Niu Chang was anticipating what kind of information he would get from Mo Qi. But as time passed by, changes on his face continued to happen. Various expressions appeared and disappeared, indicating the shocking revelation he received from Mo Qi's memories.
Thanks to his second brain, he only needed to read it once, and now it had become a part of him. Letting go of his index finger, he walked and sat down, pondering the authenticity of those memories.
His mind was in shambles, and with little strength, he raised his head, looking at the dark night through the hole above his head.
"That is it?" Immeasurable disappointment latched onto his words.
What he learned from Mo Qi, a direct subordinate of the Heavenly Demon, one of the three major factions in the Southern Region, was naturally quite deep and vast.
Let's start with the world first. There were five regions: the Southern Region, Northern Region, Eastern Region, Western Region, and lastly, the Central Region. Each region had its own uniqueness in culture and power distribution.
That was the general division. As for the world itself, or rather the continent, everyone could fly after reaching the golden core level, so they found the edge of the land they lived in. In all directions, the land bordered the endless sea, with some islands scattered around.
The next shocking information was about cultivation itself. Surprisingly, the limit of this world, or rather the highest known cultivation stage, was only the golden core. There was history and various facts that backed it up. It was rumored and later confirmed that the first golden core martial artist appeared seven hundred years ago in the Central Region, followed by more golden core experts.
But that was not all; once someone reached the golden core stage, they achieved unaging quality, gaining longevity without a lifespan limit. Niu Chang thought this sounded like nonsense and tried to deny the facts.
What about world above world? Realms above realms? Endless power-ups? After looking for specific information inside Mo Qi's memories regarding the legend of the Immortal World, he found nothing. It seemed there was no such legend as he expected.
Regarding the sky above, someone already tried to reach its height but found a barrier that prevented them from flying further. So, the world was a continent, and the sky was barred, while the cultivation itself was limited to the golden core level.
There was a thought that this continent should be an isolated starting point for the story, with the main character rising from the lowest family in the lowest village, near the lowest town, and in the most isolated continent. However, there was a thing called the great physician, a healer type martial artist that could do resurrection and prolong the age of ordinary mortals.
Where was the heavenly dao?
Where was the rule that governed the life and death of every living being?
Where was the mechanism that controlled every soul?
Sigh.
It was okay for heavenly dao not to exist, but the great dao was also non-existent. From Mo Qi's memories, every martial arts manual and cultivation technique didn't have the so-called truth of the great dao. They would always talk about qi manipulation and usage, taking a scientific approach.
As for why the knowledge circulating in the outside world was full of nonsense and confusion, it was to prevent more golden cores from appearing. Since achieving a golden core would grant unaging characteristics, they wanted to limit the number of people at that level.
So there were hidden rules within every organization to keep the truth about real cultivation from the world. There were known levels like Third Rate, Second Rate, First Rate, Peak Stage, Master Stage, Grandmaster Stage, but then the records went missing. There were rumors, but they also acted to confuse those who reached the Grandmaster stage, preventing them from reaching the true goal of cultivation—longevity.
For those who were born into great families or had a good background, the cultivation they learned would be like this:
The first major realm was known as the Qi Training Realm, where ordinary mortals started to gather qi inside their bodies and hone their qi control ability.
The second major realm was the Qi Polishing Realm, focusing on polishing the qi within the body and building a foundation.
The Master Stage was the starting point of the Qi Polishing Realm, where martial artists built their inner structure to passively regulate qi inside their bodies.
The Grandmaster Stage was when martial artists started to form the initial core within their bodies.
The third major realm was the Qi Condensation Realm, to turn a virtual core into a real core.
Niu Chang called out the bullshit card when he learned about this. "Isn't this basically Qi Refinement, Foundation Building, and Golden Core?"
As for why they made the cultivation process so convoluted, it was because there was no innate difference between everyone. Anyone could cultivate, and no special spirit root or xianxia nonsense was required.
Naturally, there were some exceptions like having advantages such as a special constitution or disadvantages where one could only practice a very specific martial art.
"I don't want to believe it, but based on how things developed from seven hundred years ago to this day and how perfectly balanced everything is, it is apparent that this world, no, this continent is not an endless power-up setting. Maybe as the reincarnator, I will be the one who breaks the sky limit and parts the sea to open a new, bigger place. But why would I do that?"
"I will just stay here, quietly chilling and powering up until I reach the transcendent stage in a place where even the great dao is absent from everyone's mind."
'Alter the future direction of the plan.' Niu Chang gave his command to his second brain to adjust his plan.
He rose up from his sitting position and looked at the world from a new perspective. Recalling how very pretentious Gu Fa was, he now understands why this guy's nose reached the ninth heaven, albeit only slightly stronger than other golden cores.
'If I know that the Golden Core level is the limit, I will also act pretentious, even more so than you.' Niu Chang shook his head in dejection.
He turned his head and found the unconscious Mo Qi lying down.
Now that his horizon had expanded and things became more transparent in his eyes, he was unable to control his desires. The second brain already gave a result as to why he was unable to reshape his body to his will—it was because of the Impossible Idea.
The first level, or rather to some level, Niu Chang would be unable to reshape his entire physical body due to its uniqueness. It was mainly due to a technique called Nine Transcendent Metamorphosis that integrated the Impossible Idea. But due to the countless other techniques mixed up, its nature was altered, causing Niu Chang to be unable to reshape his body as he wished.
And added to how he learned about the world, he thought waiting for the point where he was able to grow into his adult form would be meaningless and take too long. So, he walked towards the unconscious Mo Qi and woke her up.
Mo Qi opened her eyelids heavily and found the same boy she wanted to kill, but she was unable to sense her qi.
"What did you do!?" She asked warily.
"Hehe," Niu Chang let out an evil laugh while maintaining his kind expression. "That's more like it!"
He was bored of having a normal match for the first time, so he wanted to turn it into a competitive match instead. He believed it would become a good memory in the future when he becomes omnipotent and omniscient.
Mo Qi herself was still a virgin, and to add to that, she was very old, rounding her age to one hundred and seventy-four years this year.
According to her memories, she wanted to give herself to her Lord.
'Now that I know the truth, this could be said to be a repayment for acting pretentious in front of me!' Niu Chang thought as his wolfy paw started to reach for Mo Qi.
"I will cuckold the Heavenly Demon! Now scream!" Niu Chang then attacked and tore Mo Qi's clothes with no hesitation.
"Stop!"
"Don't!"
"I… I will kill you!"
"Ah…. Don't!"
Niu Chang was silent the whole time while he enjoyed Mo Qi's competitiveness.
"That's more like it! Yes, this is competitive sex!"
As for this place being a battlefield not long ago and the possibility of someone coming to investigate, Niu Chang had already calculated and deduced with his second brain that it was almost impossible for anyone to do so.
Even if someone came in, what were they gonna do? A mere Heavenly Demon avatar was unable to survive his Parting Gift.
As Mo Qi repeatedly bit her tongue to escape humiliation and showed no competitiveness, Niu Chang grew bored and decided to spice things up.
Using the various skills he had long prepared for the future, he increased Mo Qi's sensitivity and applied his knowledge as a modern man, familiar with sketchy websites filled with degeneracy.
Soon enough, it worked like a charm.
"Ah~ NOOO!~"