Chapter 141: Cheating Has Never Been This Outrageous!

Damian had expected the Five Elements Spiritual Canon to be complicated, especially considering its Earth Rank classification and the extraordinary Attribute increases it promised.

However, after immersing his consciousness in the jade slip and beginning to study its contents, he realized that his expectations had been laughably inadequate.

The sheer depth of information contained within the technique was staggering, with every explanation branching into dozens of smaller principles that somehow connected back to the same fundamental truth.

What appeared to be a simple circulation route at first glance was actually an elaborate system involving the Five Elements, their mutual generation and restraint, the human body’s meridians, and the transformation of Spiritual Energy into something far more profound.

And that was merely the introductory portion!

The Five Elements Harmonization Art he had cultivated previously was already considered an excellent technique, especially after he had comprehended it to Perfection.

Yet comparing it to this new scripture was almost like comparing a village carpenter’s understanding of wood to the knowledge required to construct an entire palace!

It wasn’t that the previous technique was bad, but rather that the Five Elements Spiritual Canon operated on an entirely different level!

Every circulation was designed to accomplish several things simultaneously, from refining Spiritual Energy and strengthening the Qi Sea to gradually reshaping the cultivator’s spiritual foundation.

The most ridiculous part was that simply understanding the instructions required an extraordinary mind, much less actually putting them into practice.

Damian suspected that an ordinary person could spend years studying the opening passages and still fail to grasp why certain meridians had to be connected in a particular order.

Fortunately, he was hardly an ordinary person anymore!

His Wisdom Attribute had already reached 18.6, granting him comprehension and mental capabilities far beyond those of a normal human.

Coupled with his experience mastering the Five Elements Harmonization Art, the seemingly endless principles began falling into place with surprising ease.

"Hmm, so that’s why the circulation has to reverse at this junction," Damian muttered, his eyes narrowing as he followed the instructions.

"The five elements aren’t simply supposed to coexist inside the Qi Sea. They’re supposed to continuously generate and restrain one another until the entire structure becomes self-sustaining, like an Ouroboros."

The more he understood, the more impressed he became, and the excitement in his heart steadily replaced his initial astonishment.

He could already see why the scripture promised such tremendous increases to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Spirit with every advancement.

Without wasting another moment, Damian closed his eyes and began guiding his Refined Qi according to the new circulation route.

The five elemental energies within his body responded almost immediately, flowing through his meridians in an intricate sequence that would have been utterly impossible for him to maintain before his previous training.

Several minutes passed before he finally completed the first circulation, and a wonderful sensation spread throughout his body as the energies returned to his Qi Sea.

They seemed more harmonious than before, yet there was also an unmistakable sense of depth to their interactions, as though he had only just opened the door to an enormous treasure vault.

"Wonderful! If this is what the Entry level feels like, I can hardly imagine what the technique will accomplish after I raise its mastery!" Damian exclaimed, a broad grin appearing on his face as he examined the changes.

Unfortunately, his excitement was interrupted almost immediately when the Shengyuan Cultivation Record appeared before his eyes.

Damian initially welcomed the notification, expecting it to confirm his successful comprehension of the technique, but his expression rapidly changed when he noticed the numbers.

[Shengyuan Cultivation Record

Name: Damian Baines

Cultivation Realm: Qi Condensation Level 1

Realm Progress: 0/100,000 Cultivation Base

Cultivation Method: Five Elements Spiritual Canon (Earth)

Technique Mastery: Entry]

For several seconds, Damian simply stared at the final line without saying anything, wondering whether his eyes were playing tricks on him.

He even leaned forward and inspected the record more carefully, but the number stubbornly refused to change.

"One hundred thousand?! Holy shit, wasn’t it ten thousand just a moment ago?!" he finally shouted, his voice echoing through the room.

He had already considered the previous requirement rather unreasonable, especially since his Purified Qi Feat doubled the amount of Cultivation Base he needed for advancement.

Yet the Five Elements Spiritual Canon had apparently decided that doubling his requirements was insufficient punishment and multiplied the entire figure by another ten!

Damian understood the principle behind it, of course, since a technique capable of producing such extraordinary benefits would naturally demand an equally extraordinary foundation.

Nevertheless, understanding why someone was robbing him didn’t make the robbery any more enjoyable.

"A hundred thousand points just to advance from Qi Condensation Level 1 to Level 2? How many eons am I supposed to spend cultivating before I even reach Foundation Establishment?" He grumbled, rubbing his forehead as he contemplated the terrifying implications.

He couldn’t help remembering the wonderful benefits promised by the scripture, particularly the ten additional points of Intelligence and Wisdom he would receive for each successful Qi Condensation advancement.

Those rewards were so outrageously valuable that abandoning the technique was completely out of the question, but the requirements still made his heart ache.

Unfortunately, there was no convenient shortcut available through his Skill Upgrade System.

Although that Special Power could accelerate the development of his Valorian Skills and various compatible abilities, cultivation techniques operated according to a different set of rules.

Their mastery and advancement had to be earned through genuine comprehension and practice, meaning he couldn’t simply throw Skill Points at the Five Elements Spiritual Canon until it reached Perfection.

"Maybe I should find a way to upgrade the Special Power itself," Damian mused, his frustration gradually giving way to curiosity.

"Or perhaps I need another Special Power that specifically targets cultivation techniques, although knowing my luck, the System would probably make me work for that one too."

He fell silent as he considered the possibilities, wondering whether the Dual Realm Exchange System had some undiscovered function that could help him overcome this particular problem.

However, just as he was about to dismiss the thought and return to cultivating, another notification suddenly appeared.

[New Optional Side Quest Available!]

[Quest Name: Hundred Days of Foundation Establishment!]

[Description: You have chosen a cultivation path whose demands would discourage even the most gifted disciples of Shengyuan. Prove that talent, determination, and opportunity can overturn conventional expectations by establishing your foundation within one hundred days!]

[Objective: Reach Foundation Establishment — Early Stage!]

[Time Limit: 100 Days]

[Reward: Special Power — <The Sect Master>.]

Damian’s complaints immediately vanished, replaced by an expression of almost frightening enthusiasm as he read the reward.

A completely new Special Power was being offered for something he had already intended to accomplish, and the only real condition was that he had to finish within a hundred days!

"<The Sect Master>?" Damian repeated, his imagination already running wild with possibilities.

"That sounds suspiciously like something capable of establishing or managing a sect, but even if the name is misleading, a System Special Power is still a System Special Power!"

He had experienced the ridiculous advantages of his existing Special Powers far too many times to underestimate their value, especially considering how completely they could overturn the ordinary rules of either world.

Even an ability that initially appeared situational could become outrageously useful once he discovered how to exploit it.

And so, with a tangible reward dangling before his eyes, Damian’s motivation surged to an entirely new level.

"Fine, then! If the System wants me to establish my foundation within a hundred days, I’ll show it just how unreasonable I can be!"

He immediately settled into a proper cultivation posture, closed his eyes, and began circulating the Five Elements Spiritual Canon again.

The surrounding Mana responded to his cultivation, gradually entering his body and undergoing the familiar transformation into compatible Spiritual Energy before being refined through the new technique.

Time began passing as Damian immersed himself in the process, with one circulation following another in an increasingly smooth rhythm.

Although the scripture remained at Entry mastery, his understanding of its principles was sufficient to prevent any major difficulties during these early cycles.

It was during this process that he finally appreciated the true tyranny of one of his oldest and most valuable Special Powers.

<One Proof, Eternal Proof>!

Damian had always understood that its Eternal Progress aspect prevented him from losing genuine progress, whether that progress concerned cultivation, mastery, knowledge, or the development of his body.

However, until he began working with such a demanding cultivation technique, he hadn’t fully appreciated just how terrifying that simple guarantee could become.

Cultivation was not a process in which every circulation produced an identical result, regardless of how talented the cultivator happened to be.

A person’s comprehension, concentration, physical condition, and countless other factors could influence how effectively they absorbed and refined Spiritual Energy.

For example, a cultivator might achieve the expected result from one circulation, only to obtain eighty percent of that result during the next because of a momentary distraction.

Another circulation might prove unusually successful and yield one hundred and twenty percent, while a particularly unfortunate mistake could cause the entire effort to become worthless.

Even the legendary heavenly sons and daughters of Shengyuan were not completely exempt from such fluctuations, regardless of their extraordinary Spirit Roots or natural comprehension.

They could reduce the frequency of mistakes through talent and experience, but maintaining perfect efficiency throughout every single circulation was an entirely different matter.

Damian, however, had a rather unfair advantage!

As far as his genuine cultivation progress was concerned, Eternal Proof ensured that he would never regress and would always move forward.

In practical terms, the effectiveness of his completed circulations never fell below the expected baseline, meaning he could obtain at least one hundred percent of their proper value without worrying about wasted progress!

It didn’t necessarily mean every circulation would produce the maximum result theoretically possible, since particularly successful cycles could still exceed the baseline.

Rather, it meant the ordinary failures and fluctuations that plagued other cultivators could no longer drag his advancement backward or reduce it beneath that guaranteed standard.

"Hahaha, this thing is even more ridiculous than I thought!" Damian laughed as another circulation completed successfully.

"Other people have to worry about whether their cultivation session will be productive, while I only have to worry about how much time I can squeeze out of the day!" He exclaimed with amazement.

And that realization completely changed how he approached the problem.

At Entry mastery, a complete circulation of the Five Elements Spiritual Canon took approximately one minute, assuming the cultivator understood the route and could maintain it properly.

For someone possessing a High Grade Five Elements Spirit Root, Damian estimated that an ordinary successful cycle would provide roughly one point of Cultivation Base before accounting for any extraordinary external advantages.

On paper, that meant accumulating one hundred thousand points would require one hundred thousand minutes of cultivation.

Dividing that figure into hours and days produced a rather depressing result of approximately sixty-nine and a half days, or a little over two months of uninterrupted effort.

Naturally, no ordinary cultivator could spend nearly seventy consecutive days cultivating without sleeping, eating, recovering, or dealing with the occasional failed circulation.

In reality, the process could stretch across many months or even years, especially once bottlenecks and other complications entered the picture.

For Shengyuan, however, that was still a respectable rate of advancement considering the quality of the technique and the benefits it provided.

The problem was that Damian had become so accustomed to cheating his way through progression that anything requiring more than a few days felt like walking through quicksand.

Fortunately, he had no intention of relying on ordinary cultivation speed!

"One hundred thousand divided by 43.2 points per minute... That’s about thirty-eight and a half hours, or a little over one and a half days!" Damian murmured, mentally working through the calculation.

Compared to the original estimate of more than two months, that was already an almost miraculous improvement!

Unfortunately, Damian stared at the result with an expression of profound dissatisfaction, as though the heavens had personally insulted him by expecting him to spend an entire day cultivating.

"Still too long! If I’m going to cheat, I might as well do it properly!" he declared, shaking his head as he considered his options.

A moment later, an Essence Surge Pill appeared in his palm.

The pill was originally intended to accelerate progression for Journeymen in Valoria, doubling their eligible EXP gains for twelve hours.

Damian had already passed that bracket as an Adept, which meant consuming it would accomplish absolutely nothing for his Valorian Overall Level.

However, there was one extremely important detail that made the pill valuable to him again.

Its adapted effect also applied to cultivators in the Qi Condensation Realm!

Damian might have been an Adept according to Valoria’s System, but his Shengyuan cultivation was still firmly within Qi Condensation.

In other words, the same pill that had become useless for one of his progression paths remained perfectly applicable to the other!

"Now this is what I call getting my money’s worth!" Damian exclaimed, admiring the pill as though it were a precious jewel.

"Whoever said being weak in one world was a disadvantage clearly never considered the benefits of having two completely separate progression systems!"

Without hesitation, he tossed the pill into his mouth and swallowed it.

The medicinal energy rapidly spread throughout his body, stimulating his cultivation and dramatically increasing the efficiency with which he could absorb and refine the surrounding energy.

With the Essence Surge Pill doubling his cultivation gains for the next twelve hours, his effective working multiplier rose from 43.2 to an astonishing 86.4!

The implications were immediate.

At that rate, accumulating one hundred thousand points through ordinary circulation alone would require approximately nineteen hours and seventeen minutes of cultivation.

What had originally appeared to be a two-month ordeal had been compressed into less than a single day, and Damian could hardly suppress the grin spreading across his face.

"From more than two months to nineteen hours!" he exclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief at the sheer absurdity of the improvement.

"Fuck, if the sect elders in Shengyuan knew what I was doing, they’d probably accuse me of violating the natural order!"

Of course, nineteen hours was still longer than he would have preferred, especially since the Essence Surge Pill’s effect would only last twelve hours.

He could certainly deal with that inconvenience, but the thought of spending so much time cultivating when he possessed an entire warehouse of useful resources was almost unbearable.

And that was when Damian remembered another pill.

A particularly wicked smile appeared on his face as he reached into his Exchange Storage and retrieved a Condensing Essence Pill.

Unlike the Essence Surge Pill, this one was designed to provide a cultivator with a reservoir of medicinal energy that would gradually be absorbed over time.

Under ordinary circumstances, its effects could last approximately twelve hours at a compatible Spirit Root’s base absorption rate.

That sounded perfectly reasonable until one considered the fact that Damian was currently cultivating at 86.4 times that rate!

"Hmm, I wonder what happens if I try absorbing twelve hours of medicinal energy in a fraction of the time," Damian mused, turning the pill between his fingers.

"Surely nothing too outrageous, right?"

Naturally, he already suspected the answer.

He swallowed the Condensing Essence Pill and immediately resumed circulating the Five Elements Spiritual Canon, directing the medicinal energy toward his Qi Sea.

Almost instantly, a small vortex formed within his dantian as the pill began releasing an enormous quantity of energy into his cultivation system.

The reaction was far more dramatic than anything Damian had experienced during his earlier attempts at cultivation.

Spiritual Energy surged through his meridians in tremendous waves, each circulation dragging another torrent of medicinal power toward his Qi Sea.

The refined energy poured into the existing structure like a tsunami crashing into a small pool, yet the Five Elements Spiritual Canon continued organizing the incoming power into its intricate circulation without allowing the different elements to fall into disorder.

Damian’s eyes widened as he realized just how much energy the pill actually contained!

A single Condensing Essence Pill held approximately ten thousand units of usable Cultivation Base, an amount that many ordinary cultivators would struggle to absorb completely before its medicinal energy dissipated.

Much of that potential would normally be wasted through inefficient refinement, poor compatibility, or the simple inability to keep up with the pill’s gradual release.

But Damian was not an ordinary cultivator.

Between his extraordinary compatibility, his cultivation Feats, the Essence Surge Pill, and the guaranteed progress provided by Eternal Proof, practically every portion of the released energy was being drawn into his cultivation.

Rather than allowing the medicinal power to escape, his circulation continuously refined it, leaving virtually nothing behind.

Even more absurdly, the 86.4 times multiplier was accelerating the absorption process itself!

A pill designed to release its energy over twelve hours would ordinarily require seven hundred and twenty minutes to exhaust.

Dividing that duration by 86.4 produced an absorption time of approximately eight minutes and twenty seconds, assuming the same rate could be maintained throughout.

Damian didn’t bother staring at a clock while cultivating, but by the time roughly ten minutes had passed, the pill’s medicinal energy had been completely exhausted.

He had absorbed its entire ten-thousand-point reservoir without leaving behind any meaningful dregs, and the Shengyuan Cultivation Record promptly reflected the enormous gain.

[Shengyuan Cultivation Record

Cultivation: Qi Condensation Realm — Level 1

Cultivation Technique: Five Elements Spiritual Canon

Mastery: Entry (98.12%)

Cultivation Base: 10,000/100,000.]

Damian stared at the notification with an expression of utter disbelief, despite having personally calculated that such a result was possible.

There was something fundamentally different about seeing an absurd theoretical calculation and watching ten thousand points of Cultivation Base enter his body in approximately ten minutes.

"Holy shit..." he whispered, slowly lowering his gaze toward his abdomen.

"So this is what happens when you combine an excellent cultivation technique, ridiculous Feats, a broken Special Power, and pills that were never designed to work together like this."

He had originally been prepared to spend days cultivating, and even that estimate had felt extraordinarily optimistic compared to the standards of Shengyuan.

Yet a single pill had just supplied an enormous portion of the requirement for his next advancement, and the medicinal energy had been absorbed so cleanly that he could scarcely believe it.

Of course, ten thousand points were still only a fraction of the hundred thousand he needed, and there was no guarantee that every subsequent stage would remain equally cooperative.

However, Damian was far too excited to dwell on those uncertainties when the most obvious solution was practically begging to be used.

With an expression that would have made any respectable alchemist deeply uncomfortable, he immediately stretched his greedy hands toward the Exchange Storage again.

Another Condensing Essence Pill appeared between his fingers, and Damian wasted absolutely no time tossing it into his mouth.

"Come on, then!" he declared with a delighted grin as the next reservoir of medicinal energy began pouring into his meridians.

"Let’s see just how much cultivation I can squeeze out of these things before the heavens realize what’s happening!"

The Five Elements Spiritual Canon resumed its intricate circulation, and another powerful vortex formed within his dantian as the second pill began releasing its energy.

Outside, time continued passing normally, but inside Damian’s Qi Sea, another ten-thousand-point reservoir was already being drawn into the relentless machinery of his cultivation!