Adam searched through his memories. He felt exactly the same as he did all the time, besides a light headache. This implied that Chen Fan did not pass on his cultivation to him directly, but rather in the form of knowledge. Adam believed it was most likely infused with his memories.
As he focused harder on his memory and grew increasingly disappointed at the lack of new additions to it, Adam finally realized something different.
His hypnagogia gradually grew more vivid as he was searching through his memories, and now they have become simply too clear to ignore.
What started as a random series of colors and ambiguous shapes behind his eyelids now evolved to show a clear backdrop that looked like the night sky, filled with stars and colors. It also had depth, this was what surprised and slightly scared Adam. The view in front of him was not like that of a screen, but rather as if by closing his eyes he was transported into another 3-dimensional space.
Within the space were stacks of books, neatly organized by size, color, and other visual descriptors into neat columns and categories. But they appeared to be floating, there were no other objects holding them in place, giving off the eerie impression that the books were organized by invisible bookshelves. And as Adam looked closer, he realized some of the objects were not quite books, there were also scrolls, pieces of parchment, and even what appeared to be bamboo strips tied together.
What caught the attention of Adam though, was a single light blue cheaply paperbound book. It looked more like an old school textbook, with some edges slightly torn and obvious signs of wear on it. Although Adam couldn't imagine why those would exist on a non-corporeal object.
Perhaps out of curiosity, or just out of instinct. Adam "reached out" towards the book and tried to grab it… and he succeeded. It was only after the action was done that Adam realized his current state.
He was in the exact situation when he was first being reincarnated, in that white space where he talked to Chen Fan. He had no visible limbs or physical body at the moment. But he seemed to retain all of his senses and could move things to an extent with his willpower.
"I guess this is what Buddhist Monks usually experience at extremely deep levels of meditation, being able to manifest their consciousness within a mental space that resembles a physical space."
"But why am I capable of this now? I never had much interest in meditation before."
Adam's inner IB student kicked in once again as he began pondering a completely pointless question, as he had an obsession with understanding every detail about a topic before moving on.
"That Chen Fan man could have given me this power, to interact with my mind in a virtual environment, because he believed I would be incapable of organizing all these memories myself. Or perhaps his knowledge was so overbearingly powerful their presence in one's mind is already able to elevate one's mental capacity. Or perhaps…"
This continued for about 20 minutes, until Adam finally was satisfied with his understanding of the situation.
"Now what?"
Even a stellar IB 45 student like Adam didn't really know where to start. He was completely new to the specifics of cultivation, and the quantity of information in front of him could truly be metaphorized as an ocean.
But Adam quickly came back to his senses.
Important rule of academia: If the project in front you seems completely overwhelming and you have no idea where to start. Don't try to organize an outline for how to learn first, just start somewhere and keep building from there.
It is similar to constructing a waterway, it would be incredibly inefficient and require much more work to fully dig out the tunnels before allowing the water to flow through. It is much better to just lead the water into an area, and work with the natural flow of the water, for it will have already spontaneously created a rough waterway by itself.
Adam decided to start with the book in his hand as it looked unique enough to be a satisfactory starting position. He looked at the cover and his eyes widened.
The cover of the book read:
[Beiqiong Sect Press]
Cultivation HL
1st Edition
[Chen Fan]
Adam hastily flipped through it and was completely shocked.
"What the f*ck! This is formatted exactly like a Cambridge IB textbook!"
The book featured a table of contents that organized the sections exactly like a typical school textbook would.
The content was split into nine "units," with the first being an introduction and the latter eight being guides on the respective eight tiers of cultivation.
Adam could guess why this was probably the case. The man identifying as Chen Fan likely designed his knowledge and memories to manifest in a way that would be most easily acceptable and learned by the person receiving them.
Adam realized why the information was split into a library of books now.
He was an academically strong student who had ambitions for much higher education, and had a latent thirst for more knowledge. And being someone that has received 13 years of western education, his most familiar way of learning was via courses designed to be taught by textbook, split into specific units that featured readings, diagrams, and practices.
And so the knowledge of an Immortal Cultivator was presented to him as such…
Adam just sighed after the realization, but then he grinned. This was perfect.
He previously worried about how he was going to organize all his inherited knowledge in a cohesive manner, but that was needless now! There was a system created specifically tailored for him right here!
"Alright, enough with wasting time."
Adam flipped to "Unit 1: Introduction to Cultivation" and began reading.
…
[ Cultivation refers to the general system of developing and improving the quality of an individual to achieve a higher state of existence. The system involves incrementally building upon the capacity and power of one's body, mind or spiritual prowess through a variety of techniques.
Different forms, or more accurately, paths, of cultivation exist. The most common and most suitable for humans is Qi cultivation, improving the human existence and acquiring varying degrees of control over the forces in the universe, by absorbing the Qi concentrations from the cultivator's environment.
Although different paths exist, there is a discrete trend of eight stages that exist very similarly for every path that act as checkpoints defining one's current progress in cultivation.
After successfully reaching a checkpoints/stage, one's powers and all attributes will greatly increase. To the point where it is generally impossible for cultivators of a lower stage to even lightly scratch one at a higher stage.
Although within this textbook you will be taught various techniques that can close the gap in power between stages to an extent. However, use common sense, don't challenge a Soul Severing cultivator when you are still halfway at the bottleneck of the Nascent Soul stage. I can tell you from firsthand experience that it doesn't end well.]
…
After that the textbook went over general pieces of information in the cultivation world.
It also provided Adam with knowledge of the existence of pills that could assist with one's cultivation in varying ways, magical treasures of varying tiers that could significantly increase one's combat capabilities, and other devices that could provide very helpful general utility.
It taught Adam the importance of not rushing tiers, and that a strong foundation in earlier tiers can prove crucial to breaking through higher ones.
It also taught Adam the importance of choosing techniques and skills that were suitable for himself, as non-suitable techniques may prove uncomfortable or even detrimental to one's health.
It also warned Adam of the repercussions about using skills that were significantly more advanced than his current cultivation could handle. In fact the section specifically warned Adam about only using a skill called <岁月> in last ditch situations with no other options.
Adam got curious at this point and wanted to start searching for the skill that the textbook was referring to.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a book gently flew from one of the bookshelves into Adam's hand.
"Well that's convenient."
Adam admired the book, it was very simplistic but incredibly polished. It directly contrasted the worn blue textbook by having no imperfections in sight, it looked more like an electronic file icon than a book. It wasn't very thick, but Adam felt that an incredible weight from the book. The wrapping had a silvery color with a light finish to it. As Adam peeled it open, he felt as if every slice of paper in the book was as smooth as a sheet of aluminum, but with the same texture, softness, and malleability of cotton.
Its contents read:
<岁月>
[绝品仙级神通]
岁月之刀乃宇宙无上仙法,有诸位合道真仙...
…
"Ok you need to chill. Stop, stop, stop."
"It's true that I have some language proficiency in Chinese, I did get a 7 in IB Mandarin."
"But that's just enough to speak semi-fluently and read small excerpts. I am not ready to start reading entire paragraphs of moon-scrolls…"
Just as Adam was getting concerned over how he was going to learn these skills if they were all in Chinese, another magical event happened.
It was as if the entire library could read and would follow his subconscious desires.
The writing on the book shifted and began distorting into different patterns, but it quickly settled back into defined shapes and ended up as perfectly legible English text.
"Well, that is extremely convenient. This Chen Fan guy is a good designer!"
And Adam read over the much more easily understood English text.
[Legendary-Grade Immortal-Class Skill]
[ Timeblade is one of the strongest skills in the entire universe. It is the product of several millennia of work done by multiple Dao Fusion cultivators. Using the skill will manifest a blade whose material is made by condensing the time of a surrounding area, that increases exponentially with one's cultivation. Due to its nature, the time blade is capable of freezing everything below the Dao Fusion stage within a set area. The blade bypasses all physical, magical, spiritual, mental, and fundamental defenses of any level to directly attack a target's existence. This skill can potentially kill anyone and anything if the wielder has enough energy. Using this skill depletes a significant amount of the wielder's life expectancy alongside consuming a massive amount of their energy. ]
"Well... okay then. Let's just leave this aside for now…"
After Adam had finished reading the introduction, he started on the next unit about the first stage, "Qi Condensation."
The chapter was fairly simple, it went over much less things than the previous unit but described them in significantly more detail.
The Qi condensation stage was the basis for Qi cultivators. Cultivators absorb Qi from their nearby environment to refine their body, spirit, and mind respectively for the early, middle, and late Qi condensation stages.
In fact, each of the substages of the Qi condensation realm have such different focuses that they were given their own titles. Specifically, these referred to the Foundation Establishment, Inner Clarification, and Spirit Sea substages.
To start, the textbook will teach Adam all about the foundation establishment stage, where he just needed to absorb the surrounding Qi and refine his body.
But the next paragraph made Adam want to cough out a mouthful of blood.
[ Remember how the previous section had emphasized the importance of only absorbing Qi energy, as other forms are dangerous to humans without specialized techniques? Well, that's not important anymore, I'm about to recommend you a special technique that's arguably one of the best foundation establishment techniques available, <虚空炼体诀>.
Just follow the technique, it will automatically convert the vast majority of the energies of any type in your surroundings into Qi energy at a high efficiency, and then channel that energy into your body with minimal losses to other forces, it can even use sunlight and moonlight as primary energies. It is significantly faster than most techniques and will build a powerful non-energy-specific foundation that can synergize perfectly with any future cultivation built on top of it. ]
Adam felt like he had just eaten another bucket of poop.
"What?! Why would you even go on about being careful not to absorb other energies then! This is like teaching the Intermediate Value Theorem in Math just to tell us it's not actually part of the IB syllabus and won't be on the exams…"
"Whatever."
Adam called for the book, and as it flew at him swiftly he grabbed the dark blue Song-era style book that had the words <虚空炼体诀> neatly written on it.
After translating the book with exactly the same process as
At first Adam felt nothing, and was even beginning to feel slightly stupid, he was an adolescent sitting in some forest meditating, a passerby would certainly question the peculiar sight.
After a while, Adam distinctly picked up something different. Small strings of cold sensations appeared to enter his body. Just a few at first, but then it grew increasingly steady and the sensations became an unignorable flow. The energy was quite cold, it made Adam shiver a bit, and it lashed around violently as if it did not accept his body.
But quickly Adam felt as if a furnace had flared up in his stomach, he could feel a very comfortable and empowering heat growing in the center of his body.
The furnace efficiently sucked in the cold sensations around him, and did not leave a single wisp. It then outputted a different form of energy. This new energy also felt like a series of strings, but it was much gentler, and much warmer. Filling Adam with the same emotions as drinking a steaming cup of hot chocolate on a snowy winter day.
The warm energy gracefully entered Adam's muscles, marrow, organs and veins. And Adam could feel it actively… refining them. He couldn't feel any of the irritability or itchiness that was usually associated with staying still for extended periods of time.
More cold energy poured into his body and was consumed by the void furnace to create further waves of Qi energy that continued purifying Adam's vitality.
This process became automated after a while, and was incredibly relaxing. Adam could feel himself entering a deep and comfortable slumber.
…
When Adam woke up again. It felt… perfect. During IB, Adam had been precisely timing his sleep to be 8 hours every day, although it was scientifically sufficient for his body, it was never enough to completely satisfy him, he always felt a little bit groggy when first awakening.
This was different, Adam felt completely clarity in his consciousness, in fact significantly clearer than anything he felt before. He was satisfied.
Adam let out a deep sigh, what was most incredible was that this breathe had a visible white color to it, and as soon as it came out of Adam's mouth it flew high up into the sky, and continued for about 50 meters before it burst like a firework.
Adam still had his eyes closed, but somehow he had perfect knowledge of what just happened and could visualize it completely. In fact, he felt as if his senses were all ridiculously sharp now, several times clearer than they have ever been. If he listened closely, he could even hear the light fluttering of the wings of insects nearby consuming the early morning dew.
As Adam slowly opened his eyes, a flash of silver shined from his pupils. And a grin slowly crept up his face.
From his greatly sharpened senses, to the feeling of Matrix-like strength, reflexes, and speed in his muscles, to the warm revolution of a never before existent energy circulating in his veins; Adam knew that he had broken through to the early Foundation Establishment stage.