“The final trial is simple. Your mind will be sent to a mortal body. The setting will be a Mortal World with little to no Spiritual Qi. Your mission will be to create a method of longevity. The ranking will be based on the person who can live the longest,” said Lord Spirit.
“You said little to no Spiritual Qi. Can you be more specific?” asked Tong Ruobing. There was a vast difference between a world with absolute zero Spiritual Energy to one still having some trace of it–no matter how little.
“You can find out on your own. Any more concerns?”
No one said anything as they contemplated how to pass this trial. From the basic information provided, it was obvious that things would be more complex than stated.
“In that case, let’s begin.”
The participants proceeded to the Pagoda. When Wang Wei opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a rock-hard bed, wearing old clothes that had been washed too many times. He stood up from his bed and immediately saw how skinny and malnourished he was.
Even when he was an orphan back on Earth, he was never this weak.
Wang Wei slowly walked to a bronze mirror to see his reflection. It was his face instead of somebody’s else. Then, some information appeared in his mind, which simply stated he was an orphan in this village; the info also contained some basic information about the villager and its villagers.
Wang Wei took a moment to ponder his next course of action. The first step was to decide whether this world had any Spiritual Qi and its quantity; this information would determine the method he would use next.
Unfortunately, he could not sense anything as this body severely restricted the power of his soul. He needed to enter a deep state of meditation to sense energy. But with how weak his body was, he could die if he did so.
The mind or spirit connects the soul to the body. If he entered deep meditation with his malnourished body, his fleshly body could not bear the process.
‘I need some meat and nutrients,’ thought Wang Wei as he considered his options. Hunting would not work in his current state, so he decided to steal. There were a few villagers with livestock, so he targeted them.
He memorized the layout of the village and the villager’s habits–like sleeping and drinking time. Then, he stole some vegetables and a chicken from one of the neighbors to make soup. There were no spices, including salt, so the food tasted horrible.
‘I can’t remember the last time I felt hunger,’ thought Wang Wei as he munched on a chicken leg. Ever since he began cultivating, he never felt the sensation of hunger. If he counted the time he spent listening to his Ancestor preaching, he was now over 100,000 years. And the sensation was the first time in a very long time; it somehow felt nostalgic.
He still had his desire for good food, but the body’s instinct for nutrients.
‘Aging, sickness, hunger, and death are fundamental things defining a human. So, am I a human without these things?’ Wang Wei was not having an existential crisis about his identity since he did not care that much. He believed that since he still had his emotions and desires, and since he thought himself to be human, he was human.
However, now that he had nothing else to do, he wanted to ponder this philosophical argument. Of course, once he finished stuffing his face and digested the food, he went to bed since he was tired.
For the next month, Wang Wei became a thief at night while helping on the farm in the morning. Because of his quiet and helpful personality, no one suspected him when his thievery reached a point it could no longer be hidden. The villagers organized a night watch group to catch the thief, and Wang Wei offered a few opinions on better organizing things.
Of course, no one caught him. During this month, he used a martial breathing method he knew to maximize the absorption of nutrients from all the food he ingested. As such, he could return to normal health in just one month.
Wang Wei had to wear more oversized clothes to hide the changes in his body since he was no longer as skinny as a bone. And with a semi-healthy body, he could finally attempt deep meditation. Unfortunately, he did not have the environment to do so.
In his current situation, if he was disturbed and forcefully woken up from deep meditation, he could injure his spirit and soul. And he did not feel it was safe to just barricade the hut he lived in since it was not soundproof. With the desire to be cautious, he spent another month digging out a hideout.
Wang Wei took this time to build some muscles and allowed the scandal of his thievery to die amongst the villagers before they got the government involved. He took the time to go hunt since he only needed a bow and arrow, and for his new body to adapt to his previous skill.
After building the hideout, he attempted his first deep meditation. Usually, Wang Wei could see the Spiritual Qi between Heaven and Earth with his eyes. And even if that was possible, it should only require a few minutes of meditation to sense it, or an hour, at best. Unfortunately, he spent more than four hours before detecting something; that’s how rare Spiritual Qi was in this world.
‘With how weak Spiritual Qi is, if I nourish my body with it, I can only live up to 80 years.’
The energy of this world was so thin that no energy system Wang Wei knew could be used to begin the path of cultivation. And if he only used it to temper and nourished his body, he estimated he could only live a maximum of 80 years.
In this world, the average life span is 40 to 50 years, so living up to 80 years could be considered achieving longevity. But it was not nearly as good for the trial.
‘I’m sure there might be some herbs deep in the mountain that absorbed a large quantity of Spiritual Qi. But could I get my hands on one?’
For the next week, he searched the nearby mountain while hunting. Unfortunately, he never saw any spiritual herb. He also never encountered any animals with spirituality–which would also be a good supplement. Wang Wei then concluded that his luck in this world was average and sub-par.
‘I must create a cultivation system perfectly suited to this low-level world.’
Wang Wei had another option to build a science and technology civilization. Then, use genetic engineering to achieve longevity. But he knew the consequences and decided otherwise.
Inside his hideout, he pondered deeply about his next step.
‘Essence, Qi, and Spirit. These three treasures are the essence of cultivation and the three fundamental paths to achieving longevity. If I follow the correlation between them, I could live a long life in this poor environment.’
An idea of the way forward began in his mind. ‘Let’s begin with Essence.’
Wang Wei began to train his body in martial arts. He used his abundant knowledge to create the perfect exercise for his body. Training requires energy to support the body’s evolution. And since he could not rely on Spiritual Qi, he found another alternative: Blood Energy.
Animals’ flesh and bones contain a large amount of blood energy based on their sizes. And through consuming them, Wang Wei acquired the energy his body needed to become stronger.
Every day, he would hunt in the forest with traps and his bow and arrow. He consumed the prey’s flesh and trained in his martial art. In just six months, Wang Wei’s body has the strength of three cows. He could smash a large boulder with one punch and fight a tiger with his bare hands.
Unfortunately, he encountered another problem. He needed to consume the equivalent of 10 cows every day to maintain his training. Although blood energy was a form of energy, it was also the lowest kind with many impurities, making absorbing it extremely inefficient–even with martial techniques to optimize the process.
And there was also the issue of impurities. Wang Wei had to spend at least five hours a day on the toilet, removing these impurities from his body. And since he was not a cultivator and expunged impurities through his skin, he had no choice but to use the toilet.
‘With the time I spent hunting, eating, training, and shitting, I will never finish the [Essence Refining Technique.’
It did not take him long to realize the solution to his problem: money. As long he had money, he could cut off the time to hunt and cook, focusing on his training. Furthermore, with money, he could also buy rare resources like 100-year-old ginseng, that are great for nourishing the body.
‘It’s like the ancient said, only the rich can practice martial arts.’
After coming to this conclusion, Wang Wei decided to leave the village to the nearest city to make some wealth.