“Y-you…” was the only word Mu Mantian managed to sputter with his face in the dirt.

“Mu Mantian, I think you need some more training.” Mu Chen smiled as he twisted Mu Mantian’s arm a little more, causing him to shriek in pain.

Of course, Mu Chen was not stupid enough to start indiscriminately killing people, namely Mu Mantian, at least not till he was the strongest person in this city. Before that, he could not act too impudently. Anyone who did so was just asking for an early death. Besides, Mu Mantian was just a weak lackey who could not even threaten him in the slightest. Maiming or killing him now was not worth the punishment.

The thing Mu Chen needed most now was time. He needed time to increase his strength, and for that he needed to maintain the status quo between his father and his uncle for as long as possible. By showing off some strength here in front of everyone, he could rein in his uncle’s growth in support by a little and restore some confidence in his father’s position as patriarch.

Besides, there was still the poisoning incident from before. Although he was sure that his uncle Mu Wang was the culprit, he could not be 100% sure. It was better to wait and see. For now, controlling the spread of Mu Wang’s influence was enough.

By now, almost everyone in the training field had gathered to watch the fight when they noticed Mu Chen and Mu Mantian’s conflict, plus Mu Chen had also intentionally raised his voice to attract attention.

“Haha, look at Mu Mantian, he just got his ass handed to him by a wastrel!”

“Wow, did you see that move Mu Chen did?”

“How could it be? Mu Mantian is two levels higher than Mu Chen!”

“Alright, I’ve had enough fun. Time to go.” After another minute of torturing his defeated foe, Mu Chen released Mu Mantian’s arm and got up, brushing the dust off his robes and onto Mu Mantian’s face, causing him to choke.

“Cough cough! You bastard!” Mu Mantian cursed angrily. “How did you defeat me? What kind of dirty trick did you use against me?”

Laughing and ignoring him, Mu Chen left the training field and returned to his residence, slamming the door shut and leaving Xiao Rou standing outside at a loss. She was shocked at how her Young Master had dealt with Mu Mantian so easily. His entire demeanor also seemed to have changed somehow, in a way she could not explain. He was no longer timid and weak, but radiated an aura of absolute confidence and power, but she didn’t think much of it. Pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind, she scurried off to perform her duties.

Mu Chen was currently sitting cross legged on his bed with his eyes closed. He was inspecting the condition of his body. His body had been weakened due to having been poisoned earlier and dealing with Mu Mantian had weakened him even further. He needed to rest and recuperate before he could start increasing his strength.

Meanwhile, the news of Mu Chen’s scuffle with Mu Mantian had spread throughout the residence. Needless to say, many people did not believe it. The son of the patriarch, who was a famous wastrel, only at the third level of the Mortal realm, defeating someone who was two levels higher with just a few moves? Who would be stupid enough to believe it?

However, over the next several days, with so many people describing the exact same thing, everyone started to have doubts. On top of that, when Mu Mantian was asked about what had happened, he would storm off angrily in silence, which further reinforced the validity of the eyewitness accounts.

During these several days, all Mu Chen had been doing was eating and sleeping, while also forcing any remnants of the poison out from his body. As he exhaled, a small trace of black gas came out from his mouth and dissipated into the air.

“Finally, all the remnants of the poison are gone. I can finally start cultivating.” A grin appeared on his face, which was no longer gaunt and pale. The color had returned to his skin and he no longer looked like a fresh corpse.

Closing his eyes, he scoured his memories for cultivation techniques that would suit his needs. There were thousands of cultivation techniques strictly ingrained inside his head. These techniques were the crystallization of his hard work over thousands of years.

Over the course of his long life, he had seen many mighty sects, kingdoms and empires rise and fall, and had killed many more cultivators. In the process, he had obtained some of their techniques and memorized them down to the last character. This was not a difficult feat for a high level cultivator like him, whose cultivation was powerful enough to develop spirit sense. Although he had lost his original cultivation, he still retained his powerful soul and spirit sense, as well as all the techniques he had trained in his past life.

Spirit sense was a sensory ability that was dependent on one’s soul. It involved using the soul to essentially act like a pair of ‘eyes’, enabling the user to see everything in a certain radius or in a certain direction.

It took Mu Chen a while but soon enough, he managed to sort out several new techniques he wanted to practice. Techniques were divided into several ranks. Mortal, Earth, Heaven, Saint and Divine. Each rank was divided into low, middle and high.

Speaking in terms of techniques, there were also numerous types. Offensive techniques, defensive techniques, supporting techniques, movement techniques and many others that were impossible to fully categorize. There were some which required specific resources to cultivate, such as a material or herb, while others required one to do unorthodox things, such as killing or even raping. These were known as devil techniques and though they allowed the practitioner to increase his strength rapidly. ‘righteous’ cultivators would then hunt down these devil technique practitioners and kill them.

Mu Chen chose three saint ranked techniques for each of the three types: Offense, movement and cultivation after taking into account what kind of constitution his body possessed. Just as he expected, this body he had taken over was just a typical human body, without any kind of special bloodline or physique.

For the offensive technique, Mu Chen decided on the Golden Void Temple’s [Demon Vanquishing Fist]. It was a powerful saint ranked technique that was especially effective against devilish and evil beings. Ironically, the Void Temple had been extinguished by the devil faction, who stole this technique from them. Mu Chen had been one of those who led the assault and thus obtained the [Demon Vanquishing Fist] as spoils of war.

He thought it would be a good idea to stick to using non-devil techniques for now, he did not need the trouble from righteous idiots trying to kill him at every step. Devil techniques would only be used when there was no one else present.

For his movement technique, Mu Chen chose the Divine Thunder Palace’s famous [Divine Thunderflash] technique. This movement technique was extremely versatile, allowing the user to quickly move short distances, making it especially effective during battle. It also enabled long distance travel at high speed, though it consumed a large amount of spiritual qi, its speed was unmatched.

The Thunder Emperor, who was the leader of the Divine Thunder Palace, had given this technique to Mu Chen as a reward for saving his life, though he had never tried to cultivate it, so it sat there in his head, collecting dust. Now it would finally be put to good use.

Finally, the most important of all, the cultivation technique. This was a much more difficult decision. A cultivation technique had to suit the practitioner’s constitution. If the user was not compatible with a cultivation technique, his progress would not be as fast as it could be and would stagnate later on. It could even lead to serious injuries or death.

Mu Chen decided on a cultivation technique named [Mystic Ascension] as it was the most balanced and did not have any attribute, making it so that anyone could cultivate it.

"I need to properly inspect my body before I start cultivating."

As a third level Mortal realm cultivator, he would have three spirit springs in his body. Each level would see his spirit springs increase by one. When he had nine springs, he could attempt to break into the next realm, the Sea Forming realm.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed in his room where no one was around to see him, Mu Chen started to meditate. His mind began to become at peace with his surroundings and before long, intangible particles of light surrounded him. These lights were like dust, they floated around him quietly, waiting to be devoured. This was none other than spiritual qi.

Whoosh! A powerful suction force suddenly came from Mu Chen's body as he circulated the [Mystic Ascension] cultivation technique. The particles of light began to fly toward him like moths to flame. The particles then entered his body through his nose, mouth and even his skin.

With spiritual qi suddenly entering his body, Mu Chen felt refreshed. His body lit up from the inside. His meridians came alive and shortly after the spiritual qi entered his body, inside his body, they flew directly toward the spirit springs in his body.

Mu Chen was finally able to see the three spirit springs within his body. They were small and murky, like three puddles of sewage water that were bubbling pathetically.

“This is…worse than I had expected.” He sighed inwardly. The previous owner of this body really was a useless bum. Even his spirit springs were crappy. He had never seen such lousy spirit springs in his entire life. Mu Chen decided he had no choice but to dissipate the spirit springs and start over. If he decided to go ahead with these lousy spirit springs, his strength and future would be compromised due to an unstable and impure foundation.

Just as he was about to start the process of dissipating his three spirit springs, something caught his eye. At the very center, right in the middle of the three spirit springs, was a stone tablet floating there silently. It was the exact same one that had caused him to transmigrate into this body. Right now, the spiritual qi he was absorbing into his body was in turn being directly sucked into this stone tablet.

Mu Chen had found this tablet in an ancient ruin in his past life, but could never figure out what it did. He had tried everything. Transferring his qi, burning it, freezing it, smashing it and even giving it some of his blood essence. Despite all that, nothing had changed. It was only at the point where he was about to die where the tablet finally reacted.

He actually had no clue what was written on the tablet back when he had transferred all his lifeforce and that of the other cultivators into it. However, by some unknown power, he was now actually able to comprehend some of what was written on the tablet. It was a cultivation technique!