Chương 5: Heretic

'A day is considered perfect if it starts with a bloom of life and joy'.

Li Mo Shang's feelings could only be described as joy and euphoria. After absorbing the worldly qi of the Purple East for several months, he had finally broken through into the first realm of Body Tempering, the starting road for cultivators.

Previously, he could only be called a spiritual being with some form of cultivation, but no sustenance; those who had not entered into the Body Tempering realm could only be called enhanced mortals-only granted enrichment of the senses, but no ability to use qi within their body.

For months, he had painstakingly infused worldly qi into his bones, and once the bones were dense with qi, next were the meridians.

The Body Tempering Realm for mortals could be an easy gap to complete for some, and impossible for others. Body Tempering did not require talent in perceiving worldly qi to complete within a short period of time, only a steady source and infusion of qi to gradually transform the body from its mortal roots to those of a proper cultivator.

If one was lucky or possessed significant resources, the Body Tempering realm could be conquered within a few short months; a steady consumption of pills containing mild qi would suffice, without any differences in the foundations of cultivation.

Martial arts techniques implementing worldly qi would only be usable beyond the Foundation Establishment realm, as only then did the body possess enough qi to project externally; utilizing qi prior to that stage would merely result in death as the body would be heavily reliant on the absorbed qi until the Spirit Building realm, for only then could qi be isolated for external projection.

Li Mo Shang's happiness did not end at merely entering the Body Tempering realm, but its implications. When he had picked up the worn-out book on cultivation months ago, only the title and preface was comprehensible for him.

Called 'Heretic', the book listed a method of cultivation Li Mo Shang assumed was not heard of by mortal cultivators, and professing its contents to others would only earn him death by ridicule. 'Heretic's' preface listed the known cultivation realms from Body Tempering to Divine Dao, and a statement that before reaching the Body Tempering realm, no further contents would be decipherable. Now that Li Mo Shang's cultivation satisfied that requirement, he could attempt to read its contents once more.

Opening the book, he skipped the preface and turned to the next page, before shaking in delight. As he had predicted, the blank pages slowly filled with words, and its contents, though broken in grammar, were finally comprehensible.

The page first had a diagram of the human body, with a cross over the dantian region, instead circling over the heart. Next to the diagram, were the words, "Do not fall into the pitfall of the mortal dantian". 'Pitfall of the mortal dantian?' Li Mo Shang shook his head in confusion. The dantian was where cultivators directed absorbed qi towards, where would he store worldly qi if he couldn't store it in his dantian?

The following pages offered an explanation for discarding the dantian, and stumped Li Mo Shang. Was this a scam? To cultivate in the proper method without ruining future prospects and leaving everything to destiny, the book stated to form a spiritual core, one that would replace the heart.

The heart, the book stated, was the primary module of life for mortals, yet at the same time cultivators' most deadly obstacle as it limited lifespan by a significant margin. With each beat, the heart decreased any mortals' lifespan by a measured amount, and only be replacing the heart by a spiritual core could cultivators receive the proper increase in lifespan per breakthrough, and not be worried about a sudden death during absorption of worldly qi.

As for the main practice of cultivation described in the book, it confounded Li Mo Shang even further.

The spiritual core had to consist of a material capable of resisting the assimilating effect of qi. Precious metals, natural materials, and precious elements would not serve its function well, instead being gradually assimilated by the absorbed qi; if not replaced as soon as possible, the cultivator using such material as his core would soon disintegrate into a moving cluster of qi.

'Heretic' stated that the soul of cultivators was the second-best material aside from condensed divine essence, as the personal configuration of the cultivator's soul would be able to ignore the derailing effect of qi, and conquer it without repercussion.

To form a spiritual core, Li Mo Shang had to first replace his heart with a proper housing for his soul instead of the brain.

Following the instructions of the book, Li Mo Shang began the migration of his soul. Migrating it towards the heart region was fairly easy; all he had to do was to visualize a miniaturized figure of himself traversing from his brain to his heart region, providing assistance with a steady infusion of qi.

Only, the replacement of the heart was quite difficult, as a housing unit had to be constructed while migrating the soul, and it had to be completed before the soul reached the heart cavity, else Li Mo Shang would perish here. The housing unit was, in essence, a fairly simple idea.

The veins leading to the heart had to be severed at once, then a set of spiritual veins had to connect the mortal veins to form a circulating network, of which the soul would reside within the spiritual veins, moderating blood flow and maintaining life. Afterwards, the heart had to be disintegrated into spiritual qi, then absorbed by the soul to gain the properties necessary to be recognized as a module of life. After that stage, the migrating was completed and cultivation of the 'Heretic' was possible.

Li Mo Shang carefully monitored the migrating process of the soul, then focused on building the housing unit for his soul. He visualized a set of flexible tubing connecting both sides of his veins leading to a spherical unit centered in his heart cavity.

Within the spherical unit, he then visualized an engraved collection of pathways directing blood towards the correct vein. Without realizing, his soul had already completed its migration, making Li Mo Shang palpitate fiercely; had he been even a second later in forming the set of spiritual veins, he would have died.

Gritting his teeth, Li Mo Shang commanded his soul to house itself in the spherical unit, making it emit a golden glow, indicating its success. Absorb! The heart exploded into a mist of blood and qi, which was then drawn into the sphere of qi without much resistance. The entire sphere shook violently, then manifested into a grey, dull sphere of some unknown material, with a set of engravings traveling along its surface akin to the circuitry boards Li Mo Shang's father liked to engrave in his free time.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Li Mo Shang then returned his attention to the book, aiming to begin practicing the cultivation method described in the 'Heretic', intending to discover what exactly made it require the severing of his heart.

To his surprise and fear, he felt no improvement after replacing his heart; on the contrary, every movement seemed sluggish, and he felt extremely lethargic. Pinning his hopes on the 'Heretic' manual, Li Mo Shang prayed that the cultivation method would resolve this problem.

The cultivation method of the 'Heretic' had no special mantra or oracular chant for Li Mo Shang to follow. Instead, it had a diagram of a complete core, with instructions to guide worldly qi. What delighted Li Mo Shang, was the statement near the bottom of the page, one detailing that spiritual pills were not necessary nor recommended.

The Heretic's Core would provide an unlimited supply of qi during in and out of combat, and would even allow Li Mo Shang to project qi without even surpassing Foundation Establishment. Brimming with joy, Li Mo Shang diligently followed the instructions on the diagram, by first injecting a strand of qi into the spiritual core in his chest cavity.

Upon contacting the spiritual core, the strand of qi began to tremble violently, struggling to escape his body. Without delay, the spiritual core ignited, the engravings emitting a golden light with an intensity greater than shown during the core's formation, assimilating the strand of qi without delay and mercy.

To Li Mo Shang's interest, the spiritual core then trembled once more, then emitted a sound similar to a dragon's cry, filled with wrath, pure arrogance, and splendor of a dragon's pride.

Worldly qi near Li Mo Shang became chaotic when the sound passed it, and qi began to stream into Li Mo Shang's body in massive volumes, even physically appearing as streams of light. The qi reached his chest cavity, then began to orbit the spiritual core, gradually increasing in speed.

The spiritual core also began to rotate, but in the opposite direction of the spiritual qi's orbit.

As both increased in speed, Li Mo Shang observed miniscule strands of spiritual qi breaking away from orbit and towards his spiritual core, assimilating into the engravings without any resistance. What astounded Li Mo Shang was the purity of the assimilated spiritual qi, for it was without any blemish, and rampant absorption would not bring any sequelae over long periods of time.

To Li Mo Shang's utter joy, his previous lethargic and sluggish feeling completely disappeared, instead providing him an enriched and powerful vitality, alongside of enhancing his senses hundreds of times. His vision and hearing could now cover a range of several kilometers, all down to the smallest detail; he could see a little ant carrying a leaf much larger than its own body, and could hear its steps if he focused upon the little creature.

Referencing the 'Heretic' manual, Li Mo Shang discovered that not only was this production of spiritual qi fully automatic, the orbiting spiritual qi would only be absorbed when the purity reached its peak, and the qi redirected towards outside could be externally projected, while the absorbed qi would enrich both his body and soul; in essence, by cultivating according to the 'Heretic' manual, Li Mo Shang would simultaneously cultivate in both the Body Tempering and Nascent Soul realm.

Li Mo Shang lived in a world almost devoid of cultivators; with the advent of technology, cultivation had decreased to a point of becoming an extremely rare commodity of the wealthy.

As advanced weaponry including firearms and precise ballista technology became increasing prevalent and devastating in power, cultivators had declined as the lower realms of cultivation could not contest with these weapons in destructive potential.

Though higher realms including late-Foundation Establishment could stand its ground against a regiment of armor-piercing rounds, reaching Foundation Establishment would take decades in of itself; by the time a cultivator reached Foundation Establishment, he would be well within his eighties.

As cultivation would increase lifespan starting from the Nascent Soul realm, it further accelerated its decline, to the point that peak Body Tempering cultivators would become one of the strongest individuals in the world.

Cultivation resources were indeed lacking in Li Mo Shang's world; if one were to scrounge all of the spiritual plants and beasts in the world, it would barely propel a cultivator into the initial Foundation Establishment, perhaps not even breaking through. As for Nascent Realm cultivators and even Peak Foundation Establishment cultivators, they were already considered legends.

This was where the 'Heretic' manual became extremely valuable. By forming a spiritual core capable of reducing spiritual qi into the purest state possible prior to absorption, the cultivator would only receive the optimal effects of cultivating.

Cultivation times would become almost nonexistent as the spiritual core was capable of automatic processing, allowing Li Mo Shang to hide his identity without difficulty. Add in the ability to project qi externally and utilize martial arts techniques in conjunction with spiritual qi, and Li Mo Shang could triumph over anyone in the world.

Unfortunately for him, who had the aspiration of becoming renowned among cultivators, this world was not satisfying for him. As the 'Heretic' manual was too overpowering in its effects of enhancing cultivation, Li Mo Shang predicted that it had originated from a different world, meaning that there was a method of traversing to different worlds and domains. All he had to do was bide his time and cultivate to the required realm; perhaps the later sections of the book would describe a method of inter-world travel.

Marveling in his cultivation, Li Mo Shang had lost track of time and forgot about his usual routine as a university student; hence on the following day, he was punished by standing in the hall for the entire day.