidable spiritual touch. Oh right, this is supposed to be a secret too, but it's fine, no oath. I'll tell you the story."
Ava blinked, at a loss for words. At this point, this girl would expose every secret that existed under the sun.
"That formidable Spiritual Cultivator was called Demoness Cocolia." Barbara went on, her tone dropping. "She was a total menace back then."
"What did she do? Mass murder?" Ava guessed.
Barbara shook her head. "Mass murders were common back then. She did that, too, but she got infamous for something else. She used her insane spiritual touch to… commit mass rapes. Hundreds of men and women, all at once!"
"Really?" Ava was shocked.
"That's not even the worst part," Barbara said, her face dead serious. "She didn't just do it publicly to scare everyone, she'd finish her sick acts by… ugh, it's gross. She'd use her spiritual touch to shove one victim's body parts—heads, legs, arms—into the… uh, back hole of another victim, linking them up into a big human circle."
"That brutal?" Ava couldn't fathom the terror the victims went through.
She had goosebumps hearing the story. She thought she was already brutal enough with her habit of beating up people and her torture methods to make criminals confess. But compared to this Demoness Cocolia in the story, she was like a saintess, like a holy maiden in comparison. This lady was on a whole other level of twisted.
"Yup. This demoness was not only extremely brutal but also fearless! She didn't just target average cultivators for her sick activities, but she also enjoyed doing it to top cultivators. In fact, she liked doing it more to stronger cultivators. It was just that her spiritual touch couldn't handle that many strong cultivators. I heard that even a Protector almost fell victim."
"She even targeted a Protector? What a crazy bitch," Ava commented.
After all, the Protectors were the strongest group of cultivators on the Cloud Continent. Well, although they weren't the Protectors yet back then, they were still undeniably the strongest. For the demoness to have the intention of violating them showed how crazy she was.
"Right? I thought the same when I heard it!" Barbara nodded. "Later, when the Protectors felt that the chaos on the continent couldn't go on any longer, they formed an alliance secretly and moved together to eliminate the bad guys all over the continent as quickly as possible," Barbara continued the story.
"So the Protectors eliminated them all just like that? That's pretty easy," Ava chimed, feeling a bit anticlimactic.
However, Ava began wondering how Barbara got to know all these insider stories. A normal member of the Institute of Universal Energy shouldn't have access to all of this, right? Could it be that she had another identity? Or she knew someone related to the Protectors themselves? Right, it could be that Protector Alexandra who introduced them that time. Maybe she told her the stories.
"How can it be that easy?" Barbara said, shaking her head.
"Halfway through, the remaining lawless cultivators got wind of the secret operation, and so they also banded together to eliminate the Protectors' group once and for all so that nobody would interfere with their evil activities anymore. Fortunately, the Protectors' group had eliminated the most dangerous ones among the lawless cultivators in the secret operation, except for Demoness Cocolia. They couldn't think of a way to ambush her because of her terrifying spiritual sense."
"So, in the final battle, Demoness Cocolia led the remaining leaders of lawless cultivators to fight against the Protectors' group. The battle was earthshaking; it turned the area into a wasteland. Although the Protectors' group was outnumbered, they were united and selfless, in contrast to the allied lawless cultivators. They were selfish and kept sabotaging each other. So stupid."
"In the end, half of the Protectors' group perished, but they successfully defeated and slew the lawless cultivators, including Demoness Cocolia, who perished last! But she still claimed multiple lives in her last desperate move before she died. She was really terrifying. A menace till the end."
"You know, even now, the place of their final battle still hasn't recovered. You can visit that place in the Central Region if you have the chance later to see the scale of the fight. It's called the Lawless Wasteland. I went to that place once, and it made me wonder how in the world they cultivated to become that strong."
"Ah… thank goodness I live in this era where everything is mostly peaceful. I can enjoy life and get married happily!" Barbara began daydreaming, ending her story.
The room became silent for a while. Barbara was daydreaming, and Ava was digesting the story.
Later, it occurred to Ava. Wait a minute. Why do I feel like I forgot something? She thought. That's right! We were discussing the spiritual vein. How did it lead to the war between the Protectors' group and the lawless cultivators? I want to learn how to use spiritual touch.
CLAP!
Ava clapped. "Barbara, wake up!"
"Ah? Wait! My future husband, don't vanish! Nooo!" Barbara woke up from her daydream, her hand reaching for air.
"Barbara, we still haven't finished talking about spiritual touch. Teach me how to do it," Ava urged.
"Oh right. We were talking about that. Well… you can try learning spiritual touch, but in the end, it still depends on your talent for it. And so far, even including the mortals, we hardly find any great talents for this, so the progress is quite slow," Barbara said.
"Is that so? How do you test for their talent?" Ava asked.
"For mortals and Qi Refinement Realm cultivators, we use an illusion test," Barbara explained. "The faster they break out of the illusion, the better their talent. For Foundation Building Realm and up, it's simpler. Just measure their spiritual sense range. The bigger it is compared to the average for their level, the more potential they've got."
Ava was dumbfounded. Once again, Leyvi's goofy face appeared in her mind. Don't tell me… that sex fiend is a potential genius Spiritual Cultivator? Are you saying that in the end, I might need his help?