The pre-rolled sun illuminated the ice riverbed with gold, and the girl sitting on the riverbank looked like a goddess who descended into this world. Even the shabby hair and blood bandages could not destroy the majestic aura surrounding Tian Lan.

"People are inferior. They are empty inside.”

“Filling the void of the soul, they develop.”

“Find a demon inside your heart.”

“Find a demon outside your body.”

“Feed one, destroying the other.”

“Becoming obsessed, become a demon.”

“When you become perfect, become a god."

“Only the one who became a demon.”

With each line spoken, the majestic aura around the girl was amplified by causing spiritual energy vibrations in space. Even though Tian Lan was sitting on the river bank, there were sparks of electricity and flames around it now and then.

The girl did not know how long her meditation took, but only when she regained consciousness, she noticed that she had unknowingly manifested the form of her new demonic spirit. Her arms and legs were covered with golden scales, some of the hair on the temples turned into feathers, and with it, the back of the girl hung large clawed wings.

“How are you feeling?”

“Excellent,” the girl was overwhelmed with power.

Despite the fact that her spirit of the Nekomata was considered a rather strong demonic beast, a fire-thunder hawk with a dragon pedigree was more powerful. Only thanks to the solid foundation of Tian Lan was able to merge with the spirit of the bird of the holy rank, and now it was waiting for a bright future.

---

“Scatter the heavens with your claws,”

“Stun the earth with your roar.”

“Born in a celestial spark,”

“Lived life among the clouds,”

“Find peace by reaching the path.”

After waiting a few hours after dawn, when the bell broke through the beginning of classes, Tian Zhe went to the training ground and from the very morning practiced the technique of development of Raiju.

According to Xiao Ning, the technique of Raiju development was considered low-efficiency in the Heavenly Dragon family. Despite this, Tian Zhe was satisfied, as it resonated well with him, noticeably accelerating the rotation of the vortex inside his spiritual core.

“Raiju's technique does not refer to first-class techniques as divine Phoenix, and it is most likely inferior to the technique of the Thunderbird, which makes it a technique of the third stage with the full coincidence of all attributes and the fourth if the adept has only the attribute of lightning.”

Divine Phoenix was considered a first-class development technique by the Jade City standards because it allows its practice to reach the holy rank even with an incomplete coincidence of attributes. Despite the fact that Tian Zhe believed that this development technique is incomplete and can be called garbage against the background of the lost techniques of ancient empires, it did not change the fact that it is possible with the perfect coincidence to achieve a legendary rank in adulthood.

In Tian Zhe's presentation, a truly first-class technique allows reaching the top of the legendary rank by the age of twenty, judging by the numerous novels in the genre of Wuxia.

“If I can get the spirit of this Raiju or any other demonic beast of lightning, then together with the technique of "Unity of the Inner Demon," as if I will become a saint by thirty, on the other hand, Xiao Ning can become a saint of forty years,” Tian Zhe mused. His own absorption of external energy was comparable to the use of divine Phoenix with a complete inconsistency of attributes, which was due to his skills in perceiving and controlling spiritual energy. Using the technique of Raiju, the absorption increased threefold, and the young man knew that with the growth of development and understanding of the laws of the world, the speed and quantity of absorption of spiritual energy would also increase, but the higher the development, the more effort is needed to break to the next level.

Using the technique of development of Raiju, Tian Zhe made up for some of yesterday's costs of spiritual energy. After that, Tian Zhe read out the techniques of development of the attributes of fire, water, wind, earth, as well as several without attributes of techniques to compare with the technique of Raiju.

A month has passed since the beginning of training at the Ice Lotus Academy. According to Tian Zhe, Li Xue and Xiao Ning almost reached the bronze rank ahead of Tian Zhe, and both lacked the last steps for the breakthrough.

“One has some internal problem due to lack of stimulus, and the other has slowed down due to the accumulation of xie-qi in meridians, not to mention that at the time of the break into the bronze cloud, Xiao Ning would have damaged all his meridians by becoming a cripple.”

Tian Zhe recalled. According to the books, Li Xue's analog broke into the bronze rank under the influence of emotions during his adventures with Gao Shen and Xiao Ning reached the bronze rank a month and about a few days before her breakthrough, the hero of the novel met the girl at night on the training ground and listed her symptoms of a qi-night disease, sought her location to cure her ailment.

Despite the fact that Tian Zhe swore himself to compare his present lifeless with the events of the book because of the complete inconsistency of the names of the characters, some events still coincided, forcing the guy to remember an infinite number of monkeys knocking on typewriters an infinite amount of time.

“Yang Li's analog is due to be announced in two weeks and two more weeks, and he's going on a hike with his counterparts Gao Shen and Li Xue, but in this world, Gao Shen and Li Xue will go camping in a few days, and Xiao Ning has already reached the upper limit of the iron rank,” Tian Zhe said. He was not much concerned that he raised several flags of the main character, and all the thoughts of the young man revolved around the completion of his own development technique.

“Okay, let's go back to our sheep,” Tian Zhe recalled the feelings he had experienced during the practice of various development techniques. Usually, the use of many techniques of opposite attributes negatively affected on the basis of adept, but the spiritual core of Tian Zhe with the mythical shape of the dragon and the only natural attribute had incredible stability, allowing the guy to try different development techniques without any problems for his foundation.

Comparing the sensations during the practice of all sorts of techniques of the development of the Ice Lotus Academy over the past month, Tian Zhe again became convinced that the effectiveness of development techniques also depends on the adept worldview.

The young man looked around and confirmed that there was no one around. Tian Zhe got up in the rack redirecting his weight on his left leg and applied his right palm to his face.

“If I plan to use a theory that does not belong to this world, it is better to die of shame before experimentation.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Tian Zhe laughed theatrically as he recalled "Steins Gate" “I, that madman, after half of my earthly life, found myself in a different world!”

“And here, having lost the right way in the darkness of reason, I choose the path of science,” Tian Zhe suppressed bouts of shame by spending all his mental endurance. “I choose you, the idea of quantum physics!”

“I am the alpha and omega!” Raising morale through the phrases of a Chuunibyou or, as they say, through the lines of someone with an eighth-grader syndrome, Tian Zhe lowered his morality to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

---

Having calmed down, Tian Zhe read out lines that did not belong to the techniques of the Ice Lotus development. These lines were also not part of the Fiery Orchid techniques and did not belong to any other Jade City family. He came up with these lines by putting in them the meaning that he understood as a person who lived a life in another world. Even if his words moved away from scientific knowledge, Tian Zhe believed in them because they did not contradict his worldview and did not conflict with the theory of improvement of this world.

“There is no line between soul and body.”

“Alive and inanimate, material, and illusory.”

“Everything goes from one to the other.”

“From energy to field, from field to particle, from particle to matter.”

“I will become an unshakable matter of chaos.”

“I will become the eternal energy of wreaking havoc.”

“I'll put things in order, and I'll destroy the order.”

“I am chaos and order in one person.”

Tian Zhe read out his homemade development technique aloud and from the first line fell into a meditative state for greater confidence. The vortex of spiritual energy inside the spiritual nucleus of Tian Zhe began to rotate frantically, expanding the diameter of the nucleus even before the absorption of the external energy of xie-qi. With the fourth line, the outer xie-qi began to resonate with Tian Zhe's words and, in large quantities, delve into the young man's spiritual core. The penetrating energy was not cleansed of the impurities of the energy of other elements. Instead, with the last line of technology, the streams of different elements fused together, forming the quintessence of spiritual energy, adjusting to Tian Zhe's attributes.

Re-reading his technique of development to himself, Tian Zhe carried in his head information that heat is the energy of the disordered movement of molecules and atoms, and cold - the sensation of an object whose temperature is lower than other objects.

“If I need to light a torch, I will make the qi oscillate around the torch creating enough work to light the torch. If I need to freeze the water, I will dissipate its energy in the form of heat, causing it to freeze.”

Tian Zhe sat with his eyes closed and had no idea that the energy surrounding him began to oscillate with force visible to the naked eye with his thoughts. All the young man felt was the incredible force with which the vortex of energy within his spiritual core rotated, causing pain comparable to a fracture.

Realizing that its spiritual core could break from internal pressure, Tian Zhe ceased to limit his spiritual core, and the quintessence of the zhen-qi mad stream swept through the meridians, filling them and displacing the remnants of the old energy of the zhen-qi from the meridian and the body. Tian Zhe's body acquired a reddish tint due to the blood that came under the influence of many capillaries' rupture.

By filling his meridians and flesh to the point of failure over the purified zhen-qi, Tian Zhe once again limited his spiritual core, allowing it to expand again. This time, Tian Zhe slowly read out the lines of his development technique, trying to contain the rotation of the chin-qi in his spiritual core.

---

Last week, Tian Zan concluded that Tian Zhe would soon break into the bronze rank using the technique of Furious God-destruction, but the young man abandoned this idea because of the associated risks. Today, Tian Zhe broke into the earthly kingdom with no fewer risks.

Having reached the maximum size, the spiritual nucleus of Tian Zhe stabilized, and when the young man calmed down, it gave up a sharp pain due to the unexpectedly increased uncontrolled rotation of spiritual energy. Tian Zhe felt like a lot of passages had arisen in his spiritual core, and a frantic stream of spiritual energy rushed through inactive, "sleeping" meridians to the lower tribute.

Tian Zhe felt the pleasure of a surge of energy. All living things have the inner energy of the yuan-qi, but usually, its quantity is so insignificant that ordinary people simply can not feel it, and it is the breakthrough in the earthly kingdom that is the most vivid memory of the adherents. The lower meridian Tian Zhe began to produce the energy of the yuan-qi in quantities exceeding their previous quantity tenfold. At the same time, the pleasure of the breakthrough reached a climax, unwittingly evoking the young man's memories of orgasm after intensive training in his previous life, but at the moment when the yuan-qi began to move on the meridians of the whole body, Tian Zhe was not up to pleasure.

The young man experienced pain comparable to that he felt when the pelvis was damaged by a stone that came out of his kidney. The promotion of the three-millimeter pebble on the ureters was comparable to the pain in childbirth, and then he swore that if he became a father, he would groom and cherish his wife for the rest of his life.

“Tian Zhe, you idiot!”

Now he was not up to oaths and nostalgia about the former life. Yuan-qi actively mixed with the zhen-qi forming a bronze cloud inside the young man's lower tribute. Processes of inner alchemy were going on all over the body of the idiot who took the habit of storing surplus gen-qi outside his spiritual core. Mixing, the outer and inner energies increasing in volume expanded the meridians of the young man, causing him hellish pain throughout the body.

Not to mention the fact that it seemed to him that his muscles repeatedly torn, every now and then gathering, again and again, to break with a new portion of pain. He was pounding in a fever, and all his clothes were soaked in sweat. Tian Zhe didn't know if he was sitting or lying there. He wanted to scream and curse the whole world.

After another wave of pain, Tian Zhe lost consciousness.