Black Qi and New Techniques

As he observed the black smoke ball in the palm of his soul body, Meng Tian instantly knew that this must be some thing like that of an elemental qi ball.

He observed it very carefully for sometime and took a deep breath as his soul body swallowed the ball. A cold feeling permeated through his entire body and his soul shivered for a moment when Meng Tian lost consciousness.

Meng Tian opened his eyes into a world filled with darkness. It looked as if a black smoke was continuously weaving complex runes into the world around him. He was standing at the heart of it and this black smoke suddenly formed into a vortex piercing through the center of his chest.

His body did not reject this and began to become one with it. As time passed, his body began to wither and become lifeless. After a while, this dried out with its lifeless eyes, stopped this absorption process and the darkness around him vanished.

As he opened his eyes, Meng Tian was still in his room, seated on the bed, which was now completely drenched in sweat. There were also a series of prompts in front of his eyes.

[Special Talent Unlocked: Death Affinity]

[Death Affinity Lv.1 (0/10)]

Meng Tian immediately looked into his consciousness space and found his Soul still seated in a meditative stance with its eyes closed. It was just as he remembered, a fully white soul surrounded by a golden aura. However, there was a small black dot at the center of its chest.

Just as he looked at this black spot, he was instantly entranced by it. He could see that this black dot was actually a densely packed area of black colored runes continuously rotating around themselves. However, a golden light flashed from his soul and Meng Tian was brought out his trance.

"This thing is way too mysterious... Death Affinity huh... Looks like my dumb luck brought me something quite interesting."

His Soul body opened its eyes and used the newly acquired Death talent to call upon its corresponding qi. At that moment, indescribably cold and dark particles started to gather in his palm. He then sent this qi into one of the dead bodies inside his consciousness space and immediately, the dead body began to wither with increasing speed.

It was as it this body was attacked by a virus and after sometime, this body looked as if it had aged by a hundred years. Meng Tian was ecstatic to find out such an application for his death talent. He used his fire talent to burn off all the remaining dead bodies and collected the black smoke balls.

There were death qi balls and Meng Tian did not hesitate to swallow them into his mouth. As he did so, the number of runes in the black dot at the center of his chest increased a bit.

[Death Affinity Lv.2 (8/100)]

Meng Tian did not pause his actions, as he used up his Energy Points to level up this talent.

920 Energy Points spent... [Death Affinity Lv.3 (0/1000)]

10,000 Energy Points spent... [Death Affinity Lv.4 (0/10,000)]

Just as he leveled up, the black dot became increasingly bigger but the golden aura around Meng Tian's soul seemed to have restricted its movement completely. A lot of indecipherable information was imprinted into his mind in an instant regarding this death talent.

Finally, Meng Tian was done with the inventory of all the items that he had gotten from tonight's walk around the neighborhood. However, there were a set of books that he had yet to open up and check.

All of them were what he had taken from the storage rings of the dead cultivators. There were a total of 40 books with most of them being duplicates. However, there were 11 unique books and Meng Tian started to read through all of them at once. This was attributed to his spiritual sense discretization skill.

He finished reading through all of them in a matter of minutes. His mind had become much more specialized in multi-tasking.

There was a book with a black cover and green pages inside called the 'Green Devil's Shadow', a technique to hide oneself in the shadows. At a high enough level, this technique allowed one to be completely invisible to the naked eye even without any shadows around.

[Green Devil's Shadow Lv.1 (0/10)]

Next came another technique, this time of a sword called the 'Fallen Bloom Sword'. This Sword Technique was supposed to be a very fast sword draw that could instantly cut through the opponent. Meng Tian got this technique manual from the dead Martial Warrior's storage ring.

[Fallen Bloom Sword Lv.1 (0/10)]

Another technique manual that he obtained from this haul was a boxing technique obtained from the storage ring of the dead Young Master Diao. It was called the 'Meteor Striking Fist', a technique to focus all of your qi into your punch creating an explosive release of energy, that could destroy anything that it came into contact with.

[Meteor Striking Fist Lv.1 (0/10)]

There were also techniques related to the basic martial techniques taught in his school. These included- Intermediate level Spear and Movement, and the Advanced level Boxing, Movement and Sword. Meng Tian's reading only gave him the Intermediate level Spear skill as the others were already at a higher level.

[Spear Level 2 (Intermediate) (0/100)]

Finally, there were three books that caught his attention the most. The Qi cultivation techniques for the first three realms- Martial Apprentice (Body Forging), Martial Soldier (Qi Condensation), and Martial Warrior (Foundation Establishment).

Meng Tian carefully read through all these books which covered the progress of all the nine levels of the first three realms. Only then did he discover the shocking differences that his cultivation had when compared to these standard manuals.

When he initially received the qi cultivation manual from his Master, the 'Breathing Technique for a Beginner Martial Apprentice', he was clueless on how to proceed. Principal Ren's visualization of the cultivation process helped him to gain the required experience to kick start his cultivation journey.

He did not require any manuals from then on, he only had to use his Energy Points to level up his cultivation. It was very convenient but Meng Tian was just as clueless as he did not know what would happen in the next step at all. So, he wanted to refer the available cultivation manuals to gain a clear understanding of the road ahead.

However, the differences that he found from the normal manuals to his own cultivation experience was staggering. For example, in the Body Forging realm, at each level, his refinement reached a stage where all of his body essentially transformed into a crystal like state. Then, his primary stat synchronization led to his body becoming a normal one, at least from the outside.

But the normal Body Forging only leads to strengthening the cultivator's body to an extent that could help them absorb qi into their bodies much more easily and efficiently. There was no mention of body refinement at any level that turned the organs and blood golden in color or anything that Meng Tian experienced.

This was already enough evidence for him to understand the cultivation path that his system had been following seems to be of a much higher level than what he had come into contact with in this world.

The other manuals for Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment also show astonishing differences. When breaking through from Qi Condensation, the normal manual only mentions the creation of a square platform that would serve as the foundation for future cultivation of the Nascent Soul.

Yet there is no mention of any runic markings appearing on the platform as it forms inside the dantian. Also, the maximum number of such platforms that could be formed during Foundation Establishment were three only. Each of the 9 levels of this realm assists in this process, with a new platform forming at the first, fourth and the seventh levels.

"No runic markings... No connection with the eight extraordinary meridians... No thousand petal lotus flower... Sigh... Looks like I can only use these manuals as a reference, not much information is actually of use to me."

"Now... Let me check out the one thing that I had kept aside..."