Days passed in a simple manner. Every day in the morning, Ning would use his Yin to Sound conversion technique to collect as much sound energy as possible.
Hyesi alone was no longer enough to reach the cap, so he had Hyesi walk around the dark places in the village afterward to gather some more energy.
The villagers were very understanding when he said that he wanted a new body and allowed him to do whatever he wanted. Getting the freedom, Ning fully devoted his days to get enough energy for the basic cultivation knowledge before making a body.
He also helped the villagers once in a while by going to the other place to get some meat for them, or even stay around for a bit to make sure his field wasn't destroyed. Other than that, he mostly just thought about how well he had to make his body.
He wanted to make one that would at least be above average in terms of talent. A dozen or so days passed and Ning finally had over 560 Million Energy.
'System, Buy the Basic Cultivation Knowledge,' he said.
<Basic Cultivation Knowledge costs 560,000,000 Energy. Are you sure?>
'Yes,' he said.
<Confirmed>
At that moment, a massive amount of information entered his mind as he started to know all the different things about Cultivation. The information wasn't very detailed. In fact, it was barely anything. However, the topic of Cultivation had so much information behind it that the basic knowledge he got was hundreds of thousands of times more vast than anything he had learned before through the shop.
'I see…' he thought as he looked through the knowledge he had just acquired.
Cultivation to him was just like magic. You used Qi and you could do whatever you wanted. But, it seemed there was more to it than just that. He learned how vast the thing cultivation itself was.
Cultivation was simply one growing oneself better than one were yesterday. It meant refinement and walking the path towards perfection.
Cultivating a seed meant growing it until it has been refined and has grown into the perfect form it could be, a tree. Cultivating oneself meant enlightening oneself to the ways of the universe to grow as an intelligent being.
Even animals who had barely any intelligence could gather enough Qi to gain intelligence wherein they would begin their true journey through cultivation as well.
There were many things one could get enlightened in. Most people were however limited due to their lack of will or due to their circumstances. Some were bad at fighting, so they would never truly learn the universal truths hidden behind the blows.
Some were bad with swords, so they would never truly understand the universal truths behind the sword. Some were bad with herbs and vegetation, so they would never understand the universal truths behind alchemy.
Or some were just cowardly and didn't fight. Some didn't practice a lot with the sword or some were too lazy to learn about the herbs. Everything was limited to one's own talent and training.
'Except me…,' Ning thought. 'I can get talent whenever I want. I can get experience whenever I want. Heck, I don't even have to train in anything to be good at it. As long as I have the shop, I can be the greatest.'
'But where is the fun in that? What is the point of living if I can't struggle through life?' he thought. 'I don't want to live forever if there is nothing to live for. If everything is handed to me, how is it even living?'
Learning about Cultivation suddenly changed his mindset towards life. He fell into contemplation for a while.
'System, What will be the cost of my original body combined with the cheapest spiritual roots that can take me to the peak of cultivation,' he asked.
<Mortal human body will cost 100,000,000 Energy>
<Five Elemental Spiritual roots will cost 369,000,000 Energy>
<For a combined total of 469,000,000 Energy>
'Hmm…The more elements in a spiritual root, the worse it is, isn't it? However, since it's not the broken ones, so I assume broken ones can't reach immortality. I guess this is what I will require, huh?' he thought and then said, ' System, put it on the auto buy list,' he said.
<confirmed>
'Alright, now I will just have to wait a few more weeks before I get my body,' he thought. Ning went back to his usual task of gathering energy every morning and helping the village with food from time to time.
He made the villagers make a hole in the center of the village where he made them fill it up with water from the sea and then purified it to no longer have salt in it.
The villagers were astounded to finally drink something that wasn't salty or sweet and just… nothing. This was a tasty nothingness.
Ning also spent a majority of the time teaching about cultivation to the villagers. Later on, he decided to leave them with some techniques if he could, but for now, it was time to collect energy.
After several days, he finally had enough energy and it was time to make a new body.
Ning made Hyesi go to a separate location for this event. He made him go back to the 'shrine' that was his home. He had already crossed the 469 Million mark and had told his system to hold off on creating for a few more minutes.
'Alright, System. You can make it,' he said.
<Confirmed>
Suddenly, a massive gust of air appeared in front of Hyesi as motes of light flew out of his necklace and hovered in front of him until it was a little taller than him. Slowly the light took the shape of a human and then started to get more defined.
Skin, muscle, bone, hair… more and more details got added to the body. And finally, it was complete.
Without thinking, Ning just jumped into the new body, and the new body opened its eyes.