Chapter 8

Chi's main purpose is to support the life functions of the body and upkeep vitality, not to fight. This nature makes it only suitable to enhance the physical body. If used up to a certain level, Lifeforce will become permanently crippled. Due to these limitations, I developed a new technique that doesn't burn through energy. It is a combination of soru from One Piece, body flicker from Naruto, and the after-image technique from Dragonball. I call it the "run away" technique and whenever I use it I am contractually obligated by the author to shout its name.

The four Akatsuki members chasing me could only stew in anger as the movement technique shot me tens of thousands of miles away toward the middle of a mountain range, punching a hole through a few mountains on the way. I and my passengers were screaming for dear life as we engaged in a 120 meters per second vertical nosedive through the air. Boom! We landed in a valley between a few mountains. I and the boys slowly crawled out of the crater. We were filthy, covered from head to toe in dirt, blood, and vomit. Our clothes were in ruins and our bodies were very injured. If I told someone we were thrown through several mountains, they would believe us.

Lee and Yun Che were the first to get up. They dragged my sorry ass through the forest surrounding the mountains. I bore the brunt of the impact through the mountains since these two were too weak and would probably explode if I didn't protect them. The "run away" technique is very effective at running away but not general movement because it causes too much of a burden on my legs as seen now by how my legs are nearly crippled. I could see that Yun Che and Lee were getting tired. I urged them both to keep moving because although we were fast at running away, we were not at all subtle. The conspicuous gaping holes in the mountains would lead them straight to us if we didn't leave.

We eventually happened upon a river. We used this chance to recover somewhat. I had my arm in a sling with a cast, my legs were in splints with casts, and I was in a makeshift wheelchair. The other two were not as injured as I was and recovered through the use of pills. I took several elixirs and pills as well but I was too injured and it would take a few days of pill taking and copious use of Hamon to heal completely. I instructed Lee to build a raft and had us float down the river. Human civilization is usually close to freshwater sources like underground reservoirs, rivers, and lakes. By following the river we would probably hit a town sooner or later.

I was proven right when we arrived on the outskirts of Yun Hai city. I read the mind of a passerby to get some info. It was a mortal city with almost no cultivators save for a few families here and there as well as the city lord's faction like the guards and the city lord himself. They were very low level and not worth mentioning. We hobbled up to the city, looking like injured beggars. As we were waiting in line, I heard a disdainful snort. I turned around and spotted a group of people. They were looking at us like we were subhuman troglodytes. The one in the center wearing silk pants had an especially infuriating arrogant face that really needed a slap. He had a Walmart jade beauty™ clinging to his arm and what seemed to be a lesser young master sucking up to him constantly along with a few lackeys.

The young master's entourage swaggered up to the line and began to kick people to the side even though they could just go straight to the front considering their likely very prominent backing. When they reached us, a lackey charged forward like a bus. If we were ordinary injured beggars this attack would have killed us. I raised my good hand and slapped him in the face. The movement of the slap was smooth and beautiful, slow yet fast. The lackey was sent flying and crashed into a tree stump, breaking his spine.

"How dare you! Courting death!" The young Master's face was twisted like a devil. From his expression, it would seem like I fucked his wife and killed his father. He took out a stone and crushed it. With a flash of lightning a white-haired elder appeared, an arrogant sneer marred his face. He took one look at us and charged forward, pointing his finger toward my heart. Crack! His finger shattered when it came in contact with my skin. I was about to follow up with another slap when I felt his cultivation base. It was at the Sky Profound realm which was inconsistent with the local highest power level. Interesting.

As the elder was screaming in pain, I jabbed my finger through his eye and into his brain, killing him instantly. After that, I took a deep breath and blew in the direction of the young master and his entourage. They were blown into a blood mist. I had a bit of a coughing fit after that since I over-drafted my injured lungs. This was the problem with being too conceited and arrogant. If that elder had just scanned us with his senses he would have figured out that my body was monstrously strong and brought out all of his power. Unfortunately for him he was too idiotic and died a miserable death, underestimating until the grave.

At first, I didn't want to kill them since I believed they were a part of the city but the white-haired elder made me privy to the fact that they weren't locals so I decided to kill them because I didn't want unnecessary trouble during my stay. They were too far from any major factions and since they were dead and I scattered their souls when I killed them, there was no way for any faction to figure out where we were and seek revenge since any death-recording treasure relies on the residual soul to record the cause of death. After killing them the people around us looked at us in horror. My mind power surged out and incapacitated the bystanders, including the city guard. With no fanfare, we walked through the city gates. The city was nothing special as previously said, we quickly found a house for sale that wasn't too bad, so I purchased it.

Since my body is injured I decided to begin cultivating my spirit. The spirit has three aspects the soul, the will, and the mind. Technically it's only soul and mind with the will being a part of the mind but the will is so important that I included it in my list of the aspects.

Currently, I can perform a few psychic feats but only on weak people which is not good. I want my spirit to be as strong if not stronger than my body.

Right now I was lying on a hammock on my newly purchased property. It was a decent house and had a spacious area around it that could be used for training. I watched both Lee and Yun Che spar with each other. Both of their basic combat skills were lacking albeit Lee was much better than Yun Che. Bam! A punch lands on Yun Che's jaw followed by another one to the temple and finally a kick to the solar plexus. He flies away a few meters and lands on the ground in a heap. The cultivators in ATG are not nuanced fighters they mainly rely on brute power and charge forward to meet their enemies head-on with no regard to strategy, whilst spamming abilities over and over again.

Yun Che witnessed how skillful and full of strategy my fight with Akatsuki members was —at least compared to the fights between cultivators— and begged me to teach him. This lead him to spar regularly with Lee at the level of power a 1st stage of Elementary Profound cultivator was at. He hasn't won a single bout yet but he was improving. I stopped watching them and began to meditate. I focused my meditation on finding awareness of my soul space. The soul space/spiritual sea/sea of consciousness/knowledge sea/upper dantian or whatever you want to call it is where the soul resides and exists within the brain. My meditation succeeds and I find myself in a grey void.

I look down at my hand and see the familiar yellow glow of my soul form. My soul wasn't originally yellow it was actually dark red and really evil-looking. The afterlife seemed to have changed its color somehow. I take my mind off the color of my soul and begin my first task of spirit cultivation, soul forging. I will for my soul to leave its vessel. After a few minutes of trying, I successfully Astral Project. I find myself floating above my body, I look down and see my two students still fighting it out. Yun Che was grinding his teeth in frustration looking at Lee's frivolous expression that looked like it really needed a beating. I chuckle a little and carry on cultivating. A soul is immortal, that is to say, having an infinite lifespan and is also not bound by the limitations of space or time.

Using this knowledge I begin to sense for other parallel dimensions that could be helpful to my purposes. My probing alerts me to a few pocket dimensions littered around the planet including all three continents and the vast ocean. I ignore these dimensions because they are useless for my purposes and begin to look further. I finally sense what I am looking for and shift to that plane. I arrive in the dimension and look around. The dimensional plane was filled with spiritual energy, suited for helping the growth of souls and other spiritual beings. Giddy with excitement, I begin to set up a one-way cosmos bridge that would connect my soul to this plane and allow me to draw energy from it to nourish my soul. Doing this was simple and allowed me to set up incredibly unfair stipulations in my favor.

In a normal universe, doing this would get you the strictest heavenly punishment, however, in all timelines of the ATG universe it is a fixed point for all the gods to die and the Heavenly Way to be incomplete. The creation god in charge of it died, after all, it was only natural. After completing the cosmos bridge, I decided to explore the plane and see the sights. Most of the dimension was a blue void filled with spiritual energy. From time to time there would be spiritual beings floating about devouring the energy to sustain themselves. These spirits were usually mindless but some had rudimentary intelligence and would run away from me. Sometimes I would also spot chunks of actual matter like collapsed buildings or floating islands that seemed to have been ravaged by something. I even came across what looked like a massive palace. In front of the palace was a quaint well that exuded the aura of life and death. My senses told me it was very dangerous so I didn't bother the well and explored the palace.

There were a few mindless spiritual beings around but not much else except for broken statues and furniture. I decided to leave a spiritual imprint on the palace so I could quickly find it again when I come next time. With my purpose complete I leave what I now dub the plane of spirits and take a gander at the other major dimensions. They were a few other dimensions like ones for all the elements but none of them seemed to be as big and powerful as the plane of spirits and the main Primal Chaos universe. I decided to stop my planar exploration before I accidentally pierce the veil of the universe and head into the True Devil pocket world outside of it or something. Using my connection to my body, I shift back to the material plane and arrive back at the scene of Lee and Yun Che fighting. Judging from the sun it's safe to say not even a picosecond passed between me exiting and returning to the material plane. I store this info in the back of my mind and enter my body.

I jolt awake slightly and discover a pounding headache and what feels like a hangover. A quick circulation of Chi helps me get over it and I quickly access the cosmos bridge. A tidal wave of spiritual energy impacts my soul, leaving me a little shell-shocked. I quickly cut back on the connection and the spiritual energy becomes a much more manageable stream. I manipulate the energy to nourish my soul and get it prepared for cultivation. I can feel my soul growing stronger and bigger laying a solid foundation for future soul forging, as an added bonus the feeling is very pleasurable.

Days pass as the energy stream constantly augments my soul. My soul eventually reaches a size of 30 meters in height which is the limit my injured body can take. I stop my cultivation to focus on healing. Because I've been guzzling down healing medicine like eating candy, I've accumulated a lot of medicinal energy. Once I refined it my body began to mend itself at a speed visible to the naked eye. From then on I began to cultivate both my body and my soul sometimes both at once. I would use resistance seals and gravity enchantments that I previously bought from New Moon City to quickly force out the remaining potential of my body and become a grandmaster warrior. Since my body was fully trained the only thing left to do was refine my soul and my Chi. I would enter a meditation trance and simultaneously absorb spiritual energy from the plane of spirits and Chi from the environment around me to aid me in refinement.

The next step to my body cultivation was to balance and equalize my Chi and body so they match in strength. The improvement of my body allowed for my Chi's quality to sharply increase so the only thing left to do was to increase my maximum storage capacity. This would be achieved by absorbing Chi from the surroundings making my body adapt to this amount and allowing it to produce that amount on its own. After a few months of bitterly cultivating, my body and Chi were finally balanced. My soul had long since been completely saturated at a height of 108 meters making my foundation as solid as it could be.

In novels, they don't emphasize how bitter cultivating really is. You have to sit in a room and endure unimaginable levels of boredom. Doing nothing for months or even years on end is a great strain on willpower. Normal people wouldn't be able to stand a week let alone a thousand years that some cultivators go through. Some people may argue that the cultivators wouldn't feel the passage of time due to being in a meditative trance. That may be true for some universes where the Heavenly Way allows for a constant trance but for others such as myself it is impossible to always be in a trance, some things you have to do consciously not automatically like in a trance such as the thing I'm about to do now.

My body and Chi are perfectly balanced signifying me being at the peak of the potential unleashed realm, however, I want to break into the next one, the Life Star realm. To do so I must go through two transitionary stages the first one being called the True Lake Stage. I use my mind's eye to scan my body a few times to make sure I am in peak condition. After doing so and confirming that I am I begin to circulate my Chi. My Chi follows the circulation of my blood flow before penetrating my cells and then rejoining the blood flow circulation. Every time this happens more and more Chi is left behind in the heart. Eventually, the concentration of Chi in the heart is so massive that it begins to make me uncomfortable. I use my spirit to pressure the Chi in my heart to condense. The uncomfortable feeling increases exponentially and evolves into pain. I let out a small grunt but continue to increase the pressure. Several grueling hours pass as my body begins to reach its limits.

Blood begins to leak from my seven orifices but my Chi has no signs of condensation. A feeling of frustration wells up but I quickly clear my heart of any emotion or distraction and focus my will on condensing my Chi. My spirit begins to affect the world around me as objects float around and an intense energy fluctuation breaks out. Intense pain radiates from my heart and all my blood vessels wriggle around like worms attempting to break free from the earth. My bones creak and my muscles spasm as I redouble my efforts to condense the True Lake. My body nearly explodes in the process but I succeed. In my heart is a drop of Liquified Chi. I sigh in relief and begin to practically inhale healing medicine. I lie in bed and observe the drop of Chi. It absorbs the surrounding Chi like a vacuum on full blast and produces another drop of liquid Chi. This process is automatic thankfully.

Day by day more and more of my Chi liquefies and forms a small pond. The absorption process speeds up as a result and the True Lake fully forms. All of my Chi is now liquified, signifying a great qualitative leap. The next transitory realm is the Great Core but that can wait, for now, I have to instruct my students after all.