Roughly an hour before Xiao Wu’s breakthrough…

Just as Xiao Wu entered her meditative state, Cheng Hao also sat down cross-legged. However, he did not immediately begin cultivating. Instead, he couldn't help but cast a gaze at a certain golden snake resting atop the table.

"Goldy, would you-?"

“Would I what?” The golden dragon perked up his ears, "Castrate you as you meditate? Don't worry, I'll be sure to take them out in a single blow. The pain will only last for a moment..."

Cheng Hao ignored what he hoped to be a sarcastic remark and instead asked through gritted teeth, "…Blindlight... Could you-?"

“Ah…” the dragon interrupted, "do you really believe I would be making all this fuss over a stupid nickname? Tch! Just what cold-blooded monster do you imagine me to be?" Goldy clicked his tongue while shaking his head.

"Tch! Tch!” He smiled, “I will take care of this ‘sister’ of yours just fine, Stupid Hao. Just go. I do have a heart, unlike a certain damnable bastard over here that cannot help harassing his close companions."

The golden-eyed youth beamed. "Oh, shut up, you, you… You'll make me want to cuddle you!"

"Please, don't." Goldy shuddered.

"Ehehe..."

After assuring that the snake would help the young girl, Cheng Hao finally relaxed and threw himself on the ground, submerging himself in the wondrous meditative state.

Even as Xu Ling, he had personally always enjoyed that part about cultivation; meditation. It allowed people to look at the world, at reality itself all the while increasing their strength. It was like staring in the face of a vast yet blurry truth. As time went on and one grew more and more powerful, that truth would grow to be clearer and clearer... just like gradually waking up from a dream. He enjoyed the revelations that would come whenever the fog would clear up. It had come to the point that he had begun substituting sleep with meditation.

However, this time would be different. He had not entered meditation for the mere pleasure of it; today, he had a massive task to accomplish!

As soon as he sat down, Cheng Hao had already closed his eyes, grabbed the Immortal Ascension Tower and projected his consciousness into it. He only imparted a small part of his Will in the heavenly treasure, and immediately he felt a strong suction force warping his consciousness, somewhere else... As soon as the suction force appeared, the scenery surrounding him changed. The small hut had suddenly vanished and he found himself suspended in a vacuum.

In front of him was a majestic tower, thousands of feet tall, an inverted pagoda made of bronze, silver and gold.

There were a total of fifteen floors, each separated by peculiar, golden halos. These glowing rings wrapped themselves around the sections of the gargantuan tower that connected a floor to the next. What's more, each ring was brighter and glowed a purer golden hue than those located below. Such a dazzling sight was enough to bewilder anyone who would see the golden tower for the first time in its entirety. Cheng Hao however, couldn't be any more familiar with it: for six months, he had struggled to build and perfect the object in front of him. And yet, even after six months of hard and strenuous work, he had failed to accomplish so. Completing the Immortal Ascension Tower was simply too big of a task for a single person to accomplish in such a short time.

And yet, even an incomplete treasure as this could be considered a Martial Way!

As a matter of fact, although Cheng Hao had called the immortal Ascension Tower he had created a Martial Way, it was actually something completely different! At the same time however, it was such a magical existence that it could somehow still be considered a Martial Way… and one surpassing most others at that! It was basically like using a katana to cut one’s vegetables: such a sharp weapon could easily accomplish that job, despite its intended use being different.

And in that case, the Immortal Ascension Tower would be the sharpest katana.

Cheng Hao had crafted such a massive tower to help him accomplish one thing: reach immortality as fast as possible and in the most domineering way!

All of a sudden, the lowermost glowing halo let out a loud cracking sound and began to fall apart. The shards of golden light that formed merged together to become a stream of light particles. In the blink of an eye, this stream had entered Cheng Hao's body! Just like that, foreign Spiritual Energy and odd Qi Strands charged straight into his consciousness! Because of those, Cheng Hao passed directly from the Qi Sensing phase to the Absorption phase!

As for the strange Qi he had ‘Sensed’… even he did not understand it completely. In fact, he only knew it was related to that weird spark that had brought him back from the dead. It was seemingly bland, without any redeeming features to it. At the same time however, it was also the most overbearing, most astonishing, most powerful Sensed Qi Cheng Hao had ever come into contact with.

It was ancient, heavy, dense… yet easily moldable. With it, not only would he be able to utilize a vast number of abilities and methods that would have otherwise been impossible with the 'Golden Gates of Old' Qi he had previously used. Instead, with this new Qi would allow him to use his old abilities, and many, many more! To his knowledge, this Qi could adapt to every scripture in existence and compensate it perfectly; a puzzle piece that could change its shape however one preferred. It was as if its sole purpose was to match and surpass all other Qi, like some sort of Sovereign of all Qi!

Sovereign Qi? That’s… actually not that bad of a name!

Cheng Hao smiled but did not give the two words that had suddenly flashed across his mind too much of a thought.

In short basically, this was a Qi that vastly exceeded all other known Qi present in the world! And such a Qi, it could only be found in one way: by breaking down those glowing rings wrapped around the tall tower! And since the Immortal Ascension Tower was his... he had complete monopoly of this powerful Qi! Well, not that there was enough for many people in the first place…

Back to the golden ring entering the golden-eyed youth's consciousness…

The light stream suddenly divided into thirteen and, upon Cheng Hao's command, these streams started to slowly flow towards his consciousness. Skillfully, Cheng hao weaved them first into the Qi Sea, and then into his Pseudo-Core. Here, he did not have the golden dragon to block any berserk streams, nor did he find the chance to use the Martial Way to ease the condensation process, seeing how he was standing inside it. And yet, even then, both the actions were completed effortlessly and smoothly: Cheng Hao had even been faster than Xiao Wu had, and had easily finished condensing his own Pseudo-Core before the girl had even completed the absorption phase! Not that he was aware of it, being shut-off from the world and all.

Unlike the crystal-clear one the girl would concoct soon thereafter, the golden Pseudo-Core Cheng Hao had made wasn't completely see-through and was instead a bit opaque. This was thanks to the vast amount of Qi he had absorbed from the ring of light. At the moment, although his Spiritual Energy was not up to par, his Qi was at the very limit of what an Inferior stage cultivator could bear. Of course, that had also been carefully calculated by him when he had first created the golden rings of light.

As of the moment he had finished condensing the Core and both Qi and Spiritual Energy were present in a stable manner in his consciousness, he had officially, as per the current definition of those 'Expert' cunts, become an Inferior Stage cultivator!

From then on, each time he would break through to the next stage, he would once again enter the strange space and absorb another ring, which would grant an amount of Qi that would be exactly the limit of what was allowed at each stage before one's consciousness would implode. After doing that, it would only be a matter of absorbing Spiritual Energy, which was neutral (or rather, it was universal) by nature, and thus he would be able to gather it anywhere. He'd then start accumulating as much as he could of it until he'd finally forcefully breakthrough again. Then, he'd just have to rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, until he reached the last, fifteenth stage: the Immortal stage! Once he finally reached that level... he could only wonder what would happen, seeing how a true Immortal had yet to appear in the Heavens and Earth since the beginning of time.

Cheng Hao's consciousness had taken the form of a blurry, humanoid figure. Right now, this silhouette was staring at the inverted pagoda with both pride and determination: the tall tower was his treasure, but it was also a risk he had undertaken. He had used the golden spark in his consciousness to build it. This process had used up so much energy that it could have helped him break through multiple stages and even Realms consecutively.

Instead of going to such lengths as having to restart from scratch, he could have just immediately leveled up instantly. However, he had ultimately chosen not to. The injuries he would have suffered in that case would have been grave at best. If he did not die right away, it would have taken him as much as full centuries to fully recover. On the other hand, were he to start from zero and slowly build himself up from there, those centuries might turn into mere decades, as he not only had the experience and knowledge from his past life, but also the support of the Spark's energy!

Thus, he had built this tower.

It was a tower that wasn't meant to be climbed. Inside though, it housed countless treasures and even living beings that would help him in his cultivation, sealed within the same level he recognized they would be usable at. Some floors however, were left empty, or housed more things than just one. It was a bit of a mess, really, but it wasn't entirely unintentional: he would be able to modify the tower in the future if the Spark were to suddenly regain a bit of its lost energy, otherwise he'd just use what little was left to finish up what he could. After all, it was already a cheat as it was!

Other than helping him breakthrough, those rings of light would immediately propel him more than halfway though his current stage! At the same time that Qi was the hardest to gather, the part it played in a cultivator’s strength vast outclassed that of Spiritual Energy. With his reserves of Qi always being topped out, he was destined to always rank on top, even though the talent of his current body would only be mediocre at best… Cheng Hao would not have held a candle to Xu Ling had he not possessed the Immortal Ascension Tower, and that was a fact!

Finding a drop of blood that would allow him to battle even the Ageless Realm while without cultivation, having more than half of one's cultivation base taken care for by a magical tower, and having the massive amount of knowledge he had acquired in the Tower of Babel magically branded into his mind... Those so-called geniuses would only be able to curse at such injustice. Demons would only be able to cry at the shameless of the Heavens, granting a single person so many gifts. Even gods could only grind their teeth in envy at the luck and favor this child had received from Fate, without being able to take action!

Cheng Hao's opinion on the matter however, was very, very different…

"Luck? There is no such thing as Luck!"

"There is only Xiao Lan!"

"..."

"Don't agree? Fight me!"