After another few rounds of pondering, prototyping, and a lot of brainstorming I created several hollowed bullets that placed poison pills within them and created inscribed bullets that would actually detonate a small piece of spirit stone that I fitted inside them on impact. It wasn't something huge, but if said explosion happens inside someone that has been shot, I'd only shudder at the aftermath.
I sat down and resumed my cultivation. My cultivation level was far below what I needed to travel the desert and the Swamps of Balur. Not to mention entering the Seven Mountain Peaks.
My Qi rotated within me as I consumed more pills, and the lion deemed it wise not to stay where I cultivated due to the excessive poison Qi being released from my cultivation.
After a couple of days, I assaulted my bottleneck. This is where everything will change, the bottleneck of the Core Formation.
I came to an understanding of Cultivation, though I cannot say it is a great discovery but to me, it means something great.
Cultivation is in its all encompasses the search for truth. It's the reason behind why people cultivate, not to mainly defy heaven, but to look and understand the secrets of the world. But Heaven is jealous, and would never give up its secrets without making you struggle for them. Heaven is jealous yet merciful, wrathful yet always leaves a path to salvation. Pragmatic yet kind, cruel yet, gives chances no matter how small.
For me, the search of truth isn't as simple as it could be, mainly because I know my mind is clouded with concepts from my former world. I'm and always have been a man of science, and fully discarding my mental capabilities for fate, faith, and belief, is not something that I can do without asking a few questions.
I have seen spirituality, I have seen what makes a man live for ages, though it feels miraculous it can always be explained by science, if not now, maybe later. However, what boggles my mind, is the fact that how can a man create something that is none organic yet feels as if it is a part of oneself?
A core, creating a core is to create a container for the soul. Something ephemeral and untouchable. What is a soul? I have no idea, but it seems to be the essence of a person. Same as with herbs, it's the most important part of a person. And cultivators can not only cultivate the body, but also the Soul.
The Soul makes a being and unmaking it dooms them. A soul is what drives a body. Strange as it may seem. If you make a body from scratch, heart liver, lungs, brain, and all the organs, no matter how perfect you make them, you'll never be able to create a living being. Without a soul, you'll have a pretty corpse even if you're able to have it breathe and have its heart pumping blood all over the body. It will never be a 'being.' Without a soul, one is nothing but a corpse. And core creation allows a cultivator to harness their own souls, and in a sense trapping it in a small core to prepare it for the next step, Nascent Soul.
But one needs a container for the soul first, and I have no idea how to do it. Most cultivators would climb the next step in cultivation and their core will be naturally created, but I'm struggling, not because I can't rise in rank, but because my damned mind is still fixated with a simple fact. Where is a core created, how is it created? What are the requirements to create it? And how to create it.
And because of these small little disturbing facts, no matter how much I assaulted the Core Creation step, I always failed as my Poison Qi rejected climbing up.
The poison God's book refused to give me any information on how to make a core, and I was frustrated to no end.
I sighed as I stood up, there was no need for me to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, that's no different than madness. And I'm far from becoming mad, at least not yet.
I asked X to follow me, I needed to climb down the cave and see what's all the fuss is about with this red sky.
But just as I moved, I heard loud steps behind me, turning, I saw that X's feet were digging into the ground. The number of bullets and grenades, yes grenades based on spirit stones, inside him were too much that he gained weight. It won't bother him but he's like a gold pouch jingling with every move. I'll need to adjust this later on lest it creates a balance problem with X.
When I was outside the cave, the lion was waiting patiently on the ground, sitting still.
I pulled my flying sword and placed it under me, then flew down. I threw a small Soul Pill at the Lion to which he gobbled up happily.
"I'll be going away now, take good care," I said as I patted the lion on the head. The creature understood immediately and had a sad expression on his face.
"You can't rely on others to raise your cultivation, work hard and you'll definitely reach higher realms. Take good care little friend," I said and flew away with X hot on my heels.
Yes, X was flying, though I had a good urge to give him jet thrusters under his legs, like a well-known iron suit-wearing superhero, it was basically impossible to balance him. so, I gave him a flying treasure that I found on one of the pouches the little kitten had brought me. With a few adjustments to the flying sword, it was able to use X's spiritual energy and fly him after me.
It took me a few hours to reach a gathering of cultivators. The majority were at the core formation, with scant few at the Foundation Establishment like me. While a good portion were all Nascent Soul cultivators.
"Junior," a man with a short stub for a beard called, he was a Nascent Soul cultivator spoke to me.
I stopped and looked at him.
"I will excuse your contempt for remaining higher than the rest of us, but come down and identify yourself."
"And what if I don't? I have no relation to you or this group, why should I identify myself to you?"
Many cultivators looked at me, some with pity even.
"Such insolence," the man said in a bored tone. "Then as punishment, take this hit from me, survive and I'll let it go."
The man said and didn't even wait before he swung his sword at me.
A massive purple wave came at me, it looked like an attack that was going to consume the whole world. But X immediately flew in front of me, and with a flick of his hand, dissipated the entirety of the attack as if it was nothing.
The cultivator was in awe of the puppet's exploit and used his divine sense to try and scan it. But almost immediately many many cultivators cried out as they rubbed their now red eyes.
"What sorcery is this?!" shouted the cultivator.
"That'll teach you to try and prey on my secrets." I grinned, I had already placed hundreds of anti-divine sense inscriptions. Nothing too serious, but a sample of it was the moment that once a cultivator's divine sense was to touch X, they'll receive a recoiled backlash causing them to see a very frightening illusion. Something along the line of daggers stabbing right through their eyes, or worms eating them, their flesh burning or the agony of one being flayed alive. It's easy to create illusions and since divine sense requires one to extend their own 'sight' to where it doesn't belong, it's even easier to repel with the right inscriptions.
It would only take a second, but in that second the cultivator who tried to pry on X's secrets will suffer several torturous events at once making their mind in shambles.
"It seems that brother Lao Yan had offended someone from a prominent sect. May I ask what's your name fellow junior cultivator?" asked another slightly plump cultivator in yellow robes, his eyes were up to no good…
"I'm Shen Bao."
"And from what Sect Does brother Shen Bao come from?" asked the same old man.
"It would be polite to tell me your name first before I reply to any of your inquiries," I replied in a slightly agitated tone.
"Right, I've forgotten my manners, I'm Yi Fei. A small elder of the Soaring Mountain Sect, and the person who you were talking to just now is Lao Yan, an elder of the Tian Ji Sect."
"I'm Shen Bao, as I've said before, and I don't belong to any sect," I said waiting for the expressions that I just witnessed.
Greed, it was plain and obvious on most of their faces.
"But that's just for now," I replied.
"What does junior brother Shen Bao mean?" asked Yi Fei.
"I'm to present myself to the Seven mountain Peaks Sect soon, and seeing this strange event happening I decided to investigate while I traveled to the sect."
Now let's see their expressions after hearing the name of the Seve Mountain Peaks Sect.