Immortal Cultivator System

Despite all that was happening in the Peizhi Kingdom, Zhao Shu was neutral at all times. Ever since they came here, he simply spent his time training. Jian ran around building his little order and scheming things, Uma did the same and here he was.....Spending all days sweating and bleeding as he trained harder than he ever did in his entire life.

He reckoned Jian might have a hard time after seeing just how far Zhao Shu has come, but at least it might push his rival so to speak to become even better. Sadly one could only go so far with training all by themselves and most importantly, without ressources. 

Physical training was important to a warrior like himself, but he also needed to cultivate a lot. A strong body with a weak spirit was pretty worthless, that's why no one could compete with a Qi Core Realm cultivator even with the strongest of body. Problem was, physical training didn't take any sorts of special materials...But cultivation did.

He could boost himself with soul pellets, but they were entirely too expensive. Fortunately for him, Zhao Shu just so happened to have a little trick in his sleeve. The Zhao Warriors weren't all that knowledgeable when it came to cultivation, but they were also very impatient. And like every impatient people, they found ways to do things faster. He only needed a few herbs and flowers and he would craft himself some spiritual awakening potion. 

Those types of potions weren't all that popular, simply because they could cause all kinds of complications and even cripple cultivators. One needed an invincible immune system to resist the effects, and that's just what the Zhao Warriors had. 

The potion would open all the Qi pathways and allow Qi to enter the body much faster. It would also place the person in a trance state where they would be able to feel every single Qi points of their body and lead Qi with extreme precision. It made the process of cultivation much faster, and that's just what Zhao Shu needed.

The mortal realm was different from the Qi Core realm and certain little thing pushed cultivators to remain in the half-mortal realm to accumulate Qi before entering the Mortal Realm, because it consumed an unholy amount of Qi for every meditation session and if you burned all your energy before reaching the next form, you would have to start all over again. This realm was all about accumulating physical and spiritual energy to breakthrough the different forms. It was a similar process for the all the superior realms, but the mortal realm was the only one that needed both spiritual and physical strengh. One couldn't possibly breakthrough without those, which often spelt disaster for cultivators in the old age. No one knew about this little parameter and so most failed and never reached the mortal realm. It's said that this realm was the sole reason as to why the level of cultivators on the main continent was always so low. 

And even to this day, even now that this parameter was known, there were still many cultivators who failed to progress through this realm. For people who spent years in the Qi Core realm and as such never had to train physically, the change was just impossible to follow. 

Not that Zhao Shu found it easy. Even he was struggling to progress through the forms and the fact that this realm didn't even give him anything special made him quite mad. The Mortal realm was truly a worthless realm, difficult for no reasons and didn't unlock anything special contrarily to the Laws Realm. But it was the way of natural selection. A way to differentiate the weak from the strong. 

As the Zhao Warrior struggled more and more and his patience reached it's limit, he couldn't go on anymore. He always had a short temper even though he tried to hide it. He just couldn't continue on this way, he had to discover a faster way to gain power. More and more power !

That was why he found himself inside a building owned by the Flies. It looked like a brothel but the caverns located below the brothel , and which could only be entered through several buildings owned by the flies, showed a different use. The caves were full of merchants and people from all over the continent were here to see the exotic wares. Strangely enough, Zhao Shu couldn't see a single person who wasn't from the Red Sky continent. 

At least until he passed by a merchant selling exotic pets and saw a bundle of spiky red hair. He didn't recognize the person at first and simply looked over the pets as they interested him. He never cared about the basic animals, but the beasts were a different ordeal. He always wanted to own a true army of beasts and battle with them, though he only had his hell butterfly for now. But he had quite a lot of money due to Uma who was spoiling him and Jian for some reasons, and could afford to buy a pet. Only one though, so he had to choose wisely.

As he watched the pets move around and listened to the merchant who started to list out the ups and downs of each beasts, Zhao Shu didn't see as the person with the spiky red hair turned her head towards him and gasped. 

She circled around him, observing the much too focused Zhao Warriors, before the merchant noticed her. She silenced him with an intense glare and he simply continued what he was previously doing, although he suddenly didn't want to do business with the Zhao Warrior all of a sudden. He didn't care much for those Zhao Warriors, but like everyone, he could recognize them and having two of those warriors around his stall wasn't the best thing. 

"Hmmm...I think I'll take the Red Iron Monkey. It will go well with my butterfly." Zhao Shu said as he handed the merchants a purse full of coins. The merchant received it with shaky hands, and then handed out the small monkey who was throwing a fit. It instantly calmed down once in the hands of Zhao Shu, and most importantly....Once he sensed the Hell Butterfly that resided inside of the Zhao Warrior. 

Content with his new pet, Zhao Shu left the stall with a small smile on his face as he watched the little red monkey drift off to sleep. It must have exhausted itself throwing a fit for hours. The merchant did say the little fellow was quite nasty, but Zhao Shu was a Zhao Warrior.....He knew nastiness.

So focused on his brand new pet he was, that he didn't even see the much taller figure who stood in his way. He ended up colliding with said figure, but both he and figure didn't move.

"Hm ? Who the hell are ya ?" The tall man asked, as Zhao Shu sighed. This was going to be a fight, he just knew it. People who hung around the black market weren't exactly tender and had even more chances to start fights for no reasons than thugs in the city.

"I wasn't looking in front of me, sorry bout' that. Hope we ain't gonna start a fight just for that." Zhao Shu said with his usual annoyed tone that made his old accent come back. He was trying to make it disappear, but old habits were hard to kill. 

" Bah ! Of course we ain't gon' start anythin'. But am pretty sure I seen your face somewhere." The man exclaimed as Zhao Shu finally lifted his head to look at him. They both gasped in recognition, and the tall man looked behind Zhao Shu to see his female colleague make grand gestures to him. A silent discussion went on between the two and before Zhao Shu could snap out of his stupor, they both bolted away.

"...That....That was."

The Hell butterfly started to make noises that got the attention of the passers-by as it felt the intense feelings that were running around chaotically inside the mind of it's master. Zhao Shu had his eyes widened to the very limit and he was unable to form a full sentence. He was stuttering and quickly turned around to see if the man was stilll in sight. And he was.

He could be seen running while holding a woman on his shoulders. 

In his state of emotional distress, Zhao Shu decided to follow the man as fast as he could. And he was truly putting all his energy into chasing the man, as said man noticed when Zhao Shu nearly crossed the distance between them in a few seconds. 

The man sped up too and they ended up outside faster than they could register. The chase continued on the roofs of the capital as the man tried to lose Zhao Shu. But the Zhao Warrior was hot on his tracks, and the chase ended up when Zhao Shu sent his hell butterfly at the man who clearly didn't predict such a thing. 

The man was grabbed by the collar and both he and Zhao Shu fell from the roof of a 20 meters tall building. They crashed on the ground and the man got his face grabbed this time, before ending up against a wall with the shocked face of Zhao Shu right in front of him. Whilst all of this was going on, Zhao Shu was checking the man's face to make sure he was right. 

And so he was in complete disbelief. He was stunned and could only maintain his trembling grip on the man's face. 

"Y-Yeah...I knew I recognized you from somewhere. " The man said before punching Zhao Shu in the stomach with enough strengh to send the zhao warrior on the ground, puking blood.

The woman who had been dropped by the man during the fall, got on her feet with great difficulty and snapped at her colleague.

"Goddamnit ! I have a broken ankle now you dumbass ! What can't you understand in 'She has weak bones ' huh ?! Is it too difficult a sentence for you to get ?! I can make it clearer for you ! Me weak, me has weak body, me is so strong spiritually because me too weak physically !" She yelled as the man sweatdropped.

"I got it the first tim-"

"THEN FREAKING PROTECT ME YOU MORON ! Sometimes I wonder why I waste my time using my powers on you ! I make you strong and in exchange you fucking drop me during a 20 meters fall !" She continued to rant as the man quickly ran to her and lifted her again.

"Alright alright, I'll be more careful." He said as she calmed down and slumped on his shoulders. 

"Just move on before he can get up." 

"Well yes..But isn't that your-"

"SHUT UP !!" She screamed, busting the man's ears as he winced. He got the message and moved on, but not before saying a last thing to Zhao Shu.

" T'was nice seeing you, Cadet Shu....But you know her, she's too feisty."