Shen Tian analyzed the clauses. The contract rested on clean terms, protected by the same laws of cause and effect that regulated his regression. He extended the hand of his soul and pressed [YES].
The System emitted a pulse of blue light.
"[Mutual Causality Soul Pact successfully established.]"
"[Reward: +200 Suppression Points for binding with an ancestral-level entity.]"
"[New function unlocked: Spiritual Counseling (Xue Huang).]"
"[Bound entity: Xue Huang (Blood Empress). Trust level: Neutral.]"
"[Current balance: 850 Suppression Points.]"
The astral space trembled violently.
The crystal sea, the violet sky, and the thousands of Ancestral Trees began to crack as if they were thin sheets of glass. In the center of the air, a strand of golden light from Shen Tian’s soul and a thread of crimson fire emanating from Xue Huang’s soul rose rapidly. Both energies intertwined in a perfect runic knot that emitted a blinding flash before dividing in two and engraving itself into the core of both their minds.
The spiritual reality dissolved completely.
Shen Tian’s eyes flew open.
The vertigo vanished instantly. He was standing in the darkest corner of the third floor of the Secondary Scripture Library on Clear Wind Peak. The smell of old dust, mold, and burnt wood filled his lungs once again. In his hands of flesh and blood, he held the withered vegetable leather book.
Shen Tian tested the newly formed mental connection, calling to the entity in his thoughts:
’Ancestor Xue?’
The woman’s voice resonated immediately inside his head, crisp and lazy, as if she were whispering directly into his ear:
’Stop shouting in your own mind, brat. I’m here. Put that piece of junk in your clothes and finish sweeping this dump before the decrepit old man at the entrance starts getting suspicious.’
Shen Tian moved with efficiency. He slid the ancient tome beneath the inner folds of his gray servant tunic, where it remained hidden against his chest. He took the straw broom and continued cleaning the dust from the shelves with a methodical and calm movement, as if nothing had happened.
As he swept, one fact kept gnawing at Shen Tian’s attention: Xue Huang knew of the System’s existence. The Empress had seen it. She knew it existed. The pact shielded it from any direct harm on her part, though she retained every power to reveal its existence to others if one day she found a way to communicate with the outside. A calculated risk. One he would have to monitor closely.
The afternoon passed in quiet routine. Shen Tian handed the broom to the pavilion keeper, received his signature of conformity, and returned to the lower slope area to fulfill his work ration in the stone warehouses.
When night fell over the mountain, the cold air of the range brought with it a thick mist. Shen Tian consumed his bowl of gray-grain rice and retired to the shared wooden hut. He waited patiently for two hours until the other six servant disciples fell into a deep sleep, exhausted from physical labor.
In the gloom of the corner, lying on his hard straw bed, Shen Tian closed his eyes and focused his mind inward.
’Ancestor Xue,’ Shen Tian began through thought transmission. ’There is something I cannot quite understand. A figure of your level, capable of imposing a soul pact of causality... how did you end up trapped in a rotting leather book that served as a wedge for the leg of an abandoned shelf in a third-rate sect?’
Shen Tian’s mental space turned icy. Xue Huang’s presence remained in absolute, heavy silence for several seconds, as if time had stopped in her memories.
’That belongs to a Chapter far beyond your current level, brat,’ the Empress finally responded. Her voice dropped its usual arrogance; it came out dry and cutting, charged with a glacial coldness. ’Worry about not dying tomorrow at the hands of the foremen or the deacon watching you. What happened in the past is beyond your reach.’
Shen Tian listened to the nuance in her voice and deduced the situation immediately. That question had touched an open wound, an episode of betrayal or a monumental humiliation that the ancient Empress had sealed away from a cultivator of the Qi Condensation Realm. Shen Tian was a pragmatic man; pressuring an ally with whom he had just signed a deal would prove pointless.
’Understood. I will leave that door closed,’ Shen Tian concluded, changing the subject smoothly.
’Ancestor,’ Shen Tian said after a brief silence. ’About what you saw earlier... the mechanism of rules...’
’Your mysterious tool?’ Xue Huang let out a short laugh. ’Relax, brat. You are safe from any theft on my part, and even if I could, my interest lies elsewhere. Rule artifacts are jealous of their owners. But I will admit to my curiosity. Where did it come from?’
’It came to me when I died,’ Shen Tian responded sincerely.
’Interesting,’ Xue Huang murmured. ’Very interesting. And those "Suppression Points" you accumulate... what exactly are they for? Are they like spirit stones?’
’Something like that,’ Shen Tian responded. ’They allow me to improve my spiritual root, deduce manuals, and buy resources.’
Xue Huang fell silent for a moment.
’Improve the spiritual root?’ she repeated, in a tone that for the first time sounded genuinely surprised. ’That... that defies everything I know. The methods to alter the spiritual root after birth stayed hidden even from the masters of my era.’
’This System can do it.’
’Then your tool is more valuable than I thought,’ Xue Huang murmured. ’Much more valuable.’
Xue Huang seemed to let out a slight sigh of relief in his consciousness before resuming her dominant tone.
’Fine. Listen carefully, Shen Tian. Since our destinies are bound, my intention is to accelerate your progress, sparing us both the tedium of your turtle’s pace. Cultivating every night alone will deliver meager results. From now on, you will take advantage of every free moment: before dawn, during your breaks, in every minute you can steal from work. Your body will get used to it or it will break.’
The woman paused, letting the gravity of her words settle in the young man’s mind.
’Reaching the stage of Divine Transcendence demands more than a single mortal lifetime. Normally, it would require multiple reincarnations. But you... you have already returned once. Perhaps that gives you an advantage that others struggle to find. Or perhaps it condemns you to an endless cycle. Tell me, regressor... do you know the real scale of the cultivation realms, or does your memory stop at the defective manuals of this miserable region?’
Shen Tian responded internally with absolute calm:
’I know the structure that the mortals of this era consider complete, Ancestor. During my previous life I dedicated myself to studying the standard hierarchy of the system.’
Shen Tian broke down the knowledge he had accumulated in his one hundred and thirty-five years of existence:
—Body Tempering / Physical Refinement: The optional preliminary step. It focuses on the extreme strengthening of muscles, bones, meridians, and organs through rigorous exercise, medicinal pills, and herbal baths so that the body can withstand the flow of Qi without exploding.
—Qi Condensation: The basic stage where the cultivator learns to perceive the Qi of heaven and earth, absorbing it so that it flows through their meridians. It is habitually divided from Level 1 to 9, although in cases of extreme compression—extremely rare phenomena seen only in absolute geniuses—some cultivators have reached as high as Level 13. It still belongs to the mortal plane.
—Foundation Establishment: The gaseous Qi of the body condenses until it becomes liquid, building a solid spiritual foundation in the lower Dantian. The cultivator’s life expectancy increases to 200–300 years.
—Golden Core: The liquid Qi is violently compressed until it solidifies into a Golden Core within the Dantian. It grants the ability to fly, execute advanced spells, and extends longevity to 500–1,000 years.
—Nascent Soul: The Golden Core breaks to hatch a spiritual baby (the Nascent Soul). If the physical vessel is destroyed, the cultivator can survive as a pure soul and possess another body. Their longevity reaches thousands of years.
—Spiritual Transformation / Divine Soul: The Nascent Soul fuses with the mind and the spiritual body. The cultivator begins to perceive and manipulate the fundamental laws of the Dao beyond the elemental use of Qi.
—Void Refinement: Deep comprehension of nothingness and spatial dimensions. The cultivator cleanses their worldly ties and karmic mass to prepare their path.
—Body Integration: The perfect fusion between flesh, energy, and soul. Spatial domains are mastered, and physical energy ceases to function under the common laws of the earthly world.
Shen Tian concluded his explanation in his mind, awaiting the woman’s reaction.
In his consciousness, Xue Huang let out a prolonged, melodramatic sigh, impregnated with an ancestral disdain.
’Ugh... Exactly what I feared. Everything you just recited with such care amounts to the mud path of mortals, the simple basic staircase for ants to believe they are touching the sky.’
Shen Tian frowned in the darkness of the hut.
’The mud path?’
’That’s right, brat,’ the Blood Empress continued in a grave voice. ’Everything you have told me covers the preparation of the shell alone. The true threshold where true existence begins comes later. Listen carefully, so you understand how tiny the puddle is in which you have been swimming.’
Xue Huang began to transmit a series of concepts that impacted directly on Shen Tian’s mind:
—Great Ascension / Mahayana: The culminating point of the mortal plane. The cultivator has completed physical, energetic, and mental preparation, reaching the absolute limit that the earthly world can withstand.
—Tribulation Transcendence: The definitive judgment of the universe. Heaven subjects the cultivator to the Celestial Tribulation Lightning (a devastating test of 3, 6, or 9 divine bolts). If the cultivator fails, their body and soul are reduced to ashes or degraded to the condition of a Loose Immortal; if they triumph, they break the mortal chains and ascend to the Immortal Realm.
—Immortal / Divine Realms: Once the doors of the celestial world are crossed, the scale of divinity truly begins:
Human / Earthly Immortal
Celestial Immortal
Golden Immortal
Immortal King / Emperor
Saint / Venerable of the Dao
Shen Tian lay frozen on his straw bed.
Across one hundred and thirty-five years in his previous timeline, fighting fiercely in sect wars and exploring ancient ruins, the magnitude of such a scale had stayed entirely outside his imagination. In his past life, experts of the Spiritual Transformation or Body Integration Realm were considered living deities who governed entire continents. Discovering that all those stages amounted to the "mud path" of existence opened Shen Tian’s vision of the universe to limits that expanded beyond anything he had considered.
Xue Huang broke the young man’s astonishment with a mocking little laugh.
’Stop fantasizing about Saints of the Dao while your Qi barely warms a bowl of water, brat. The horizon stretches to infinity, but your feet are still covered in the mud of Clear Wind Peak. Get to work!’
Shen Tian recovered the coldness of his mind instantly. He set aside the astonishment, adjusted his posture with his legs crossed in the gloom of the hut, and began to regulate his breathing according to the Mud Lotus Art.
’Modify the entry angle of the Qi in your left nostril,’ the authoritative voice of Xue Huang instructed in his head. ’Compress your diaphragm more tightly against the rhythm of the mountain’s flow; the current angle wastes four percent of pure energy. Make the energy rotate clockwise as it enters the second meridian.’
Shen Tian executed the corrections immediately. The guidance of an ancestral entity who had known the higher realms made the efficiency of his cultivation skyrocket drastically. The little Qi that was in the environment began to flow toward him with an efficiency surpassing his past experience, pressing itself inside his lower Dantian as if it were liquid lead.
At that moment, a small holographic screen of brilliant blue glowed in the gloom of his closed eyes:
[Daily Cultivation Mission Initiated.]
[Active effect: Ancestral Entity Guidance.]
[You have gained +10 Cultivation EXP. Cultivation EXP accumulates to unlock passive improvements in the System’s skill tree (available at Qi Condensation Level 5).]
Xue Huang emitted a sound of curiosity in his mind.
’Daily mission? That contraption also gives you tasks?’ she asked, with a tone somewhere between mocking and intrigued. ’And what is "Cultivation EXP"? Another currency? Or does your mechanism of rules have its own gods?’
’It is... a way of measuring progress,’ Shen Tian responded, guarding the finer details. ’It accumulates to unlock passive improvements.’
’I see. Well, that leaves everything as it stands. I am better than any artifact. Follow my instructions and its crumbs will wither before my guidance.’
Shen Tian observed the System’s message for a fraction of a second. He closed the blue interface with a single thought and submerged his entire consciousness in the scorching and purified flow of Qi that was beginning to strengthen his existence.