The sun had dawned but Yulian was fast asleep. The previous day, he had crazily trained to finally create his original blade technique, ‘Violetsun Radiance’. After this, he fell fast asleep, giving in to his exhaustion. Surrounded by beer cans and bottles and cigarette butts, a 7 year old child was peacefully sleeping.

Unexpectedly, Yulian was experiencing a lucid dream. He found himself in a familiar world. He was seated in a lotus posture on a prayer mat in a respectful posture. In front of him was the giant golden dragon who had passed on to him the miraculous cultivation technique of the Draconic Flame Rebirth!

This was the Dragon Sovereign of the 2nd Generation! Yulian only knew him by his title, and knew nothing else about him. However, when he passed on his cultivation technique to him, Yulian kowtowed to him as a disciple. Yulian couldn’t help but feel intense respect for his mysterious master.

“You are receiving this transmission due to having comprehended the Essence of Fire with your soul and consolidated the foundation of the Five Colored Stones. To reach this level, you must either be a youngster with frightful comprehension, or a senior cultivator who has treaded upon the path of cultivation for a long time and even so, severed all progress to cultivate in my Blazing Nirvana Rebirth technique.”

Hearing this, Yulian felt surprised.

“There are two great paths of cultivation and two types of cultivators in this world: Martial Cultivators which cultivates the physical body and yuan qi and Symbol Masters who cultivate the soul and mental energy. The Blazing Nirvana Rebirth is to take rebirth as a dragon, embarking on these twin paths is only natural!

However, it is extremely difficult to refine the soul and body together in the initial stages of cultivation. The only way is to master profound elemental martial arts, and engrave the elemental comprehension derived from them to build up the soul. This is a quite unorthodox method, however it creates a good foundation for cultivating the soul!

You are qualified to gain the transmission for the complete Five Colored Stone technique. My other disciples would only get the instructions for cultivating the Five Colored Stone technique further after cultivating the previous step to perfection.” The dragon’s words were filled with the solitary pride of a cultivator who had lived life in seclusion for countless years. This kind of person would never easily accept disciples, however he had ended up becoming his disciple due to fortuitous chance!

Yulian felt strangely guilty. He had already deviated from the path laid down by him, bringing disrespect to the powerful figure by being disobedient to his guidance. However, he couldn’t move a finger in this dream. All he could do was listen to his guidance.

“All cultivators aim to create a solid, stable cultivation base. This is because a chaotic, unstable cultivation base creates many hidden injuries while revolving it throughout the body, injures the meridians and dantian and generally makes it impossible to cultivate past a certain boundary. The pure, solidified form of yuan qi is the best material for laying down a solid foundation in cultivation. It allows you to cultivate without bottlenecks, increases the regeneration of essence, qi and spirit and increases the amount of energy you can refine into a foundation!”

“You have created a thunder sea within your dantian. Now, the next step forward is to transfer the thunder energy into the depths of your dantian, divide thunder into fire and metal and condense them into solid stones in the Five Phase Foundation!” On hearing these words, a strange feeling welled within Yulian. He had condensed a Fire and Metal Stone in his dantian. Is it possible for me to correct my deviation?

The Dragon Sovereign continued. “Let me pass to you the complete cultivation methods.” He simply flicked his claw at Yulian. A large amount of information was directly sent to Yulian’s brain! “Comprehend it thoroughly.”

Yulian drove himself into comprehending the memories. A few minutes later, he confirmed that he had indeed condensed the Fire and Metal stones correctly. It was possible for him to cultivate as if he had never deviated in the cultivation technique!

“When you have condensed the Fire and Metal stones, the sea of qi in your dantian will be in a golden color. It might seem that it is a small amount of qi… but you can fuse the energies of the Fire and Metal stones within the dantian into it, allowing you to burst out more energy in a pinch.”

“After refining the Fire and Metal Stones, you need to condense the Wood, Earth and Water Stones as well. This is the complete cultivation method with which you can reach the Perfection of the Five Colored Stones Realm. After you reach this stage, I shall return to provide guidance to you.”

“It would be helpful to you if you cultivate a body strengthening technique for now. Until you perfectly condense the Five Colored Stones in your dantian, you cannot condense dragon qi and refine your body. A body strengthening technique which has any of natural elements as the foundation will do. A fire elemental technique will be the best, of course. Now, before we part, let me pass to you an attacking technique. Ordinary techniques cannot burst out the full power of your unique cultivation base…” Once again, the Dragon Sovereign flicked his claws at Yulian.

The technique passed this time was a technique called Five Way Heaven Seal! This technique could attack with pure elemental energy. There were Five Heavens in this technique. The Dragon Sovereign had transmitted only the First Heaven of the technique to him... However, this First Heaven contained 20 seals! Among them, Yulian could use only 6 of them. However, as Yulian’s cultivation base and comprehension rose, he would gain the ability to use all the seals.

“My disciple, we shall part now. Diligently cultivate.” After saying these words, the Dragon Sovereign disappeared like a dream. And the dream Yulian was absorbed in, came to an end.

…

The next day when Yulian woke up, he found out that the cigarette stubs and beer bottles were cleaned up and the foul smell of nicotine and booze had disappeared. Yulian couldn’t help but cringe at the memory of the night before. His alcohol tolerance had risen up so the only way to get drunk was to drink harder…

However, it was extremely helpful. Yulian felt as if a major weight had been lifted from his back. His mind felt clearer and his body felt stronger. During the drunken night, he settled all grievances of the past that plagued his heart.

Not only that, the biggest problem he was dealing with had been completely solved! He had deviated from the Five Colored Stones technique, but fixing it was quite simple!

‘Of course, a technique created by that Dragon Sovereign wouldn’t be easy to deviate from in the first place… If I had used my original plan of creating a Lightning Sea in my dantian, it would have allowed me to fix my deviation, though at the cost of grievous internal injuries and risk of crippling… It is good that I don’t have to do that.’

Yulian’s deviation from the cultivation technique meant that he would find it impossible to progress above the Perfect Metal Stone stage in his cultivation. To break through to the Wood Stone Stage, he would have to create a new qi circulation pattern to create a Lightning Sea.

After creating the Lightning Sea in the dantian, the golden energy sea and the Fire and Metal stones he had condensed would be damaged by the backlash. After all, Yulian’s knowledge about the meridians, dantian, qi circulation patterns and other cultivation knowledge was nearly nonexistent.

In the VR System, Yulian’s real body would be perfectly copied. There, he could use the trial and error method to work out a qi circulation pattern that would create a Lightning Sea in his dantian and allow him to progress further. This method would put him through a lot of pain and decimate his mental health, but as long as he carried on, he would certainly be able to create a new qi circulation technique and fix his deviation.

Fortunately, he had acquired the entire Five Colored Stones cultivation technique manual and quickly understood an easy way of fixing his deviation. There was no need for expending pain and effort to fix his deviation!

Yulian was in an exceptionally good mood. He checked the time on the clock. It was 10:42 AM.

Yulian was surprised by the displayed time. He usually woke up at 6 AM and slept at 12 AM. In the 18 hours of the day, he maximized the time he could spend on training. This was the first time in a long while that he broke his schedule.

Before meditating on the Dragon Paragon’s advice, Yulian decided to eat something. He was quite famished after last night.

After stretching for a while, he got up and went in the direction of the kitchen. He adjusted his expression to a mildly frustrated look. He needed this look for the little scheme he was planning…

…

“Stella, cook some breakfast for me!” Pulling out a single seat on the wide dinner table, Yulian shouted in a childish voice.

“As you command, young master.” The voice that answered was quite respectful. It seemed that the figure in the maid outfit had appeared out of nowhere. Striding into the kitchen, she immediately began preparing the ingredients.

“Stella, you must be training in a stealth type martial art, right?” Yulian decided to begin a conversation.

“Misty Wind, A-Rank manual.” Yulian was surprised at Stella’s reveal of her martial arts manual. Usually, martial artists were fond of keeping their trump cards hidden.

“Oh, that’s a spear manual, right? It is famous for the footwork technique, though. The Dao Yin technique… it tempers the body by subjecting it to bitter cold. From what I hear, it is quite popular among women. What stage have you reached in cultivating it?” Yulian did search for information about popular martial art techniques.

“I’ve reached the peak of the 4th stage… Breaking through to the 5th stage is quite difficult. And you… what stage have you reached in cultivating the Nine Stage Thunder Blade?” Stella’s voice was filled with curiosity. She had expended a lot of effort to get him the cheap cigarettes and beer yesterday. Did he actually gain an insight and break through?

“Oh, you are actually at the peak of the 4th stage, huh… The Misty Wind technique has 6 stages in total. The 5th Stage is quite hard on the body and requires the physique of a Wargod to train in… The true bottleneck for you is entering the Wargod level. You are pretty damn talented, huh?” Yulian made an expression as if he was jealous of her.

“Not quite as talented as you, young master. Did you gain any insights in your cultivation yesterday?” Despite keeping her trademark cold expression, Stella felt quite delighted. This 7 year old boy, with a body which had infinite potential and even the power of a spirit reader, was actually jealous of her!

“I understood that I am quite untalented in the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. I gained an insight… that if I obtained 30 pieces of crysoprase, I can cultivate to the 4th Stage of the Thunder Blade in a single year! However, it is impossible… a single piece of crysoprase is worth 30 million dollars! 900 million… Getting this much is impossible for me!” Yulian spoke with an exhausted expression.

“You… did you break through to the 3rd Stage of the Thunder Blade before this?” Yulian could see that Stella was trying hard to conceal the surprise she felt from his words.

“I will require 6 pieces of crysoprase to break through to the 3rd stage…” In a morose tone, Yulian continued speaking.

This time Stella’s expression shifted. Hurriedly changing to a sympathetic expression, she began speaking. “Did you forget Master Catalan’s bet with you? You can get 100 billion dollars if you manage to make him bleed…”

“How dumb do you think I am? Our match is in six days. He is a Wargod while I am a Warrior. Even if I display my Second Stage Nine Stage Thunder Blade technique at full power, it is impossible for me to even scratch him. His battle experience and training isn’t a joke…” Yulian made a show of being in an exceptionally morose mood.

“…Young master, the previous time, you only used a single piece of crysoprase. You have the two pieces of crysoprase for breaking through to the 2nd stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade left. The four pieces of crysoprase… you would usually receive them as rewards for breaking through to the 3rd Stage of the Thunder Blade, but I am allowed to give them to you for your breakthrough. Also, you still possess the Blood Spirit Grass and Ginseng for your cultivation breakthroughs… you have plenty of resources for your use.” Stella said this in an encouraging voice. Even though he was a highly talented fighter-cum-spirit reader, he was also a 7 year old who was prone to panicking.

“So what you are saying is that I can get the six pieces of crysoprase for my breakthrough!” Yulian suddenly shouted in an excited tone.

“That’s exactly what I am saying. You do not have to be too worried… if you manage to break through to the 3rd stage of the Thunder Blade technique, you strength will be boosted by a force multiplier of 2.8. Your power will be near that of a Beginner Warlord. Injuring a Wargod won’t be impossible then.”

“…Catalan is an adept spearfighter. A spear is a weapon suited for defense and it is unlikely for me to break through his guard, even when he is holding back. Can you spar with me later? I need to create countermeasures against his spear.” As Yulian said this, he looked questioningly at Stella.

“I will be happy to help you in your training… But for now, please enjoy your breakfast.” Stella smiled as she served the exquisitely cooked Horde Leader meat to Yulian. Her opinion of Yulian had changed with their conversation today.

Even though Yulian was a talented fighter, he was also a 7 year old. She disliked that he spent the majority of time playing VR games instead of training, but a 7 year old child would prefer playing games rather than training, wouldn’t he? His knowledge about some subjects was large, but he knew pitifully little about other subjects.

Yulian actually thought that his talent in cultivating the Nine Stage Thunder Blade was low! He had reached the First Stage when he arrived at the manor, the Second Stage after a week and he even said that he could break into the Third Stage after swallowing 6 pieces of crysoprase!

The reasons behind his miraculous growth were quite easy to understand: the Nine Stage Thunder Blade tempered the muscles and bones. The undeveloped body of a 7 year old is the best ‘raw material’ for such tempering!

As for breaking into the Fourth Stage, it required good insight and comprehension. He would have to modify the blade and footwork technique to suit himself. As for whether he could do it in a year… Stella didn’t believe it to be impossible.

For the first time, she thought that the little Yulian was quite an adorable child.

Meanwhile, Yulian quietly ate his meat-filled breakfast. He masterfully acted like an ordinary 7 year old and got Stella to hand him 6 crysoprases for cultivating the Nine Stage Thunder Blade! He required this much to break through to the 6th Stage of the Thunder Blade’s Dao Yin technique.

As for mastering the body refining aspect of the Thunder Blade technique, he would require 30 crysoprases. The reason for the low amount was due to his body still being at the Warrior stage of cultivation. Naturally, low amount of resources would be used for tempering his comparatively weak body!