Rictoli's Memories

While Raiden was fighting for his life, unbeknownst to him, Astoria was having the time of her... second life in the indiscreet and simple-looking ring on his left hand.

Becoming increasingly addicted to the mysterious white mist that surrounded her, Astoria slowly but surely made a substantial dent in it. 

There was a lot of it, but after Astoria started absorbing it, she realized that it wasn't unlimited. There was a finite amount of it, and from what she could see, it didn't seem to have any regenerative properties either. 

One breath meant one less breath of this weird gas.

However, that didn't mean Astoria planned on stopping anytime soon.

With every breath, a rush of energy swept through her whole being, invigorating her body and motivating her to make a bigger dent in the mist. By this point, she had even lost track of how long she had been doing this.

The only thing she could think about was absorbing more of the mist, planning to stop only when there was none left.

Or at least, she thought.

Once again, Astoria jumped into the mist, planning to use her well-trained absorption tactic of sticking her nose into the mist to get another fix. 

But before she got another dose, a pulsating headache attacked her, sending ripples of pain down her soul.

'The dead get migraines?!' Astoria wanted to cry with how much pain she was going through, but she soon found out that her eye ducts weren't working very well, and nothing came out.

'I can't even cry? If I can't cry, then why the hell am I getting a headache? Moreover, one this bad!' Astoria cried inwardly. 

Logically, if she could get a headache,, she would be able to cry. But that didn't seem to work here.

Unable to continue absorbing the mist, Astoria fell to the ground, rolling around as she clutched her head. She tried to alleviate the massive pulsating headache she was feeling by any means necessary.

But nothing she tried worked, and she was forced to endure the torture. Astoria was forced to struggle with the pain without any bit of assistance.

Minutes soon passed with Astoria feeling nothing but soul-wrenching pain, but just as it started to fade away, memories started to appear in her mind.

"Rictoli? A Life and Death Seal Realm powerhouse? Pure Yang Sect?" 

Countless memories soon poured into Astoria's mind, but the more she learned and the more information she was shown, the worse a facial expression appeared on her face until eventually she couldn't hold it any longer and tried to throw up.

Sadly, once again, it seemed her new body wasn't capable of such things, and she only heaved for a few seconds without anything exiting her throat.

"F*ck! Why the hell do I have the memories of a cultivator? Moreover, a rapist cultivator!" Astoria wanted to empty her stomach, but no matter how much she heaved, nothing came out.

The memories that she had suddenly been bestowed were odd but concise. It was around a tenth of the life of a cultivator by the name of Rictoli. And just as Astoria said, this person wasn't a very good human, to say the least.

As the founder of the Nine Desolate Domains' strongest demonic sect, Rictoli was definitely the definition of a demon to society. Using women as cauldrons to boost his cultivation base, kidnapping saintesses to do the just mentioned, and even resorting to massacring entire cities all for the purpose of coercing a woman, there wasn't a single thing that Rictoli wouldn't do to advance his dual cultivation techniques.

Sadly, since Rictoli was one of the world's strongest cultivators, there weren't many people who could even stand in the same room as him, let alone stop him from committing these heinous acts. And so, his tyranny was well known in the Nine Desolate Domains, stretching tens of thousands of years.

And now, poor Astoria was in the midst of experiencing a tenth of that man's life. It was horrifying and disgusting, yet no matter how much she resisted, the memories continued to pour in, leaving her feeling worse and worse.

She hit herself, screamed, dry heaved, but nothing worked. Memories poured into her mind without stopping.

Thankfully, the psychological torture didn't last that long, as just as she collapsed into a sobbing mess. They stopped. But while she no longer felt the soul-wrenching pain of a thousand years of memories invading her consciousness, the mental damage was still there.

Seeing the agony-filled faces of all the women Rictoli defiled nearly traumatized her, and Astoria sat down on her white floor for a few moments, curled up in a ball for a few minutes, to try and cope with it all.

Eventually, Astoria got up from her fetal position and stood up. Her expression was still distraught and filled with sadness, but after giving her left cheek a hard slap, she regained some clarity.

'Forget about it, Astoria. The past is the past. Look forward.' She told herself mentally, as she forcibly put a smile on her face, but she knew deep down it was just a bandage solution. Keeping trauma buried was never the way to handle it. 

However, she already had enough trauma buried inside her mind. A little more wouldn't do any harm, she thought.

Focusing her attention back on her surroundings, Astoria used what just happened to her to piece a few truths together.

'I died and got transmigrated, I assume, but why the hell did I end up here? Aren't I supposed to end up in a forest or the middle of a luxurious room I've never seen before? Why this white expanse with the soul essence of a dead man, not to mention a serial rapist dead man?'

The memories Astoria got weren't in chronological order and were rather messy. Some were from Rictoli's youth, while some were from his middle age and a bit from his later years.

However, all of the memories that Astoria received were core memories. Almost all the memories were of certain cultivation technique breakthrough moments that were vital to Rictoli's life. Rictoli was a prolific dual cultivator, though, so that meant that all of his moments of inspiration occurred while he was performing the deed, and since he didn't perform his acts consensually, Astoria was forced to witness most of his heinous acts firsthand.

Thankfully, not all of his memories were about his cultivation techniques. In fact, other than his cultivation sessions, the rest of Rictoli's memories were actually extremely important.

During these important memories, Rictoli was in his old age. Not just normal old age either, but a near-dead, half-a-foot-in-the-grave type of old age. He was on the verge of death.

As for what he was doing, it was a wide range of chores that, to an outsider, weren't connected.

He went around the world buying slaves, planning various natural treasures, and hiding wealth. And these tasks weren't even near where Rictoli lived. Some of the tasks he did were, in fact, done on the entire opposite side of the Nine Desolates' Domains. 

Odd actions for a half-dead man.

But Astoria, the person who inherited all of these memories, knew what he was doing. 

Rictoli was a genius who started from nothing and rose to the top, but because of this, he received little guidance in his early years.

This lack of guidance and help left him with countless hidden injuries and sequelae that plagued his later years and often left him with a fraction of the lifespan gain one would gain after every cultivation realm breakthrough.

Because of this, other than advancing his dual cultivation techniques, much of the Yin Essence that Rictoli gained through ill-gotten means was spent on making his lifespan longer than it should be. 

He was terrified of death. But the closer he got to it, the more he came to terms with it all. And so, when he finally resigned to his mortality, Rictoli started preparing for it. 

Astoria knew this because, despite all the many different memories she was forced to live through, they were sped up. Some were just a flash in the pan, while others lasted around a minute or two. 

However, they weren't in normal time.

But there was only one memory that was played in real-time. And in this memory, Rictoli was holding a reading, an ancient-looking scroll made of animal skin. On this scroll? A powerful technique that could allow Rictoli to be reborn, a much more powerful and talented version of himself.

In simple terms, the technique required him to take his soul and forcibly shred it into millions of tiny strands. Then, he would rebuild and enhance each of those small strands to its limits. Finally, after Rictoli felt it was time, he would rebuild his soul with those improved strands. 

It was like destringing a nylon rope, and then replacing them with carbon fiber, and then tying it back up.

After this recultivation, Rictoli, the Nine Desolates' Domain's most horrible man, would be reincarnated with a hundred times more talent after inheriting his previous wealth.

It spelled disaster for the entire world if only Astoria hadn't thwarted it accidentally.

The technique he used wasn't foolproof. It had a massive flaw.

Since his soul was dispersed into countless strands, it also had no structure or consciousness. Thus, Rictoli had no consciousness in this state. He wouldn't technically be alive in this state, and therefore, he would not be himself.

Usually, every part of Rictoli, no matter how small, had its own will inside of it. He was that powerful, after all. But by cultivating the secret technique, Rictoli was forced to give up on this powerful skill.

The secret technique divided his soul into too many strands for every single one of them to have a will behind it. This meant that these strands of Rictoli's soul were the perfect bite-size snack for Astoria to absorb.

Once she reached this part of the memories, Astoria also learned that she was currently in a weird quasi-spirit form. 

Her physical body was long dead. After her horrific accident back in her condo on Terra, she died. But despite her physical death, her soul lived on and was somehow brought here to the Nine Desolate Domains.

But without her physical body, Astoria was a ghost.

However, as it was mentioned before since Rictoli didn't have any defense set up, he played it safe. Not daring to gamble with his life, he housed his soul in a special plane that couldn't be invaded unless it had strength matching his peak and broke the countless seals he had in place to defend his defenseless soul essence.

It was only through a bizarre yet impossible set of circumstances that Astoria was able to thwart Rictoli's reincarnation.

A complete and sheer coincidence that even left Astoria, who wrote countless rug pulls, in awe.

'Maybe even the universe itself wanted this dude dead?' Liu Mie could only chalk it up to karmic comeuppance.

Speaking of the Nine Desolate Domains, Astoria's new home was a cultivation world filled with mystical wonders. Immortals who could summon cataclysmic manifestations capable of sundering the heavens, martial artists who could cleave the earth in half, and sages who could exist for hundreds of thousands of years were commonplace in this world.

Overall, it was a standard cultivation world, similar to the many novels that Astoria both read and wrote.

The only difference was that in the Nine Desolate Domains, a cultivator could take three main paths to the peak.

Qi Refinement, Body Tempering, and Soul Cultivation

People who took the Qi Refinement path were called immortals. People who took the Body Tempering path were called martial artists, and finally, people who took the Soul Cultivation were called sages.

Rictoli was a martial artist, which was the reason for his poor lifespan. The Body Tempering path was often considered the least valuable and useful of the three paths.

Though each path was equally powerful at its peak, the lifespan gains weren't. Sages could often live ten times as long as martial artists, and while immortals couldn't live as long as sages, they could still live a few times longer than martial artists in the same realm.

Rictoli also chose this method of reincarnation because his soul was his weakest point. Through this method, he could have an immortal soul and even become a cultivator who followed two paths: soul and body cultivation.

A tempting choice that cost Rictoli his very existence.

'I guess I'm a Soul Cultivator now?' Astoria didn't know much about what was happening, but as they said, When in Rome, do as the Romans.

Shrugging to herself, Astoria had planned to exit Rictoli's sealed hiding spot and embark on an adventure.

She wasn't too sure, but with the amount of Soul Essence she absorbed from Rictoli, Astoria could tell she was extremely powerful now. The only thing was that she just didn't know how powerful. 

But after fully digesting Rictoli's core memories, she gained information on how to escape the seal in his memories. Now, all Astoria wanted to do was live her new life.

However, just before she could exit, she heard a rage-filled voice in her head that confused her.

"Don't you dare!"

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