Cultivation Nerd

What the ghost showed me was both mesmerizing and unsettling—a dark sphere pulsating with movement. The orb was composed of wriggling shadows that stretched and recoiled as if trying to escape their confines. It was like countless souls were trapped within, each pressing against their spherical prison's shadowy barriers.

"What is that?" I asked. "And just to be clear, I'm not going to touch that thing unless I know what it is."

The ghost looked amused as if he were toying with me. He seemed like a bored spirit finally getting the chance to fool around with someone. But despite the amusement in his eyes, he didn't seem inclined to push it further.

Just as he seemed about to say something, his expression shifted to a frown. "Someone dangerous just appeared."

"What?" I asked, trying to gauge whether he was serious or just messing with me.

Dangerous? What could a monstrous ghost like him possibly fear?

"Incarnation," he said as if the word alone explained everything. "A risky move for immortals like us since our souls end up getting crushed due to events orchestrated by the heavens. And just because we're souls doesn't mean we escape heavenly tribulations."

I barely understood what he meant, but it sounded like an immortal could send their soul out and take over another body.

For a moment, I worried he might try something like that with me. But then logic kicked in, calming my nerves. No offense to myself, but my cultivation talent was kind of shitty compared to the best out there. Surely, there were better bodies he could take over.

"He's moving toward the exit," the ghost hummed, "which means he probably didn't end up here intentionally and has the decency not to interfere. He's running away, so he's likely not at full power, and his immortal techniques probably aren't suitable to use in a weakened state."

So, someone dangerous was out there, and he was part of the same group as me.

"It seems other immortals have their own plans for reaching the Age of Immortals," the ghost said as he walked toward me.

I couldn't help but wonder what this translucent figure was thinking. It felt like I was a small piece among titanic players.

"No need to worry about him, kid. Trust me, he doesn't want to be found out either. The heavens are nearly omniscient, but immortals have ways to hide, even when weakened. But if he intervenes in people's fates—like killing them before their time—sooner or later, the heavens will notice," the ghost explained. "He'll likely try to keep a low profile until he gains more strength in whatever body he takes over. If he ever causes you trouble, just get him and heaven's favorite meet. The heavens are always paying extra attention to that kid."

Hearing him talk so confidently about someone else's likely actions was strange. Sure, this ghost came off as friendly and lacked that terrifyingly calm demeanor. Still, he clearly had the intelligence and experience of someone who had lived for nearly ten thousand years. Though I had expected someone that old to act colder and more mysterious.

"Anyway, here are your rewards," he said, extending his hand and offering me the black, sludge-like sphere.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow and making no move to touch the thing.

The ghost stared me in the eyes, his expression serious, yet with a hint of something darker. "You have to eat it. Just swallow it and feel it bulge down your throat."

"Fuck no," I replied immediately.

The ghost snorted, his lips twitching before he could no longer hide his laughter.

This guy…

"Sorry, but your expression was priceless," he cackled like a madman, slapping his ghostly knee. "You don't have to eat this. The Extreme Void Sphere can hold items and keep time from passing within its confines. It's created by boiling down the body of someone with a void or space-related extreme physique. Unfortunately, I could only get an arm, so it's just a one-time-use artifact."

One moment, he was joking around, and the next, he casually mentioned using a human body as an ingredient.

But the ghost didn't dwell on that. He retrieved a scroll that the black sphere had spewed out and used some telekinesis technique to hand it over to me.

As I felt the soft paper in my hand, it seemed freshly made and smelled like it.

"That is a Tier 6 Pill Recipe. It's a healing pill that can help someone regenerate organs, limbs, and even eyes from scratch. The ingredients might be hard to find—or even extinct in your time—so you may need to rework the formula a bit," he explained. "But that's the only free reward I'll give you as a token of our friendship."

He made modifying a Tier 6 Pill Recipe sound like a common task. I wasn't sure even the best alchemist in the Blazing Sun Sect could pull that off.

"Tell me what you need, though I'll be honest—I'm not sure I'll be able to do what you're asking," I said.

"The request is simple," the ghost smiled, something strange flickering in his eyes. "Just keep writing the history of what you see, and everything will be fine."

"Sure?" I raised a questioning eyebrow. I was going to do that anyway. But now that he specifically mentioned it, it was suspicious.

He nodded, accepting my response at face value, and four more scrolls emerged from the dark blob.

"These are arrays from Level 4 to Level 7. There's only one Level 7 array, the Four Guardian Beast Array. It's part of why one of my epithets was called the Four Beast Immortal," he explained. But that wasn't all. A torn page from a notebook and a golden apple appeared on the ground before the dark blob bubbled like boiling milk, turned to foam, and dissipated into dark mist.

“This is an Extreme Yang Fruit. You should eat it when you reach the peak of Core Formation. It will help you break through to the Nascent Soul Realm—not by much, but some help is better than none, and it can be the deciding factor in some cases. Also, don’t put the apple in a storage ring; the Qi it releases will destroy your spirit ring from the inside out,” the ghost advised. Then he pointed to the page next to the apple. “Now, this is a Demonic Page from the Age of Disaster. Back when the world was overrun with so many immortals, the heavens caused a catastrophic event and opened a portal to a demonic world. The portal was connected to a book. Anyway, reading a page of that book can increase your talent.”

Wait a second—what was the Age of Disaster? I’d never heard of that in any books.

It also sounded like a fascinating piece of history. Apparently, strange things happened when there were too many immortals, like demons coming through portals. Perhaps the heavens had their reasons for trying to eliminate these immortals. From what little I knew, the heavens seemed to have a strange way of maintaining balance in the world and opening a portal to a world full of demons didn’t sound like keeping the balance.

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But maybe I was wrong—something to investigate in the future.

“That page sounds dangerous to have on hand,” I said.

“Which is why you should read it immediately. Trust me, you don’t want crazy immortals coming after you to get it. I was an immortal, and people still came after me. I can only imagine what they’d do to you,” the ghost smiled. “Also, it’s one of those rare treasures that increases your talent. Fortunately, I was born with top-grade talent, and something like that might have turned me into an extreme physique idiot, so I never used it.”

“How the hell does a page even increase talent?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me as I tried to peek over and get a better look at the page.

When my eyes landed on the letters, they glowed bright crimson as if aflame, and the entire page ignited.

A sharp, piercing pain shot through my body, and I dropped to one knee, wincing. It felt like a bolt of lightning had struck me from within. The electric agony was unlike anything I had ever experienced, overwhelming my senses and leaving me gasping for breath. Yet, amidst this pain, I sensed an extraordinary change within me—my spirit root count was increasing!

Damn it! I actually wanted to study the paper first before using it!

Cold sweat beaded on my forehead, trailing down my cheek and chin before dripping onto the ground. The pain was unbearable, an excruciating torment that felt as if an invisible hand had invaded my body, twisting and squeezing my organs.

“I originally intended to give this to someone more talented, who could raise their abilities to the top grade with the page’s help. But you’ll do,” the ghost said. For the first time since he started speaking, I couldn’t focus on his words as the pain drowned out everything else.

64…

Another tendril sprouted, wrapping around itself and forming into a solid construct.

65…

It felt like a worm burrowing through my organs as another root branch slowly grew. This one was slower than the last.

66…

The last root branch only grew halfway before it stopped.

When the procedure was finally over, I was left breathing laboriously, though I quickly regained control of my body. I could almost respect Ye An more if this was the constant pain she had to endure.

However, the new root branches felt unnatural. They seemed to function the same as my original roots, but it was like having a natural tooth replaced by a fake one—it felt strange. They also seemed a bit too fragile. Hopefully, they would grow sturdier over time. If they exploded inside me, I might lose my other spiritual roots.

I placed the array of scrolls into my storage ring and turned toward the ghost. His presence seemed fainter now, almost invisible.

Ah, right. This was technically an automated spirit imbued with an immortal’s will. I was essentially talking to someone from thousands of years ago, yet at the same time, it wasn’t truly him.

We hadn’t talked long, but I had come to see him as a teacher who taught me a lot. I almost asked if there was a way to bring him along.

But such questions would be pointless now. It was clear that this ghost wasn’t meant to last long after completing his objective.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. You might not realize it, but you’ve also helped me. Don’t leave just yet; a reward will appear after I’m gone. Also, don’t open the coffin—that’s a trap meant for any immortal or Nascent Soul cultivator who tries to force their way in and steal the inheritance,” he said.

I stared into the ghost’s nonchalant eyes, feeling a pang of sadness. Now that I knew his life story, I had humanized him in my mind. Once his inheritance was gone, I’d be the only one who knew the real him.

His life had been a mix of complex deeds, many good and many bad.

I’d never thought much about death or contemplated it deeply in my previous life. It seemed pointless to worry about something inevitable.

“I think I can take care of this new immortal and that heaven’s chosen who’ve decided to taint my tomb. So, don’t worry about them; they won’t be a problem,” the ghost said. I could no longer see his form, only hear his voice.

As the ghost dissipated, any trace of that immortal vanished. What remained of him now were just stories about his life that only I knew.

In the end, he was reduced to a handful of glowing mist. But the fog compacted and turned into a translucent blue cube that shot toward me. Instinctively, I dodged, moving my head to the side. I did the same with the subsequent blue rushes.

Eventually, I relented, realizing that whatever the ghost was imparting me was unlikely to harm me. For some reason, he wanted me to write down the history as it happened.

I would have done that anyway, but now that he had asked, it was suspicious as hell. Did he have some technique that could reincarnate him based on books or something?

Either way, when I allowed the blue cube to sink into my palm, a wave of information surged before my eyes.

Holy shit! A Sky Grade Technique!

My heart leaped with excitement and any suspicions I had vanished instantly. Even the sadness I'd felt at the immortal's disappearance evaporated. He had clearly lived his full share of time—nearly ten millennia.

Damn! A Sky Grade Technique! I still couldn't believe it!

Apologies, ghost immortal; I may have acted a bit shamefully, but my excitement at getting my hands on something like this washed away all my melancholy.

In my excitement, I almost put the golden apple in the storage ring. The ghost had explicitly told me not to do that.

I quickly moved away from the main room with the coffin and headed toward one of the doors in the walls. Once inside, I looked at the golden apple in my hand and winced at the Qi it emitted. Even a Qi Gathering Cultivator would recognize this as a precious treasure.

How do I suppress this Qi? As an Array Conjurer, I had a few options. Still, I needed something that would last long enough to keep the Core Elders from noticing anything until we returned. Even one second needed to re-apply the array would be enough for them to notice.

Muttering a chant, I made the apple float above my hand, enveloping it in a translucent green barrier.

Just as I was ready to imbue the barrier with some rules to make it last longer, I heard the sound of wind shifting behind me. I immediately encased myself in translucent jade armor, preparing for an attack. But the strike never came.

Instead, the would-be assailant rushed past me, grabbed the square barrier I had placed around the golden apple, crushed it, and took hold of the apple before fleeing. It all happened in a split second.

Oh? Stealing from me?

Though not as seamlessly as Song San, this assailant hid his presence quite well. But now he was holding the golden apple, radiating crazy amounts of Qi. Unless he planned to use the apple as bait in some kind of trap, he wouldn't be able to conceal his position. However, if he wanted to set a trap or launch a sneak attack, it would have been easier to do so while his presence was still hidden.

But I wasn't going to bother deciphering the thoughts of an already dead man.

I dismissed the jade armor, forming a translucent green dagger instead, and swung!

A piercing slash shot out like a bullet, followed by a net of wind blades. The thief was fast but slower than my technique.

I gave chase, ready to retrieve his corpse. As I closed in on the thief, I first noticed that he was wearing the robes of an inner disciple from the Blazing Sun Sect. When I got a better look at his face, I realized he was one of those background types—someone I didn't know much about, who mostly kept to themselves. He had an average-looking tan face with a mole on the right side of his forehead.

However, just as my attacks were about to tear him apart, a white, smokey Qi burst from his pocket, forming into the shape of a dignified old man with a long white beard. The man swiped his arm, causing all of my wind blades to combust and shaking the dark tunnel we were in.

Oho? It seemed Hu Jin was up to his usual habit of pilfering others' findings.

I liked to think of myself as a logical man, always striving to reign in my emotions. After all, it was better to have friends than enemies. If given the choice between pushing someone down or helping them, I would always choose the latter. Even if someone cultivated faster than me or was luckier in finding techniques or resources, I might feel a twinge of envy. However, I would never go out of my way to sabotage or drag them down just to make myself feel better.

But despite all that, as I looked at Hu Jin's back and the old man's indifferent face, something ignited within me. It felt like they were dismissing me with such disregard, as if all the treasures in the world were theirs for the taking!

Perhaps challenging heaven's favorite wasn't the smartest move. But the ghost had said Hu Jin didn't have his usual luck here.

Let's see how well he fared without his luck to back him up. Sure, his grandpa was here, but I was going to kill them both!