How Much For Your Soul?

Chapter 19

Three thousand six hundred super cultivation techniques. That was how many books Shen Yue had to improve in preparation for his perfect manual! Fortunately, there were fewer flaws since they were considered top class techniques. Still, even if he only spent fifteen minutes on each manual, that calculates to nine hundred hours!

Luckily he had a cheat he could use to reduce the time into four and a half days instead of thirty-seven and a half. The Yin-Yang Pendant he stole from the Earth slapper was capable of 1:100 time dilation and of being used for 2 hours a day at the first level. He would need to bind it with blood to access the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal.

Even with this cheat item, the time needed was still nine hundred hours, it would just be passed in another realm. Shen Yue was starting to regret his need for the 'perfect' technique and was seriously contemplating just using the standard book his library would compile. But the iron will he had formed from countless years of waiting, would not be swayed.

Just for a comparison, he mentally made a copy of the Three thousand six hundred super cultivation techniques and compiled them. The result was spectacular. The books disintegrated and merged into a plain-featured manual that was superior to Nie Li's in every way.

The manual would allow him to contract twenty-nine demon spirit beasts, one for each variant of the seven main elements, plus neutral! Like Nie Li's Heavenly God Technique, he would train both his soul force and enhance the strength of his physical body at the same time. But unlike the slow and hard to practice Heavenly God method, he would rise through the ranks at a decent speed with a stable foundation.

This was everything he had imagined since he saw the Library of Heavens Path in God's shop. What would it be like if he compiled upgraded manuals together? When he looked through the original techniques, he noted that many of them had skills or benefits that are not transferred into the newly created manual.

Some even offered ways to hide his cultivation, cancelling the need to create a separate technique. The Nine Revolving Ice Phoenix Technique that Nie Li gave Ye Ziyun possesses the ability to give her nine lives. Others change the user's Qi into their attribute, like the power of law. Lu Piao's Holy Primal Chaos Technique is an example of this, he has to foster Chaos Qi in his body, changing his Qi.

His path clear, Shen Yue took out the three items he needed to bind to his soul. First was the ring in the shape of a heart. With a drop of blood and conscious thought, he turned it into a devil smiley face and hid it. Shen Yue now had a second high-quality storage ring.

After letting his most trusted maid know that he was going to try out the items he stole from the imposters, he had Mei watch over him. This was to make sure he was not harmed or to divert attention if he disappeared.

Next was the pendant, he vaguely remembered that the original owner from the novel, activated it by extreme exhaustion and then later he entered the realm by dropping blood on it. Skipping the exhaustion step, he dripped some blood onto it causing a blue screen to appear with the pendant's details.

[ The Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal Pendant / System A soul-bound pendant containing a realm only accessible to the owner. No other human beings are allowed entry unless they are already dead. (Or have, a spiritual connection to the owner.) Time flows at a rate of 100:1 in the realm compared to the outside world. The landscape of this realm has a circumference of roughly a 33,000 Square Meters, every increase of the level of this Realm will increase the size of space available. ]

As soon as the screen disappeared the Yin-Yang Pendant begin to emit waves of soft violet light, slowly enveloping Shen Yue. The Pendant seemed to be steadily absorbing his blood as the waves of violet light got stronger, changing the Yin-Yang Pendant to a dark violet hue. Before Mei could even blink, he vanished.

Shen Yue appeared in the middle of an otherworldly landscape in front of a small pool of water. The pond had a circumference and depth of about 10m, the water in it seemed to sparkle with the shine of purity, devoid of any pollutants.

To the side of the pond was a weird looking tree, as well as a stone monument. This stone monument was roughly two metres squared and gave off a majestic aura as if it held absolute power in this supernatural realm. Inspecting the tablet, Shen Yue read what was basically recorded on the blue screen.

[Once the first layer of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal had been unlocked, a vigorous-looking tree would appear in it. This tree takes 100 years to mature, and every 100 years, it will produce 10 fruits. The name of the fruit on this tree is known as the Energy Enhancing Fruits. If ingested by normal humans, this could increase their strength level by 250kg. Alchemists can use these fruits for pill concoction.

Note: effect of Energy Enhancing Fruits can only stack 2 times, consuming more is pointless.]

Below this was a list of different levels waiting to be unlocked.

[Unlocking the 2nd Layer of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal],

all the way to [Unlocking 9th Layer of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal]

Before he got carried away experimenting with his new toys, Shen Yue thought it prudent to teleport back and reassure Mei. Suddenly appearing in front of a slightly worried Mei, he gave her his brightest smile.

"It works! I suddenly appeared in a small realm with a tree and a pond. Did my body stay here?"

"No, you vanished but then a couple of seconds later, you reappeared. Why do you have a violet dot on your forehead?" She asked with a slight smile, she was happy her young master was fine but wondering at his choice of accessories.

Rubbing his head and finding a small pearl he frowned. "It is from the item I stole. Hopefully, I can get rid of it, or it will cause me problems. I will be gone for two hours so if anyone asks, tell them I am resting." After confirming his well being, Shen Yue reentered the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal.

Upon entering the realm again, he sat down cross-legged and focused inwardly on his soul realm. Although Shen Yue could not cultivate, that did not stop him from meditating and becoming familiar with his soul realm. With his upgraded Secret Soul technique, he could manipulate his soul force and inspect his soul realm at will.

His soul realm was completely empty, not even having a disordered form like Nie Li. He had always wondered if it was because God had made him like this when he asked to have a neutral attribute. It certainly would not hinder his cultivation by being incompatible with a technique. After he had soul-bound the pendant with blood, a large Yin-Yang image now dominated his soul realm.

Concentrating his soul force, he investigated the image. As soon as he made contact with the Yin-Yang symbol with his soul force a large amount of information seared itself to his mind.

Strengthening Techniques, Meditation Techniques, Alchemy, Smithing Skills, Hidden Weapon Techniques, Tailoring, Cooking, Hunting, and various other Craftsmen techniques all continued to be imprinted in his brain. Just like a red hot branding iron used to mark cattle, the information was burned into his mind, making him incapable of forgetting it.

After this influx of knowledge, the Yin-Yang image gradually shrunk to the size of a coin. Slowly and continually rotating in his dantian. Shen Yue could slightly feel that with each rotation, the symbol actually emitted a minuscule amount of energy. This energy flowed towards all his meridians and the organs in his body, slowly transforming them.

He had totally overlooked this application of the pendant! Shen Yue solely focused on the pendant's realm, forgetting the name of the novel! Ancient Strengthening Technique, the MC of the story received all these skills when he ran himself into physical exhaustion.

Apparently, they had originated from a game he was playing when he was killed and crossed over to a mythical world. Even though the abilities came from a game, they proved to be real-life skills that he used to conquer the world. This was confirmed when he examined his library, and it had grown once again!

He had been slightly worried as the MC had only unlocked knowledge when he advanced in levels of the Ancient Strengthening Technique. But with the skills and professional manuals scanned into his library, he would be memorising it instantly when he finally advanced to bronze rank.

Shen Yue was slightly hesitant to promote to the bronze realm. The ability to assimilate the content of everything collected in the Library of Heaven's Path instantaneously will activate, forcing millions of books into his brain. He hoped God had planned for this as he thought his head might explode.

Shen Yue wondered if the slapper had obtained this knowledge before he had stolen it. He really hoped she hadn't as that would cause her growth to develop in insane ways. Judging by the way the Yin Yang symbol changed after downloading the information, Shen Yue doubted it.

When he had been pillaging, her soul realm had seen an ice phoenix flying around a massive Yin-Yang symbol. This indicated she had yet to activate it, maybe she had also forgotten the abilities it contained. Luckily, Shen Yue had been searching for a way to get rid of the violet pearl on his forehead, thinking it might be controlled through the Yin-Yang symbol.

He was right, but he had also triggered the information download that the original owner had activated by exhausting himself. Quite happy with this windfall, he pulled out the supreme treasure that he had looted from Nie Li.

It was time to place the first brick on his path to domination. The Temporal Destiny Seed of Creation was also one of the main factors in him holding off on his cultivation. He was unsure if he needed a clean slate like Nie Li to 'plant' the seed.

Dripping some blood on the seed and enveloping it in his soul force was all he needed to do, as it started to pulse with a golden glow. Succeeding in establishing a link with the seed, it then proceeded to absorb his meagre supply of soul force and vanish into his soul realm. He could not see it but could feel a mysterious 'something' hiding within his soul realm.

With his preparations complete, he got to work upgrading the many manuals he wanted in his final cultivation technique.

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