In the Divine Will Sect, there was a huge gap between the inner and outer sects.
The outer sect was mainly concerned with recruiting immortal seedlings who would guard the Heavenly Southern Region. After these immortal seedlings cultivated in the outer sect, only the outstanding ones among them were qualified to be selected by the elders and brought into the inner sect.
As for Li Ming...
Well, this would need us to go back to when he was still a child.
Li Ming was a transmigrator born into a rich local family.
He had lived a life of luxury since he was young.
Just when he thought that he had traveled back in time to ancient times and was prepared to be a rich playboy for the rest of his life, he awakened his cheat.
That was, he could add entries or descriptors to himself!
For example, [Juvenile Precocity] allowed him to have a photographic memory.
And for another example, [Balanced Simplicity and Elegance] raised his temperament.
These were all descriptors that he had accidentally discovered.
Later on, Li Ming went to practice calligraphy and painting.
In the end, he obtained [Legendary Artist] and [Dragon Trailing Brush].
The words he wrote contained the Daoist Canon and were praised by calligraphy masters.
His paintings were even circulated in the royal court and were fought over by people at that time.
These experiences allowed him to become famous even before he was eight years old!
He had become a well-known child prodigy in the area.
However, this world was actually a world of immortal cultivators.
His name as a child prodigy was heard by an elder of the Divine Will Sect who happened to be passing by. He mistakenly thought that Li Ming had the root of wisdom and was a top-notch immortal seedling.
Therefore, he directly brought him back to the sect and made an exception to accept him as an inner sect disciple, placing high hopes on him.
Li Ming was also very proud of himself. He had initially thought that he would take off on the immortal cultivation path and soar all the way to the skies...
However, how could he have possibly known that even if he did have a photographic memory and easily managed to memorize those cultivation techniques, he was ultimately unable to comprehend a single technique!
It was only then that he realized that having a photographic memory only meant that he had a good memory.
It did not improve his comprehension ability. Because of that, he had never been able to cultivate immortal techniques. This simply went to show how poor his cultivation talent was.
He had only discovered this when he was scrolling through his entries.
To add an entry to himself, he needed to practice the corresponding action repeatedly.
When Li Ming was refreshing the immortal cultivation entry bar, he discovered that the progress was extremely slow!
By his estimates, it would take at least ten years for him to fully fill up the immortal cultivation entry's progression bar.
After all, one's talent was also important when it came to the entry.
With poor talent, of course, the grind would take much longer.
After a long time, Li Ming finally accepted the fact that he was not talented enough in this regard.
However, since he was already here, there was no reason for him to go back and abandon the world of cultivation.
Through his research, he discovered that immortal cultivation was not only about qi cultivation, but there was also body cultivation.
Therefore, in order to hide the fact that he was untalented when it came to qi cultivation, Li Ming pretended that he was not interested in qi cultivation.
He turned his head and made it seem as if he had fallen in love with body cultivation!
The path of body cultivation was much more difficult than qi cultivation.
Skin tempering, bone forging, and blood changing were all extremely difficult stages.
Moreover, it was widely regarded by the outside world as a waste of effort.
After all, body cultivation was so difficult, but the final results were very poor.
As a result, there were few people in the Heavenly Southern Region who refined their bodies, and over time, it ended up being regarded as outside the righteous path.
For a big sect like the Divine Will Sect, qi cultivation was naturally its first priority.
The old tradition of body cultivation had been thrown to the back.
According to the principle of survival of the fittest, this was a very reasonable sequence of events.
Li Ming, who was still young at that time, had seemingly become addicted to refining his body and could not extricate himself from the practice.
In this way, he managed to cleverly avoid the path of qi cultivation and avoid having his poor talent in qi cultivation from being discovered.
In the end, he had successfully deceived everyone and did not have to be sent home.
Li Ming's choice to refine his body caused quite a bit of criticism in the sect.
However, because of him having appeared as such a great genius when he was younger, the elder let him be.
He thought that Li Ming was in a period of muddle-headedness. He thought that when Li Ming finally came to understand the hardships and uselessness of body cultivation, he would naturally switch over to qi cultivation.
Thinking of this, Li Ming smiled bitterly.
Three years had passed, but he was only at the third level of qi refinement.
It could be seen from this that his talent in qi cultivation truly was not excellent.
Fortunately, he used body cultivation to cover up this fact.
Otherwise, if the elders in the sect discovered that his aptitude was so poor and that he had no future in qi cultivation, he would probably be directly sent home.
"I should continue refining my body..."
Li Ming thought about it. There were not that many people in the sect who trained their bodies, so he did not have to worry too much about being compared to others.
If he were to slowly cultivate the path of body tempering, he would be able to make some gains sooner or later.
After all, as long as he practiced, he would be able to fill his progress bars!
Although the progress bars for some entries moved very slowly, he would be able to fill those entries sooner or later.
There were so many entries, all of which were full of benefits.
Li Ming was sitting in the bamboo forest, looking at his entries with satisfaction.
While he had already obtained quite a number of entries, there were still many more entries that he needed to practice diligently for in order to obtain.
[Eagle Eye (White): Enhanced vision]
This was an entry that Li Ming had obtained a long time ago.
He looked into the distance.
In the bamboo forest, a group of people quickly arrived in front of his cave abode.
The boy in the lead was fair-skinned and dressed luxuriously.
He was an old acquaintance of Li Ming.
His name was Duan Xiuwen, and he was a disciple of the Duan family, a great clan in the Heavenly Southern Region.
He had joined the Divine Will Sect three years ago at the same time that Li Ming had.
He was a disciple of the same batch as Li Ming.
However, at that time, Li Ming had been discovered by an elder of the Divine Will Sect who had gone out and believed him to be a genius.
When Li Ming was brought back to the sect, they made an exception for him and immediately made him an inner sect disciple. On the other hand, although Duan Xiuwen was born in a large family, he had to start cultivating in the outer sect.
Then, time passed.
Li Ming suddenly became obsessed with body cultivation, and even the elders of the sect could not persuade him to drop it.
Duan Xiuwen, on the other hand, had made rapid progress. He had broken through to the third level of the qi refinement stage in merely three months, became a leading figure, and was brought into the inner sect. He appeared very proud and confident.
Since then, Duan Xiuwen would come to Li Ming's cave abode to show off whenever he had a major breakthrough.
This time, he had already entered the perfected level of the qi refinement stage!
He was just one step away from the foundation establishment stage.
In the entire Divine Will Sect, he was one of the best.
When he had nothing to do, he would run to Li Ming's cave abode to show off.
As for those other disciples around him, they would naturally not let go of this good opportunity to try and increase their favor.
"Yo! Isn't this Li Ming, the great prodigy of the Divine Will Sect?"
"I haven't seen you for a few years! You're still cultivating your body?!"
Duan Xiuwen saw Li Ming's calm expression and walked over with a smile.
As Li Ming was known as a genius, many elders had come to persuade him to switch to qi cultivation, even saying that as long as he switched over, they would arrange the best resources and treasures for him.
Even Duan Xiuwen, a recognized genius of the Divine Will Sect, did not receive such treatment. Naturally, he grew extremely jealous.
Fortunately, Li Ming was also very "hardworking" and insisted on body cultivation.
This made Duan Xiuwen feel both fortunate and regretful.
He felt fortunate that Li Ming had focused on body cultivation. Because of that, he was granted a lot of resources, and he did not need to worry about others stealing the resources from him.
He felt regretful because he believed his talent to be pretty good, but he could not compete against Li Ming in qi cultivation and prove himself because Li Ming had not placed his focus on qi cultivation.
Because they had never been able to compare or compete against one another properly, many inner sect disciples would say that if Li Ming had focused on qi cultivation instead, he would definitely have been the future hope of the Divine Will Sect.
Duan Xiuwen would get very angry every time he heard such words.
I, Duan Xiuwen, have reached the perfected level of the qi refinement stage in three years.
How could I be compared to the trash that Li Ming is?!
Seeing Duan Xiuwen walking over with a smug look on his face, Li Ming raised his head and looked him in the eyes.
"Qi refinement and body refinement are different paths that lead to the same end. There is no difference between them."
Duan Xiuwen laughed and said, "Bullsh*t!" I've been refining qi for three years, and I'm about to reach the foundation establishment stage. I'm an elite disciple of the sect."
"And then look at you, what have you achieved after three years of refining your body?!"
"Skin tempering? Bone forging? Soon, you will be demoted to an outer disciple, and this heaven's favorite cave abode will be mine!"
Duan Xiuwen and his followers all laughed in unison.
"Senior Brother Duan's talent is unparalleled."
"I think only Senior Brother Duan is worthy of this heaven's favorite cave abode."
"Senior brother Li, I think you should be more tactful and move out in advance... That way, you won't lose face when you're chased out in the future."