Ivor was sent back to the first floor of the treasure hall. He should have been in a mindless rage, but his immortal physique kept that from happening. As the gas was absorbed into his lung meridian, he felt the qi in his lungs changing somehow. The gas flowing into his lung meridian merged into the meridian wall, and the qi in the meridian felt like an amalgamation of that of the green stone and gas, although the green stone was more dominant. Ivor felt a sense of something like fullness coming from this new qi which a little of was created each time he assimilated a little of the gas, like it had grown as complex as it could get. It had a fairly large capacity, as the new type of qi was quite dense, but if its complexity increased anymore it might explode.

Ivor opened his eyes after the gas was fully assimilated and was met by the shouting of the treasure hall elder. “Finally done! You were standing there for three hours. People had to inch around you to get into the trial if they didn’t want to interrupt your enlightenment, and nobody interrupts someone else’s enlightenment. It’s one of the worst things you can do to someone. Would you just please not have enlightenment right in front of the door to the trials again? Thank you in advance.”

When Ivor thought about it, he realized that he was in a trance, and he did gain comprehension of the Dao, so he really did attain enlightenment. Ivor bowed as far down as he could go, wanting to butter the elder up. “I apologize, esteemed elder. I won’t make this mistake again.”

The elder snorted… gently? Ivor didn’t know how a snort could be gentle, but it sure as hell felt that way to him. “Good. Now go to your room, it’s in the outer area. Everybody in this town is a disciple of the sect, a service disciple like you, although your Meridian Opening cultivation puts you at the level where you could theoretically apply to the outer sect, although I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve finished opening and empowering three meridians. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you read the book. Your home is number three-hundred forty-two in the west quarter of the outer district. It’s strange how things feel so normal, or normalish, considering I used to live in a more… modern city. I don’t even know how somebody made a city this fast, and I helped make it. Supreme Elder Epiphany says that he uses a technique that allows him to turn willing sacrifices into any nonmagical material. Sorry for making you listen to this elder’s ramblings- I mean be grateful for this daddy’s insights, junior. This daddy is known as Daoist Moldvanna. Now get going.”

Ivor hurriedly left without a word and went to his assigned home to read up on cultivation, salivating in anticipation for a chance to learn how cultivation actually works.

* * *

Ivor opened up The Basics of Cultivation and started to read. There were theories and the like in later chapters, but the first chapter was full of the true fundamentals. Cultivation is the path of the Dao. To attain the Dao, one must follow the basic steps. According to calculations by high level Wisdom path cultivators, mainly Odin, there should theoretically be eight steps, but as of writing this book, I only know two. Those are “building a foundation” and “nurturing your divinity.” Building a foundation, or the Foundation Building Great Realm, is separated into three major steps: Body Tempering, Qi Refining, and Soul Cleansing. I don’t know the specifics of “nurturing your divinity,” or the Earth Great Realm.

Back to Foundation Building: Body Tempering is based on breaking down, reconstructing, and improving your body in various ways. It starts with the qi attunement phase. In qi attunement, you use a technique to get unaligned qi to stay in your body permanently. At the peak of the realm, you should be able to sense qi and have 5 times peak human strength. As a side note, peak human strength is the main metric of physical strength in the Foundation Building Great Realm.

Next is the meridian opening phase. Contrary to the name, although you have to remove impurities from your meridians, what really matters is your meridian storage. Meridian storage is the amount of qi that can permanently reside in your meridians. It’s determined by your technique, and will determine your power at the end of the phase, which. If you’ve entered the phase, you should be able to determine your storage. Just think of the strain it puts on your meridian. If it feels like it’s reached 2/25ths capacity, you’re at the bare minimum for your cultivation to continue. 1/5th is considered good. If you have a bad capacity, then sorry, there are rumored ways to raise it, but only by maybe 1/25th capacity. As for a method that could indefinitely raise it, I wouldn’t dare to dream of it.

Ivor pondered on this. “Huh… it feels like my lung is at full cap. Wait, shit, does that mean my technique allows for a perfect foundation? ‘Nobody will try to steal it from you’ my ass. Well, I guess I can trust the book.”

Once you’ve opened your first meridian and found its capacity, you then need to fill that capacity. There are a variety of ways to cultivate, with each technique having one of its own, and some meridians having ways to cultivate that work with any technique, but they all do one basic thing. All you fundamentally have to do is find a source of the type of qi you’re cultivating, or convert unaligned qi into that type of qi, and stuff it into the walls of your meridian until your meridian storage is full before moving onto the next meridian.

Ivor wondered aloud, “Is that breathing thing a method of cultivation? I should check the second chapter.”

Ivor flipped to the section on cultivating the lung, which said, A commonly known yet difficult to learn method allowing one to cultivate the lung meridian is breathing in qi. To do this, one needs to maintain rhythmic breathing and attain the state of “inhaling energy.” It’s possible to attain more in this technique, but that won’t really be feasible when you’re still filling the lung meridian.

Ivor was stunned. “I feel like a protagonist. Did I really learn all of these difficult techniques so easily? Well, maybe I’m a once-in-1,000,000 years genius.”

Ivor was somewhat right. Only few people in the Milky Way had general comprehension ability comparable to his, and his insight into the Dao of Treasure was a remarkable thing. However, he was a big fish in a small pond; the universe was vast and geniuses greater than him had fallen in ages past. A genius with levels of insight similar to his is generally born once in a thousand years. Even so, Ivor was still a talent unheard of in the Milky Way, which he would come to know soon enough.

Ivor shrugged. “Well, no time like the present to get started cultivating. The section on meridian opening is done anyway. I can research other ways to cultivate later; for now, I’ll breathe.”

Ivor inhaled deeply, feeling a refreshing feeling enter his lungs, but he didn’t exhale. He forced that feeling out of his lungs and into his meridian, but didn’t let it flow. The gulp of qi began to burn due to its contrast with Ivor’s qi, desperately trying to escape, but Ivor’s qi ate it up in the end. Ivor began to repeat this, falling unconscious from the strain three hours and forty-one minutes in.

* * *

Ivor awoke with a burning pain in his lungs, utterly miserable, reflexively inhaling to take in qi and soothe it. However, the qi didn’t help, it just irritated his lungs more, fueled the pain. A feeling of dread dawned on him before rapidly turning into fury, overwhelming his supernaturally calm mind and bursting forth. “Wait… why didn’t the book mention this? CULTIVATING MAKES ME SORE?! REALLY?! WHO THE FUCK HAS HEARD OF CULTIVATION SORENESS?! THAT’S IT, I’LL CHANGE THE WORLD! NOBODY WILL EVER BE SORE FROM CULTIVATING EVER AGAIN! I’LL ASCEND TO THE PINNACLE AND CHANGE THE VERDICTS OF HEAVEN! IF THIS GARBAGE IS RECORDED IN HEAVEN’S VERDICTS, IT DESERVES TO BE SCRAPED OUT!”

This is the story of Ivor and his journey to change the edicts of Heaven. It might start out as an… overreaction of sorts, but soreness isn’t the only sin of Heaven - a fact that Ivor would find out… eventually.