Chapter 4: Rough Basic Cultivation Method

Composing his thoughts, Shi Quan gradually returned to his senses and began to examine his own changes.

To his surprise, the Martial Soul Awakening Liquid this time had not increased his Innate Soul Power; it remained at the fourth level.

However, he could clearly feel that his sensory abilities had greatly enhanced; the world in his eyes had become much clearer, and the sounds outside the room had become much more distinct.

He was not sure if this was a change brought about by the awakening of his third martial soul, or a change brought about by the Martial Soul Awakening Liquid.

It was also because of this change in sensory ability that he noticed his body had become somewhat tougher due to the effects of the Martial Soul Awakening Liquid. His entire physique and temperament had undergone some subtle changes; a hint of maturity and steadiness had inexplicably appeared on his youthful cheeks, and his eyes appeared more vivid.

In the original story, after Tang San awakened his second martial soul, the Blue Silver Emperor, his appearance changed. Shi Quan speculated that his current changes might also be due to his martial soul awakening.

Fortunately, his changes were not very significant, and ordinary people would not notice anything; otherwise, he really would not know how to explain it.

"What should I call this third martial soul of mine?" While toying with the empty bottle in his hand, Shi Quan summoned his third martial soul.

An illusory figure appeared before Shi Quan. This third martial soul of his should be between a Beast Spirit and a body-type martial soul, manifesting in the form of possession.

Because it was formed from his own soul, consciousness, and obsession, Shi Quan could clearly feel the difference between the third martial soul and his first and second martial souls: that was control. Almost with a single thought, his third martial soul could condense and manifest along with his intent, and even perform a series of actions; this was something his first two martial souls could not do.

"Thought? Spirit Sense? Spirit Soul? Soul? Obsession?"

Vocabulary related to his third martial soul surfaced in his mind. After some thought, Shi Quan muttered to himself, "It might as well be called Spirit Soul."

First martial soul, Blue Silver Grass.

Second martial soul, Soil.

Third martial soul, Spirit Soul.

With the martial soul issue resolved, Shi Quan's gaze returned to the empty bottle in his hand, and he skillfully stored the empty bottle into his System Space.

Although it was just an empty bottle, its material was very special. Shi Quan could not casually discard such an epoch-making item. If it caused some kind of trouble later, he would be the one with the headache. Keeping it now might prove useful in the future.

After receiving the rewards, Shi Quan began to study the System Space. After some testing and questioning, Shi Quan also understood the limitations of the System Space.

The storage space provided by the system only stored items produced by the system itself, meaning things from the Douluo Continent could not be put inside.

However, Shi Quan quickly found a bug.

That was, he tried putting some small things into the empty bottle that had previously held the Martial Soul Awakening Liquid, and then put the empty bottle back into the System Space. To his surprise, the things placed inside the empty bottle were also stored into the System Space.

In other words, the setting that it could not store things outside the system actually had a loophole. It was precisely this discovery that immediately piqued Shi Quan's interest: could the system have other loopholes, and could they help him obtain more treasure chest rewards?

Thus, another nearly one hour was spent testing and questioning.

With a sigh of resignation, Shi Quan ended the test. Needless to say, apart from the small loophole in storage, he had discovered nothing else.

An hour of questioning gave Shi Quan a more comprehensive understanding of the system.

The treasure chests triggered by the system would randomly provide rewards. As long as a treasure chest was triggered, it could be opened directly; no specific requirements were needed.

The only thing giving Shi Quan a headache now was how to trigger the treasure chests.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Xiao Quan, are you cultivating?"

The sound of knocking came from outside the room, along with Li Meili's cautious voice.

Shi Quan's hand, which was writing, paused. What was written on the paper were several directions on how to trigger treasure chests; the content was extremely concise and revealed nothing.

"What is it, Mom?" Shi Quan responded while glancing at the note on the table again, then crumpled it into a ball, threw it into the trash can nearby, and stood up to walk toward the door.

"How are you finding the cultivation method? Didn't Master Su Yuntao say that cultivation cannot be rushed and must be done steadily? I'm afraid you're too anxious."

Seeing Shi Quan open the door, Li Meili hurriedly and carefully looked him up and down with her beautiful eyes. It was fine not to see him, but once she did, Li Meili's expression changed. Her eyes were filled with a bit of panic, and she reached out to grab Shi Quan's arm, asking with a trembling voice, "Xiao Quan, did something go wrong with your cultivation?"

Although Shi Quan's changes were not large, with just one glance, Li Meili keenly noticed the changes in him.

Shi Quan was stunned for a moment, then reacted, his heart warming involuntarily. The changes in him were hard for ordinary people to notice, and perhaps even for Spirit Masters, but Li Meili had noticed his changes at a glance. It showed how much she cared about him in her heart for her to be so sensitive to his abnormalities.

Shi Quan put on a look of "I am the best," patted his chest, and said, "Mom, what are you thinking? Do I look like someone whose cultivation went wrong? This is called success in cultivation!"

Li Meili smiled as she looked at Shi Quan's little-adult appearance. Worry leads to chaos, but once she calmed down and looked closely, Li Meili also realized that Shi Quan seemed to look more steady. She didn't know if it was her imagination, but she felt that Shi Quan's originally cute and youthful cheeks had a hint of her husband's charm, which made her feel a bit more at ease.

"As long as cultivation is going smoothly, but you must still pay attention to Master Su Yuntao's words, do you understand?" Li Meili still subconsciously urged Shi Quan.

Shi Quan said without blushing or skipping a beat, "Don't worry, Mom, you know what your son is like."

Only he knew that this was not a change brought about by cultivation; he hadn't even looked at the cultivation manual once.

"You, you." Li Meili shook her head with a light laugh and poked Shi Quan's head. "Alright, your grandparents are here to see you; they've been talking about you. It's about time for dinner, come out and keep them company."

"Okay~" Shi Quan nodded in agreement.

Shi Quan's grandparents were also from Shi Family Village. After his father and mother married, they moved out from his grandparents' place. The two houses were not far apart, and the two elders came to see him almost every day. Hearing that Shi Quan had awakened his martial soul and possessed soul power, the two of them rushed over immediately.

"Grandpa, Grandma." Shi Quan greeted the two figures in the courtyard affectionately.

The old man on the left was not tall, with some white hair at his temples. Although his face showed some signs of weathering, his eyes were very bright. When the old man saw Shi Quan, his eyes clearly brightened.

He was Shi Quan's grandfather, Shi Zhi. Beside him was Shi Quan's grandmother, Shi Ying. The grandmother looked younger than Shi Quan's grandfather, with naturally curly hair and kind, smiling eyes.

Shi Quan's grandparents were actually not old, only in their fifties.

The two of them did not notice Shi Quan's abnormality, only thinking that Shi Quan had become more handsome.

However, Shi Jian, who was on the side, had discovered the changes in Shi Quan just like Li Meili. Perhaps afraid that the two elders would worry, he did not ask directly, but found a gap to ask Shi Quan about the specific situation in a low voice.

Under Shi Quan's explanation, Shi Jian finally set his mind at ease.

Dinner was exceptionally sumptuous compared to usual, and the family sat down happily.

Shi Quan looked at the full bowl of food in front of him. Even Shi Jian, who rarely drank, had a few drinks with Shi Zhi for a change. The family was exceptionally happy, and the influence that had originally arisen in Shi Quan's heart from the awakening of the Spirit Soul martial soul was also largely dispelled by this warm scene.

This dinner lasted until late at night before it ended.

After his parents sent his grandparents home, Shi Quan returned to his room again. Usually, at this time, Shi Quan would already be lying in bed preparing to sleep.

But now, Shi Quan had no intention of sleeping; his gaze and attention were focused on the small manual on his desk.

That was the basic cultivation manual given to him by Su Yuntao.

Because of various things getting in the way, he only now had time to study cultivation.

Taking the cultivation manual, Shi Quan quickly began to read it seriously. The manual was not thick, and the content was not much. In less than a quarter of an hour, Shi Quan had read through the entire content of the manual.

"This is too simple..."

After finishing the manual in his hands, Shi Quan couldn't help but secretly complain in his heart; the cultivation method in the manual could not be called simple at all, it was completely crude.

To summarize it in a simple sentence: use the Innate Soul Power within the body to attract the energy from the surroundings into the body.

There were no circulation paths, no circulation methods, just simply sensing the soul power and then using it to help attract and pull energy into the body.

According to the manual, the higher the Innate Soul Power, the higher the intensity of energy attraction and absorption; the lower it is, the slower it is. Naturally, without Innate Soul Power, one cannot absorb energy; this is where the advantage of Innate Soul Power lies.

To increase cultivation speed, unless there is a Breakthrough in level, the cultivation speed will always remain at the initial absorption rate of the Innate Soul Power.

And the higher the Innate Soul Power, the more obvious the improvement after breaking through the Spirit Master level. For example, the initial cultivation speed for level one Innate Soul Power is one, while the cultivation speed for Full Spirit Power is ten. After breaking through from Soul Scholar to Spirit Master, the cultivation speed for level one Innate Soul Power might change from one to two, while the cultivation speed for Innate Full Spirit Power would change from ten to twenty or even higher.

This is the so-called gap in talent.

"This should only be the most basic cultivation method; whether it is the Spirit Hall or the Three Upper Sects, there must definitely be more perfect cultivation methods."

Even though Shi Quan knew nothing about cultivation, he could clearly feel that this basic cultivation method was truly too rough.

After just one attempt, Shi Quan sensed the surrounding energy according to the basic cultivation method in the book and successfully integrated the surrounding energy into his body.

What surprised Shi Quan was that not only did he sense the surrounding energy, but with his eyes tightly closed, he could actually see energy light spots flickering with faint light all around his body.

In the original work, he had only heard of Internal Vision, which can check the flow and circulation of soul power within the body; he had never heard of this situation of seeing energy through external vision in the original work.

The only special thing was the three martial souls in his body; Shi Quan speculated that this special situation was highly likely due to his third martial soul, the Spirit Soul.

……

The morning sun rose.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Xiao Quan, you're still not up?"

Li Meili's soft call came from outside the room again.

Hearing the movement outside, Shi Quan, who had been cultivating all night, finally woke up. Looking at the sunlight scattered through the cracks in the window, Shi Quan realized that he had actually been cultivating for the whole night.

"I'm up." Shi Quan responded. A night of cultivation did not make Shi Quan feel the slightest bit of fatigue, but sitting cross-legged for a whole night inevitably caused some discomfort, so he hurriedly stretched his stiff limbs and got up to walk toward the door.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

"Did you cultivate again after coming back last night? And it was very late?"

"It's fine, it's fine." Shi Quan chuckled; he could see the worry between Li Meili's brows.

The reason Li Meili said this was because, on normal days, Shi Quan would have already been up by this time; situations like today, where the sun was high and there was still no movement, were very rare.

"Cultivation is naturally good, but you must also pay attention to rest. Master Su Yuntao also said that one cannot be too eager for success; have you forgotten?"

"I haven't forgotten. I know I was wrong, I won't do it next time, don't worry, Mom." Shi Quan knew that Li Meili was just worried about him, so he hurriedly put on a look of knowing his mistake and grabbed Li Meili's arm to act spoiled.

Li Meili felt both worried and loving toward her son. Seeing Shi Quan acting spoiled like this, she could only helplessly shake her head and start talking about the main business, "Alright, your dad wants you to go to the Ni Su Fang; stop pretending here."

"The Ni Su Fang?" Shi Quan looked puzzled, "Shouldn't Dad be making clay sculptures at this time?"

"You'll know when you go." Li Meili waved her hand, putting on a look as if she didn't know either.

The Ni Su Fang was not any special place; it was just a small room behind their courtyard, a room dedicated to Shi Jian for making clay sculptures.

To say it was special, there was nothing special about it. Shi Quan used to go there often. The reason he looked puzzled was that the Ni Su Fang was forbidden to anyone when Shi Jian was making clay sculptures. According to Shi Jian, he could only make those lifelike clay sculptures when he was alone in the Ni Su Fang and had calmed his heart; he didn't want anyone to disturb him.

From childhood to adulthood, even Shi Quan had never seen the entire process of Shi Jian making clay sculptures.

In the village, the clay sculptures made by Shi Jian had always been unique, and many people wanted to become Shi Jian's apprentice to learn the tips of making clay sculptures from him, but all were rejected. When he was young, Shi Quan also asked Shi Jian, but Shi Jian's answer at the time was that it was not yet time, and he had to wait until he was at least six years old.

Originally, he had forgotten about it, but now that Shi Jian suddenly asked him to find him while he was making clay sculptures, could it be that he was ready to teach him the tips for making clay sculptures?

Thinking of this, Shi Quan also felt a bit more curious in his heart; what exactly was Shi Jian's secret?

(End of this chapter)