Chapter 3: Survive
I rushed back as fast as I could, spending an exorbitant amount of Violet Sun Crystals just to open a teleportation array.
Yet, I was still far too late.
All three of my brothers' corpses were never found.
I returned back to the sect to find the killer.
I turned crazy, obsessed with finding revenge. I schemed and killed countless people just to have more resources to buy the information related to my brothers' murdurer.
A decade passed, then a century, then a millennium.
Just as I was about to lose hope, the sect announced they were hiring a Body Transformation Path tutor for the lord's daughter.
I pounced at the opportunity, hoping to curry some favors with the higher ups.
That was when I met Lady Qianxue, at first, I didn't put much effort into teaching her Holiness, after all, no one else knows how hopeless the Body Transformation Path truly is more than me. I was expecting her to give up in a couple of years, so I only tried my best to gain her favors.
That though, is where I was wrong. The fire of passion in her Holiness never went away, no matter how praised she was at the Essence Gathering path, she never abandoned my teachings.
Unknowingly, I was being reminded of my past with master. No matter how much I was praised with my inscriptions, I still persisted in the Body Transformation Path, until before I knew it, I had already greatly surpassed my senior brother by a wide margin. If I haven't lost my ways then perhaps….
As time went by, the thought of revenge slowly faded away. I continued to watch her as her Holiness grew into a splendid young lady.
I finally swore not to let her walk the same path I walked, I also imparted to her all I knew, I couldn't let my master's legacy end with me after all.
The days spended teaching Lady Qianxue were the happiest moments of my life. Although, no matter how much I told her otherwise, her Holiness still refused to accept the fact that she has long since surpassed me. She could've chosen any of the experts coming in from outside the sect for a better mentor, but yet, she chose to stick with me, I've truly failed as a teacher.
I suppose that made heaven itself deemed me unworthy, punishing me with such a high grade soul crippling disease. My low mastery of the Battle Spirit wasn't able to resist it at all. Unfortunately, this caused Lady Qianxue to steal a powerful cube-like soul artifact from the lord himself, oh how have I sinned.
It seems that even the artifact couldn't save me though. In order to stop her Holiness' repeatedly futile actions, I could only wish for her to store my soul as a keepsake inside the artifact.
What a sad life I lived…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
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…boring…
…
…was that really all of it?..
…
…it felt…lacking?..
…
…
…Where have I experienced more? Was there a grand adventure I had gone on that I'm forgetting? It's possible, I suppose, my memories do feel a bit incomplete. Hmm….
…
…
…A black swordsman with a huge iron slab and a metal arm…
…A silvery-blue haired samurai with a wooden sword…
…A blond haired ninja in an orange suit…
…How? How do these people have a more tragic story than me?
Who are these people?!
Like a ripple on a water surface, these thoughts sent my soul into a quivering mess.
Eventually, the soul splitted in two.
Well, hi again. The name's Peng Tian if you don't remember.
I was currently in what seemed to be my sea of consciousness. And in front of me was a gigantic clump of white substance.
"YOU." The white clump's voice echoed all over my sea of consciousness.
"I-I CAN SAVE HER!" The clump had a realization.
If you haven't noticed by now, I was indeed panicking. I had lost the first battle against it and now an incomplete piece of memory has been turned into an actual soul completely able to think on its own.
Each second I'm stalling is another second the soul has to sort its thoughts.
"You. Let me have control of the body, with this, we can save the 33 heavens! I'll find you a body later."
Shit. I didn't know how much the soul absorbed from my memories, but it was safe to say that it has gotten a lot related to the plot of the novel. My leverage was quite abysmal now.
Wait, for it to not immediately kill me means that my memories still have some value. Perhaps it hadn't absorbed all of the plot.
Not that it changed anything. How long would it take for me to have a new body? I would rather duke it out to death right now.
"So be it." The soul decided and rushed at me.
Wait! Where's your monologue? Where's the 'I understand you situation, but I must do it for the person I love!' At least give me something to use talk no jutsu with!
Upon contact, I could feel the second match going as well as the first one, my soul was instinctively showing my life's flashbacks to both of us, trying to sway the otherside. However, the otherside's soul is also showing his flashbacks, effectively pitting our life's experiences against each other.
My accomplishment of getting into a good high school against his first one hundred-layered inscription…
My first childhood crush versus his ten thousand years worth of fatherly love…
The only thing keeping me alive was my mountains of internet contents, even then, he was turning apathetic to it very quickly.
Suddenly, I felt some tingling from my tail. Like an uncomfortable baby crying out for more space.
Upon realizing that I don't have what it wants however. It started to forcefully expand outward into my body. Power flowed through me like an opened dam.
Behind me was a phantom of a giant brown ape.
"What's this?!"
He didn't know about dbz? Neat.
…
Long story short. I won after that.
The tides turned and he couldn't do anything about it.
I was panicking as I was able to only absorb about 1% of his memories but it seemed the Oozaru phantom absorbed the rest of it.
Anyways, after I opened my eyes I was pleasantly surprised to find my body bulked with muscle. A steady supply of power seemed to flow out of my tail resulting in the extra muscle mass.
Broly's Ikari form! (Wrath State)
Broly is able to use the power of the Great Monkey Transformation in his human form by tapping into this transformation when he loses control of his anger.
For me though, the massive amount of emotion coming from the elder's memories seemed to be enough.
I also looked at my left chest to confirm the existence of the Magic Cube tattoo. Stored inside was… you know, the Magic Cube.
The forest outside the cave was quite uneven, making every step more tiring than it should be.
"Let's see then, Iron Tree, Iron Tree…Ah! there's one."
An Iron Tree is a grayish tree used to test a martial artist's strength. A person capable of exerting a force of a thousand jin (604 kg) could smash an Iron Tree with a punch.
*Peng!* Heavy sound echoed out into the forest as my fist obliterated the trunk of the tree.
Looking at my closed palm, I could only notice a bit of redness, other than that, there wasn't any injury sustained. My strength should be far above the thousand jin limit.
*Growwwwwwllll* My stomach rumbled out.
Hunting it is.
…
Apparently, hunting prey inside of the forest wasn't easy. It took me two hours before I was able to find a beast that wasn't faster than me, a first-level vicious beast, single-horned rhinoceros.
A first-level vicious beast was equivalent to a martial artist at the Third Stage of Body Transformation. A single-horned rhinoceros's strength as a first-level vicious beast was relatively poor; it was about as strong as a peak Second Stage martial artist.
Although its strength was rather ordinary, it had superior defensive abilities due to its tough hide. Even if a martial artist greatly exceeded it in strength and cultivation, they must still expend some effort to defeat it.
I myself wasn't an exception.
The single-horned rhinoceros suddenly roared, and trampled towards me. I felt a rumbling vibration in the ground.
Just as we were about to make contact, I suddenly leapt to one side. My jumping posture was odd. My body was parallel with the ground and one of my shoulders nearly touched the dirt. In the next moment, the huge body of the single-horned rhinoceros passed by me. I slammed my head against a stone and nearly blacked out.
Okay. Fuck this, head on collision it is.
The single-horned rhinoceros barrel towards me again, but this time, I planted my feet against the ground as I held my hands out at the same level as the beast's head.
*Thud!* *Crudddd*
My body was pushed back, creating a 2 meter gash on the dirt and spraining my right foot. In exchange for that, the single-horned rhinoceros's momentum was stopped.
*Bellow* The beast cried out.
I used my left hand to grab its back, and used my right shoulder to hold its head. Then I grabbed its horn and twisted it with my right hand.
*C-CRACK*
If any blood had spewed out, I would've puked.
Generally speaking, the average martial artist who had entered the Third Stage of Body Transformation would reach about 2000 jins. The single-horned rhinoceros's strength was below that, only comparable to a peak Second Stage martial artist.
I was thrilled to know I can probably overpower any martial artist below the Third Stage of Body Transformation, but at the same time, I was left with no idea on how to butcher the prey I just hunted.
Even after I finished limping away to gather firewood, I still didn't find anything to cut the carcass with.
The portion of the Divine realm Elder's memories I absorbed also didn't contain any butchering knowledge either, so I resorted to twisting out one of its limbs at a time and putting it over a campfire.
The whole process took me four hours to eat. Any cooked meat is promptly picked out and stuffed into my mouth as I continue to wait for the next portion of the meat to be done.
As an asian, the liver, heart, kidneys, brain, and tongue weren't too disgusting to eat, although I'm not sure if the rhino's stomach is edible like a cow's so I just left it.
Weekly Power Status
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