Celestial Peak

There were a considerable number of books inside the Wang family library. Although their sheer number was incomparable to the Azure Skies Public Library and the Azure Skies Royal Library, the books still numbered at around a hundred.

At this moment a young man closed the book while sighing deeply. The young man was the present Wang Ling. As for the reason why he sighed, it was simply because he had already finished all the books inside the family library.

"It's already noon and I'm already bored."

Wang Ling was bored out of his mind. For the last month of him acting like some idiot and recuperating from idiocy, he had been unable to cultivate. Not that he didn't have any chance to cultivate, far from it.

He had every chance he could get every night when he returns to his courtyard, but he had to put off cultivating until now because of one simple reason. His body was frail!

Because of his previous situation where his body could only manage to live instinctively. His health slowly stagnated and his body became unsuited to be cultivated.

If in the past month he tried to circulate spirit qi, there was a huge chance he will implode from his body being unable to cope with the pressure. Not only will he experience a horrible end, but it will also be a stupid one.

With this reasoning, he had been putting off cultivating.

For the past month, he had been eating nourishing food every single day. He used these foods to reinforce his body and after a month of patience, he finally achieved a body capable of cultivation.

His body was below average resulting in his qualifications to be poor. However, he qualifies nonetheless.

Thinking about this, Wang Ling nodded his head and finally decided that it was finally time and today was the day he finally returns to the treacherous world of cultivation.

Nodding his head, Wang Ling sat down in the middle of the library. He wasn't going to cultivate so quickly, he was only going to browse through the cultivation techniques he had accumulated over the past millennia from his previous life.

Closing his mind, he scoured for a cultivation manual that suits his needs. There were thousands of cultivation manuals strictly ingrained inside his head. These manuals were the crystallization of his hard work.

To gain these cultivation manuals, he trampled many sects and killed many experts, before ingraining their contents in his brain with his «Spirit Sense».

The spirit sense was the innate skill a cultivator unlocks when their roots and their souls 'evolves'. It took him a while but soon enough, he managed to sort out the cultivation techniques he wanted to cultivate.

"[Ascending Saint], [Solar Harnessing Spirit], and the [Soul Devastation Technique] are the only technique that's on celestial-level. There're other techniques, but they are not that good."

Cultivation techniques are a valuable resource in the cultivation world, and if it's a top-tier one, then it can be seen as priceless. For example, the three techniques he had were enough to be treated as the heritage of an entire sect.

Both the Solar Harnessing Spirit and the Soul Devastation Technique were the heritage of some sects he decimated in the past. Only the Ascending Saint which he previously cultivated was the only one he didn't obtain through slaughter.

He pondered for a while as to what cultivation technique would be best to cultivate, but after a while, he gave up.

The three cultivation manuals in his head were powerful. However, before he could cultivate any of them, he first had to ascertain if any of this technique suits him or not.

A cultivation technique only shows its effectiveness when its user was compatible with it. If the user isn't compatible with a cultivation technique, he will either end up stagnating at later stages of cultivation or die from qi deviation.

Wang Ling compiled the three manuals after taking into account what attributes and kind of constitution his body possesses.

Ascending Saint because it was the most balanced, Solar Harnessing Spirit because it leaned towards the yang attribute, and Soul Devastation Technique because his soul was abnormally strong for someone who does not cultivate.

All three of these techniques were a good contender to be his main cultivation technique. However, he would only know what kind of cultivation technique he should cultivate after confirming certain aspects of his body.

"I need to inspect my qi pillars before I start anything."

Inside the body of every being, there would be nine pillars when they are born. These pillars are the foundation of cultivation. To cultivate more proficiently in the long run, the qi pillars must be strengthened.

If someone wants to step into the world of cultivation, they have to light up the nine qi pillars first.

Wang Ling's soul had been dormant for nineteen years, and in the past nineteen years, he never cultivated and his qi pillars were left untouched. He feared that his qi pillars have crumbled by now.

Seating cross-legged in the library where no one was around to see him, Wang Ling proceeded to meditation. His mind became at peace with his surroundings and before long, intangible light surrounded him.

These lights were like dust, they floated around him quietly, waiting to be devoured by Wang Ling.

Hu!

A suction force from Wang Ling's bod suddenly appeared. As if the spirit qi were drawn to him, it entered his body without any problem.

With spirit qi suddenly entering his body, Wang Ling felt refreshed. His body lit up from the inside. His meridians came alive shortly after the spirit qi entered his body. Inside his body, there were nine ordinary-looking pillars.

The pillars had cracks all over it and looked like it was about to crumble into nothing if a gust of wind were to pass by. These nine pillars were the qi pillars Wang Ling spoke of.

Just as he had feared, there were cracks all over his qi pillars. Thankfully, they didn't crumble into nothingness or else it would be too much of a hassle to reform them.

Seeing the situation of his qi pillars being too miserable. Wang Ling proceeded to reinforce his qi pillars and sent the spirit qi he absorbed into the pillars.

Wang Ling's qi pillars greedily accepted the spirit qi.

As if a dried plain getting rain upon, the dried-up qi pillars quickly were replenished. After a while of greedy absorption, the qi pillars slowly became intact. The cracks were slowly vanishing and as if it were rebuilt, it looked like the pillars became intact once more.

None of the nine pillars lit up, but for it to become normal looking was a good sign. Wang Ling took note of this and continued with the process.

He could feel his qi pillars being repaired. Time flew by quickly without him noticing. Before long, an hour and a half had passed. It took him ten minutes each to reform and reinforce each of his qi pillars.

[It took longer than I thought.

I better finish this before Wang Yue come get me to eat lunch.]

With a smile, he thought how Butler Sun would surely flare up in anger if he ever rejects to eat. Well, it would be best if he would just become angry, but for some reason, he could see the old man crying and begging him to eat the turtle soup prepared for him.

Just the thought of Butler Sun coming and begging him to eat while bawling made his spine tingle a little bit.

[I should be able to finish this in a moment.]

Inciting the spirit qi to circulate faster, Wang Ling's progress of repairing his qi pillars became faster. It didn't take long for him to hear crackling sounds coming from inside his body.

Kacha! Kacha!

The sound of his brittle qi pillars becoming sturdier echoed inside his ears. However, something unthinkable happened just as he was about to make the final push on repairing his qi pillars.

The spirit qi he had originally been using to repair and reinforce his qi pillars flowed backward without him noticing anything amiss. Before long, his qi pillars started to lose its form and was starting to crumble and take the form it used to have.

Cracks started appearing on the surface of his nine qi pillars showing that the qi inside was once again being released.

[What the hell!?]

Wang Ling exclaimed when he saw this happening. His heart was beating faster at this inexplicable situation and he became worried about his life.

This kind of event was simply unprecedented. At this moment, Wang Ling is undergoing « qi deviation » and his life could very well be lost if he didn't do something to resolve this matter.

[Shit! How did this happen?

I made sure to keep the flow as steady as possible, there's no way I would make such a mistake!]

Wang Ling remarked. He was sure that he made no mistake, so why was he suddenly going through this shitty development?

Qi deviation was a dangerous ordeal a cultivator could face when he or she is cultivating. The qi deviation, as its name suggest means that the qi inside the body had deviated from its original path and is running amok inside the body.

If this kind of thing happens and one's spirit qi circulates chaotically. The spirit qi will attack either his internal organs like the heart or destroy his meridians.

It was a dangerous state indeed that had claimed the life of many cultivators.

This qi deviation of his came from out of nowhere without him noticing. He wanted to complain and cursed out loudly, but he threw such intentions and raised his alert so he can resolve this matter right there and then.

Hu!

Amid the pain circulating all over his body like his veins and muscles bathing in a sea of fire, Wang Ling breathed out and exhaled the worries out of his system. After doing so, he immediately focused himself so he could survive this ridiculous ordeal.

Swoosh!

He started quickly and attempted to reel in the spirit qi escaping from his qi pillars. Wang Ling did his best not to become agitated and made his heart as serene as possible. Thankfully, when he was reincarnated, only his cultivation original was changed and his mind and soul were both practically intact.

His mental fortitude was still the same when he was known as the strongest. With this mental fortitude of his, Wang Ling calmly dealt with the matter at hand. He tried everything and attempted to redirect the flow to the right path.

However, try as he might, the flow of energy he was trying to reel in never budged. It flowed unhindered.

With the flow of spirit qi getting more intense as the minute passed. Wang Ling's already weak body felt the pressure coming. Before long, a sweet sensation welled up inside his mouth.

Pu!

A mouthful of blood was forced out of his system. His blood was then spread out in front of him.

Because of the erratic flow of spirit qi, his body was starting to get damaged. However, even though he just puked a mouthful of blood, Wang Ling's concentration didn't lapse.

Instead, it became even more sharpened. He couldn't be agitated and he couldn't be flustered about such trivial matters like spurting out blood. That blood was the sign that his body was damaged by the spirit qi, so it was a sign that meant he needed to resolve this matter right now.

[I need to end this before it could reach my heart, I need to… wait… shit, my soul is trembling.]

Just as he was formulating a plan on how he could resolve this matter at hand, Wang Ling suddenly felt his soul tremble. For all he knew, this kind of reaction was not normal.

Hu!

With the trembling of his soul, the spirit qi that he had been trying to suppress became even more erratic and powerful. It rushed towards the direction of his heart like a beast who wanted to bash in a cage.

At this moment, Wang Ling was no celestial. Heck, he has yet to start cultivating so if he gets his heart destroyed now, there's no doubt that he will die.

[Shit! I need to stop this!]

However, just as he was about to make a move something forced him to stay his hands. An invisible pressure bore down upon him and he felt a heavy feeling stopping him from even trying to stop the terrifying flow of spirit qi.

[It's over!]

He was not sure what caused this qi deviation from happening, and just what kind of being was capable of pressuring him to this extent. But there was one thing he was sure about and that's the moment the spirit qi bash against his heart, Lord Death will drag him to the underworld.

Thud!

He collapsed on the floor of the library and lost the ability to move his body.

He gritted his teeth and waited for the spirit qi to make his heart burst, but just as the spirit qi was about to reach his heart. The spirit qi did no damage to his heart and went right through it.

Surprised, Wang Ling was left speechless at this sight. However, it wasn't the end of the surprises he was about to be shown. Because the moment the spirit qi passed by his heart, it delved deeper into his body and entered his soul.

His soul that had been trembling greedily absorbed the spirit qi coming towards it like no tomorrow. Seeing this, Wang Ling did not stop it, because he could feel his soul was strangely not getting damage from this strange event.

Even though his soul was the one greedily absorbing the spirit qi, he couldn't feel any kind of force or energy being absorbed. It had to be noted that it was his soul that was doing all of this, so it was weird why he wasn't getting any benefits from it.

Usually, the instant spirit qi is absorbed by his soul. The spirit qi will become a nutrient that will nurture it.

However, at this moment, nothing like that happened. Instead, something deep within his soul absorbed the spirit qi on its place. He didn't know what it was, nor did he know if his conjecture was right.

[The trembling of my soul should be caused by this thing.]

He became warry, he never thought something foreign would manage to invade his soul without his knowledge. He wanted to do something about this situation but because his movements were sealed, he was left to wait.

Kacha! Kacha!

At this moment, he could feel his qi pillars starting to crack. The energy of his qi pillars begun getting absorbed by the thing that's inside his soul.

Then as the spirit energy inside his qi pillars got absorbed. The qi pillars he spent so much effort repairing crumbled to dust and turned to dust. However, even the dust was not spared as it was also sucked in by the thing inside his soul.

With the collapse of his qi pillars, the trembling of his soul suddenly became even more intense than before.

Every last drop of his spirit qi was sucked into his soul as the last wisp disappeared from his eyes. A muffled explosion occurred in his soul.

Boom!

Aureate light burst out of his soul and a golden scripture shot up. The golden scripture stopped and quietly floated above his head, the golden scripture bobbed up and down before moving like a slithering snaked and pierced his head.

The golden scripture entered his mind and information he never had any recollection of knowing flowed inside his head. The information he got assimilated slowly with his memory and became a part of him.

His head started to hurt and his temples pounded like crazy. His eyes soon started getting darker and just as he was about to lose consciousness. Four words appeared inside his head.

He read the words.

"The… Overturning Nine Heaven Art?" with that, he lost his consciousness entirely.

….

Outside the library, minutes after Wang Ling collapse

"Young Master, it's time to eat."

Wang Yue's voice echoed inside the library. Wang Ling had asked Butler Sun to give him some private time when he's was reading books so Wang Yue chose to knock on the door instead of barging in.

The little lass waited for an answer, but no one answer was heard, even after waiting for a minute.

[Maybe he fell asleep?]

Wang Yue thought that Wang Ling had fallen asleep while he was in the middle of reading so she opened the door. Opening the door of the library, what welcomed her was the sight of Wang Ling lying unconscious on the floor with blood around him.

Wang Yue's heart pounded as she saw this scene. She hurriedly turned around and called for help.

"Help! The Young Master has collapsed!"