"My cultivation technique?" Jack asked cautiously.
"Your cultivation technique is amazing! It takes advantage of heaven's way and even amplifies it. I am very curious how you obtained it!" Master Stormy said. She suspected Jack to be a distant relative of a high-level cultivator somewhere, or maybe he was lucky to find it in some ancient ruin.
Jack was not very surprised. After all, she was in the realm of soul transformation. One tap of her finger could sink a continent; with his current power, he had no chance of deceiving her. Therefore, he told the 'truth'.
"Master Stormy, I didn't find this technique. I invented it with my hard effort! I am a little offended by what you said!" Jack replied.
"Hmm… to think someone at your level can accomplish such a feat. Your talent is truly admirable. I have a proposition! I will lend you our resources; research the way of heaven and share the resources with us! What do you think?" Master Stormy asked.
"Side task: Accept Master Stormy's proposition: reward: 50 years of cultivation practice!"
Seeing the system prompt, Jack smiled in his heart. The system was really funny; it gave whatever task he was already doing to do. Like just now, he wanted to accept; the system's task was just an effortless and free reward, cream on the top.
"Master Stormy, it is my honor to be able to share my humble research with you!" Jack stood up and bowed his head.
"Side task completed - Claim 50 years of cultivation practice!"
Jack clicked on Claim.
"Name: Jack"
"Cultivation base: Peak of Nascent Soul"
"Main mission: Conquer the world"
"Side mission: Calculate the divine soul chapter of Heaven's way cultivation technique - reward: 150 years of cultivation practice"
Temporary task: none
"Current grandpa level: Soul Substance Realm - 2nd stage"
"Max grandpa level: Soul Transformation - 10th stage"
"Cultivation practice reserves: 2690 years"
In the last decades, Jack was not idle; as he waited for Master Stormy to call him, he did a lot of tasks and side tasks. Still, because he didn't have any cultivation technique, he didn't break through at all; he kept it all.
Doing the tasks took all of his time, leaving him with no time to calculate the divine soul chapter. In any case, he wasn't in a hurry because he vaguely knew Master Stormy was going to make such a suggestion.
Now, with Master Stormy's resources, it would be much easier to calculate the next chapter.
Thinking for a moment, Jack asked cautiously, "Can I ask about the resources at my disposal?"
Master Stormy called the server and asked for another dish of boiled vegetables, the food she hated the most. Turning her attention to Jack, she said, "First and foremost, you have complete access to all books in the library; second, you have access to all resources that help you in your research, and you can use our labs and the help of our talented disciples."
She continued, "But you cannot keep the results secret from us; in addition, you have to teach a few disciples I send you about the will of the heavens. Also, you are to stay on this continent until you reach the Soul Transformation realm."
There were a few secret books that could not be allowed to be learned by anyone, but those weren't in the library. Listening, Jack nodded; the conditions were not overly burdensome; they were quite permissive, considering the dynasty was footing all the bills.
"I agree!" Jack gave his answer. As before, he had a general idea of what she might ask, so he was mentally prepared.
Taking out a piece of paper, on which was written the contract, Master Stormy signed it and gave it to Jack, posturing him to sign it too.
Jack took the paper and read it carefully; it was quite short, and Jack read all of it in 1 minute, even though he read at the speed of a normal human.
Most honest contracts are short and easy to understand; corporations and demons usually make huge, tens of pages long contracts for every small matter because they are liars and deceivers. They put a general clause, then make countless exceptions and holes in it, making the general clause meaningless.
Some high-level demons love to make contracts; to confuse the other side, they write thousands or even millions of pages; it can be said that one can easily lose their soul with one contract with a demon. Demons usually use a demon immortal as a guarantor, but in the contract written by Master Stormy, the guarantor of the contract is the luck of the dynasty.
Nearly all contracts need a guarantor; the guarantor has to be stronger than both sides, otherwise, it won't work; the catch is that the guarantor must be a volunteer; that's why Master Stormy cannot just use Heaven's way as the enforcer.
In this continent, the strongest cultivators are soul transformation cultivators, but the strongest 'entity' is the luck of the Brown dynasty. It has been accumulated for countless years and encompasses the power of 5 soul transformation cultivators; it is still not as powerful as a perfection realm, but if one uses all of the luck, one may be able to defend against one strike from a 1st stage perfection cultivator. That is very impressive; perfection cultivators can kill soul transformation cultivators by simply looking at them.
For a quasi-rank 9 luck to be the guarantor of the contract Jack enters into, however, was foolish. The contract stipulated that "whoever willingly violates this contract shall die in all forms, including incarnations, clones, substance souls, avatars, and main bodies."
That clause was just to prevent someone from using incarnations to escape the contract; it was a common clause, but for Jack, it couldn't work. Jack's main body is far beyond this entire world, let alone the luck of some mortal dynasty. As an indirect incarnation of Jack, he lacks the authority to sign any contract that binds the main body anyway, so the line of the contract about the death of the 'main body' is unworkable.
"We should remove some phrases," Jack said.
"What phrase?" asked Master Stormy, confused; she was honest in writing the contract, so there were really no traps or anything that wasn't discussed before.
"Look!" Jack took the pen and signed the contract; however, immediately after signing, the paper turned to ashes, completely burned. Seeing this, Master Stormy's eyes went wide. She thought of a terrifying possibility for why it happened.
"Master Jack, are you an incarnation of a perfection cultivator?" she asked with a trembling voice; the only reason the contract paper may burn is that the strength of the guarantor is lower than the person who signed it.
The guarantor is the entire luck of the dynasty; it can even bind quasi-perfection realm cultivators. For the paper to burn like this, the only possibility is that Jack, who at first glance seemed harmless, is actually an incarnation of some old monster.
"Master Stormy, I am neither denying it nor confirming it," Jack said; this matter is clearly related to knowledge outside this world, so if he speaks about it, her Dao collection would definitely be damaged.
Hearing this, it was no different from confirmation; she looked at Jack with complicated eyes; the small cultivator in front of her turned out to be such a monster. With her quick mind, she thought of all the possibilities in a moment and decided to go through with the contract.
She took out another paper and wrote another contract. This time, however, she only wrote the obligations of the two sides and didn't add any punishment for non-compliance. What she did was basically like saying "Don't steal, but even if you do, there is no punishment"; it relied on the goodwill and honesty of both sides.
As a soul transformation cultivator, Stormy knows best how terrifying a perfection cultivator can be; the Brown dynasty is nothing in front of them; they can even play with time and space; a perfection cultivator can completely wipe them out of time itself as if they never existed; it is even worse than death!
There are only 50 perfection cultivators in the entire world! Of course, this is what Stormy thinks; Jack knows for a fact that there are thousands of perfection cultivators lurking around.
Trying her best to maintain her emotionless face, she said, "This contract should work, your honor!"
If someone heard that a soul transformation cultivator is treating Jack with such respect, they may think they are trapped in an illusion, dreaming, drunk, on drugs, etc. But, it is true. Now that she guessed and is sure by over 80% that Jack's main body is a perfection cultivator, she doesn't dare show the slightest disrespect.
Smiling, Jack signed it and asked, "Where to start from?"
Taking out a token, a book, and a badge, she said, "This token can help teleport your excellency to most places on the continent; in this book are written the locations of our central library and labs. Also, this badge is the highest in our dynasty, the badge of the ancestor; using it, your honor can order everyone as you wish!" she said. Of course, if Jack abuses the badge, Stormy can always revoke it, but it should be very outrageous for her to do so; after all, it can provoke a perfection cultivator.
Taking them, Jack sighed and said, "Everything went so smoothly that it deserves a celebration; I invite your honor to our Heaven's Way sect!"
Nodding, Stormy said, "Of course, I too am curious about your honor's great sect!"
After deciding on a date, Jack stood up and left.
Stormy remained; after all, she was waiting for her boiled vegetables. While eating, she felt everything was so outrageous! How is it that a perfection cultivator is so idle that they spend their time on these?
But in fact, it is not weird if perfection cultivators mess around; after all, as immortals, they have infinite time. In a naturally formed world, maybe many more perfection cultivators travel and mess around; in this world, however, perfection cultivators are designed by Jack, so they are all obsessed with rank 10 true immortality and never come out.
After leaving, Jack took a look at the book; the book was called a book, but it was more like a crystal; there was an unimaginable quantity of information in it: locations of many labs, details about genius disciples, world geography in general, sects, elders, kings, emperors, history, etc.
It was a comprehensive guide for someone who recently traveled to this world. In Stormy's perspective, that was what Jack was, a powerful guest.
Using the teleportation token, Jack directly teleported to the heart of a lab called Heaven's Lab; it was the only rank 7 lab on the continent that had the equipment necessary to experiment on Heaven's way.
Because he traveled directly to the middle of it, there were no guards; he used his identity token and registered his name in the lab's personnel list; soon, an identity seal was produced, which he placed on his chest. With this identity seal, everyone in the lab had to bow down to him and show him around.
"Time to work!" Jack sighed and readied himself for another closed-door cultivation.