The young man looked at the equally youthful girl that was rubbing her head. She had just bumped into him and was now down on the ground and on her posterior. The girl was peculiar looking, she could be described as flashy. Long nails with something that looked like little pink and purple gems stuck to them. Her hair was done in a twin-tail type of hairstyle, her lips were rosy and she was wearing golden earrings.
Her robe was unusually short, normally the female cultivators wore ones that went down to their ankles. They parted on the sides so that they had some wiggle room to move their legs around. The skirt of the robe that this girl was wearing could be considered a miniskirt. The young man’s eyes stopped at the lower area as he could see quite the plump thighs, he then traced his gaze upwards and was greeted by quite the lovely mountain peaks. He gulped hard and managed to gather his senses, reaching out with his hand as he tried to help the girl up to her feet.
“Ahh, forgive me, are you alright?”
He wasn’t sure if this girl was older or younger than he was, but they looked to be in a similar age range that didn’t require any honorifics. The girl finally looked up without saying a word, her green eyes met with the youth. They didn’t break eye contact for a good couple of seconds, which after the girl finally reacted.
“Ahhhhh….”
She jumped up to her two feet with haste, her twin-tails bounced around along with her upper chest part, her short robe having to strain itself to contain all of that weight there.
“Ohhhh nooo… I’m going to be late…”
Zhang Liu moved back a bit, the girl just bolting off into the distance and quickly vanishing from view leaving the youth and his clan companions stupified.
“W-what?”
“Brother Liu sure is a smooth talker with the ladies…”
“Haven’t seen a girl run away that fast in a while, must be some kind of talent!”
Zhang Liu got a bit red in the face after his friends started teasing him, they quickly quieted down after he gave them all his death glare, but then they laughed out once more as this made things even funnier.
“Let us move on… the arena isn’t far from here…”
Zhang Liu proclaimed as everyone moved out, the youth rubbing his chin while he thought about the cute looking girl that he bumped into.
‘That robe pattern looked familiar… where did I see it before…’
He was sure that he saw a similar-looking robe on someone before, but he wasn’t quite sure who was it. He was positive that he didn’t know the girl from anywhere, but that robe and skin tone was unusual to see in this world occupied by jade-like beauties that liked to look like ghosts. Zhang Liu turned away from that motion after his master gave him a lecture about the importance of sunlight and how a healthy skin tone was vastly more beautiful than looking like a bedsheet.
‘She might have been from that clan…oh well…’
He tossed his thoughts to the back of his head, but while walking forward towards the arena he found himself constantly getting reminded of the girl’s chest area, guess the master’s tastes were absorbed by this disciple.
Though, while the group of youthful cultivators went on with their day, they didn’t notice that someone was following them. A bouncy tail of hair was peeking out from the corner, with the same girl that Zhang Liu bumped into peeking her head out. Her eyes were sparkling as she looked at the back of the young man that she bumped into. She clenched her tiny fist, a smirk covering her face as she whispered out.
“I’ll show you that the ancestors weren’t wrong! Stupid big sis!”
————-
Back at Spirit Spring City Zhang Dong was pacing through his room. It seemed as if he was looking into a random direction where there was a wall, but in reality, he was looking at his status screen. He had absorbed anything he could, without tapping into the clan’s reserve spirit stone stash and was now waiting for the system point count to go past ten million.
‘God damn… it’s really happening… and I’m not even stuck in some kind of death and life battle this time around!’
He had a dumb grin plastered all over his face. He was sure that he would reach the nascent soul stage soon and it would be happening in a couple of hours at exactly twelve at midnight. That was the time when his clan building portion of his system did its update and he would receive the required points for his advancement.
‘It’s still the middle of the day… the suspense is killing me…’
He was equally happy and scared, this would be his first jump in big realms. The previous small level-ups all happened while he was still in core formation, this would be the first time he would be reaching a new point of existence. There was also one particular change that he was afraid of, that was actually getting one of those nascent souls, or infant souls if you went with a more direct translation.
‘Guess I’ll have a little baby soul living inside me… well that will be weird… well can’t be weirder than cultivating a whole universe in your own body like they do in some other works of fiction.’
Matt crossed his hands over one another and tried to recall any other strange cultivation methods. In a lot of those, the cultivators would perceive some kind of world inside of themselves, building palaces or large seas of spiritual energies, or even worlds with greenery inside. He had a similar thing inside of him in the form of the Dao pillars, but they were already there along with his core even before he arrived in this world so they felt kind of natural.
‘What I got from the other cultivation manuals is that, you are supposed to shatter your core to produce a nascent soul instead of it… the cultivator might die in the process of doing that if they aren’t careful and fully prepared though, but in my case, the system should take care of everything, right?’
Matt was kind of banking on the system to get him over the hump, when he upgraded his cultivation method to the golden lightning one the system did the hard part for him. It was as if he practiced this cultivation method instead of the previous one the moment he spent his points of it. So he was sure that his cheat ability would push him through it one way or the other. He just needed to make sure to hide the fact that he reached this degree of power.
‘First I’ll lay low for some months and train up some of those nascent soul techniques at least to an adept rank…’
He already had picked up a couple of techniques that he wanted to practice, they included better sword techniques, better movement techniques and so on. He was also banking on producing better versions of his old techniques, he still got the cultivation manuals of them.
After upgrading his main cultivation method, he would probably receive the manual for it. He could then start mixing it with the other manuals he received from the secret ground. You didn’t have to mix attack techniques with the same sort, you could pick and choose. One technique would be used as a basis, while the rest would add to it.
For instance, he could take his improved golden nascent soul cultivation manual and pair it up with another heaven grade technique, if it worked it would produce an improved version of the skill that used parts of his main cultivation method. An inferno palm strike technique could thus be transformed into a golden lightning palm strike that would fit his needs a lot more.
‘All the possibilities! Though I shouldn’t spread myself too thin… I could well spend years training new skills it’s fine if I get one or two and just focus on them for now. I’d also need boatloads of crafting points to get new technique manuals… wish that store was still working…’
Matt was still feeling disgruntled after losing his cash shop. It would be much easier to just find a proper skill from there than play around with that upgrading machine in his crafting abode.
‘I’d probably already be in the nascent soul a year ago if I still got points for killing demonic beasts too…’
He shrugged and went outside his room, the people that he met bowed to him in respect. He headed down into the secret part of the main Zhang compound where the spatial treasure in the form of the medallion was hidden. After the years the clan had figured a way to bolster it, but it was something Matt didn’t like doing as he had to pour copious amounts of his spiritual energy into the thing.
The dimensional regalia only accepted pure holy element energies which only he possessed. The more of it he inserted into the thing, the more it grew in size. The increase was quite meager though, if he pushed 50% of his cultivation base into the spatial treasure the rocky area would grow by only a couple of meters. Though it grew in all directions, after two years he managed to add another couple of kilometers in diameter.
The guards greeted their Patriarch, they were already informed that he would be going into closed cultivation inside the dimensional regalia. They were ordered to keep anyone out and only bother him if there was some kind of emergency, like an attack from another clan or something in that range.
He entered the large room the medallion was placed in, quickly vanishing inside of it. The large dorm was still standing there, along with some other structures that were nowhere instead of the makeshift tents, that the clan used when they were preparing for the expedition. The dorm-like building was enlarged and another level was built atop of it, they even added a cafeteria for the recruits that were still being trained in here.
‘Heh, nice to be the leader, everyone had to clear out of here.’
The innermost clan members were training in here, hidden away from prying eyes. Matt had written down each book from that library and placed it in here in a well-protected vault. Normally you would see people guarding it, depending on your clan rank and your potential you were allowed inside of that vault. The vault library had four levels, each of them having manuals and books ranging from Qi condensation all up to Nascent soul ones. The last area was only open to people at the top, which was the Patriarch and the Grand Elder.
‘Well, the energies from stepping into the Nascent Soul level will be blocked by this treasure.’
This was the biggest reason he was here, the dimensional regalia blocked any aura from seeping outside. He would be safe in here to cultivate in peace, and unless someone stronger than him got their hands on the treasure they wouldn’t be able to even come inside without his approval.
“Hm, what time is it now…”
He glanced at his system clock, which was quite handy for occasions like this.
“Still have a couple of hours till I get my points… guess I could prepare for the next stage of the plan…”
He still needed to make that heaven grade weapon, he was waiting to pass his realm first than he would start crafting. He didn’t have that many materials for his training though, the blasted dark palm sect was keeping tabs on even the crafting component that could be used for heaven grade weapons and treasures. But luckily throughout the years, old grandpa Jin had managed to procure some goods for him. It was also one of the reasons that it was taking him two years to finally reach this point, the spirit stone expenditure was immense.
“Well then, time to say goodbye to the crummy core and welcome the baby soul.”