Chapter 9 "Speed vs potential, love"

Gu Shang got up from the floor, his skin was crimson from the amount of pain, he was covered in sweat, his uniform was wet and sticking to his body as if it was a new layer of his skin and his eyes were bloodshot. But even though he looked as if he was put into a meat grinder and then was glued back together, he had a shit eating grin that would make anyone mad upon seeing it.

'Fuck that was awful, but hey, no pain no gain.'

Gu Shang could feel that his realm was rising, ok yes it was like adding a grain of sand to a desert. But it was equivalent to him cultivating a low grade technique every single second he was alive, he didn't need to focus or anything he just had to live. That's exactly the reason why he chose it, over the multitude of scenes he watched, a lot of them described on how the arcane heart worked, he swore to himself to choose it if it was in the selection, and it paid off. 

What's even better was the fact that when he would be using the World Creating Lotus Art, he would connect his body with the 160-Realm Lotus World to summon Qi into his body to cultivate, but because of the arcane heart he would absorb much more Qi meaning that his cultivation would once again speed up. 

'Counting all those things, my cultivation speed can rival a person with a low grade-1 spirit root.'

Sniff.

BLEEH!

"Disgusting!"

Gu Shang ran to wash himself after he caught the smell of his body. The smell was like a mix of a rotten corpse, a pile of fermented shit, a durian and a rotten fish. It was so pungent that he could probably be considered a fucking bio-weapon.

After getting out of the bath he had to wear his servant clothes that he left as a souvenir, he felt weirdly comfortable in them.

'Fuck I really need to stop complaining to the system, if I keep it up then one day it'll just disappear.'

Gu Shang made a vow to himsel to never upset this system, if it disappeared then he would lose out on a lot of stuff.

Gu Shang started wondering about how maybe other stuff in the selection were better.

Sure maybe the Heavenly Serpent bloodline would give him heaven-defying abilities, but the effects of the arcane heart were shown through the entire simulation while the other stuff like the Ancestral Sword Style was shown only once while the Apocalypse Magic needed him to control a bunch of natural powers like the black lighting and cursed wind. He didn't even know if these existed in this world. 

As for the Great Severance Sword, when he first saw it in the item selection Gu Shang thought it was the worst item, but after thinking about it that item may have been the best. The description said that it was nearly indesctructible. He first thought that it meant for that world, but the system can simulate reincarnation and give things from it, meaning that it itself was extremely powerful, so the sword that the system said was nearly indestructible meant that it may have been a weapon on the level of an artifact above the spirit emperor level.

After he thought a bit more about it, he realized that the Great Severance Sword never appeared in the simulation, the only divine sword that was in the simulation was a sword called Blazing Frost Sword. First off, the name doesn't make sense. Second, the two swords have completely different names without anything in common. Third, Blazing Frost Sword was broken by a powerful demon in one of the scenes, the scene wasn't mentioned earlier because the fight ended with a single attack and wasn't really important or interesting.

'It won't do anything to think about it now, the simulation's over and I can't go back in time.'

Thought Gu Shang and then went to sleep, the process of transforming his heart into the arcane heart and the later experience took a lot out of him.

The next day Gu Shang woke up and was once again satisfied with choosing the arcane heart, he could feel that he was halfway through the fifth level of body tempering.

Eager to breakthrough to root nurturing, Gu Shang sat in a lotus position and started to perfect the rhythm of the body. 

Thanks to the fact that he had already entered that state, it took him only a little more than 4 hours to enter the state again.

This time he didn't budge when he felt that cruel pain, he was mentally prepared for it and he was already used to his arcane heart absorbing Qi, which was a constant pain.

He was tempering his body with internal energy for over three hours now, but with every minute he could feel his strength rapidly leaving his body, he could hardly keep his body in the perfect rhythm due to exhaustion.

After another 10 minutes he stopped the tempering since he was scared that he could seriously injure himself.

When he tried to stand up from the bed, he stumbled to the floor. 

'Hm, internal energy is probably made from my stamina and strength, an engine does need oil to work.'

Gu Shang just laid there waiting for his strength to come back, but since it took too long he decided to try cultivating. And he was shocked to see the results, Qi was entering his body much faster than normally, meaning that his cultivation once again sped up. After finding this out he took the chance and continued cultivating, but the speed slowed down to it's previous rate after 5 minutes.

'Hm, my strength has returned and the pain has subsided, but the cultivation speed has decreased, is the increase in cultivation the effect of tempering the body with the Sacred Perfection Body Tempering?' I'll test my theory later.'

Gu Shang went out of his house and decided to check up on Yao Xiu and see if Qu Bingxue, he still wanted to know why she wanted him as a dao companion.

As he opened the door, a shadow jumped onto him knocking him to the ground.

"SHANG I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!"

Qu Bingxue was finally out of her closed-door cultivation. She broke through to foundation building realm.

"Good to see you too Bingxue."

"Shang you don't even understand how much I missed you, you and your big c-"

"Yeah I missed you too."

"Let's do it right now."

"No."

"Huh? Why?"

"Bingxue, why do you want me as a dao companion."

.

..

...

"What are you talking about silly?"

"Qu Bingxue, elders already told me how you asked that if you can take me as a dao companion."

"..."

"Bingxue, the cat's out of the bag, just say why do you want me as a dao companion."

"I fell in love with you after the old man self-destructed."

"At first I only felt nice around you and thought that we are just good friends and that's it, but after you almost died in that explosion I realized that I was in love with you."

After saying this a few tears ran down her face.

"Come here."

Gu Shang hugged Bingxue and started patting her head and back to try and make her feel more welcome.

"Bingxue, you do understand that my potential doesn't even come close to yours, you will still be as beautiful as a goddess while I'll look like a withered tree in the future."

"I don't care, I fell in love with you and even if I can't become your wife, then let me at least be a concubine, if not a concubine then a maid servant."

'Damn she's really into me.'

"Bingxue, if I could, I would marry you right here right now, but you are a disciple of the sect leader, she would have to agree to it before we could marry."

"Besides, we can still love each other without marrying."

"..."

"You forgot about that didn't you?"

"Maybe."

'Why didn't I try to marry you earlier."

"Oh right, where is Yao Xiu?"

"Elder Fang came here earlier today and took that girl to her house."

"Alright."

Gu Shang picked her up and threw her onto his shoulder then went into the house.