As Zhen Shi was coolly walking away from Batsy's corpse, a series of notifications rang out in his mind.

Ding!

The user has gained 10 OP!

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for killing a pseudo-Soul Destruction level demonic beast that was utilizing a divine blessing.

As such, the user gains a whopping total of 200,000 exp!

Ding!

For defeating the first nascent soul level cultivator, the user has earned an Easy Life Chest!

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for reaching the Core Formation Stage 6!

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for reaching the Core Formation Stage 7!

---------------------

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for reaching the Soul Formation Stage 1!

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for reaching Soul Formation Stage 2!

With each notification, the skeletal planet within Zhen Shi's dantian grew stronger, more robust, and more powerful.

But with the final two notifications, a unique change occurred! Slowly, a whirlpool of silver formless energy gathered around the skeletal planet...

Zhen Shi instinctively realized that this energy was Soul Qi, the special energy that separated those of the Soul Primary Stage from the Mortal Primary Stage! It was also the 'imbued soul energy' that had been used by his opponents to prevent themselves from being burned into ashes under !

Zhen Shi could also sense that this Soul Qi could be used in replacement of his arrow intent and bow intent... 'No wonder it is referred to as faux-intent by warriors and faux-mana by mages!'

Slowly, the Soul Qi was absorbed by the Skeletal Planet and disappeared inside. A lustrous sheen appeared on the surface of the planet as if it was now complete and had gained a soul of its own! It was no longer a skeleton... instead, it was an actual planet!

A particular spot on the surface of the skeletal planet shimmered as a portion of the soul qi gathered and formed into a vague shadow of a man, rather similar to Zhen Shi in appearance. Zhen Shi could feel a very close connection with this figure... This was the formation of the Soul!

When ordinary cultivators reached the Soul Formation Stage their Core would be imbued with the Soul Qi which formed the (Pseudo)-Soul. Their Souls were incapable of doing anything besides providing the user with Soul Qi.

However, Zhen Shi's core was a planet... As such, he was able to control his (Pseudo)-Soul and live a second life within the planet!

'Holy Shit! It almost feels as if there are two of me!'

Quickly coming to terms with this fact, Zhen Shi decided what to do with his soul, 'At my current level, the soul isn't too strong and so I can't do anything too strenuous... So I should have the Soul simply explore the planet while practicing a bit of cultivation...'

And so, as Zhen Shi sent his soul out to explore the dantian planet, the System notifications continued.

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for being fortunate enough to earn a Rare Fated Skill Chest for the cultivation advancement!

Zhen Shi was elated at this new notification, but suddenly realized 'Shit! I already have two chests! This means I have already reached maximum capacity! I better open them quickly before I'm refused any more chests just because a 'certain System' is too stingy to keep more than one in the inventory...'

System: "..."

As such, he hurriedly spoke out, "System, open the Fated Skill Chest!"

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for gaining the .

Zhen Shi was pleasantly surprised, "It's time I got the textbook appraisal skill! What's a System without one? But how would it work with such a particular name..."

Ding!

Appraisal/Analysis Skill: [ This Skill will not make the user omniscient (Appraisal)-The Eye will enable the user to instantly identify specifically unique points and aberrations in any item, thus allowing the user to appraise an item based on the user's pre-existing knowledge.

(Analysis)- For a reasonable price of OP, the user may also perfectly analyze items and objects. This includes separating correct knowledge from the incorrect!]

Reading through the skill information, Zhen Shi could only nod his head in agreement. Odin had to sacrifice this eye for his own pseudo-omniscient knowledge. It was only fair for himself to have to pay OP in exchange for knowledge of his own.

But most importantly, he was growing excited as he began to imagine how he could make use of this skill in combination with his Scholarly Library...

But he put this aside for a moment as he still had another chest to open, "System, open the Easy Life Chest!"

Ding!

Congratulations to the user for receiving the book "An Introduction to Useful Materials and How to use them for Dummies"!

Zhen Shi smirked mentally, 'What? System did you think I'd get mad for being given this book? But did you realize that YOU are the one who gave this to me? Since you had it in the first place... can you guess who was the dummy first? Yes! You guessed right. It was you!

But... this might make the Appraisal Skill easier to use... System maybe you aren't a dummy after all!'

System: ಠ~ಠ

Zhen Shi continued to walk away from the dead Batsy like a Boss, with a satisfied grin after having put the System in its place. But suddenly stopped...

He quickly dashed towards Batsy's corpse. slashed it apart with a draconic claw, grabbed a soul qi imbued demonic beast core, pocketed it, and dashed back towards his original position.

Heaving a heavy sigh he continued to walk forwards innocently, 'System. You saw nothing.'

System: "..."

After he walked far enough from the evidence, Zhen Shi realized that it had barely been an hour since he had left. As such, he walked towards the foot of a nearby mountain. Manifesting a pair of draconic claws and Earthen Aether he quickly fashioned a make-shift cave in the cliff and went inside.

Sitting cross-legged, he activated and looked around the cave. With his right eye glowing in a divine golden light, he noticed nothing special...

But, whenever he focused on a rock or a strand of grass, a floating golden lettered word would appear above it saying. either {Rock} or {Grass}.

Zhen Shi fell into thought, 'So this is the (Appraisal) part of the skill...'

Moving on, he manifested the Divine Bow and observed it with the golden eye. But to his surprise, all he saw was some basic information about the bow that he already knew within golden lettered words.

As such, he attempted to activate the (Analysis) part of the skill.

Ding!

This action will use 100 OP. Is the user sure?

Zhen Shi was speechless. That was enough OP for a random divine boon! He wasn't going to waste that much on a test run!

Putting the Bow aside, Zhen Shi decided to enter into the Scholarly Library and try out the Analysis skill there.

Walking into the Scholarly Library and activating the skill, he was pleasantly surprised to realize that he could analyze any four books in exchange for just 1 OP!

As such, he moved over to the "Cultivation" section, picked out four books, and analyzed them.

He first read through the most recently learned skill, [Descending Bow]. Flipping through the skill book he saw that around fifty sections had been blurred out. Thinking about the skill which he had practiced, Zhen Shi realized that the skill made much more sense when those fifty parts were removed! However... it also left fifty unexplained gaps...

'Shit! Where's a compile feature to combine books and auto-correct these flaws when you need one?'

Either way, the fact that he knew those sections were incorrect was sufficient in itself to improve his skill substantially.

Realizing that he could do nothing else for the moment, Zhen Shi moved on.

Next, he read, the [Unarmed Water Style], which had a little bit more blurred sections or flaws, around 70 in total. Thinking about this, Zhen Shi was able to make some improvements again. However, he was rather curious as to how Butler Alec possessed a skill that was better than one made by an actual Sovereign...

Moving on, he next read through [Draconic Wind Steps]. Since he only had access to the First Step, Zhen Shi could only analyze that part. And it only had 3 blurred sections!

But those sections were way too complex for him. As such, he was unable to make sense of the skill without those sections... In the end, he was unable to make much progress in [Draconic Wind Steps].

The final book which he tried out, was his own cultivation technique, . And to his surprise, he found out that there were no flaws! In other words, his current cultivation technique was perfect! At least according to Odin's opinion it was...

As for his other skills such as , , or , there were no books for him to analyze. After all, those skills were not based on learning or practice. Instead, they depended on material objects placed in his dantian or simply flashing his private parts...

Now that he had a fairly good idea about the combined power of the Scholarly Library and , Zhen Shi fell into deep thought. In the end, if he wished to fix the problems in these skills he needed actual knowledge. But, as much as he would enjoy it, he didn't wish to waste years memorizing and studying books or inside the Scholarly Library...

Suddenly, his eyes glowed as he realized a possible solution!

Going over to the Soul in his dantian planet, he tested his idea, and was very happy to realize that his soul too could access the Scholarly Library!

As such, Zhen Shi had his soul stop its current actions and instead begin memorizing books, starting from the more important ones such as Cultivation and Martial Arts. He also set aside 9 OP for his soul to use on analyzing any books.

Nevertheless, he realized that his current collection of books on cultivation and martial arts was rather lacking and made a mental note to gather more books...

Either way, Zhen Shi was rather pleased with his idea of 'outsourcing' the hard work to his soul! It would feel like he did the work...when he actually didn't!

Deciding he had tried out the skill enough, Zhen Shi returned back to the cave and manifested the book given by the system, which appeared as a rather thick dark red leather-bound book. He had decided to read it properly and memorize it himself as it had come out of an 'easy life chest'.

Soon Zhen Shi's inner bookworm was completely entranced by the vast amount of details in the book. Although titled for 'dummies', it could be truly considered a complete guide for material identification!

The book gave detailed information on almost every mineral, herb, and beast material in existence along with how to easily identify them, possible locations where one could find them, their general sales value, etc. Zhen Shi was surprised to even find information regarding materials that he knew for a fact didn't exist in the Central Plains!

The book also provided basic information regarding the process of using the said materials, in various fields including alchemy, black-smithing or artificing, enchanting, etc.

The Book contained an utterly humongous amount of information packed into its pages. Even cultivators had a limit to their working memory. But, Zhen Shi was able to wrap up the book in a few hours. With the Scholarly Library, he could be assured that he wouldn't forget any of it within a short time.

Not to mention that this book had greatly improved the usefulness of the (Appraisal) portion of !

But by the time he wrapped up his reading, the sun had almost ended setting and the first stars were already apparent in the sky. But he spent another hour testing out and made some more interesting discoveries...

As such, Zhen Shi who was more than satisfied with his rewards began to make his way back to Myne and Vivienne.

He didn't fly since he decided to test out the Appraisal skill on the way. Thus by the time he returned, he was able to gather some useful herbs and minerals.

He finally entered into a clearing with a crackling fire. Above the fire was a steaming pot covered with a lid... and Zhen Shi's bestial sense of smell could already smell something delicious.

Noticing his arrival, Myne and Vivienne called out to him with warm smiles, "You're finally back! Come quick or the food will get cold--" but stopped abruptly with widened eyes of surprise.

Zhen Shi was confused, 'What? Have I become an elephant? Is there a Dong'er on my face?'

Noticing his confusion, Myne asked curiously, "Your cultivation? How did it improve so fast? Could it be that--?"

Zhen Shi was confused as to what he should do.

But with a smile and a shake of his head, he decided to come clean with a half-truth. He would probably be with these two for a long while, and it was only a matter of time before they realized something was off. As such, he replied simply, "Well... let's just say that I possess a special physique that allows me to grow stronger with each kill!"

Myne gasped and said, "Shit, really? That seems like an unnecessarily overpowered physique! To think that I thought you were just hiding your cultivation!"

At the same time, Myen fell into thought, 'I suppose it makes sense! No wonder this brother of mine was unhappy when we killed beasts in front of him!'

But Zhen Shi was speechless, ಠ_ಥ, 'Nani? I could've gotten away with such a lame excuse?'