Chu Yunfan made no effort to stand up, simply staring at the stone floor as he began processing the abundance of memories he had just absorbed. Two hundred and fifty years of information, even if it had been simplified, was still a nauseating amount of information. Thankfully, his enhanced cognitive abilities made the adjustment somewhat bearable, albeit still uncomfortable.
Suddenly, something stuck out to him. "The Kunlun Realm is divided into multiple Heavens??"
"Yes?"
"That would mean that… Earth has only interacted with one Heaven of the Kunlun Realm."
The mere thought of eight more Heavens of lost knowledge, techniques, and resources left Yunfan completely flabbergasted. The Ancient Zenith civilization was even more massive than even the boldest archaeologist's wildest guesses.
"What exactly does a 'Heaven' mean? Does it mean another plane of existence?"
"No, 'Heavens' are celestial objects that orbit our Sun. Moving between Heavens requires planetary alignment, precise calculations, and an incredibly profound cultivation base that can protect you from the harsh environment of the Between."
"The Ancient Zenith civilization was capable of space travel? Without any interplanetary vessels?"
The Alchemy Emperor tilted his head with an uncomprehending frown. "Is this surprising to you?"
"YES. THIS IS VERY SURPRISING."
Yunfan simply stared blankly at the ground for a few seconds, before gathering his wits and rising to his feet. Immediately, he noticed that something had changed.
Massive, floating bronze tablets had appeared, though he was uncertain exactly when. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them, slowly spinning in concentric circles around the mountain peak.
"What are those?"
"These are the inheritances."
Yunfan was flabbergasted again. "There's so many?!"
"Hey! Give me some credit, I was a certified first-rate alchemist! I was an Emperor!" The scholarly man harrumphed, looking aggrieved. However, Yunfan could see him looking very pleased out of the corner of his sharpened eyes.
"How do I open them?" Chu Yunfan asked, his eyes shining brightly as he examined the vast inheritance that slowly orbited the mountaintop.
"You can control them with your Will. However, those that are too high-level for you cannot be summoned."
Chu Yunfan closed his eyes and visualized the bronze tablets in his mind. However, he only received one mental response from the inheritance tablets. "I can only control one."
"…How weak are you?"
"…fourth stage of Physical Refinement?"
"Only in the fourth?!" The Alchemy Emperor gaped.
The Emperor began fuming, stomping around while cursing "this backwards, idiotic society" and "this talentless lower-world bumpkin."
Yunfan's eyebrow twitched as he considered re-entering his mental space to pummel the Alchemy Emperor some more.
Suddenly, the Emperor whirled around with an expectant gleam in his eyes. "No, wait. This could actually be a good thing. Summon the inheritance."
His curiosity outweighing his annoyance, Yunfan pulled on the mental link between him and the inheritance tablet. Without warning, one of the tablets in the closest concentric ring disappeared and reappeared in front of him with a flash of bronze-colored light. The surface was about the size of a door and every inch was scribed with hundreds of lines of indecipherable Kunlun script. Although some minor hints of blue-green rust clung to the edges, the tablet's condition was far superior to the ancient stele Yunfan had seen in the Academy exhibit.
"Touch it," the Emperor commanded.
Yunfan cautiously extended his index finger. As soon as he touched the inheritance, it began emitting an enigmatic bronze glow. Suddenly, the words upon the bronze slab began shifting and transforming into coherent sentence structures.
"…the Unshakeable Spirit Energy Formula?"
"The Spirit Emperor gave me this cultivation technique in exchange for my only Ten Star medicinal pill that enhanced spiritual strength; although I would've given the medicine freely to aid the Balance Faction, she wanted to give me something of equal value and gave me this technique that she had synthesized when she had reached an enlightenment.
"The technique was useless for me anyways. Resetting my cultivation base from the Soul Absorption Realm would've crippled me at best and scattered my body into dust at worst. My shallow cultivation base was too fragile to attempt something so risky.
"However, this technique should be perfect for you. Since you're only in the Body Tempering Realm, you can reset your cultivation and restart your cultivation with the Unshakeable Spirit Energy Formula."
Chu Yunfan began studying the ancient text with reverence. Internally, he was extremely excited at the academic prospects of being the first to study such an advanced and complete text from the Ancient Zenith civilization— many archaeologists would kill to stand in his place. However, the cultivation formula did not seem very special.
"This… doesn't look very special."
"Well, I don't have any better cultivation techniques for you; I didn't even practice cultivation. Brute forcing it with my pills was effective enough for me, but you saw how that ended."
Yunfan sighed. This wasn't exactly the fortuitous encounter that he had expected from the inheritance of an incredible seventh realm cultivator.
"At least it's more efficient than the Basic Energy Refinement Formula," he sighed. The Basic Energy Refinement Formula was the most basic cultivation technique that countless masters had synthesized from the damaged texts recovered from the Kunlun Realm. While most people cultivated the Basic Energy Refinement Formula, some rich cultivators or those with profound backgrounds used different techniques.
He read through the entire bronze stele twice and realized that he had already memorized the whole text. While it wasn't photographic memory, his memorization skills had reached frightening levels. Yunfan had started adjusting to his enhanced cognitive abilities, but they continued to surprise him. Nothing had felt like it changed, but it was evident that something had.
"I should probably do this outside the Mountain River Diagram," he considered, before waving his hand and exiting the spatial scroll.
Outside the Diagram, Chu Yunfan opened his nightstand drawer and took a small glass bottle filled with about one liter of clear, iridescent fluid. He then retreated into the bathroom, where he took off his clothes and sat down in the bathtub.
He shivered slightly, the cold porcelain of the tub chilling his enhanced sense of touch. Yunfan also noticed that he could feel his physical condition far more acutely, in more detail than ever before. He chalked the enhanced clarity up to his heightened cognitive abilities, before bracing himself for the most difficult part.
He removed the cork stopper from the glass bottle and gripped the lip of the bottle with his teeth. Then, he focused his Internal Energy and began ripping his muscles apart.
Unlike Physical Refinement cultivation, which involved carefully calculated damaging and healing for maximum strengthening, Yunfan was simply recklessly destroying his body to remove his progress and start anew.
His tendons became threads of molten lava; he began bleeding from every pore as his skin turned flaky and ashen; his bones emitted an extremely painful chill and began feeling incredibly brittle; his muscles became loose and weak like he had aged fifty years. Yunfan clenched his teeth and stifled his cries as tears streamed down his cheeks and mingled with the blood that now soaked every inch of his skin and pooled around his body. The glass vial cracked, but didn't shatter.
The Alchemy Emperor simply watched. However, his expression momentarily flashed with deep concern.
Tilting his head back, though it was more like strengthlessly falling backwards, Chu Yunfan allowed the shimmering fluid in the glass bottle to flow into his throat. He choked, unable to muster the strength to swallow, and spat the bottle out of his mouth.
Another wave of fiery pain ravaged his body, causing him to shudder. However, after this wave of pain passed, he felt rejuvenated and refreshed; the biodegradable nanomachines in the fluid had begun stitching together his broken body. Although it was the lowest grade of nanomachine fluid, it still allowed him to regain enough strength to start stimulating his metabolism and Internal Energy. After he had meditated for ten minutes, he felt that he had returned to about 70% of his normal strength.
He had reset his cultivation base.