Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

He sighed in resignation and noticed daylight was fading as the sun descended down the horizon. It was time to return home. Yan Zaizen didn’t realize that he’d spent three full days out in the middle of nowhere, and thus wasn’t really in a rush to go home. Rationalizing it up to this point, he decided to walk fairly slowly back to Meteorite City.

He felt exhausted anyhow, especially in regards to his soul. He’d never felt exhausted spiritually before. It was fundamentally different than physical or mental exhaustion. Physical makes it feel like your body burns at parts from overexertion, while mental feels like you’ve been hit with a bountiful injection of need-to-sleep. However, spiritual exhaustion felt more like a tingling feeling all-around and lack of awareness. Before, he could sense the surroundings rather clearly, but now things were slightly blurry and discombobulated. Like, the sky was obviously above him, but he felt like it wasn’t.

It was simply a strange sensation.

It wasn’t one he liked, but it wasn’t so bad. He could still walk, albeit slouched, and his physical body and mental capabilities were still functioning. In truth, Yan Zaizen assumed mental and spiritual had little difference until he unlocked his Spiritual Sense. To him, it’s like Spiritual Sense was connected to the five senses, but the five senses weren’t connected to Spiritual Sense. If he used his Spiritual Sense to observe his surroundings, he’ll receive what he’d normally see with his eyes. But if he looked at something with his eyes, he wouldn’t be perceiving it with his sense. It was definitely something one had to get used to.

He had a lot of time to think about things, including the Meteor Ring. After some time, he finally remembered the motes of light that were emitted into his soul by the book. He couldn’t figure out what those motes of light were or why the book-turned-crystal sent them into his soul. Earlier, he was too distracted by the concept of wealth and how quickly it was out of his reach that he didn’t put much thought into it.

Looking back, those motes of light originated from the book and entered his soul. Speaking logically, perhaps the contents of the book that had blank pages entered his soul. If so, what does that mean? How can he get access to it? Thinking deeply, he decided to revisit his Spiritual Sense, even if he felt spiritually exhausted. His Spiritual Sense turned inwards. That felt beyond weird. It was as if he was peering into his body and soul. He could observe his heartbeat, the pulsations of his lungs, the inner-workings of his intestines, and even the light thumping of his brain. He learned quite a bit about the human anatomy on that alone. He almost felt like he was observing another person rather than himself.

He had one word for that: Incredible.

Putting his miraculous discovery of self-observation aside, he put more emphasis on his Spiritual Sense on his soul form - that squiggly line. He could see the motes of light. With a thought, the sense surged inside the soul form and touched the motes of light.

Almost immediately, he stopped in place.

A flood of information surged from his soul to his spiritual sense to his brain. It was that sensation from before, where he felt like his spiritual sense was connected to his brain, but his brain wasn’t connected to his spiritual sense or otherwise - the soul.

"Immortal Herculean Method, first level: Nascent Herculean Physique. Immortal Herculean Method, second level: Grand Herculean Physique.’’ He whispered the information he received from the motes of light. They detailed the Immortal Herculean Method and its subsequent training practices and characteristics. However, what really drew his attention was the first description of the technique: ’Become an Immortal Herculean! Exceed the heavens, and shatter the sky!’

How tyrannical!

To exceed the heavens! How many people can put that into their technique’s description. It felt ludicrous even thinking about it. Yan Zaizen, however, was ecstatic. Body Cultivation was seen through the myriad realms as an auxiliary form of cultivation, similar to alchemy, soul cultivation, or armament creation. Essentially, it’s done often but rarely do people focus purely on it. Qi Cultivation has always been the main form of cultivation in the myriad realms, every race across all realms use Qi Cultivation, even if they may have different names for it, they all primarily cultivate energy.

Even Yan Zaizen has done the bare minimum of Body Cultivation, and albeit it’s not much, it has helped him enter the Qi Revolving Realm. Unlike Qi Cultivation with clearly defined limits of strengths and weaknesses, Body Cultivation is unique to each method in its strengths and weaknesses. They are typically divided by levels, but levels are not equal. For example, if the Immortal Herculean Method was as heaven-defying as it seems, then the first level may exceed another method’s seven levels.

Looking at it more, it seems the Immortal Herculean Method was divided into five levels and four stages of success. The stages are classified as Initial Success, Minor Success, Major Success, and Perfection. The Immortal Herculean Method sure was incredible. As he continued to mentally perceive the instructions and characteristics of this method, he couldn’t help but gasp and rapidly pant.

The Nascent Immortal Physique was a method where one directly wrested control of their body’s natural limiters and removed them. This would enable one’s physique to reach a state of perfection, and different races had different levels of strength in regards to each stage of success. However, from the Initial Success Stage was determined to, at a minimum, be as strong as a Peak Qi Revolving Realm Cultivator! That was just the first stage! Not to mention the entire level.

If one reached Perfection, their strength would rival a Qi Unification Cultivator. This was the same level as the upper echelons of his own clan. The true caveat of the entire method was its description of possessing the ability to accelerate healing.

He couldn’t help but laugh loudly. He felt exceptionally good at the moment. This method of cultivation required no special resources or physique-type, simply the will and proper method. That meant he could just jump right into cultivating the method without any delay and advance all the way to the Perfection Stage without any external support.

He didn’t take to heart the part that required an exceptional will and its emphasis on it. Yan Zaizen was simply lost in his own thoughts of greatness and how he’ll soar the skies with dazzling majesty. The peasants beneath his feet will shiver at his strength. The women would quiver at his sight in excitement.

"Hahaha!" He couldn’t hold his laughter any longer and faced the sky with an overly pleased expression. If one saw it and knew his thoughts, they may want to just walk up and slap him - harshly.

"Hm?" His laughter stopped abruptly as he turned towards the horizon. He felt a strange sensation in the air, like a sensation of imminent death. Yan Zaizen had never felt this sensation so clearly, even while he was being chased ferociously by that meteor. It was like his instincts, his very soul, was firing on all cylinders to inform him of impending danger. However, there was nothing for miles. Deciding to be cautious with his little life, he started to pick up the pace, but doing so had the opposite effect. He felt even more danger.

He sped up and the sensation increased. He transitioned from a fast walk to a jog to a run to a full-blown sprint and finally, it was as if he was flying across the surface of the grass. His Qi urged to the maximum of its capabilities and fueled his mad dash to safety, but nothing worked. He wished he had cultivated the Immortal Herculean Method at this moment, but if one wished for it then one simply doesn’t have it.

Abruptly, a flash of resplendent silver light appeared over the horizon.