“Did something happen between you and Rin?”

Curious Sam looked towards the other side of the class. Jack followed his view.

Rin sat on her usual place and glared towards him. But whereas before she would simply look annoyed by his existence, she looked absolutely livid right now. If looks could kill Jack was sure he would have died on the spot, only to reincarnate a moment later and die again.

“She looks as if she wants to kill you”, commented Sam. Jack only made a wry smile. That was probably really what she wanted. Looking closer Jack noticed that Rin’s aura of Qi had changed a bit. It had gotten weaker, but why this happened he didn’t know. Maybe it was because of their fight?

“I have no idea why she looks like that. Maybe she just had a bad day?”, lied Jack. Sam didn’t look convinced and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. But in the end he let it go and instead changed the topic.

“Anyway, before I forget it, grandfather wants to speak to you. He said it was urgent”

“The old man did? …It’s not about more training, right? I will seriously die if I train even more than I already did”

Sam chuckled at that. Both of them had experienced far too much of the old man’s training and, while it wouldn’t be worse enough to die, it was enough to make you wish to be dead. Especially if he choose to create a special training course. Like that one time they went into the mountains and had to survive for a month. That had to have been the worst summer vacation Jack ever had.

“I don’t think that it’s about training, but he refused to tell me”, Sam pouted. Jack grinned at that, it was a habit Sam had as long as he knew him. In moments like this his shoulder length hair and slightly feminine face let him almost think that his friend was a girl. Jack shook his head at that thought and changed the topic.

“By the way… what is that?”, Jack asked and pointed down at Sam’s part of the desk. On it was a piece of paper with a painting of something, but he couldn’t really identify it. Maybe an elephant from the front? Or a fat duck?

“That? It’s my painting for the art class tomorrow”, Sam answered as if that was obvious. Jack kept quiet. The painting they should make was a self-portrait.

‘Maybe it would be better to not teach Sam about formations. If he can create such an abomination of himself, I don’t want to know what he would do to runes’

---

After the school had ended Jack quickly walked back home. But he had only walked a few steps when he felt something. A tingling feeling on his back, as if he was being watched.

Trying to act normally Jack kept walking. When he turned a corner he could get a quick look at his pursuer. A single man standing in front of a small store. He looked ordinary and fit quite well into the crowd. If Jack wasn’t as experienced as he was he wouldn’t see him as anything other than a random passerby.

Worried Jack kept walking, always ready for an attack. Was that man a part of the same organisation Rin was a member of? Would she come at him again, her sword drawn? Unconsciously Jack’s hand moved down at his pocket where another knife of his was placed. If someone would dare to come at him, he would be ready.

But when he reached his house after half an hour, nothing had happened.

---

Quietly Jack sat on his bed. His consciousness was currently residing within his Dantian. But this time he wasn’t cultivating. Instead he had started to inspect the leftover parts of his former soul storage. To be more specific he what he looked at right now was the library he had amassed in his former life, hundreds of thousands of books, manuals and recipes. Slowly Jack began to look through the amassed knowledge.

‘Let’s see… Ah, there it is cultivation manuals’

Cultivation methods were one of the most important parts of a cultivator. They were used to take a cultivator’s Qi and refine it into a more pure, but also more specialised form. As such a cultivation method would largely shape a cultivator’s abilities and even his own body. And some of them could even give special abilities.

Most cultivation methods changed the cultivator’s Qi to gain an element. After training enough the use of magic and martial arts of this element would become much easier. But simultaneously the use of any other element would become much harder, sometimes even completely impossible. An exception to that was of course magic as it relied on the external Qi. As such cultivation methods that allowed for more than one element or even rare elements with special properties were sought after.

But there were a lot of differences between cultivation methods even if they gave the same element. Take for example the wood element. One cultivation method to this element was ‘Birch’s spring’. Cultivating it would give access to the wood element, sure, but over time the body of the cultivator would change to become more and more flexible and become able to bend like a birch in a storm. Another method of the wood element would be the ‘Stout Oak reinforcement’. Instead of flexibility this one would harden the skin of the cultivator over time until he could withstand iron weapons unscathed. Another difference was the speed and stability. Some methods would favour a quick refinement that would ultimately lead to an unstable foundation while others would slowly refine the Qi as best as they could.

As such Jack took great efforts in his past life to gather as much cultivation methods as he could and stored them inside his soul storage. He had prided himself in his collection, even though he hadn’t made any effort to actually read most of them. But now the sheer amount gave him a new headache.

‘Which one should I choose?’

Not only was a cultivation method a cultivator’s greatest treasure, it was also almost impossible to change it afterwards. At least not without heavy consequences. It was however possible to modify the method by changing parts of it, but a single fault could cripple a cultivator’s potential. So he had to choose carefully.

After carefully sorting through the manuals Jack had three separate stacks in front of him.

The first stack was in fact only a single manual. It was the ‘Flaming Ocean Technique’, the same cultivation method Jack had used in his past life. It was a method that had quite a lot of flaws, foremost its creation of an unstable foundation. But Jack had solved most of those problems already in his past life and modified the method accordingly. What spoke more for it than anything else was, he already knew it. Every small shortcut, every challenge he had already completed.

The second stack were the manuals that came from the Heavenly Arts School. These ones were mostly better than the ‘Flaming Ocean Technique’, but Jack didn’t know as much about them. Still, he would at least think about it.

The manuals from the last stack on the other hand were from quite a lot of sources. He had found them next to dead enemies, in old libraries or ‘liberated’ them from old ruins. In short they had quite questionable origins. And that led to another problem. He had no idea if these things were secure or not. Challenges were a normal part of cultivation methods, ensuring that anyone who used them had the qualifications to do so. Sometimes they would even split a cultivation method into several parts to become more and more powerful the more challenges were won. These challenges could be anything, from simply having a certain level of cultivation to getting the personal approval of a spirit that had been placed inside the manual. But these challenges could be also used as a trap. Far too many young cultivators thought that they had made the found of their lives only to die in an impossible challenge. The methods that were used by the Heavenly Arts School were obviously safe from these dangers, as they had all been cleaned of such traps, but the unknown scrolls could be dangerous.

Jack scratched his head while he kept thinking. Every choice had its advantages. His familiarity with the ‘Burning Ocean Technique’ and the secure and more advanced manuals from his old school were an easy choice. But on the other hand, some of the manuals, especially those from long forgotten ruins were incredibly powerful. At least if that wasn’t just a trick to lure him in and kill him.

He let out a sigh. In the end it was always the same choice. Play it safe and stay weak or risk everything. Either you would die or become strong. And soon he would need every strength he could get, be it because of the organisation behind Rin or because of the growing crack and the danger it brought. Thinking that he was probably making a horrible mistake Jack started to look through the third stack.

‘Let’s see… ‘The Origin Manual’, purifies the Qi by forming it into runes before compressing it, becoming matter in the process. Later stages of this method will start to form an entire personal world inside the Dantian. Everything inside the world can be used by the cultivator, including the energy of stars and every single element’

Jack frowned as he read the introductory page of the first manual. The whole thing sounded too good to be true. Reading further his suspicions became soon true.

‘’However because the Qi is stored as matter it will need to be transformed back to become used.’ So, in other words you will be too slow to truly use it in combat. So it is useless for me. Next’

The next book, an ancient looking tome, almost crumbled when Jack opened it with a small tendril of Qi.

‘’Mysteries of the surging Sea’ …Urgh, I hate it when they give it such stupid names’

After reading a few lines more Jack shook his head and let go of the book. Also useless, though it gave a powerful ability to create giant bodies of water that would maim any opponents. To cultivate it he would need several mystical materials, all of which he had never even heard of.

One by one Jack read through the books. Some were discarded because he didn’t met the requirements, others because they would be useless for him. And a few ones were discarded because they made Jack feel sick. He didn’t even want to know whose ill mind had created a cultivation method that needed the sacrifice of children to be used properly.

With a shudder Jack proceeded to the next book. It was an ancient looking tome, covered in heavy leather. A picture of stylised flames was on its cover and the title ‘The blazes of the Netherflame’ was written in golden script under it.

Frowning Jack looked at the title. It was quite different from the names normal manuals tended to have. Where had he gotten this thing? After a few minutes he finally remembered. Shortly after the fall of the Heavenly Arts School he had started adventuring through the worlds near it. And one day he had found a small ruined tomb, a relic from ages past. It had already been found and plundered, but driven by curiosity, Jack proceeded deeper into the eternal darkness of the ruin.

Not even an hour later he had been already lost his way inside the maze-like structure. Stumbling to find a way back out he instead got somehow into a part of the ruin the raiders didn’t find. He didn’t find anything at first, just normal storage rooms filled with long decayed materials. But after a few days he finally lucked out and found a small treasury. Another day was spent to break through the defence formations until he could finally open its doors.

The treasury had been a mess. He didn’t know when, but sometime in the past one of the protective spells had malfunctioned, incinerating and destroying half of the room. But the other half was filled with riches beyond belief. Countless gold coins sparkled in the lights he had casted. There were even some artefacts. And somewhere in this whole mess was a small collection of books. ‘The blazes of the Netherflame’ was among them.

Carefully Jack opened the book and started to read. But quickly he frowned. The description was …lacking. No to be more exact, it was almost non-existent. The manual would create a special, fire elemental Qi, but the details were simply omitted. He had no idea what abilities came with these flames, nor what the long term effects of the cultivation were. If he were to guess from the term Netherflame it should be flames that would turn anything they touched into oblivion, but he couldn’t be sure about that. Obviously with the small amount of information Jack should discard the manual and look for another one.

Yes, that’s what he should do, but there was something with the manual that let him hesitate. His instincts were screaming at him to use it, reason be damned. There was something calling out for him in there. And if there was one thing a cultivator would learn it was that instincts were something you should be listening to.

For a few moments Jack kept staring at the manual then he gritted his teeth and pushed a sliver of his Qi inside the manual, reaching for a small crystal that was hidden inside of it. It was in this crystal that the true manual was stored, the rest of the book nothing more than a casing around it, just like it was with any other manual. His Qi touched the crystal and became absorbed. A moment nothing happened, then the world vanished inside an explosion of white. The last moment before he lost consciousness Jack heard a faint voice echoing around him, ancient and raspy, but more powerful than anything he had ever heard before.

‘Qi intrusion detected. First challenge starts’

Then the world turned dark around him.