Time

*Ding

[Host age had reached 100 years]

[You have been gifted thousand hammer strike]

Ivor ignore the notification and kept building, Ivor could make 210 bricks a week which equaled 10920 bricks a year. The speed of creating bricks was acceptable but for such a big building, it was small progress.

Ivor had created 153300 stone bricks within 14 years and he only has completed half of the second story. It may seem that it is a waste of time for Ivor to build his house on such a large scale, except there were benefits in creating it.

Ivor's skills would improve, his manipulation over qi was becoming better each year. He was efficient and created no mistakes while using Qi, he would also control the amount of Qi he used. If Ivor used too much Qi, he would run out too fast but Ivor had created a breathing exercise(mantra), to match his consumption and gathering of Qi.

This allowed Ivor to strengthen his Qi foundation inside his dantian, each time he used Qi and absorbed it back, it would slowly increase his capacity to hold Qi. This was also the reason Ivor did not create more than ten stone bricks at a time, it would break off the momentum of his routine.

The place was improving each day, it had a nice smooth light brown wooden floor, the grains on the wood had a nice fade from straight to slightly bend. The stone had unique engravings and there were no dull walls.

Another ten years passed and the second floor was finished, with the third floor having 2 rooms done otherwise there was really no change.

50 years went by Ivor started to feel like he was getting close to a breakthrough, he stopped his construction.

So far Ivor had managed to create seven floors and he was about to start the eighth floor but he felt that he had to open another page of the soul cultivation technique to break through to the next realm.

Ivor looked at a book in front of him, he kept staring until he moved his hand onto the cover and wiped off the dust on it. it had a blank black cover with nothing on it, he opened the first page, it was blank before it had drawing of a formation.

Ivor hesitated to open the second page, he was slightly afraid of what was to come. His two fingers were pinching the page tightly, if it was normal paper the page would rip instantly.

After few seconds he turned the page over, there was nothing but a black line. Ivor looked at the line confusingly.

"What is this meant to be?"

Suddenly there Ivor felt his soul was sucked away.

Ivor woke up and looked around him, there was nothing. It was dark, almost as if it wasn't even dark. He saw nothing.

Ivor tried using divine sense to sense to around him but he could feel nothing.

Ivor kept trying to find out what was going on, but there were no results.

Ivor got bored and decided to use the time to learn skills he was granted before but never learned.

Ivor took out a technique called hammer smash, it was a mid-earth grade technique he was given. Ivor started to read the content, he could not see but he could feel the book contents with his divine sense. This made Ivor glad, at least he knew his divine sense was working.

Hammer smash had a simple concept, Create a big hammer out of qi, the denser the hammer qi the stronger the attack. Ivor thought the technique should not be an earth-grade technique, but then he found out something.

Ivor noticed, there were hidden words inside the words of the technique. It was the real Hammer Smash.

The first stage was to create the hammer out of Qi, but while forming the hammer they would need to add an elemental Qi into it. This would make the hammer an elemental hammer, this would help to crush the other cultivator's qi by countering it with qi that is stronger against the other.

The second stage was to add a gravity inscription on it, this would add strength to the hammer while the pressure under the hammer would increase, stronger the inscription, faster the other cultivator would fall onto their knees before the hammer has even hit them.

The third stage would be to control the hammer, after using such amounts of Qi to create inscriptions and the density of the hammer qi, they would in the end run out of qi and not be able to even strike.

Ivor had the third stage covered due to his building over the years, he had spent 74 years building his home, he was very confident in his control of qi and inscription writing.

The fourth stage was to increase the speed of the hammer, lighten the hammer. This required Ivor to either use wind qi or write extra inscriptions to put laws on the hammer.

The next few moments Ivor started to practice, he thought it would be easy but realised his hammer was small, his inscriptions were weak. This started to frustrate Ivor, he thought he was strong but realised, he was not cultivating to fight but to create.

Ivor started to ponder, if he was this weak, how weak were his weapons. Ivor had not cared about his own emotions for years, but his emotions suddenly erupted, he was going crazy.

"Why, even if I cultivate to create, why am I so weak, this can't be?!?!"

"Even if my family was alive, they could beat me, I am just a coward hiding inside a cave.."

"Why didn't I look for the culprits?"

"Now, they most likely dead, it has been over 100 years since then?!"

"Oh, god I am old"

"But still I should be stronger?"

Ivor then took out the other, cultivation skill thousand hammer strike, Ivor read it and realised it was just a continuation to the hammer smash technique, but it was a higher tier technique by a whole realm, it was a great earth technique.

This technique was to create thousands of great smash hammers, that's it. It was an extremely powerful technique, but Ivor could hardly create one.

Ivor held the book in his hand and had another mental breakdown.

"Why would the system give me this, does it think I am pathetic and anyone else in my age should be able to do this?"

"No wonder my family is dead, even if I had my current strength, they would have died or left me"

"I would have been abandoned, like in my previous life"

"I... I...Wh...I can't...wait"

Ivor suddenly realised something, why was acting like a child, why was he having a mental breakdown, he made resolve with his family's passing before, It did not matter if he was weak. His family cared about him when he was weak, they supported his blacksmithing. He should not change his desire to be a great blacksmith, he wants to craft tools, weapons, artifacts, buildings. Ivor wants to create anything he desires.

The next second, there was a light it shined bright as the sun, Ivor opened his eyes and noticed his cultivation changed. He was an early Nascent Soul cultivator.