"System, are you absolutely sure there is no 'Instant Download' function?" Tianmo asked, his mental voice tinged with annoyance. "I have infinite money, not infinite time."
[Host, the System Shop provides the method, not the mastery. Transferring knowledge directly to a mortal brain would fry your neurons. The Dao must be comprehended, experienced, and engraved into your soul through practice. Reading is the first step.]
Tianmo sighed, picking up the thinnest of the two books: Void Step - Volume I.
"Fine. Comprehension it is."
He opened the book. The text was not written in common characters, but in flowing, cryptic runes that seemed to shift and dance before his eyes. It was the language of the Dao, understandable only to those with the spiritual root to grasp it.
For instance, he has a formless spirit root so, he can grasp every law. However, his sister who has water spirit root won't comprehend the laws of fire thus can't master the fire arts such as flame fist.
Fortunately, his Immortal-grade Spirit Root allowed him to decipher the runes as easily as reading a children's storybook.
"The Void is not emptiness, but the space between breaths. To walk the void is to become the shadow, to exist where the enemy is not..."
Tianmo read through the first chapter rapidly. The theory was simple: utilize Qi to vibrate one's body at a frequency that allows momentary phasing through the physical plane, creating the illusion of teleportation.
He closed the book. "Theory is useless without practice."
He stood up and took a deep breath. He circulated his Qi, gathering it in his legs. The energy surged, dense and powerful.
"Void Step."
He pushed off the ground.
Whoosh!
He moved... but he didn't vanish. Instead, he tripped over his own robes and stumbled forward three steps, nearly crashing into the wall.
Luckily, Tianmo caught himself in time, his face darkening. He looked down at his feet. They were firmly planted on the ground.
"System, what was that?"
[Host's comprehension of the spatial laws is currently low. The Void Step requires a delicate balance of Qi explosion and spatial resonance. You simply jumped. Very enthusiastically, I might add.]
Tianmo gritted his teeth. He hated being incompetent. It would have been a lot better if he could master the techniques instantly.
Take Li Chen, the protagonist of this world. He was born with an innate talent to instantly comprehend all techniques because he was born with dual pupils. Once he sees a technique, he will get a vision instantly learning all the methods and flaws of the technique.
**
Wang Tianmo tried again. And again. And Again. And once again.
For the next two hours, the cultivation room echoed with the sound of Tianmo jumping, tripping, stumbling, and cursing. He looked less like a supreme cultivator and more like a drunk rabbit.
This is the exhausting daily life of the side characters.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
However, he was not a normal man. It might take a normal cultivator six months to master a technique to great perfection, but it will only take him 10 days. And once he unseals all his supreme bones, he can master a technique to perfection, in as little as five days.
On the hundredth attempt, he stopped trying to force the Qi to explode. Instead, he visualized the space around him as a sheet of water. He didn't want to jump over it; he wanted to slip through it.
He gathered his Qi, compressing it into a singular point in his sole.
Step!
The world distorted.
For a split second, the walls of the room stretched and blurred. Tianmo felt a sensation of weightlessness, a cold chill passing through his body.
Bam!
He reappeared five meters away... but he was upside down, and he slammed his head into the wooden floor.
Thud!
Rubbing the growing bump on his forehead, a smirk soon formed on his lips.
He had moved instantly. It wasn't running there was no wind resistance. It just moved from place A to place B.
[Entry Level Achieved: Void Step. Distance: 5 meters. Accuracy: Poor.]
"It's a start," Tianmo muttered, standing up and dusting himself off. "Next."
He picked up the second book: Heavenly Finger - Volume I.
This manual was thicker. The cover depicted a single finger pointing at the heavens, shattering a cloud.
Tianmo opened it. The text was aggressive, filled with imagery of mountains crushing valleys and spears piercing the sky.
"Concentrate the ocean into a drop. Compress the Dantian into a single meridian. The finger is not flesh; it is the spear of the gods."
This technique relied on extreme compression of Qi. It was a burst damage technique, meant to bypass defenses and strike vital points.
Tianmo sat back down. He extended his right index finger.
He began to circulate his Qi, not through his entire body, but channeling it all towards his right arm. The Qi rushed like a raging river, flooding his meridians.
His arm began to glow with a faint golden light. The pressure in the room spiked.
"Focus," he whispered.
He visualized the Qi compressing, shrinking, becoming denser. The Immortal Dantian spun wildly, pumping out more energy than his arm could handle.
Pain shot through his meridians. It felt like molten metal was flowing through his veins.
"More!"
He grit his teeth, forcing the compression. He is no pussy.
The golden light on his finger intensified, turning from a soft glow to a blinding beacon.
Heavenly Finger!
He pointed his finger at a thick wooden dummy in the corner of the room.
Boom!
A beam of golden light, thick as a wrist, shot out from his fingertip.
It struck the dummy.
Crack!
The dummy didn't explode, nor turned to dust. Instead, a hole the size of a finger was punched clean through the hardwood, exiting out the other side and embedding itself into the stone wall behind it.
Tianmo lowered his hand, panting heavily. Sweat dripped down his forehead. He had nearly used all his stored Qi.
He inspected the hole. It was cauterized smooth, the edges glowing with residual heat.
"Powerful," he muttered. "But too slow. The charge-up time is three seconds. In a fight, I'd be dead before I fired."
[Entry Level Achieved: Heavenly Finger. Entry level.]
Tianmo sighed. "Entry level is trash. I need Small Success at least."
The charge-up time was the bottleneck. In a life-or-death duel, three seconds was an eternity.
Tianmo sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed. He focused on the flow of Qi within his body. The problem wasn't the power; it was the delivery.
He was gathering energy from his Dantian and sending it out, which took time. To fix this, he had to compress the Qi before it left the meridian.
He visualized the energy in his right arm not as a river, but as a single, sharp needle.
"Compress."
He squeezed his arm muscles, forcing the golden Qi into a microscopic point at his fingertip. The pressure was immense, causing his skin to turn pale and his veins to bulge.
Snap.
The Qi was ready. It was a compressed spear of light.
He pointed at the stone pillar again.
"Heavenly finger!"
The charge-up time was gone. It was instantaneous.
Boom!
The golden light shot out, piercing the air with a sonic boom. It struck the stone pillar, and instead of a clean hole, a spiderweb of cracks exploded outward, shattering the top two feet of the pillar into dust.
Tianmo lowered his hand, his arm trembling slightly from the strain of the compression. "Small Success."
[Heavenly Finger: Small Success. Charge-up time: 0.5 seconds.]
"Much better," he muttered. "Now, the Void Step."
He stood up and walked to the center of the room. The distance to the door was ten meters. He needed to bridge that gap.
He closed his eyes and visualized the space between his feet. It wasn't empty; it was a fabric of reality that he could distort.
"Void Step."
He stepped forward.
The world blurred. He felt a sensation of falling, followed by a sharp lurch as his body snapped back into existence. He had moved ten meters.
Swoosh!
He reappeared right in front of the door, his posture perfectly balanced, not a hair out of place.
[Small Success Achieved: Void Step. Range: 10 meters. Qi Consumption: Minimal.]
Tianmo looked down at his feet, then back at the spot where he had been standing. A faint ripple in the air marked his departure point.
"Not bad," he murmured, a satisfied smirk gracing his lips. "With this, I can close the distance on any Foundation Establishment trash before they even blink. And with the Heavenly Finger, I can pierce their defensive shields instantly."
He flexed his fingers, feeling the lingering warmth of the compressed Qi. The combination of high-speed movement and a high-penetration long-range attack made him a nightmare opponent for anyone in the same realm.
However, these were merely the first chapter of the first volume.
The satisfaction was short-lived. A loud, rumbling sound echoed through the room, breaking his concentration.
Grrrrr...
Tianmo frowned, looking down at his stomach. He hadn't eaten since he went to cultivation. The intense mental and physical exertion of mastering the techniques had burned through his physical energy reserves. It's only natural to be hungry.
"Cultivation is resource-intensive," he sighed. "I need food."
He walked out of the cultivation room, sliding the door open.
The main hall was quiet. The sunlight streaming through the translucent walls cast long, geometric shadows across the floor.
As for Ruyan... Let her rest here for a little longer.
***
The scent of roasted spirit beast meat and herbal porridge guided Tianmo to the dining hall, but before that, he went to take a dip in the water.
Wang Ling'er was already there, sitting at the table, poking at a plate of glowing green fruits with a pout on her face. She looked up as he entered, her eyes immediately scanning him from head to toe.
There was a blush on her face. Her brother was only wearing a white towel to hide his lower body. His upper body was exposed, showing his lean muscles and defined abs.
Water droplets were sliding down his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles before disappearing into the towel.
Ling'er felt a strange heat rising in her cheeks.
She quickly averted her gaze, staring intently at her plate as if the green fruit held the secrets of the universe. "Brother! You... you should dress properly. It's indecent to walk around like... like that."
"In the cultivation world, the body is a vessel of the Dao," Tianmo said calmly, tying his sash with practiced ease. "Shame is a mortal emotion. You should get used to it."
He sat down opposite her and immediately began to devour the food on the table. The spirit meat was tender and flavorful, exploding with energy that replenished his physical stamina.
Ling'er watched him eat, her pout deepening. She pushed a jade slip across the table towards him.
"What is this?" Tianmo asked, his mouth half-full.
"It's a letter from the Sect," Ling'er said, her voice laced with worry. "A disciple brought it while you were... cultivating. The Sect is holding the 'New Disciple Examination' in three days. It is mandatory for all disciples who joined this batch."
Tianmo paused, a piece of meat halfway to his mouth. "New Disciple Examination?"
"Yes," Ling'er nodded. "It's a tournament. They want to assess our combat capabilities and rank us. The top 10 get to enter the closed-door cultivation cave. It is said that the cultivation cave helps cultivate 10 times faster. The Qi gathering array there is powerful."
Tianmo swallowed the piece of meat, chewing slowly as he digested the information. A tournament? So soon?
It was a classic trope. The sect needed to establish a hierarchy, weed out the weak, and give the strong a chance to shine. It was also the perfect stage for the protagonist, Li Chen, to make his debut and start his path of face-slapping.
In the original novel, the 'original' Wang Tianmo would have been humiliated in this tournament. Because he would have given all his stuff to Liu Ruyan and his cultivation base would be low.
How could he fight someone like Li Chen?
But now, He isn't at the first stage of Qi Refining. He is at the first stage of the foundation realm.
'System, based on the novels I have read. The chosen ones are protected by the heavens, and they have Qi Luck. Can I kill Li Chen or steal his Dual pupils?'
[Ding!]
[Heaven is but a joke. The Heavens do not protect the Chosen; they merely place a bet. The Qi Luck of a Chosen One is a magnet for fortune, but it is also a magnet for danger. To kill him is to defy the narrative flow of the world. It is possible, but the backlash of Karma will be severe— You will attract heavenly tribulations. As for his Dual Pupils... it is a congenital treasure. It cannot be surgically removed. It can only be taken by devouring his soul essence.]
[In short, you can kill him.]
Tianmo's eyes narrowed. Devouring the soul? Sounded messy. But the information was useful. He wasn't afraid of Karma. In this dog-eat-dog world, the only law was the law of the jungle.
"Fair duel? He can try," Tianmo sneered internally. Even the heavens are but a stepping stone in the path of cultivation. With his Formless spirit root, the heavens will be helping him cultivate instead of punishing him with lightning tribulation.
He looked back at Ling'er, who was waiting for his response with wide eyes. "Don't worry about it. It's just a waste of time."
"But Brother, the rewards..." Ling'er urged. "The cave is—"
"I have the Purple Bamboo Peak," Tianmo interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "The Spirit Gathering Array here is comparable to the caves. As for the ranking... I'll go. I need to stretch my legs. As for you, stay quiet and cultivate. Look at you, you aren't even in the second stage of the Qi refining realm. Cultivate diligently."
"Brother, that's not fair!" Ling'er said, slamming her chopsticks down on the table. "I've been cultivating day and night! The 'Heavenly Way-I' manual is profound, and the Qi Condensing Pills you gave me are top-tier. I should reach the second stage soon."
"Patience is the first virtue of the Dao," Tianmo said, his voice calm but firm, cutting off her whining. "As a brother, I have given you all the cultivation resources you need. If you cannot break through with the best pills and the best manual, then the problem lies not in the resources, but in your talent and state of mind."
Ling'er's face turned red, a mix of shame and indignation flushing her cheeks. She bit her lip, lowering her head. "I... I understand, Brother. I will work harder."
"Good." Tianmo stood up, wiping his mouth with a silk napkin. "I am going to the Mission Hall. I need to purchase some herbs for a formation. Do not leave the peak unless I give you permission."
With that, he turned and walked out, leaving Ling'er alone at the table. She stared at his retreating back, her hands clenching into fists on her lap.