Chapter 4: ONE YEAR LATER

In the Xuantian world, there were 7 major cultivation stages which have to be broken through before one is able to leave this world and ascend to a higher plane known as the immortal realm.

From the lowest to highest they are: Qi cultivation stage, Foundation building stage, Golden core stage, Nascent Soul stage, Soul transformation stage, Spirit condensation stage and Quasi immortal stage.

Each stage has a total of 10 sub levels that must be passed before going to the next major cultivation stage.

Within a hole in a gigantic mountain, a young man was practicing his spearmanship. Beautiful arcs were drawn in the air with each swing of his spear.

Whooshing sounds could be heard reverberating within the hollowed out mountain.

This was Jin practicing his myriad spear arts. It's been 4 months since he arrived in this world and since then he has been in this spot honing his skills and increasing his cultivation with leaps and bounds.

[Name: Jin]

[Age: 19]

[Race: Human]

[Cultivation: 3rd level of the Foundation building stage]

[Physique: Innate Dao Body]

[Spiritual root: Divine grade]

[System points: none]

[System store: Locked]

Jin had grown from a mere mortal to the 3rd level of the foundation building stage under 4 months!

If anyone knew of his cultivation speed they would doubt their lives and some might even develop heart demons.

During these past 4 months Jin had explored the system extensively and had discovered many hidden functions of the system.

One of those functions being the ability to merge 2 or more techniques together to create a new technique. This worked by making one technique the base technique and merging the rest with it. The limit of mergeable techniques was capped at 3. So one base technique and two auxiliary ones.

The other function was the system's training space. This was an alternate realm within the system specially made for training techniques and trying out new fighting moves.

The space could be altered into the desired landscape, weather or time with a thought by Jin. It also had the ability to create sparring partners made of shadows according to who or what Jin had seen and encountered.

Within the training space, Jin could go all out and even fight to death as the training space had a life saving function. After every fight Jin had he would be healed and return to peak condition upon exiting the training space. He would be directly ejected in peak condition if he ever died in the training space.

During the time he had spent in this mountain cave, he allocated his time to doing different things such as training his Qi and body tempering techniques for half the day and the other half was spent training and perfecting his spear arts in the training space.

Since he had not seen anyone or anything since his arrival to this world he had the system make an apparition of himself as his sparring partner.

The created shadow looked exactly like Jin, even his cultivation level and aura was the same. Jin was also able to increase its cultivation base higher than his. It even wielded his spear arts as well but due to the system, its moves were more superior and looked like they were thoroughly practiced for years.

Jin used every fight as an opportunity to train his spearmanship, fighting style and overall battle prowess,  learning the perfect way to use his techniques without being flashy and wasting spiritual energy.

Jin was also rewarded by the system whenever he won a fight, especially if he won against a higher level opponent.

The rewards ranged from satiety pills to system points and even techniques but those would become available when he defeated or killed people and creatures.

After another round of swinging his spear and perfecting his moves Jin opened the system training space.

He appeared on a grassland with trees and shrubs scattered around. He set the cultivation level of the shadow to the 8th level of the foundation building stage, which was 5 whole levels above him!

Fighting would be inconceivable to other people when faced with a much stronger opponent but Jin was a different case. He had a smile on his face as he couldn't hide his excitement of being able to fight with a strong opponent.

In the past months Jin was weak and uncoordinated and mostly lost to his apparition, but with honing his skills every day he had transformed into a battle maniac as he used this time to vent his frustration of being stuck in a mountain cave.

He tried busting out of this cave on several occasions but was always sent back down by the system due to not being strong enough to venture into the world. It went on many times and the system decided to seal the entrance of the mountain so he wouldn't make anymore escape attempts.

"Hello partner, missed me?" Jin said with a smile on his face while tightly squeezing his spear in his hand.

Facing each other, Jin and the shadow instantly disappeared from where they stood earlier, leaving only after images in their place. They both met in the centre of the grassland as their spears clashed against each other.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Sparks of flames were emitted as their spears collided, the shadow made a low sweep with its spear aiming to slash Jin's knees but he was a step ahead of the shadow.

With a light jump he evaded the spear and swung his spear downward at the shadows head which was in turn blocked. He didn't stop for a second as he used the momentum to land a kick on the shadows chest making it slide back only stabilising itself by stabbing into the ground with his spear.

Before he could pull out his spear and make another move, Jin had already appeared behind him with a speed that was way over his cultivation stage.

"Pow!"

Jin swung his spear as it connected with the back of the shadows head. Being hit angered the shadow as he blasted towards Jin with great speed.

It displayed one of the techniques from the myriad spear arts

"Illusory piercing Fang!"

The shadow made hundreds of stabbing gestures with his spear which produced multiple spear shadows approaching Jin with high speed.

With a smile on his face, Jin sharply twirled his spear in front of himself, creating a shield which blocked all the illusory spears headed towards him.

Immediately after blocking he made his move. Suddenly appearing in front of the shadow, his speed even faster than the last time making it seem like he teleported.

"Boom!"

A heavy punch landed on the shadows face making him fall back and bashing his head into the ground, Jin immediately pounced on the shadow after stabbing his spear into the ground just centimetres away from its head.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Jin pummeled the shadow after sitting on its stomach with his knees pressed against its arms, making it unable to move or fight back.

A crazy grin could be spotted on Jin's face which made him look like a blood crazed demon. Each punch was stronger than the last as he thoroughly beat the shadow till its face broke apart signalling its defeat.

"Hehe! Seems I have indeed gotten stronger, fighting with an opponent on a higher level is actually not so difficult anymore. Enough fighting for today, time to cultivate!"

Jin felt satisfied with the outcome of the fight and happily exited the training space. His Qi was instantly replenished upon his exit.

"Ding! For your victory over a higher level opponent, the host has been rewarded with satiety pill x10! Qi replenishing pill x5!"

"Proceed to the storage space to retrieve!"

"Sigh... Satiety pills again, I wonder when I can leave this place and eat some real food! I bet even ordinary dumplings would taste like a delicacy to me right now. Ugh!"

Jin whined as he took out a satiety pill and popped it into his mouth, it melted immediately and was absorbed by his body making him full and without a feeling of hunger. Soon after, he got into the lotus position to start cultivating again

This routine of cultivating and fighting would continue for the next 7 months.

[Name: Jin]

[Age: 20]

[Race: Human]

[Cultivation: 10th level of the foundation building stage]

[Physique: Innate Dao Body]

[Spiritual root: Divine grade]

[System points: none]

[System store: Locked]

Jin looked at his status one more time as he readied himself to breakthrough to the golden core stage and finally got to leave this cave he had spent an awful amount of time in.

"Hum... Hum... Hum!"

The spiritual energy around Jin churned as he pushed the true Qi scripture to the extreme. Strands of Qi were being attracted to this spot as he was undergoing his breakthrough.

After many rounds of circulating his Qi, he was on the threshold of another big stage and needed only one last push to be able to break the shackles.

"Break!"

Jin bellowed, all the Qi around him was getting sucked into his body greedily as he was advancing towards the golden core stage. The sky above the mountain darkened as lightning and thunder converged in one spot.

People don't usually go through the thunder tribulation when advancing to the golden core stage but Jin was able to trigger the tribulations due to how powerful his cultivated Qi was. He was filled with the purest of Qi and no strand of impure energy could be found within his body which was a very difficult thing to do because the world was mostly full of impure Qi and only few spots were blessed with purer Qi but none as pure as Jin's Qi, which could be attributed to his high rank cultivation method and his divine grade spiritual roots.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The heavenly tribulation thunder struck repeatedly on Jin's body, tempering and strengthening his body. When the thunder receded Jin was slightly floating, still in the lotus position. His hair which was longer than it was a year ago flayed around behind him adding another beauty to the exquisite figure.

He emitted golden lights and illuminated the cave as he was as bright as the stars.

The breakthrough was a success and Jin officially stepped into the golden core stage.

He opened his eyes and set himself down as he opened his status

[Name: Jin]

[Age: 20]

[Race: Human]

[Cultivation: 1st level of the golden core stage]

[Physique: Innate Dao Body]

[Spiritual root: Divine grade]

[System points: none]

[System store: Locked]

The system notification sounded in his ear soon after

"Ding! Congratulations! The host has successfully broken through to the golden core stage!"

"Mission accomplished!"

"Issuing mission reward!"