“Now, this is a problem”, looking at my arm, I couldn’t help but mutter.

It’s still a bit strange to call this chubby baby arm mine but… Ooops, almost went off the topic here.

As for why I am so concerned with my arm is because of the skin that is shedding off of it. After tiny pieces of skin fall off, they get replaced with white marble-like microscopic scales.

And it’s only been but a single day after I ended cultivating the technique for Qi-Refinement. Master had brought me to my hut already and a few hours later I noticed the problem.

Actually, the scales aren’t quite a problem… In fact, they are something that would make others burn in envy but for me right now, the process of shedding is quite troublesome.

Well, let’s just call Master and decide what to do.

…

“Now, this is a problem”, looking at my arm and my face, Master couldn’t help but mutter.

“What do we do, Master?”

“First thing first, the process of body metamorphosis is going perfectly fine. It would be a shame to forcefully end it”, he said, elegantly reclining in a chair made of dark oak.

“Indeed, though I wouldn’t mind doing so if the need arises”, Master looked at me like I was an alien after I said it, though his elegant bearing didn’t change even for a bit.

How does one manage to look so perplexed and yet still seem so impeccable when it comes to the atmosphere? Is it the face? it’s definitely the face! How unfair the world is!

“No, it’s not the face, it’s self-control and a lot of battle experience”, did I say it out loud? “And I indeed find it baffling how you can give up such a great opportunity so easily”

“It’s just a bodily metamorphosis, it’s too easy to achieve”

“And you dare to talk about unfairness of the world? Your face barely changes expressions because your skin is too thick there”, he pinched my cheek after he said it.

“You are right, Master!”, I stuck out my chest and beat my left arm on it.

“It wasn’t a compliment”, he pinched my cheek again.

You may wonder what we are talking about and… let me explain! What? You don’t want another exposition in the middle of the narrative? It seems my hearing is bad, who hates expositions? Obviously you said: “Yes, we love an exposition in the middle of the narrative!”

Anyway! As I have said it already, cultivation mainly relies on furthering the growth of the spirit. And the spirit is something that is born out of the interactions between the body and the soul.

“The soul is boundless and timeless, it holds all the truths of the Great Way. It’s the ocean where all rivers flow and we are but bubbles born upon it’s surface” -at least so is said in the Passages of Immortal Ascension - an intergalactic classic that every cultivator has probably heard of at least once in their life.

Basically, it means we don’t need to cultivate the soul as it’s impossible a priori.

The body, on the other hand, is something we have to hone and refine all the time. Otherwise, the spirit won’t be able to grow further.

“Without a solid foundation, there won’t be the building called Future”

This was written in the little blue books of the Interstellar Socialist Cultivation Union, one of the few pieces of evidence proving the existence of this nation.

There are quite a lot of things an elitist like me wants to argue with when it comes to those books’ contents but this phrase is something I wholeheartedly support.

The natural laws of the Universe when it comes to things concerning cultivation seem to support it too, as evidenced by the fact that without a good body it’s impossible to cultivate far.

Demons have it easier than humans – they are not only born with powerful bodies, but they possess higher than average by human standards academic ability since pretty much the moment they are born as well as a hundred percent rate of being born with spirit roots and a considerable lifespan of at least 400 years even without cultivation.

And don’t even let me begin on talking on higher demons like her- wuwafgg

I said “don’t let me begin talking about it”, not “shut my mouth”!

Anyway...

Basically, they are on a whole different level than humans when it comes to cultivation. Or pretty much anything else. Except for their birth rate though, or else humans would end up being their livestock. Nah, they would just genocide humans off the face of the Universe.

But! I! Digress!

Why do I diverge when it comes to monologues so often?

Anyway.

Humans have to strengthen their bodies in order to go further on the path of cultivation.

A strong body has countless benefits, ranging from better speed of cultivation to stronger attack power of the spells.

Many cultivators have to search high and low for the resources and the techniques needed to increase their bodies’ power.

The problem with this method of body strengthening is that many impurities build up in the body, making further upgrades harder, if not impossible.

Well, there’s a shortcut.

Simply cultivating increases the body’s quality as the spirit grows.

It’s because there exists a kind of balance between the body, the soul and the spirit.

The spirit rises, the soul is immortal and unchanging so it always helps to balance things out, the body gets dragged upwards.

Usually such an increase in quality is very small, though sometimes that small push is enough to tip the scales and let the body ascend to a higher stage on its own.

This method doesn’t let the impurities build up and as it grows according to the spirit's growth, further enhancement is easier.

This kind of growth is so beneficial for cultivators that they call it all kinds of exaggerated names like: “Divine Rebirth of the Earthen Body”(The Daoist faction uses it), “Heaven and Earth Vessel Elevation”(Used often by the small Righteous factions), “Body of the Bodhisattva”(Buddhist factions), “Evil Black Dragon Body Reincarnation”(Me during my Demonic cultivation years. Fuck Demonic cultivation), “Bodily Metamorphosis”(Scholarly Faction, including (normal)me and Master)

This kind of growth is a rare occasion for normal cultivators but for me it’s too easy.

I don’t wanna brag(I do) but in the previous timeline I never had to bother with body cultivation. My cultivation talent easily promotes the quality of the spirit and the changes are usually large enough to just force the body’s quality upwards.

YES! I made this whole long monologue just to flex! Got a problem with it?

As for why this is a problem for me now, it’s because the body doesn’t just suddenly gets stronger out of nowhere.

The body is physical, the spirit is spiritual (or hyperphysical but those two adjectives are synonymous in the Cultivation World).

The body still needs something to use for growth, in my case it uses the Aura between Heaven and Earth, or rather it inflicts serious changes in potentials in this field in order to acquire the energy necessary.

Alright, it’s a gross and painful simplification that doesn’t follow the way of scientific thought at all but a better explanation would require the listeners to have the kind of theoretical background that can only be acquired after hundred of years of scholarly pursuit of knowledge and the kind of practical background that can only be acquired after the listeners built their own Interstellar battleship on their lonesome from scratch so just be fine with what I gave you.

Basically, it cultivates on its own. Done! A simple, gross and completely unreliable explanation that is not rigorous at all! I feel all filthy and naughty now.

And since it cultivates(kinda sorta but not really), it’s obviously something I must avoid, for at least a year as my meridians are too fragile and weak right now.

I am more or less safe as it hasn’t reached the point of producing qi but once it does… I might actually die again.

So this is a bit of a problem. Well, I have an idea for a solution, but I’m not sure. I’ve never had to stall or stop the metamorphosis. There’s literally no meaning to do so outside of special cases like my current one.

“Oalus?”, Master’s hand was waving right in front of my eyes, “Are you unwell?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you for the concern, Master”

“Right. I can’t come to a conclusion yet. How long can you last?”

“A week, maybe two at most”

“Then let me take a sample of your flesh, so I can analyze it and come up with a plan”

“Sure, go ahead, Master”, I’m pretty sure how he is going to solve it but I think it won’t hurt if he studies the phenomenon. It may help him get some kind of inspiration.

…

“Alright, after analyzing the samples, I have come to the conclusion that the process may be delayed up to 1.5 years if you go to a region with poor aura”, Master wearing glasses looks so good.

I don’t know whether it’s beautiful or handsome but I’m sure if I released a photo of him in glasses on a planet with a civilization that developed a large information network, the planet would face a population crisis because most of the population would fall in love with him and just not want to date anyone else.

He is that dangerous.

“Got it, Master”, His solution was just as I expected. It doesn’t take a genius to come up with it, really, though I was a bit afraid that lacking intensity of the aura would cause strange changes yet again.

I don’t want the body to suddenly start reproducing cells at a fast pace and get cancer just because I went for the most obvious solution without thinking too much, which is why I have been staying at the sect. Master is also not a fool by any measure, so he didn’t put me in any different environment.

Besides, it took only two days for him to complete his analysis.

“What is this, Master?”, Maste outstretched his two arms in front of me and gave me a sheath.

“A black gold sword”

“And why are you outstretching a sheath with it in front of me, Master?”

“So you can use it. I decided it may be a good idea to drop you off in a wuxia country”

What’s a wuxia country again?

Aaah! It’s me forgetting the language. Wuxia stands for Wurathi Xiar, or martial arts in this planet’s language.

Martial arts… It’s kind of like cultivation, but infinitely worse and only mortals do it.

I would say more about it but I never bothered to learn about such things.

“A martail arts country?” - “It’s “martial”, Oalus” - “Yes, a martial arts country? Why?”

Master tapped his chin with his index finger and then spoke, “I reckon you haven’t interacted with mortals in the previous timeline a lot, am I right?”

“Yes, Master”, I did interact a lot, but the kind of interaction that is used for promotion of cultivation as a demonic practitioner as well as occasional experimentation for the sake of bettering my formation arts and the kind of interaction Master is talking about are two different things… I think.

“Do you remember how I picked you up, Oalus?”

Hm… It was so long ago, I barely remember. Hm…

“I am afraid I can’t remember-”

“It’s alright, Oalus”

“But I’m sure it was a good day, since Master picked me up!”, I gave him the brightest smile my barely moving facial muscles could make.

“Sigh, Oalus...”, he stroked my head and looked at me with a difficult expression. Was there anything wrong?

“Master?”

“What do you remember of your parents?”

“Not much, really. They were mortals and probably poor. They seemed to have abandoned me at some point but that’s all”, abandoned? I wouldn’t say this if they gave me to Master, so, maybe-

“Sigh...”, He stroked my head again, this time the look in his eyes was even more complex, “You are right. But why are you so calm about it?”

“To me, it was so long ago. Master, I may be alright with you stroking my head like I’m a child, but I am over a thousand years old on the inside?”

“Sigh..”, I don’t quite understand what is wrong with Master’s mood. Also, what does it have to do with going to that maritime country? Did he catch my loose-focus-in-the-middle-of-the-sentence-disease? He also keeps stroking my head. I am very much fine with it, but I won’t lose any hair later, right? I’m no Buddhist monk and last time I shaved my head was so long ago and during – FUCK DEMONIC CULTIVATION!

“You also weren’t able to understand what was wrong with it, even before you were a thousand years old on the inside. You took it as something natural even when I found you”

“Well, I was a child-”

“And you were about to freeze to death”, he took a big breath. He’s being so overly dramatic. But even him being so dramatic is too beautiful. I need a camera. I need a camera now, “You were left out on the street, your limbs broken. Your parents thought you were a monster and let the people of the village lynch you”, he squeezed his hands into fists. He shouldn’t do it- *Boom* See? Master is at the Nascent soul stage, him just squeezing fists causes a small explosion when he doesn’t control it. And he didn’t seem to notice, “Those monsters”

Somebody! Give! Me! A! Recording! Stone!

Master looking angry is so sexy. It’s really out of this world. My heart is about to die.

I put my hand on master’s arm and spoke with a soft tone

“Master, please calm down. It’s all in the past. But thank you for caring so much about me”, I smiled brightly again. While not on the level of master’s little child avatar, I dare say my smile is also capable of making people have peaceful thought and raising the mood. Our Kang cultivation lineage is all full of photogenic faces.

But Master seemed even more agitated.

“Anyway, Master, why do I need to go to that matriarchal country?”

“It’s martial country, Oalus”, I know but it’s fun to make these mistakes, “And I want you to take another look at mortal civilizations. I know it’s not my place to teach you anymore but I believe that you will see a better side to humans after you live among them for a while. Please, fulfill this request of mine”

“I will, but Master? Aren’t civilizations where mortal arts are practiced violent? I doubt they will be able to appeal to me. Besides, I know humans well enough, I have seen a lot of their civilizations in the Interstellar Domain. Also, you will always be my Master. My respect for you never waned, not a bit”

“Thank you, Oalus. And despite the violence, I’m sure that there will be beautiful parts to them too that you will find. And violence can be found everywhere, there is no point in trying to hide it. Cutting parts of a painting is an insult to art, artist and viewer”

“But can I request an umbrella made of a light but sturdy metal instead? Preferably with fabric made out of mithril threads”

“No, take the sword. You can’t practice spells, so abstract weapons are out of the way. I will teach you a sword martial art today too”, abstract weapons are things that without magic have no real offensive capability.

Cultivators don’t use weapons the same way mortals do, they use the Dao they associate with the weapon to fight.

One of my best friends from the previous timeline, the Undefeated Shovel God, was able to reach the peak of weapon mastery with an abstract weapon.

But neither my Wrecking Ball (which I can’t use) nor my umbrella are purely abstract.

Besides, I don’t need a Sword Art, I can handle a mortal sword.

When I told it to Master, he replied:

“Martial artists can use rudimentary magical powers when practiced to an extent They even have cultivation realms and a metamorphosis of their own. The most powerful of them can even contend with early-stage Foundation Establishment disciples”

“They can do so much? But how is it even possible?”

“I will teach it to you today”, Master smiled warmly. Maybe him having things to teach me gave him some confidence and increased the connection we have as a master and a disciple.