Gin read the entire book within an hour, if not for the book written in an ancient language, he could have finished it sooner.
From the book, he came to know about the advantages of owning a spirit seal as it helps people improve faster; Not only to mortals, even for gods and immortals.
But, the people without a spirit seal unearthed another way of cultivating their strength — Physique cultivation.
There are two types of hidden seals present in one's body – Celestial seal and Physique seal.
People owning a spirit seal find the 'hidden celestial seals' in their body and cultivate their spirits, while people cultivating their physique find the Physique seals.
But, Physique cultivation is at least ten times more difficult than Martial cultivation. It's also the reason why there's a scarce amount of physique cultivators.
The book also mentioned what is 'Spirit Seal' and it's advantages.
Spirit seal can be anything as it was bestowed by heaven itself. There's a myriad number of spirit seals in the world, it can be either a weapon, a rare being, a beast, a plant or an elemental; It can be anything.
Every spirit seal has its own strengths, there's nothing like a weaker spirit seal and stronger spirit seal in this world.
At first, everyone believed spirit seals are divided into several classes like higher and lower but it was soon dismissed when they saw countless peoples with ordinary looking spirit seal improve and achieve something greater them.
A spirit seal will be weaker if one considers it as weak, and powerful if the right person wields it.
Every spirit seal has its own elemental affinity. The primary affinities are fire, water, wind, metal, thunder, darkness, and light.
But some are born with unique affinities like wood, ice, magma, and much more. There are hardly some who are born with two affinities while three is very rare or to be precise it's a myth.
What fascinated Gin the most is, physique cultivation as he's a person without a spirit seal. Unlike martial cultivation, improving one's physique is very tough.
Hard work, perseverance, determination, strong willpower, talent; everything's required if treads the path of Physique cultivation.
At the same time, a person training his body will be twice as strong as martial cultivators of the same stage. Harder you work, greater the benefits!
Gin learned many interesting things from the book and it also enhanced his knowledge on the path of cultivation.
----
He soon picked up the second book 'Martial Cultivation and Soul Cultivation' and began to read them.
Unlike the book he read before, this book seemed handwritten and looked like it was personally drafted by Empyrean Chaos himself for his successor.
The first section of the book detailed everything about Martial Cultivation which is further classified into the Celestial path and Physique path.
Celestial path refers to those who cultivate their spirit seals by absorbing the essence energy of heaven and earth while the Physique path focuses on training one's body.
The martial cultivation of mortals starts with the Physique Enrichment stage, where you will uncover the hidden seals in your body; followed by the 'Seal Opening' stage and 'Seal Destruction' stage.
In the Physique Enrichment stage, a person's strength represents the number of hidden seals they discover or uncover.
If one wants to advance to the next stage, one has to find a minimum of 6 hidden seals which is considered mediocre.
A person uncovering 8 hidden seals is deemed average, while 9 is considered above average which is also the limit a normal person can accomplish.
But, there are some genius-level characters who're able to uncover ten or more hidden seal by transcending their Physique limits.
According to the book, there are thirteen hidden seals present in one's body, but there's no record of anyone discovering the 13th seal, it's just an old tale.
Even though no one has ever uncovered the 13th hidden seal, some heaven chosen geniuses were able to discover twelve seals in their body.
Gin who read till now was amazed by the contents presented in the book. His interest piqued as he doesn't know much about the various cultivation stages.
After uncovering the hidden seals, one has to unlock it. This step is called the 'Seal Opening' stage.
In this stage, one has to open every hidden seal they discovered in their body to advance to the next stage.
Once they open all the hidden seals, the next step is destruction. One has to destroy every hidden seal they opened and only then, they can be considered truly transcended being.
Apart from this, the book didn't specify any more stages but the contents in it already excited Gin very much.
He always wanted to reach the peak of martial cultivation. Now, he got a clear picture of what he needs to do in the future.
'Seal opening', 'Seal destruction', 'Transcended being'.
'Now, I have a clear idea of the path ahead of me, I will stand at the peak of this world one day!' Gin mumbled.
He cast aside the unwanted thoughts and once again started to read the next part of the book — Soul Cultivation.
--
The soul cultivation is much simpler than martial cultivation but the prerequisite is, you have to awaken it on your own.
Some treasures may help one to forcefully awake the soul energy but it's extremely rare. If you awake it using treasures, your aptitude in soul cultivation will be poor.
The soul energy or often described as the 'will of one's mind' is a formless, transparent spirit of one's mind.
Like martial cultivation, soul cultivation is divided into many stages but in this book, only two stages are mentioned.
'Mortal soul' stage, and 'White soul' stage. In the Mortal soul stage, your soul energy will be vague, you can only sense, not touch.
There are no cultivation techniques to improve one's soul energy but there are 'soul skills' which are created to utilize the soul energy, the way you desire.
To advance to the 'White soul' stage, your soul energy ought to transform from formless to translucent.
Gin read the entire book and closed it. Before reading the book, he was shrouded in fog, unsure, not knowing about his future path.
Now, he felt fresh, clear and different from his usual self as if his mind got clear.
He learned many things from these two books, it was all thanks to Empyrean Chaos. He now understands, what he should do, and what he shouldn't, in the path of cultivation.
Gin exited the magical space and dozed off to sleep as he was already exhausted from the journey.
--
Next day,
Gin woke up at 6 and began his morning practice. He wanted to test the limit of his strength as he already reached the 'Physique Enrichment' stage.
Gin arrived before the 'strength testing' machine and punched the center area with his full strength, holding nothing back.
'Boom'
A deafening 'Boom' resounded, but what Gin didn't expect has occurred. The strength testing machine blew a white smoke, while the display section blacked out.
Gin was speechless, he didn't anticipate this. Suddenly, a thought hit him, 'Oh my god! Don't tell me... it's because my strength exceeded the machine's limit!'
He knows the testing machine can weigh up to 2000 Kg of strength, it means, his strength surpassed the 2000 Kg mark.
'Unbelievable! Didn't it say in ranker site when one reached the 2000kg of strength they would be able to uncover their first seal, but why I haven't even discovered my first seal?' Gin mused.
'Whatever, I will finish my practice first and look into it.'
After he broke through to the Physique Enrichment stage, a new memory unveiled in his brain. It was a set of stances that he has to practice alongside his breathing method.
Gin took a breathing stance as mentioned in the physique scripture. It was stressful as Gin wasn't even able to maintain the stance for just ten seconds before a terrifying pain struck him.
He immediately stopped practicing the stance while he was completely drained of strength, sweat poured from all his pores.
'Unbelievable, just maintaining this stance for seconds fatigued me.' Gin thought. After a few minutes, his body recovered again.
Gin practiced again and again to improve the ten seconds mark. The most important thing is, he has to circulate his breathing method along with these stances.
After two hours, his body was shaking from exhaustion and weakness. Even so, he could sense essence energy coursing through his body and improving his physique.
Gin relaxed his body and circulated the breathing method which in turn refreshed his body by washing away the exhaustion and weariness.
Unlike others, who will be able to improve their physique by utilizing the spirit seal and absorbing the essence energy of heaven and earth. Gin can only exhaust his body to the limit and replenish it with fresh energy.
It's like starving the cells and providing delicious food later. They will greedily swallow as much they can in hunger.
He now realized the advantages of training in Physique cultivation. He doesn't know about others but in his body - every cell, muscles, bones, and blood are overflowing with strength and vitality.
He could also feel his physique building and improving as if they will one day become as tough as metal, impenetrable.