Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

As time passed, many of the new disciples began to confirm what they wanted to cultivate.

Some chose to cultivate the sword, the saber or spells. Others chose to cultivate the body, or magic or even more than one type. There was a huge variety among the disciples.

“I’m really not sure if cultivating this technique is a blessing or a curse.” Gu Suihan was now sitting in the meditation room in a lotus position.

After he thought about it that night and recalled everything he had gone through, even before for a long time, he finally decided to cultivate this technique.

In his previous life, he had concluded that the Way of Ruthlessness was the one that was closest to the Way of Heaven.

Later on, after his Master died while trying to escape a Heavenly Tribulation, he felt that the Way of Massacring was the true character of the Way of Heaven.

In the end, when he destroyed the world and slaughtered all creation, he saw those mysterious eyes. Those emotionless eyes that seemed to have gone through a multitude of vicissitudes.

That was when he realized he had been wrong. He had been wrong about everything.

“I don’t live to become an immortal and I don’t want to become a demon. All I want is to ask you, what is the Way?” Gu Suihan’s eyes seemed to shine brilliantly as he looked into the distant skies, as if he was going to soar through the endless nothingness to see that blue and green planet, as well as that pair of eyes filled with nothing but mystery.

Back when Gu Suihan lived in a time when cultivators were on the decline, he had practically learned everything that would help him become strong or that would increase his chances of survival. It didn’t matter what it was.

He learned everything from the 18 main forms of martial arts¹ of the mundane world to the various spells and techniques from both the holy and demonic schools of cultivation. As long as he had use for it, he would learn it at any expense.

The Extreme Ra-Asu Breach was the name of the technique he had chosen to cultivate in. He had found it way back when he annihilated a sect. It was a cultivation technique that mostly refined the body.

Why did he choose it? Because it was a powerful technique. A very powerful one.

But it was also very dangerous. If he wasn’t careful, he could shatter his meridian channels and explode his Spiritual Root.

Gu Suihan had a Geng Gold Spiritual Root, and unlike those of the other four elements, his was not suitable for magic because there were too many limitations.

That was why most with Geng Gold Spiritual Roots chose to cultivate weapons. But while one could get very far in this method of cultivation, they were often reined in by the otherworldly magical powers the other four elements were capable of. Most who chose to cultivate the body had Earth and Gold Spiritual Roots, but there were still obvious drawbacks.

This was also the biggest point of frustration for Gu Suihan. If he had a Water type Spiritual Root, he could have cultivated in the Blood Demon Heavenly River technique. If he had an Earth type Spiritual Root, he could have gone with the World Filling Soil Breach technique. If he had a Fire type, he could go with the Burning Heaven Illusion technique he cultivated in his previous life.

Compared to the cultivation of the body that could enable him to shatter nothingness with one move and break through thousands of spells with the wave of his hand, he was more interested in the cultivation of magic, which could cause the weather to change with just one word or turn the world upside down with one action.

As for why Gu Suihan never considered cultivating a weapon, the reason was simple. Cultivating a weapon had even more limitations. After all, unless the cultivator was born into a family of cultivators, nobody would have access to some sort of divine weapon or magic weapon for you to use in your cultivation right from the start.

Of course, one could also choose to refine ordinary swords, but it would require so much time and effort to refine the sword.

On top of all that, the difference was that cultivation of a weapon aimed to combine the weapon with one’s very soul. That would give the cultivator the best attacking powers and agility. But that came with a problem of its own. Besides that one weapon, weapon cultivators could forget about trying to refine other weapons that were at the same level. One could just use some other weapon that wasn’t refined, but they weren’t very useful if you were fighting against a powerful Origin Core cultivator.

Thankfully, this Extreme Ra-Asu Breach wasn’t a very extreme sort of technique purely for refining the body. More importantly, one had to kill a lot of people in the process of cultivating this technique. In any case, he wasn’t afraid of launching massacres. He wasn’t the one who was going to die anyway.

This made Gu Suihan finally decide on cultivating this particular technique. It was better than the other impressive sounding but downright garbage techniques such as Mount Shu Sword Control or extreme techniques like Space Shattering Punch. The Extreme Asura Breach was the best one out of the very few techniques suitable for a Geng Gold Spiritual Root.

What about the other techniques?

It was too bad – he had only heard of them and didn’t know anything else about them.

There was the legendary Innate Five Element Geng Gold Breach and the Yin Yang Differentiating Geng Gold Technique. These were famous techniques from ancient times and had already disappeared completely by the time Gu Suihan was alive on Earth.

“Taohua, run a bath for me. I want to bathe,” said Gu Suihan emotionlessly.

The first step in cultivating was to make sure that every meridian channel in his body was unblocked and linked to one another. Gu Suihan was thankfully already at the Perfect Physical Realm, so most of his meridian channels had already been unblocked. Since this wasn’t too difficult for him, he only took three days to complete this step.

After he was done doing that, he could proceed to the next step, which had to be done in the Cultivation Rooms that the Seven Kill Sect provided for its disciples.

He removed his filthy and smelly garments to take a bath. Any remaining grime and scum on his body was quickly scrubbed away by his maids.

“Young Master, Xing’er came earlier with a message from Young Master Li. He wants you to get ready as soon as possible because there isn’t much time left.”

Gu Suihan nodded nonchalantly as he put his clothes back on and wasn’t very bothered by this message.

Li Rong was sending this message because he wanted Gu Suihan to owe him another favor. He was going to either get rid of Li Xianlong, or at least try to buy some time for Gu Suihan.

Gu Suihan packed the few hundred Spiritual Stones he extorted from the Way Seekers Alliance as well as his benefits for the two months, which added up to around 600 stones or so. This should be enough, Gu Suihan thought after a quick calculation.

He had already sold off the magic weapon he got from the Way Seekers Alliance. This was something they had given him begrudgingly, so it was definitely something lousy. There was no point in keeping it.

“What Cultivation Room class do you want to use?” The sleepy young man snapped impatiently at Gu Suihan when he noticed that Gu Suihan didn’t seem to be paying attention at all.

“I’m an East Compound disciple. What class am I entitled to every month?” Gu Suihan snapped out of his thoughts and smiled apologetically at the sleepy young man.

“You’re from the East Compound?” The sleepy young man became more alert and spoke in a serious manner, “You are entitled to a class A room, and you get to use it for 24 hours. As an East Compound disciple, you get to use it twice a month, so that’s 48 hours a month in total.”

“Is there anything better than that?”

“You’re just a newbie who isn’t even at Foundation Establishment stage, so using a better one is a waste,” said the young man in shock as he tried to dissuade Gu Suihan. But the disregard in Gu Suihan’s expression annoyed the young man, so he said, “Well, yes, there’s a better one, but it’s meant only for internal disciples. But since you’re from the East Compound, you’re allowed into the First-Class Cultivation Room for half the usual time.”

“Here are tokens for two months. I’ll take the First-Class Cultivation Room.” Gu Suihan handed over his tokens.

“You’re going to regret not listening to me, I tell you”, grumbled the young man before taking the tokens from Gu Suihan with a sigh. After he had recorded Gu Suihan’s tokens down, he pulled out a jade token from under the table and said, “Walk down this corridor, it’s the eighth room.”

“Also, you’ve got two months’ worth of time, but don’t come out late! The jade token will tell you when time’s almost up! If you don’t come out within 15 minutes, you’ll lose a day next month!!” yelled the young man loudly from behind as Gu Suihan walked off without even turning back.

The room itself was barely larger than one square meter. Runes were carved into all the walls around him, and they sparkled with a gentle glow. The concentration of Qi was so high that Gu Suihan felt as though he was surrounded by mist.

“Heaven and Earth Qi Gathering Formation?” Gu Suihan was surprised when he looked at the rather familiar looking runes.

He reached out to touch the drenched mat on the floor and was even more surprised. The concentration of Qi was so high that it wouldn’t be wrong to say that this tiny room was like a slightly subpar version of a Heavenly Abode².

After he was done marveling at the place, he threw the mat to one side, then took out a few dozen Spiritual Stones in order to set up a formation within the room itself.

He had no idea that the sect forbade anybody from setting up formations within their Cultivation Rooms. The Heaven and Earth Qi Gathering Formation was connected to the Spiritual Meridian that was right beneath the mountains of the Seven Kill Sect. If they allowed disciples to set up a formation here and cause irregularities in the flow of Qi as a result, it might also result in unforeseen circumstances, which could be disastrous for the sect.

As the misty Qi slowly gathered within the Qi Gathering Formation that he had made and even condensed into droplets of Qi, Gu Suihan couldn’t help but feel shocked. The Spiritual Meridian beneath this place was definitely good stuff. Even a really massive Spiritual Meridian couldn’t give off such powerful Qi.

The Qi was condensing rapidly enough to become a fragrant little pond now. Gu Suihan quickly removed all his clothes and lay on top of the Formation.

Extreme Ra-Asu Breach. The first step was to unblock all his meridian channels, and now, the second step was to crush all his bones.

He had to literally crush his bones into powder, then make use of the connected meridian channels and acupoints in his body to recreate his bones from scratch.

That was how the name of this technique came about. Asura transformed the bones, Rakshasa refined the soul³. The word “extreme” was meant to describe how cruel and extremist this technique was.

After he had quietly executed the technique three times, he suddenly felt an unbearable pain seared through his soul. Starting from his hands and feet, his strong and sturdy bones began to make this spine chilling, soft rattling sound before they slowly became nothing but shards. Then it moved onto his legs and arms. The sound never stopped, and the pain felt like leeches on his bones, eating away at him.

Finally, a look of great determination shone in Gu Suihan’s eyes. The heavily damaged Spiritual Sense that he had hidden deep inside his subconscious burst forth from within, hastening the process of shattering the bones with a force as mighty as a thunderstorm.

Bam! Clang! The sound of study bones snapping, and shattering echoed throughout the Cultivation Room.

Gu Suihan was now like a bag of water that had no frame whatsoever, a shivering piece of fats and flesh lying on the floor.

By the time he executed the technique for the seventh time, he had become nothing but a clump of flesh sprawled on the floor. His face was pale, and veins bulged prominently from his forehead.

“Soul leaves the body. Qi circulates,” Gu Suihan’s eyes were bloodshot as he opened his mouth to chant these words silently.

In the next moment, it was as if a storm was billowing through the entire Cultivation Room. A Spiritual Sense that seemed as great as a deity suddenly exploded, forcing Gu Suihan’s fragile soul to exit his body.

“This is definitely not a technique thought up by humans.” Gu Suihan’s soul was encased by his Spiritual Sense as he looked down at the pile of flesh on the floor.

Should he give up? He struggled to reach a decision.

While cultivated, he realized that this technique wasn’t meant for humans to cultivate at all. The way it pierced into his heart and the pain caused by the continuous attacks on his soul was not something that sheer willpower could overcome.

Saying “mind over matter” was just something people made up to comfort themselves, after all.

But this was different. This was a pain that even he, a cultivator who almost became an immortal in the past, couldn’t endure.

The Clacker’s Snack Sampan

Today’s snack recommendation: Amplang. This carries an odd bitter taste that some people don’t fancy, but I LOVE IT SO MUCH. MSG: *****

1. 18 main martial arts. Referring to everything you might find at a Wushu competition, or whatever is listed here:

   - Eighteen Arms of Wushu

2. Heavenly Abode.

   福地 (fu2 di4): Referring to places on Earth where Daoist greats and immortals cultivate/live in secrecy.

3. Asura and Rakshasa. I think Asuras appear often enough for most people to know, but:

   - Asura

   - Rakshasa