Reading the second page of the cultivation manual, Long Tianyu’s heartbeat raced as it was an introduction to what the Primordial god core is.
“The Primordial God Core is not just one, as it is nine cores inside a singular body. Since the birth of the world, every human was born with only one dantian. But with the Primordial God Core, one can create nine extra natural cores inside the body. With each creation of a core, it will consume more qi and priceless treasures. As the body can only hold one core, one must also cultivate the body to be strong enough to hold nine cores. When you eventually create your second core, be wary of the heavens as you are breaking the law of the world and so your heavenly tribulations will also be much deadlier and arrive quicker.”
Under the already ancient text was another row of words that seemed to be written not too long ago.
“Although the Primordial God Core is powerful, there is a flaw to it as it doesn’t absorb spiritual qi but chaos qi. I, the Void Venerable, found a way to counteract the flaw, I made a breathing manual to use alongside it, where the core will accept spiritual qi”
When Long Tianyu flipped to the third page, a blank piece of paper greeted him in his confusion. He flipped through all of the pages, and it made him even more confused as they are all blank.
“Elder, this junior seek your wisdom.”
Bowing his head, Long Tianyu asked the golden dragon for help as he didn’t know what to do in this situation.
The dragon chuckled at Long Tianyu’s confusion.
“Young Master, look closer and focus your eyes”
Doing as the golden dragon said, Long Tianyu calmed his mind and focused his eyes on the third page. After a while, he finally noticed a difference in the blank page as thousands of words showed themselves to him and directly entered his mind.
While the ancient scripture flowed into his mind, inside the strange realm where the white dragon resided, a few dark strands of qi streamed out from its deepest part to Long Tianyu.
The White dragon noticing the energy disappearing from the realm smiled. “Brother, so that’s where you hid that book. Looks like the brat is following in your footsteps”
When the dark strands of qi left the ring and entered his body, he let out a painful grunt as the strange qi forced its way inside and shoved away the spiritual qi aside. Once near where the dantian was supposed to be, the dark qi formed into a pea-sized seed and floated next to a transparent root.
Long Tianyu breathed in and out heavily as the seed was formed. Wiping away the cold sweat on his forehead, he looked at the blank page again as now it was filled with words. Flipping to the third page, it was also filled with text, but as he tried to read the first letter. His body convulsed and his mind trembled as his body outside the ring coughed out a mouthful of blood.
Before there was more harm done to his body, a golden qi forcefully closed the black book and woke him up.
“Young master, you bit more than you can chew, let this be a lesson for you to be cautious around unknown cultivation manuals. Here is the heavenly void venerable breathing method as it seems like you managed to learn something from the Primordial God Core Cultivation manual.”
Looking up Long Tianyu saw two books fly from the top floor and land next to the Primordial God Core manual. One of the books had the same black cover and golden title as the manual, while the other one had an azure cover.
“The azure book is a manual on how to turn one''s body into a Primordial dragon, as it is one of the strongest body cultivation manuals in the martial library. I chose it because it is more compatible with your physique”
“This junior thanks the elder for the guidance”
Having chosen his Cultivation manuals, he thanked the golden dragon, and before he could read the next two books, the pendant that was once pure white is now a pale white slowly floated down to his eye level.
“Young master, the pendant is the key and the manual on how to use the library. I won’t always be here to help you as I need to maintain the core of the library.”
With its tasks done, the golden dragon slowly faded away into nothingness leaving Long Tianyu alone in the center of the library.
Clasping his hand, he bowed in the direction of the golden dragon before grabbing the pendant and tying it on his waistband, before picking up both books.
Flipping to the first page of the Azure book, a fierce and domineering aura washed over him before it quickly went away. After reading through the first few pages, he stopped as the 4<sup>th</sup> page wouldn’t even budge.
“The primordial dragon physique is too domineering, having the strength and indestructible body of a true dragon is just too strong. But it also requires me to find a hundred different herbs and medicines to even barely reach the 1<sup>st</sup> stage, and I would still require the scale of a dragon to complete the 1<sup>st</sup> stage. ‘sigh’ Where would I even find that, I’ll solve that problem when I get there. For now I need to find those herbs before proceeding”
Placing the azure book to the side, he grabbed the black book with the title ‘The heavenly void venerable manual’ and read its introduction.
“My name is the void venerable, I came across the Primordial God Core manual when I managed to escape from my enemies into the chaos void. In the void, I crippled my cultivation and began anew using the Primordial God Core as my foundation. I left when my 6<sup>th</sup> core was created, and with my new-found strength I killed my pursuers. In the void, there were plenty of chaos qi, but it was rare as a phoenix feather outside of the void.
Even after getting closer and closer to the peak of cultivation, I was still stuck at the 6<sup>th</sup> stage, that was until I had an enlightenment and created this breathing manual. After a hundred years I finally managed to reach the 7<sup>th</sup> stage. Even without the Primordial God Core, my cultivation manual is equally strong”
After what felt like a few minutes went by, he closed the book and closed his eyes before he began comprehending what he just read, putting it into action following the first few pages of the breathing method.
He had to breathe in qi using his pores as his dantian hadn’t formed yet, then chant the manual to refine the qi to a purer form. His first few attempts failed as he sometimes misspoke a word in the sutra, or he had forgotten one.
After the fifth try, he finally felt a change as his pores absorbed a teacup worth of qi. But it felt different from how he did it as it felt more natural and the qi was also cleaner in a sense, the difference felt like day and night. When the qi entered his body, instead of going to his meridians, it flowed to a pale transparent root three finger widths below and two finger widths behind the navel.
Once near the root, the qi stimulated by the chant began removing the impurities, and all that’s left is a singular drop of qi in its purest form. When the drop of qi was sucked in by the root his body trembled, as the transparent broke apart into specks of light.
Before they all gathered towards where the root was and formed a sphere the size of a fingernail. After the sphere appeared, his body stopped trembling, but now it felt like it was on fire as his blood boiled, and soon the qi that was saturated in his meridians all flowed towards the sphere.
When the qi neared the sphere, it went through the same process and all of its impurities were removed before they got sucked in. Due to the quantity of qi in his meridians, the sphere grew from the size of a fingernail to a soccer ball.
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While the sphere got larger, he experienced a splitting headache and black blood flowed out from his orifices. After what felt like an eternity, the pain stopped and was replaced by a cool chill.
Exiting the ring, he breathed out a cloud of impurities. Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was the clear night sky devoid of clouds. Looking in a different direction, he could see a dragonfly 32 feet away clearly, even while it was pitch black all around the clearing.
As he began noticing the small things, like him hearing the breathing of a rabbit not far away from his position. While he admired the surroundings with his new perception, a foul odor caught his attention.
Quickly taking off his outer robe, the source of the smell revealed itself to him as impurities caked his body from head to toe. As soon as he noticed that he dashed to the river and jumped in it, cleaning the black impurities off his body. Once most of the impurities were cleaned off, he then took off his clothes and washed them before cleaning the rest of his body.
Standing in the river, Long Tianyu noticed some small changes to his body. His height increased by 2 inches from his original 5 feet 6 inches and his muscles appeared to be a bit more toned.
Sitting stark naked next to the fire, he hung his clothes near it to dry as he had nothing else on him to wear. Breathing in, he inspected his body for any other changes that he had not noticed yet. To his surprise, a white transparent sphere floated near his navel, and pale roots that looked like meridians were under his skin. The roots and the sphere appeared to be intangible as he didn’t feel them both in his body. His mind felt clearer, almost like a veil being removed, and his mind expanded a bit, like his thoughts were faster and more precise, while he had read a lot of books in a short time, he could remember every word except for the three cultivation books that the golden dragon gave him.
With his shallow knowledge of cultivation, he entered the library and held the pendant in his palm, before a stream of information entered his mind and explained how to use the library and what he needed to do to ascend the pagoda, as the first floor only contained the weakest martial arts and cultivation manuals.
Once all of the information was crammed inside his head, he filtered the first floor to just a shelf containing books explaining cultivation. With this thought, the first floor rumbled as all of the bookshelves shuffled and changed their position before a shelf detached itself from the main bookshelf and floated to the center.
He went through all the books on the shelf and began reading them one by one, and with each book he read, his knowledge expanded on the world of cultivation.
From what he read, the stages of cultivation are qi condensation -> qi stream -> qi river -> qi sea -> foundation establishment, cultivation manuals are split into inner and outer cultivation. Inner cultivation focuses on increasing one''s cultivation while outer cultivation focuses on combat power and skills. The three books he chose were inner cultivation manuals, while outer cultivation is martial arts.
A grin plastered his face as he had just passed one of the roadblocks in his cultivation journey, entering the qi gathering stage. It was oddly easy how he skipped the last few ranks of the body tempering stage and immediately entered the next stage.
That doubt was quickly thrown out, if his father was able to give him the martial library and hide it in the pendant, then surely he is no normal human or cultivator. So why should he be any different from his father?
With one doubt cleared, another came as quick. If he had no spirit root, then how did his dantian form? A body without a spirit root won’t have the building blocks required for a dantian to be created.
Then the transparent meridians in his body must have been his spirit root, and why the Five Mountain Peak Sect couldn’t find it was due to their treasures not being strong enough.
Pushing those matters to the back of his mind, he began searching the library for any information on the dark grey qi. Even after searching for a while, all that he found was books explaining the five elements. Finding no other relevant information, Long Tianyu gave up and thought that maybe he could find the information that he needs in the upper floors.
Using the void venerable breathing method, he cultivated all through the night. When the embers died down and the sound of fire cackling stopped, Long Tianyu breathed in the morning air before standing up and putting on his dried clothes.
After a full night of cultivating, his dantian was only filled with 10% of qi. If he wanted to break through the next rank, then he would need to gather enough qi to fill his dantian before refining it and removing the impurities. With the void venerable manual, he can skip that part as the qi is automatically refined when it enters his dantian.
The first few pages of the book taught him how to create his dantian and how to break through the ranks of qi condensation. Ranks 1 through 3, a cultivator would need to refine their qi into a gaseous state before breaking through the 4<sup>th</sup> rank and then refine the qi gas to a solid state until the 6<sup>th</sup> rank. The last 3 ranks are spent on expanding the dantian.
Although his qi looked different as it was more golden than before and felt more powerful. He couldn’t compare his qi with other cultivators as he was alone in the forest.
Adding wood to the dying embers, he then stuck a piece of meat on a stick, setting it over the rising fire and grabbing two sweet potatoes out of the storage ring, sticking them in the warm ashes.
He had tried to find any information for rings capable of storing items inside them, but even after going through all of the shelves he found nothing but cultivation methods or martial arts manuals.
Setting the ring aside, he had a lot of work to do today, mainly cleaning the tiger and wolf pelt for clothing, he also needed to make a bigger fire to cook all of the meat inside his storage ring. It was tedious to make a new fire every time he was hungry, so why not cook it all at once if food inside spatial rings doesn’t spoil.
Dividing the task for the day, he began by entering the forest and gathering firewood. After a while, a pile of dried twigs and branches was placed close to the fire. Satisfied with the amount of fuel, he first removed the cooked meat and potatoes before slowly adding a handful of the pile into the fire.
Once the fire roared back to life, he stuck all of the pieces of meat onto sticks and placed them by the fire. In total, there were about 25 meat skewers by the fire slowly roasting.
After enjoying his morning meal, he stood by the river cleaning his hands and face before taking out the pelts with the stone knife he made. With the knife he began scraping off the bits and pieces of meat while also cleaning the pelt with water. Occasionally while cleaning, he had to glance back to the fire so as not to burn anything.
Once the sun hung in the middle of the sky, he was finally done with cleaning both pelts and right in time as all the meat was cooked, as a meaty aroma lingered around his nose.
Long Tianyu quickly stored the meat in the ring and threw dirt on parts of the fire as he did not need that big of a fire. While he hung the pelts on a tree branch and waited for the pelts to dry, he sat down and began cultivating until sunset.
As the sun disappeared in the horizon, he stopped cultivating due to the fire dying down, and he needed to eat. Cooking all of the meat in one go was a wise decision as he just grabbed a big piece of meat and cut it into bite-sized parts.
Having filled his stomach, he checked on the pelts and wrung them to see if it was still wet. Seeing as there were minimal water coming out, he cut a slit on the edge of the pelt and stretched it before putting a thick branch in the slit.
After his work was done, Long Tianyu leaned against a tree and watched the river as the moonlight reflected off of it. Whilst watching the beautiful scenery, a glint in the waterfall caught his attention.
Walking to the roaring waterfall, he noticed that the glint was coming from one of the smaller waterfalls. As he got closer to it, a walkway on the side of the rocky wall revealed itself to him leading into the waterfall.
Stepping onto the walkway, the sound of water splashing against rocks entered his ears. Holding his right hand behind his back, he circulated his qi ready to form the grey knife if anything jumped at him. A bend appeared at the end of the walkway leading into the wall.
At the bend he peered around the corner to see a cave big enough to fit 10 people inside. The cave was lit by the moonlight, and even if the moonlight wasn’t here, he would have no trouble seeing in the dark.
Looking around the cave, he soon found out what the glint was, as at the end of the cave there were two skeletons. Walking deeper inside the cave, holes and gashes littered the cave as if a fight had broken out in here. Reaching the two skeletons, it confirmed his theory as one of the skeletons was embedded in the wall with a spear while the other was pierced through the chest into the ground, like the sword was thrown.
The skeletons had nothing on them except for their clothing, their fingers and clothing moved unnaturally, most likely their valuables were stolen, which means he can''t be far from a village or town.
‘Why steal the other things but leave the sword and spear alone?’ his thoughts were answered as he tried to pull out the sword and spear.
Even when his body is in the qi condensation stage, he couldn’t pull them out. After putting all of his strength into it and seeing as the spear wouldn’t budge, an idea came to his mind.
Doing as he always did when storing something in his ring, he wrapped half of his qi around the spear before storing it inside the ring. Seeing as it succeeded, he smiled brightly, he now finally has a weapon. The grey knife is strong, but it also uses his qi very fast, in a life or death situation, every bit of qi will keep him alive.
Doing the same to the sword, he now had them inside his storage ring, and waited for the aftereffects to arrive, but even after waiting for a while, nothing happened. Then it must have been that it only happened because he hadn’t reached the qi condensation stage yet.
Slightly bowing his head, he paid his respect to the two skeletons before exiting the cave. As soon as he arrived at the fire, he sat down and recovered his lost qi.