A Lesson About Soul Cultivation

Lan Tie and his lackeys were utterly unaware of Raiden's inner thoughts and Astoria's emotions, so while the two were doing their own thing, the group of four looked for the source of laughter.

Going even a step further, since there was a decent amount of shrubbery behind them that could hide a human body well, Lan Tie even sent a palm blast in Astoria's direction, thinking that someone was playing tricks on him while hiding there. 

This palm blast phased right through Astoria's incorporeal body and landed against nothing, but it still angered Astoria a great deal. 

'I just laughed a bit. Why the hell are you so angry?' Astoria snorted in displeasure in her mind.

But while she was annoyed, Astoria still learned her lesson and kept her mouth shut, deciding not to speak any further.

Her spell was only an invisibility spell. It didn't shroud her voice and other sounds. All it did was cloak her appearance. If she wanted to speak with Raiden, she would have to be in the speak mentally.

A few more seconds passed as Lan Tie scoured the surroundings, trying to find Astoria, but he never did. So, with only a belly full of anger and nowhere to vent, Lan Ti lost his ambition.

Giving Raiden one more disdainful look, Lan Tie swept his coarse linen clothes as if they had sleeves and turned around.

"I'll deal with your insolence later, trash. For now, I have to meet with my father. It seems there is something wrong with the village." One lame excuse later, Lan Tie left with his lackeys in tow. 

Raiden was still mentally exhausted and didn't stop Lan Tie, obviously. He let the boy keep his false pride and walk away.

But he was still curious about one thing, so Raiden took a moment to look at Astoria, who was floating a few feet away.

"Can they not see you?" Raiden asked with a raised eyebrow. 

Even though he said nothing during the whole encounter, that didn't mean he didn't have questions. The one thing he wanted to know most was why he couldn't see Astoria, who was very clearly in front of him.

"Invisibility spell." Astoria answered simply, "Since I'm technically a soul cultivator, I have access to the path's many spells. This invisibility spell is one of them. I can make myself completely invisible to anyone I wish while making myself visible to a different group. It's a great spell."

"But Lan Tie still heard you, so obviously, this spell isn't very foolproof." Raiden innocently replied.

Bonk!

Astoria used her Soul Qi to grab a nearby fallen branch and bonked the arrogant kid on the head.

"Full proof your head! I'm only in the Child Soul Realm. How the hell would I be able to cast a perfect spell?" Astoria angrily said.

Though she had been in this world for only a few hours at most, thanks to mentally living through a great portion of Rictoli's life against her will, Astoria had more experience with the stuff in this reality than Raiden by a long shot.

Spells, martial techniques, and other abilities always had flaws. Whether the technique was too low a tier or the cultivator's proficiency was too low, there was always a deficiency.

Because of this, the varying degrees of proficiency in a technique were categorized into tiers. From top to bottom, they went: Initiation, Minute Proficiency, Small Success, Great Proficiency, Perfection, and finally, Transcendence.

Granted, through Rictoli's memories, Astoria did manage to elevate her skill proficiency a bit. However, even with them, she was still barely at Minute Proficiency. Moreover, the spell wasn't even that high level to begin with.

Having a 'perfect' spell with such a combo was impossible. Such fantasies should be left for bedtime.

Raiden, while holding his head in pain from the hit on the head, tearfully nodded while swearing to engrave the lesson in his head.

"Thank you, big sister," Raiden said pitifully, spinning his head around to ensure that no one had seen what had just happened.

A branch suddenly floated and then whacked him on the top of the head. Anyone with a brain would realize that something wrong was afoot if they saw that.

Thankfully, Raiden lived in a pretty remote part of the town, so beyond Lan Tie and his goons, no one was within line of sight. 

Astoria saw Raiden's pitiful appearance and simply snorted without saying anything else.

"Just go home. When we get there, I'll start teaching you about Soul Cultivation." Astoria said, rushing Raiden.

Nodding with a bit more fear in his expression than before, Raiden quickly made the trek back home.

After a few twists and turns and a small descent down a hill, the two reached Raiden's current home.

If it even be called a home.

A few years ago, Raiden was a child with everything a child in the Black Lotus Domain could possibly want: maidservants, cultivation teachers, loving parents, and a near-bottomless allowance.

But now, after the demise of his clan, he was forced to live here, in this village, at the bottom of an annoyingly steep hill.

It was a true fall from grace, but through sheer anger and the thought of revenge, Raiden was able to forget his current circumstances.

Of course, he still missed all the amenities of his previous status, but he was adjusting at a decent pace.

Before, Raiden lived in an estate alongside his father and mother that wasn't much inferior to modern-day mansions. Now, he was stuck in a shed that was barely 5 square meters in total size. He wasn't used to this type of living yet, and Astoria could see it.

Entering alongside the boy into his dingy shed, Astoria saw a mess. Chairs were scattered everywhere; his quilt that was supposed to be on his bed was somehow next to the furnace, and the bag of rice was somehow on his bed, taking his quilt's spot. It was horrible. 

Rather than an actual shack, it looked more like a puzzle game in which you had to find out-of-place objects.

"Dude, why the f*ck is the rice on your bed?" Astoria was floored. She, too, wasn't the tidiest of people, but this?

Raiden blushed in embarrassment and turned his head away from the flabbergasted who was staring at him from above. 

"I got hungry," Raiden explained as he tried to hide the evidence. Astoria nodded a bit more acceptingly, but it still was rather strange.

That sentence explained the rice on the bed, but why was the quilt next to the furnace? The two were on opposite sides of the shed. Astoria had no answers, but she didn't really want to find out, so she said nothing else.

Floating over to a chair that was knocked over, Astoria propped it up using her Soul Essence before "sitting down" on it.

As much as she wanted to pose, her incorporeal body wouldn't let her, so basically, at this moment, she was just floating a few millimeters above the thing, but it resembled sitting enough.

Astoria tossed out a standard question, deciding to start the lecture with a simple question to test his foundation.

"Do you know the realms of the Soul Cultivation path?" 

Raiden shook his head. He truly didn't know. In the Black Lotus Domain, even cultivation inheritances of the Body Tempering path were a bit rare. As for the Soul Cultivation path, they might as well be a legend.

Expecting such an answer, Astoria was patient and explained the first five realms of the Soul Cultivation path.

In the Soul Cultivation path, the first realm was named the Soul Embryo Realm.

Still, even before a cultivator could become a soul cultivator, like with the other paths, you had to open up the respective dantian, which for the Soul Cultivation path was the upper dantian. 

Located at the glabella, the upper dantian was a mystical place in the body where the Niwan Palace was hidden.

There were multiple ways to open it, though. But while there were many, only two were popular.

The first and more expensive common way that people opened up their upper dantian was through the use of natural treasures.

Natural treasures were, in a sense, a heavily concentrated form of universal essence. Whether they were a highly potent herb that could detoxify poisons or a sturdy piece of ore that could turn even a log of rotten wood into a divine metal, natural treasures were highly valuable.

Of course, natural treasures varied in value and usefulness, but overall, they were worth their weight in gold. This was why, while it was a popular method, it was only popular for the rich. The common cultivator could never dream of affording such a high-cost way of opening their upper dantian.

As for the second way, it was completely free of cost but it required assistance from another sage who would slowly, and methodically pour soul essence into the potential sage's upper dantian and guide them into opening it.

Once a cultivator uses either of these methods or any other one at their disposal to open up their upper dantian, they can move onto the next step, sense their own soul, and be able to use it freely.

By extending their soul through the use of Soul Essence, they could extend tendril-like objects from their body and sense their surroundings even without their eyes. 

Finally, with the help of the newly achieved Soul Sense, one had to place their weak and newly awakened soul inside of their Niwan Palace.

Once all of these steps are completed and the soul fully resides in the Niwan Palace, it would fall into a cocoon-like state, where it would be able to slowly absorb Soul Essence and evolve and transform under the universal essence's powerful effect.

The Soul Embryo Realm was one of the most important realms on the Soul Cultivation path. It was the place where a sage could unearth all of their soul's potential and become a talent that sects would fight over.

That was why Astoria made sure Raiden understood how careful and thorough he would have to be in this realm.

Raiden was still scared of the stick, so he nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

Following the Soul Embryo Realm was the Nascent Soul Realm.

Here, after the nine stages of the Soul Embryo Realm, a sage's soul would break out of their coccon and become not just an auxiliary helper but also a tool for them to use.

Through the use of Soul Essence, sages could learn various spells and soul arts or even use it for telekinesis like Astoria did whenever she wanted to beat- or rather punish Raiden.

The third and final realm in the Three Mortal Realms was named the Infant Soul Realm. This realm wasn't much special other than a huge bottleneck at the end. All that was to do here was absorb Soul Essence and advance steadily at a normal pace. 

As for the fourth realm, it was called the Child Soul Realm. 

Stretching beyond the Three Mortal Realms and extending into the Four Earthly Realms, the Child Soul Realm was where soul cultivators began to abandon common sense and truly become sages. 

During the Child Soul Realm, soul cultivators would start to gain many perks that cultivators on the other two paths didn't have.

The eidetic memory that every single Martial Artist and Qi Refiner dreamt of was one such ability. Another, and probably the most important one, and something that Astoria was taking advantage of right now, was that at the Child Soul Realm, one could have their soul exit their body and exist in reality without a physical form. 

Sages could exit their own body freely and roam the world as ghosts or even abandon their physical body entirely and possess another. The possibilities were endless.

Astoria's lesson slowly came to an end, and she decided to tell Raiden only about one more realm, the fifth soul cultivator realm, the Adult Soul Realm. 

Only once a soul cultivator reached this realm could they truly be called a sage. Here, a soul cultivator could extend their soul sense several kilometers in any given direction, giving them an omnipotent bird's eye view of everything around them. They could also use their soul as an offensive weapon and an auxiliary tool to help other cultivators enter the Soul Cultivation path and even enlighten them on their own.

The Adult Soul Realm was the watershed of Soul Cultivation and the beginning of a true sage.

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