Fang Hui made his way toward the alchemy pavilion to purchase some pills. He was close. He just needed an extra push to finally reach the 8th level of qi condensation. He has been stuck on this level for a year already and he was sick of it. The previous levels were cakewalk compared to this. Now, he needed to spend so many sect points just to get a handful of higher tier pills.

On the road, he overheard a fight further ahead. No, to call it a fight is wrong. Five boys, a scion of some viscount he doesn’t remember, with his four underlings ganging up on a helpless boy.

Hui had heard rumors of these two, of a noble young man and a despicable “petty thief”. A dumb story, really. The young master tried to woo this one inner disciple senior girl, boasting about his parent's parent’s riches and his middling talents. He was rejected, obviously.

That’s what you get for bragging on fortune that is not yours. Try again when you are at the 6th level.

However, the dumb kid blamed the helpless boy, a trash, for ruining everything, just because said inner disciple girl favored the trash. In Hui’s opinion, the trash at least has the dedication in performing his sect duties. Even the Fang’s young master impressed with the worst talented outer disciple, a shame that few view it as such. 

To be frank, Fang Hui had heard many similar stories circulating among the outer sect. This is just one trivial thing beneath his caring. In this cultivation world, might make right! You are either the strong, or the wrong.

Fang Hui can only shake his head. No matter where he goes, there will be those like the young master who waste their time doing nonsense such as this in the sect instead of cultivating. He walks around the vicinity, ignoring the plea for help from the trash, and makes his way again to the alchemy pavilion.

////

Fang Hui wakes up with a start. He slowly steadied his breath and calmed himself. A memory of the old day, an unpleasant thing. He wished that such memories remain unearthed from his mind, but deep down he knew that it was a necessity. Still, he can’t believe that his previous self was an arrogant boy.

Hui’s surroundings right now was a blank space of darkness, with some tiny bright things peppering his vision, few of which are bigger than the rest. He was surprised at first, but quickly reasoned that he was in a dream world of some sort or something.

He hasn’t awoken yet from his slumber, a curiosity. As far as he knew, a newborn may have slept for a long time in a day, but it was done in bursts of many 2 hours naps. The reason was that newborns have a small stomach, which makes them needing constant feeding until they are in their 3rd month, when their stomach is big enough to store more substances. Only then that babies sleep through the night.

That dream, ‘was it a dream?’, felt so long, like a couple hours long. So why hasn’t he woken up?

He assumed that it was the perk of being born from a cultivator parent. From what he remembered, Mo Lian and his father were both cultivators. He didn’t know what his mother’s cultivation level was, but the father, Fang Rong if his memory was right, was a foundation establishment cultivator. 

This results in a baby that, while still a mortal, has a sturdier physique compared to other babies. Not to mention that a cultivator’s breast milk is much more nutritious than a non cultivator’s, low in impurities for one. This lessens the amount of milk a baby needs to store, or so his memory told him.

Satisfied with his musing, Hui then checks his metaphysical body. Currently, Fang Hui has a body of a teenager in this space. He can now move around in this space freely, almost too free. He flew around the darkness, poked at the motes of light, and screamed aloud like toddlers after eating too many candies. Over time, he got ‘tired’ of them and sat down, tried to anyway, hard to sit when there was nothing to sit on.

He didn’t know what to do right now. Heck, he didn’t even know what he’s supposed to do in the first place! Why did he reborn? Why did he go back to his family? How is he sure that the woman, the man, and the two kids were his family?

The more he thought, the more tired he became, so he just closed his eyes and rested his mind. Hui may not have realized, but he was currently meditating unconsciously and accidentally delved deeper inside of him. When he realized what happened, he was already in a different space. 

Instead of the blank darkness, this space was reddish in color, with silvery streaks in betweens. In front of him, he found two kinds of things, a collection of books and a jade pendant. Reaching for the books, he grabs one of them and reads the title.

[Nine World Chronicle, First Volume: Introduction and Preparation]

It was the lesson he got from the mysterious man back then! He tried to grasp onto the other books but they passed through his hand. Hui was confused by this. Could it be that he can only get the other book when he already mastered the first part? Most likely. His memories on cultivation are spotty at best, so he might just go on with the flow.

Before that, he wanted to take a peek on the next books after the first. But what he found only confused him.

[Nine World Chronicle, Second Volume:…]

[Nine World Chronicle, Fourth Volume:…]

[Nine World Chronicle, Fifth Volume:…]

[Nine World Chronicle, sixth Volume:…]

Two things are apparent. 1) The name of the next book was somehow hidden away, and 2) THE THIRD VOLUME IS MISSING! The former, Hui can forgive the man for keeping secrets, but the later one is a different story!

What kind of lousy head does things half-baked like this?! Wasn’t that man supposed to be an all powerful mysterious master or something? And even if this was intentional, at least make it so that he needs to find out the last volume, why the third one!?

At this point, Hui no longer cared. ‘So long that I have the first two, I can just cultivate them and then find the third part later. If not, I’ll just focus on other cultivation or something.’ He naively thought.

Hui then brought his attention to the second item, the pendant. It was made of jade and circular in shape like a coin with a hole in the middle of it. The string was made of gold copper alloy and its length was equal to his forearm, more or less. It looked worned out, as if it was made hundreds of years ago.

Back when the mysterious man gave it to him (shove it inside to his ribs, really), the pendant made him remember many of his previous past/future life, he didn’t know which one was right and he didn’t care now. He grasped on the pendant, nothing happened. Hui sighed, unsure to be disappointed or not. 

‘Now, how can I leave this place?’ Hui thought internally. Suddenly, the pendant in his grasp shone brightly. A streak of light came from the pendant’s hole and shot through his forehead.

In an instant, a knowledge on how to leave this reddish space sprang in his mind, along with what this place is. Fang Hui wasn’t sure how he ended up here in the first place, inside his inner self within his outer-inner self, but he didn’t care much.

He was about to leave with the book and pendant still in his hands, when the pendant suddenly reacted. It struggled to stay within the current space, unwilling to move out. Hui sighed once more and let go of the pendant. The book stayed in his hand and thankfully, when he returned to the darkness, the same book went with him and sat on his lap.

Hui half expected to get an answer, only to get more and more questions. Why was he back alive? Why did he get the lesson? What exactly he needed to do? All this only brings headache to the reborn cultivator. ‘No matter, I’ll just have to figure out things from now on, right?’.

He then opened the book and began reading.

…..

An hour has passed.

Hui learned a few things regarding the space he was in. This blank space is called the ‘Inner World’, a place of last resort defense against soul attack, and also a medium for a number of soul cultivation techniques.

When mortals and immortals live their life, the soul world of theirs developed according to their lifestyle, their desires, and their view in life. Each soul world is different between individuals, even if they lived in similar style, similar desire, and have the same moral compass.

But one thing is clear, each ordinary soul world feels intangible and may only be visited through dreaming, for dream is the gate to the soul world. The hard part of this is that one must be in a certain state of consciousness to even take a glimpse of it.

Unless that you are a Soul Cultivator, venture toward this illusive world is a fool errand at best. At least, that’s what is written in the book.

A question sprang on his mind while reading the passage, but it was quickly answered. While a person’s soul world reflected the person as a whole, it is in fact, not the soul itself.

As explained from above, this world is a last resort defense against soul attack toward an individual. But why would it be called that? Because the soul that is the individual consciousness is what Hui’s form currently is, a reflection of the past he lived in, floating around in this space. The book names this thing “Soul Core”.

Any scratch taken on this part of the soul is as painful as losing one’s own body part in the real world and is ten times more damaging. Restoration of the soul core is nigh impossible, even to cultivators. There are few ways one can strengthen the soul: 1) Performing a spirit cultivation, which only ever happen when one reached a Nascent Soul Stage, and only improving one’s soul core, 2) Using a soul enhancing resources, whether they are rare expensive pills, talismans, or artifacts, which may lead to deformation of soul if mishandled, and 3) Performing a soul cultivation, which is hard to find, difficult to learn, and take a very long time to practice to even gain a tangible result.

Hui wonders why his current form in this space is of his teenage self. He instinctively knew that he was an old cultivator, age wise. Reaching a bit over a thousand years old, he can be considered a strong cultivator by immortal standard, even if he was mediocre. Hui assumed that his soul may have been de-aged or that a cultivator’s mentality is stunted at a certain point, he wasn’t sure about that. 

Currently, Hui’s soul world is bare from any alteration, just a blank dark canvas littered with tiny bright particles. According to the manual, to perform the cultivation technique, one needs to do certain mnemonic chants or the similar rituals to bring one’s consciousness to the soul world. This process would take weeks, if not months to get used to, just like learning to gather qi in spirit cultivation.

Explained in the text, a soul world of non-soul cultivators is described as an intangible space of nonsense. There are no directions, forms are ever changing, and improper handling may wake one’s self from the trance, if not damaging them. This state of the soul is what makes entry to this world an ordeal.

After entering the soul world, practitioners then performed modification of their soul world to suit the cultivation technique. The book teaches the practitioners how to properly perform a modification of the soul world for the sake of cultivation. Three things are to be prepared before performing the training: 

• A vast plot of Soil, 
• A Pond of considerable size, 

and weirdly enough, 

• A Sky. 

Hui can guess what the former two are for, but he didn’t know what to make of the later one.

If his vision from before was any indication, the cultivation technique would result in growing a tree within this blank space. He understood the need of a land to be large in preparation for the tree to grow into. He is also aware of trees and all kinds of plantations’ need for water, as with many living creatures. The Sky, though, Hui didn’t know what it meant. Doesn’t matter, it would have been answered at a later time.

Reading further, after the practitioner finished the preparation, they then tasked to form a seed. At this point, the word was very hard to read, almost as if the manual refused to tell him the exact procedure when he hasn’t made any preparation yet.

Giving up in learning more at the moment, Hui began to start the exercise. If he followed the book’s instructions, he needed to grasp the bright parts of the soul world, concentrate on it and focus on creating the soil.

The manual described these bright particles as “Qi”, or “Soul Qi” to be precise. These soul qi are what a soul cultivator uses to advance their soul cultivation. Hui wasn’t sure what’s so special about soul qi, but he just shrugged it off for now. More questions for later time.

The next passages intrigued him, though. It touched upon a topic on impurities and how it was formed. From what he remembered, impurities are a sort of foul, slimy substance within the body of mortal beings. They are accumulated inside the bodies over time and hinder one's reaching immortality.

Many cultivators had tried to explain how those could gather inside the body, with varying conclusions. Some say that it came from mortal food that was consumed, others say it was a manifestation of one’s evil thought. One person even said that impurities are a curse of mortality that the god or gods bring upon their creations as punishment for defying heaven eons ago.

For those reasons, cultivators are groomed in their early life. Nobles in particular feeding their children with spiritual food that was told to contain few, if not none of impurities. They are also bathed in medicinal water in an attempt to shed those impurities and strengthen the child’s body. The manual, however, gave an answer that is so simple, many wouldn’t even think of it in their lifetime.

Impurity, is an uncirculated qi. That’s all.

Qi, from Fang Hui’s memory, is a form of energy that spreads around the world, a heavenly energy that cultivators harness to perform many inhuman feats. Qi can have a natural characteristic that can be understood by normal people, such as Fire Qi being hot, Wind Qi being intangible, and Lightning Qi being…..lightingy?

The point is, when a person was born, motes and strands of qi had invaded their body. They are miniscule in amount and size, practically invisible to senses and accumulate very, very, vey, very slowly. It would have taken non-cultivator mortals two hundreds years to have enough qi to enter Qi Condensation Realm, the lowest level to be even called cultivator.

However, when the qi inside one body is left uncirculated, they will slowly lose their luster forming a sediment of slags within the body. These sediments are what is known as impurities. 

In small amounts, these impurities are easy to purge. But as a person grew older, those impurity became harder to expel. It ‘solidifies’ inside the body and like a decades old puke stain on a rug, it is virtually impossible to remove. That’s why cultivators are best groomed at a young age, but old enough to understand discipline and basic concepts of reading.

In the case of impurity of the soul, instead of forming a slag, it used the impurity to bring shapes in the soul world. These shapes would reflect on all of the person’s actions, thoughts, and emotions. This, however, would result in haphazard shapes with questionable meaning.

Soul cultivation is done by reshaping soul qi into shapes corresponding with the cultivation technique. Some would tell the practitioners to form a large imposing sword with the qi, some others told them to form a symbol of some sort, instead.

The book elaborates on the hardship of expelling the soul impurities that are already too old and lost their luster. Such a process is said to take years to perform. This confuses Fang Hui, however. While he’s inside the soul space, he didn’t encounter any impurity of some sort. Since he’s technically a soul of 1000 years old cultivator, shouldn’t there be a lot of impurities within the soul world?

Another question for later time.

Closing the book, Hui began his cultivation. He grabbed a handful of small clumps of soul qi, kneading them with both hands, and resulted in a bigger lump of soul qi. He let that lump go, then repeated the process with other clumps.

Roughly 3 hours passes.

Hui has been crushing his 50000-ish clumps available in this space. He expected that cultivation of the soul would be more  challenging, but it was so simple. 

Too simple.

He reached for more qi, when suddenly, the soul world shook hard. He felt himself being pulled away from the blank space, but he didn’t panic, not too much at least.

…...

Okay, maybe a little bit more.

He did calm down quickly, though. He instinctively knew that what is happening is a simple thing any human does after sleeping for a long time.

Hui the newborn baby is waking up.