The moment I learned I'd traveled through time, I noticed my village was different. Something had changed. I stepped outside and saw a Qi Refining cultivator. I was shocked.
"My village only had one cultivator before, and that was me," I thought. "How could there be another?" Being smart, I quickly wondered, "Is this because of my time travel? Did something change, or is this the work of the Heavens?" Even though these weren't the right answers, it proved something had changed.
I went back inside my house and started to refine my body.
Body refining was like the very first step in cultivation. Until your body could gather Qi, you couldn't cultivate at all. As I refined my body, I remembered something important: "Tomorrow is my 18th birthday, and also the start of my cultivation journey."
When I found out about my false spiritual root, I thought about it for a whole day before deciding to cultivate anyway.
It was almost midnight, and my body refining was going well. But then, suddenly, something appeared out of nowhere.
That blue thing floating above the ground startled Long Wei for a moment.
I stared at the blue floating window, completely dumbfounded. I immediately thought, "Something is wrong. This never happened in my past life."
"You can even talk in my mind?" I, Long Wei, already surprised, blurted out.
"I can't cultivate yet. My body isn't ready to cultivate," I argued. "You don't know such a simple thing, yet you say you'll guide me?"
"Huh? I'm still in the Body Refining Realm. Are you sure you're okay?" I said.
I thought, "No Body Refining Realm? How is that possible? How can someone cultivate without preparing their body to gather Qi?" I soon realized the world had changed a lot.
"If there's no Body Refining Realm, then how does one gather Qi?" I asked.
A new floating window appeared with these words:
I looked at the words and couldn't believe it. When did cultivation become this easy? Where were the other steps like gathering, refining, and absorbing? The cultivation Long Wei knew was split into three steps: first, gathering the Qi from heaven and earth, then refining it, and finally, absorbing it. These steps were why I couldn't reach the Heavenly Deity Middle Layer sooner. It took too much time to finish the steps, and it was even harder if your spiritual roots were bad.
"So where is my Qi Gathering Manual? I can't see it anywhere," I asked.
I replied "yes." After I said that, a new floating window appeared with the word "Inventory" at the top, like a sect's symbol. Then below came words like:
I saw them and clicked on the first one.
After clicking, a new detailed description of the Qi Gathering Manual appeared:
I clicked back, then I clicked on the Aetheria Bloom manual, and what was written inside shocked me:
"Isn't this the Supreme Grade cultivation manual I got from searching in my past life?" I thought. "But what are these C. Grade and A. Grade?" Confused, I asked the System:
"What are C. Grade and A. Grade?"
I understood and thought, "Isn't this just amazing? I got my Supreme Grade cultivation manual! Now I can gather Qi faster by killing some low-level cultivators!" I was excited. After all the suffering, I finally got something truly useful. I thought for a moment and said,
"I was just curious because I heard it from someone. System, can you show me how to use cultivation manuals to cultivate?"