The sands of time kept falling without stop, uncaring, and unaware of the struggles of humans. By now, Herman already had two months from when he first stepped foot in the Immortal World, specifically the small country Thousand Mountain-peaks.

News of his grand actions were still being circulated, mostly because of the waves it started. No later than two days from when Herman challenged the Altar of Heaven and Earth, they heard of similar things happening in the neighboring countries, with plenty of Basic-rank Sects being challenged to the same Contest of Tao. Names such as Neverfire the Autarch, LinkWill, Bian Hua, and many others that successfully went through ten or more rounds against the elites of these sects were being gossiped about daily.

Everyone knew that this marked only the start of the race for Heavens and it would serve as good publicity for those young masters strong enough to deserve being followed. Not only that, but many native cultivators started putting almost all their time into refining Primordial Qi and hoping they could advance to the next realm just a bit faster, enough to draw the attention of the participants in the race. After all, their future depends on it.

Back in Herman's Dwelling, things changed quite a bit in the past month and a half. First of all, under the management of Celeste, the Food-gathering array has already been upgraded to Level 50, eating up most of the resources spent in the process. The Wood-gathering array was slightly behind at Level 40 due to Wood being the main requirement for building up the other arrays. The Iron-gathering array was currently only at Level 30, but it had the fewest apprentices assigned to it due to the exaggerated cost of maintaining people that work there. Herman had to spend two food rations per each apprentice that worked in the mines, while just chopping wood and gathering it costs two food rations. With the apprentices that hunted for food, fished, or tilled the land, they were all self-sufficient, making Celeste and Herman reach the conclusion of upgrading the three arrays in that order. As for the Spirit Stone gathering array... let's not talk about it. There's no way someone would be bored enough to spend that many resources into an array that produces a handful of Sprit Stones per day, at the cost of ten food rations per apprentice.

With all the resources focused on upgrading the Spiritual Mountain, Herman's Qi-gathering array remained at the same level and he planned to keep it there as well. At the same time, he realized that with the type of miser he's been in his past life when it came to Spirit Jades, it had affected his thinking in this one. Yes, they were quite the rare resource, however, he had it in excess! Even after he bought all the vital things he could think of in the beginning and even spending an extra 450 on the three skills which allowed him to win in the Contest of Tao, he still had 385.154 Spirit Stones. Over 385.000 Sprit Jades! The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he shouldn't hold back and ensure his safety first and foremost!

And that's what he did!

Going back to the next day after the Contest of Tao, Herman received the following notification from the System.

Congratulations user!

You have managed to defeat 15 opponents in the Contest of Tao, most of which at a higher cultivation level than yourself!

Awarding the title: Prodigy (for extra details, please check yourself)

Your fame spreads over the Immortal World as the pioneer of the chaotic race for Heavens!

Awarding 10.000 Reputation Tokens!

Obviously, Herman didn't even bother with the Reputation Tokens as they would stay there and accumulate for a while before he had a use for them. No, what he was surprised about, was the title. He actually gained a title!

The System would award these things only when a cultivator gained the first spot in an event, usually providing immense boosts to both the speed one gains reputation by, as well other effects that nobody would say no to. Besides events, they had to perform miracles to be awarded such a thing as a title.

Title: Prodigy (passive secondary title; stacks with others)

The System and the Immortal World has recognized your talents and are looking forward to your fast development.

Effect: 10% increase in gained Reputation; 20% increase in gained permanent attributes from any source.

Simple, cut, and dry, yet mind-boggling for Herman. Titles are usually separated into two branches and two categories. There are primary titles which can be activated only one at a time and secondary titles, which the user can have as many as possible and still have them activated at the same time as another primary title. Furthermore, most secondary titles fell in the category of passive effects. Basically, they don't provide any active skill that the user can put to work and just stayed permanently active in the background, providing some sort of benefit.

Herman's 'Prodigy' title was just that. A passive secondary title that increases his gain of reputation by 10%. Obviously, if he was to buy Reputation Tokens from the Treasure Hall and use them, he would still gain the same amount as everyone. For the missions he undertook in the sect though, for each ten Reputation gained at once, he would receive a plus one.

What he was absolutely delighted by, was the 20% increase in gained permanent attributes from any source.

The Immortal World had many ways of increasing one's attributes and only the equipment one wore provided a temporary boost since it might be changed a day later with something better. Besides that, pretty much everything else would give the cultivator a permanent boost. The skills from the Sutras Hall were such a way of gaining attributes or upgrading one's Spiritual Roots with the use of the Qi-gathering array. Either way, from now on, Herman would receive an extra 20% of the grand total of such means.

Since that was the case, Herman directly activated this title and started whaling properly. With both the Treasure Hall and the Sutras Hall refreshing once per week, he focused on eating up all the sutras he could get his hands on and focus on healing his internal injuries. After the injuries would be gone, he could attempt another cultivation covenant and boost his cultivation once more. And that's what he did.

First off, Herman finally managed to complete the sutras collection of the Sutras Hall's first floor. Only two skills were belonging to the Pieces of the Five Elements (the first and the second chapter) and three others of the Enigmatic Thunder (the first, second, and the fourth chapter). With this, he actually managed to complete all four series, including the hidden tenth chapter, ensuring a base of 100 points total in each of his four elements. Obviously though, there was only an increase of 22 points in Life Essence (20 base + 2 because of the 'Prodigy' title) and 36 points in Dexterity (30 base + 6 because of the 'Prodigy' title).

Next, Herman went full 'whale' mode and splurged on the limited sutras from the Spirit Jade Hall. He was lucky enough during these six weeks to gather eight chapters from The Destination Pieces (increases Life Essence - chapters 2-9), seven chapters of the Chaos Pieces (increases Strength - chapters 3-7, chapter 8 and chapter 10), nine chapters from the Unforeseen Pieces (increases Vitality - chapters 1-9) and finally all ten chapters of the Divine Wind Pieces (increases Dexterity - chapter 1-10).

Leaving aside the three chapters that he bought before the Contest of Tao, Herman's attributes went through the roof, given that each one of these sutras would provide him a base 1712 attribute points and his 'Prodigy' title would further increase them by 20%. That meant 2054 points for each sutra!

Obviously, his attribute panel would scare the crap out of any cultivator, given that he's currently still only at the Foundation realm.

Personal Information

Attributes

Ultimate

Pill

Name: Herman Roy

Cultivation time: 0 Years (60 days)

Spiritual realm: Foundation II

Body realm: Mortal Flesh VI

Ascension number: N/A

Attributes

Life Essence: 17.252

Attack: 86.260

Strength: 14.578

Defense: 72.890

Vitality: 19.018

Health Points: 285.270

Dexterity: 20.906

Evasion: 62.622

Fortune: 123

Critical Strike: 41

Perception: 478 Points

Efficiency: 239 Primordial Qi points / 1 hour (reduced to 50% due to damage)

Absorption: 167.4 points

Superior Qi Absorption: 83.7 Spiritual Qi point / 1 hour

Character (Unlocked - please select to view)

Personality (Unlocked - please select to view)

With the remaining chapters of these four Level 4 sutras series, Herman would be able to break through the 20.000 point on each one of the main attributes. Then, as soon as he reached Nihility, he can immediately challenge the Gate of Heaven and beat the crap out of the spirits guarding the array. By then, he should easily pass the 30.000 mark and visit the Afterglow Palace sect. This sect was renowned for having the overpowered ultimate skill that actually gave an x4 to Strength. You can imagine how easy one could steamroll through enemies that haven't learned any such skills. For a cultivator that had 25.000 points in Life Essence and 25.000 points in Strength, they would have an extraordinary advantage even against higher realm cultivators.

Herman's Fortune also strangely increased for whatever reason, but after spending an entire day trying to figure out why, he finally gave up and focused on stabilizing his cultivation. This was a major problem in his case since he directly jumped an entire realm in less than a month, making his foundations shaky. That's why, after the Contest of Tao Herman gave up doing anything else but moving the Primordial Qi already existing in his body and further refining his newly created small world, preparing for his entry into the Golden Core Realm.

Besides sitting on his ass and meditating the entire day, he sparred with Xu Wen'an in the beginning. After he spent more and more Spirit Jades (4.650 to be precise, a sum that Herman didn't manage to gather in 2.000 years in his previous life), Xu Wen'an couldn't keep up with him anymore and Tianxia Xue stepped in.

As the weeks went by, just Tianxia Xue wasn't enough anymore so he had Xu Wen'an join as well, in a 1 vs 2 sparring match. By the end of the second month, Celeste had to step in and thoroughly trash Herman to calm down his ego and earn some face back for the Ascension realm cultivators. Honestly speaking, Herman was a bit terrified by this woman. Judging from the ease with which she dealt with him, her attributes should've reached 100.000 points already and she surely has at least two to three ultimate skills that she doesn't need to use on a bug like him. Anyway, ever since the incident with the girl he killed, Celeste had taken quite an interest in him... basically she would force him to spar with her whenever she would find an opportunity to do so, scaring poor Herman into visiting the Westmount territory quite often.

The adventuring in the Westmount world was quite a haul in itself as he kept piling more and more resources such as rare herbs and metals that could later be used. Also, the alchemy apprentice was drowning in his concoctions daily, managing to finally complete his first batch of pills successfully. Each week or so, he could give Herman about 20-25 pills, based on the quality of the ingredients he would use. So far, Herman had about 25 of each tier 1 attribute-enhancing pills. He planned to save them for later since an extra 25 attribute points wouldn't exactly make a big difference. What he did insist on while adventuring, was killing. He massacred every evil creature he found crossing his path and even went out of his way to hunt higher tier monsters to test his limits. The result? He found a lesser dragon den and was almost killed.

But now, two months after he stepped foot in the Immortal World, his internal injuries were finally healed! That meant that he could begin cultivating more earnestly.

That's how, after another month and a cultivation covenant with Wu Xintian, he reached Foundation V and once more, healed some of the injuries he suffered during the tribulations. Following after that and mostly under pressure and nagging from Ling Ye he underwent a cultivation covenant with her as well, aggravating his wounds further without giving them enough time to heal. Luckily, he broke through Foundation VII, while the girl herself was pleased with the fact that she overtook her little sister Lan Yue, able to keep her title as the older and more powerful sister.

When sect master Feng Qian came and carried a smoking (quite literally due to the tribulation lightning) Herman back to a room to recuperate, he could see the burning desire in her eyes. Sighing, he told her that she needed to wait until his wounds healed at least a bit, bringing us to the start of the fifth month and the end of the fourth. The surprise after the cultivation covenant Herman did with Feng Qian didn't come from him, but rather from the sect master herself. The woman stepped foot into the Ensoulment realm, scaring the crap out of all sect members. It was later disseminated among the masses that Feng Qian hid her true strength and that she was actually at the late stages of the Nascent Soul realm, needing one more push to get there.

Herman also benefited greatly from her breakthrough, as the amount of Primordial Qi he sneakily stole was enough to bring him all the way up to Foundation X. By this point, the strange serpent creature above Herman's dantian was already hating his guts, being showered almost every month with strong lightning and almost being killed each time.

On the other hand, his master was indeed getting stronger and the amount of Primordial Qi it could eat was becoming larger and larger with each breakthrough, so it decided to forgive the lighting addict for now.

With a total of four months passed since he restarted his cultivation in this Immortal World, Herman also completed the series of Level 4 sutras from the Spirit Jade Hall. His attribute panel looked even scarier now, with attributes that could only belong to an Ascension realm cultivator nurtured by a Mystic-rank sect.

Personal Information

Attributes

Ultimate

Pill

Name: Herman Roy

Cultivation time: 0 Years (120 days)

Spiritual realm: Foundation X

Body realm: Mortal Flesh VI

Ascension number: N/A

Attributes

Life Essence: 21.400

Attack: 107.000

Strength: 20.780

Defense: 103.900

Vitality: 21.112

Health Points: 316.680

Dexterity: 20.946

Evasion: 62.742

Fortune: 123

Critical Strike: 41

Perception: 478 Points

Efficiency: 239 Primordial Qi points / 1 hour (reduced to 50% due to damage)

Absorption: 167.4 points

Superior Qi Absorption: 83.7 Spiritual Qi point / 1 hour

Character (Unlocked - please select to view)

Personality (Unlocked - please select to view)

That wasn't all though. Wine was getting brewed daily in his Dwelling, however, he didn't touch it just yet. What he did do during these four months (aside from cultivation and fighting) was nurture his relations with his companions. At this point, Herman had a total of 12 companions he chose to nurture after he ascends.

There were the five girls from the Fallen Blossoms sect, the two Wanderers Tianxia Xue and Xu Wen'an, Yu Yan from the Illusion Sect, Wu Shenghao from the Elixir Sect, Hu Lunmei from the Phoenix Pavilion Sect, Feng Danying from the Phoenix Tree Sect, and finally, Wen Lun from the Levitation Sect.

Leaving aside Yu Yan who had the highest potential among the five companions that didn't crash on his Dwelling, the other four were also young geniuses in their own rights that Herman was preparing for his ascension, both by teaching them fighting techniques or just giving them general knowledge of the Heaven Realms.

Once per week, all twelve would gather at his dwelling and receive a lecture from either Herman or Celeste, helping their understanding of cultivation increase greatly. If someone was to come and watch a Foundation realm cultivator preaching and teaching Nascent Soul cultivators or higher about the secrets of the world, they would probably wonder if the Sun was going to rise from the North the following day.

Yet, this happened and everyone was growing stronger and stronger with each passing day, bringing news of this to the other sects of the neighboring kingdoms and countries. Since Feng Qian didn't have anything that she could teach Herman, she promoted him to an honorary elder, a position that allowed him to earn both Reputation and Sect Contribution Tokens every week. The only downside was that he wasn't given a salary in Spirit Stones, a thing that mattered quite little in Herman's eyes.

On the contrary, the fact that he could gain 50 Sect Contribution Tokens per week was rather amazing since he could just store them and use them in the future to rank-up in the sect he would join.

When it comes to plans, he knew for certain that he had to go to the Afterglow sect since it had an ultimate skill he needed greatly, but there was also the Raging Flame Sect that had as a fifth skill to teach its disciples the Raging Flame Sect Heavenly Book, a sutras skill that could increase Perception. There was also the fact that this sect specialized in blacksmithing, a thing that would be beneficial to the apprentice he would hire after reaching Gold Core, making his immediate goal breaking through and joining this sect.

With his Favor reaching max with all the companions, he could finally heave a sigh of relief and make his final preparations. Once he reached the Golden Core rank, he would spend more time in the wild, adventuring through the twenty worlds the System would give him access to. That's why he needed to properly prepare the ground for what's to come next and also increase his fame further among the Junior-rank sects. The plan, for now, was to go sect crashing and hopefully create a good impression on them.

Just 12 possible servants weren't near enough to help him survive in the clash against the horrors of the Heaven Realms. He needed more young geniuses willing to follow his command and venture alongside him.

For that, a new plan started taking shape in his devious mind.