In just a month in the rigorous regime Bai Li set for himself, he had reached nothing and barely managed to reach to the end of the book, each time he turned to ponder, his trail of thought when reading would be disrupted and all past memories of the book would suddenly vanish from his mind. Each time he had to translate a parcel of the book, he had to restart, and the book was also quite thick to begin with.
It was still quite a fast pace compared to some, he had heard that some people would read novels with strong dialects as a natural with 4 to 20 billion words. Reading that amount was insane to him and people could do this in a mere week.
The month mainly consisted of translation as he spent 18 hours to read the cultivation, another hour to read the pill concoction and apothecary books, and the rest to sleep.
If he tried to fit in more, his fatigue in his mind would attempt to jump the bridge. His body was not much impacted by the strict protocols but the lifestyle of a normal human was quite hard to deal with. Last night, he accidentally spoke with the plants while reading his apothecary books. He yearned to advance to a warrior so he can potentially improve his mental fatigue, but that didn't had to do with anything, as it strengthened the body, not his mindset. Strengthening the mind was a separate process and needed either strong training or time as the catalyst to improve.
Two months into the whole process was even the harder bit, though he got through the whole book translated with some simple summaries on the side. He had to actually peice up a revised book for his own usage, who in the right mind would begin creating their own cultivation techniques, which could be potentially fatal to the user when they can buy a Modified Art of Body or Weapon from the Union Hall.
His hair had grown to large lengths from the caffeine supplements and Nutri-Pills that gave all the necessary nutrition to survive, but the feeling of being full came depended more on the size than its nutrition.
He found some books that said that one of the plants outside was digestable when ripe was outside, each year after its ripe would increase the potency and increase in power. It was called the Soul Condensation Grass that usually takes two decades to fully mature in the True Immortal Myriad Realm, but using some of Fan Tong's estimation, it would take a century, as it first sense the density of soul energy, which the Soul Realm is unknowingly filled to the brim with. After sensing the concentration, it would increase its capcity of soul energy to take to mature, basically increased the vessel that holds the energy, thus producing unimaginable effects.
The Soul Condensation Grass looked like weed and was a vital ingredient in Soul Condensation Pills of the Second Grade. Pills were separated into four grades, following letter grading, or the ancestral way of stating them. The Earthen Grade, Spirit Grade, Heavenly Grade, and Divine Grade. It was a vital ingredient to the second grade of Spirit and a component to other soul strengthening pills of the Third Grade.
After ripening, it goes through three stages where its energy is supposedly the best. After filling up to the brim with soul energy, it begins refining the energy, which takes longer and increases purity of pills. It starts from green as ripe, to blue, red, and then white.
He stood up from his work desk, the chair where he sat in was slowly being accustomed by his seating posture, though it was gradual. He stepped outside and found the description of the grass, though it was nothing of the sort described inside.
Everything in the Soul Realm currently was just experimental data waiting to be used for. The grass was one as it was now a blue fluorescent color, shining in a dim blue. As said from the book, it must've aged for quite awhile, for more than 10,000 years as the 10,000 year Soul Condensation Grass was white. In no way that the blue color was supposed to glow.
'Maybe it restarted its cycle or ascended into a new rotation?'
It must've meant that a certain quota was reached for its energy and produced quality soul energy? Only one way to find out, he took off his grimy shirt that was washed occasionally from the small stream outside the cabin.
The best way to absorb it was to cover all pores of the body as much as possible, leaving our cultivation points out so it can begin using the environment's soul energy to use it to reinforce the body and rid of it of impurities.
He used two pairs of uniforms, which proved to be stuffy and snipped some sections of the belly button, heart, lungs, joints, and most importantly the kept the whole head region open.
One of the vital parts was definitely the head as it held the mind and the storage of pure soul energy was kept there.
He clenched his fist and immediately plunged his teeth into the grass. It was an awful taste that came from eating bitter melon, but fifty times as strong and acidic as well. It produced a foul odor as he chewed on it and felt as if he was gonna cry. The taste was putrid and almost rancid, as the age was definitely passed its ripeness.
After chewing every bit of the bundle of grass, he immediately sat in ameditative position and began using the foundation qi as the base. He had found beside from the ridiculous amount of knowledge in the cultivation technique, the Soul energy drive produced and refined the soul force from the surrounding and filled the sea of conscious with soul force. But that soul force pulled on much of the surroundings, so impurities was naturally contained in the body if one practiced the soul energy drive, it wouldn't impact greatly the growth of power but as you progressingly use it, it usually builds up, Bai Li guessed that Evolvers who don't use another powerful method, they couldn't control all their bodies with peak performance as 10% of the body would be filled with the impurities, which causes some problems, but don't come off that often.
It wasn't that bad as a Warrior, but every bit of strength counted when you just begin, the usually 3 drops of soul energy became 1 enriched pure soul energy. It would take longer to fill up but what he had was time. He dedicated 15-30 minute to produce the soul energy and continued his devilish training.
He had consumed the Soul Condensation Grass and felt no immediate effects, but he had felt that his previously accumulating soul force was concentrating to reduce itself, he didn't feel that bad about it.
Another two months go by and he had increased his strength far beyond his body and he finally made a breathrough on the cultivation method by Fan Tong. he had pulled out a verse that was repeated many times in several portions of the book and used it as the basis. If he could somehow get more hands on ancient techniques, maybe he would find more, but this foundation was good enough to start constructing his own personal techniques.
Nothing extraordinary happened during those two months except that he could now produce two soul force drops with the foundation qi as the medium.
Another month go by and he finally constructed two techniques from the cultivation method. Using the newly purchased Featherweight from when he bought it using his acquired fortune as well as the Tempered Will, he had used the foundation qi and the method to find changes.
The changes were miraculous as it added strange properties to. They didn't exert soul aura when one begins using their soul force to activate it, but he felt it was there.
His emotions were cooled and felt his temperature drop. He had gained increased perception and increased resistance to the cold. Most people were usually harmed by the change of temperature, if he entered an area where the temperature was lower, he would be fine than most people. The skill was useful as the basic techniques of Featherweight was still implemented, meaning he gained an agile body with heightened senses and cold resistance. He felt taht the agility increased by a significant amount as well, it was truly a powerful simplified summarized method, if he could use more and become more experienced in the Method book, he might even be able to draw more power.
He decided to call it the Chilled Resolve. And now for his Tempered Will he bought.
It gave a strange aura that was transparent and gave the same affect as his Tempered Will from the Art of Body. But after its activation for a few seonds, a strange ooze appeared from his fingers' pores, a dark green liquid. The moment it condensated enough for a drop to form, the single drop fell to the floor and dissolved the area, slowly dissipating into the surrounding, the smell of burnt flesh emanated from the horrifying stench and he immediately escaped from it, it seems the smell came once more and another drop formed.
He had discovered another ability that supposedly gives resistance to poison. He decided to call it the Poison King's Body. He should've felt excited for being able to learn two powerful techniques, but all that was left in his mind, broke the silence.
"How was I poisoned?"