Crack! Crack!
The sound of bones shifting echoed as Meng Cheng Xian stood up. He felt his body for a moment and then evaluated:
"The first step of Truth is complete. I need to cultivate diligently to reach the final state of Truth."
Seeing Shi Hao staring at him in astonishment, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, he chuckled and said:
"Kekeke, do I look strange to you?"
Although only an hour had passed, his body had broken down and rebuilt itself tens of thousands of times over.
The advantage of a child's body was that it required significantly less energy to undergo such a transformation.
Back when he was fully grown, it had taken him a lot more effort to achieve a complete transformation due to his relatively advanced strength.
Shi Hao nodded and looked at the two of them before asking:
"Do you two grow this fast through cultivation? Does that mean you'll mature in no time?"
Truth be told, he found their rate of growth absurd. In just a few hours, they had already developed this much.
"To be precise, I can reach full physical maturity within a year if you continuously provide soul beasts for us to absorb. Their age doesn't need to be high—those under a hundred years old will suffice." Meng Cheng Xian said.
"Bei Ming Shen Gong doesn't accelerate physical growth as rapidly as Truth, but a year and a half is entirely feasible for me. Moreover, if I train a bit more, I'll be able to directly absorb soul power from soul beasts without killing them, allowing for more sustainable harvesting." Xiao Yao Zi added.
Frankly, aside from its ability to lower soul ring age limits (which is useless in combat) and its sustainable harvesting capacity, Bei Ming Shen Gong was inferior to Truth in most aspects.
However, Bei Ming Shen Gong was far more harmonious with other life forms, whereas Truth was a cultivation method that could potentially drive entire species to extinction.
Hearing this, Shi Hao was still surprised despite having anticipated it. He said:
"You two old monsters truly live up to being the strongest of your world. Xiao Yao Zi, if you can directly absorb soul power, should I kill soul beasts or not?"
"Have you forgotten about me? Bring them back and kill them when it's convenient. We can both make use of them. Oh, and don't throw away their corpses. Just leave them in some empty corner. Even if they rot, I can still consume them. No need to waste." Meng Cheng Xian said.
Xiao Yao Zi nodded and added:
"My process of absorption may seem swift, but it still requires some time to fully synchronize the soul power from the soul beast with my body. This doesn't affect the speed of my cultivation."
Shi Hao nodded, then thought of an important issue. The rapid development of these two old monsters was overwhelming.
Sooner or later, they would surpass him, and he wanted to gain knowledge to stay competitive.
"Can you teach me your cultivation methods?" he asked.
The two of them exchanged glances before Xiao Yao Zi replied:
"If you want to learn Bei Ming Shen Gong, you'll waste a lot of time converting your current soul power. It'll take roughly the same amount of time as you've already spent cultivating to reach your current level. Alternatively, you could erase almost all your soul rings and soul power to start over. But even then, I'd need to be strong enough to help you."
"Learning Truth has similar requirements." Meng Cheng Xian added.
Back when he successfully developed Truth, he already had a significant amount of qi.
To accelerate his cultivation of Truth, he had erased nearly all his qi, leaving only the innate level of qi a human is born with.
Even then, it took a long time because the quality of his body couldn't simply regress to that of an ordinary human.
Without hesitation, Shi Hao shook his head and declined:
"I'm already at the peak of this world. If I lose my cultivation base, I won't be able to support the two of you. Moreover, this red soul ring is incredibly important to me, I can't abandon it."
The last reason was the most critical—it was a relic left by the person he loved most. Destroying it was out of the question.
"Fair enough. Let's set that aside. What are your plans for the future?" Shi Hao said.
"I'll grow stronger as quickly as possible. Once I reach full maturity, I'll head to the Ancient Forest to enhance my power." Xiao Yao Zi said.
Previously, he hadn't yet become a xian. Now, he was in a hurry.
Achieving the state of a xian required meeting several minimal criteria: biological immortality, the ability to fly, and the mindset of a xian.
Combat strength wasn't as crucial, but it naturally increased over time because xian needed to roam the cosmos freely.
Only after meeting these minimum standards would Xiao Yao Zi consider other matters.
"Me? I just want to lie back and relax. I want to experience the life of a slightly ordinary soul master in this world. After all, I've already become a xian once. My dream has been realized, so there's no rush. But don't worry, I won't grow too slowly either." Meng Cheng Xian said.
Now, he wasn't short on time. This world was brimming with energy, comparable to Earth in every way, and had a longer development time in terms of cultivation.
He could ascend to xianhood whenever he felt like it—just a bit of effort would be enough.
Shi Hao didn't interfere with their decisions. He understood that even if Meng Cheng Xian wanted to play around, he would still grow stronger very quickly.
He had seen Meng Cheng Xian's obsession with cultivation before.
For someone as crazily dedicated as him, it would be hard to grow slowly even if he had not tried really hard.
"Alright, let's stick with this plan. After a year and a half, we'll go our separate ways to handle our own matters." Shi Hao said.
.....
A year passed. At this point, Meng Cheng Xian was four years old, though he had matured... to look like a six-year-old but quite short.
Yes, right in the middle of cultivation, he had suddenly decided to keep his physical form at the appearance of a six-year-old child.
This didn't affect his strength at all—his body continued to improve steadily in quality.
Normally, a larger body meant greater strength due to increased mass, but his case wasn't typical.
If he chose to enlarge his body, he could grow far taller and more imposing. This was, in a way, another form of cultivation.
By compressing his body, he trained his ability to control it with precision.
"You... you really plan to stay in the form of a six-year-old forever?" Shi Hao asked, nearly losing his temper.
It was ridiculous. Here was an old man hundreds of years old, pretending to be a child. Truly shameless.
"It's not a problem. Training like this has its benefits. Oh, by the way, I think I might be able to summon my martial soul now." Meng Cheng Xian said with a grin.
Both Xiao Yao Zi and Shi Hao froze, stunned into silence by his words.