I was thrown back as a stone staff smashed into me.

Wiping the blood from the corner of my mouth I slowly stood up again.

The golem was an unusual one. It had four arms and held three weapons. One of them was the staff it held in the two front arms, and each of the side arms held a curved sword. Its defense was bloody fantastic. I couldn’t land a single hit without getting thrashed.

Had I been allowed to regenerate, I would have attacked recklessly and eventually take it down, but that was not the point.

Elder Li had other ideas. This training was to show me as many different and weird fighting styles so I could adapt to any situation.

My only weapons were the Spirit Swords, but having already tried to attack with them, I realized it was not going to work. The golem was just too damn good at defending itself, not that the tiny scratches did anything.

As such, I used magic. Qi Blasts rained down as I moved backward, out of the stone man’s reach. Small spheres of Chaos rained down on the magical construct, eating away at its defenses.

The thing was, by momentarily deactivating the flow of Qi while the blasts destroyed stuff, the damage remained.

The stone staff began to crumble as the giant tried to defend itself, and with many Qi Blasts hitting it every second, it couldn’t regenerate. I just kept throwing them one after the other, and just before landing a final blow, I momentarily stopped.

I placed my hands together above my head and began gathering more energy than ever before. Instead of a baseball-sized sphere, I formed one the size of a basketball. I then jumped in the air and threw it down at the stone beast with such force, it nearly knocked it down by the kinetic energy alone.

And then it exploded, right on its chest.

Stone shrapnel and magic ore flew across the arena, yet before the dust even had time to settle, I was already flying at the golem’s chest. Bringing my entire power into the punch, I struck the stone and broke it, bursting straight through its massive chest.

I fell from up high on the other side and did a roll on the ground before coming to a complete stop.

The giant collapsed behind me as I panted with a smile on my face. It got it. In my right hand was the golem’s core. Undamaged.

It took me many tries to destroy a golem without ruining the core in the process, but I finally succeeded. Obviously, I felt proud of myself. Precise destruction was the best kind of destruction.

I heard slow clapping coming from the side and saw Elder Li casually walking closer.

“Impressive. You have improved a lot since we began a month ago. Though…” He looked at the destroyed golem and shook his head. “Once again you solved the problem by just throwing your entire arsenal at it. Do you even have any Qi left?”

I scratched my head in embarrassment. Actually, I only used less than half my energy, but the Elder was right. I was still too wasteful with my Qi. The problem was, the spells I had simply didn’t do enough damage. And it’s not like simple Elemental spells would do me any good. Maybe if I could use Earth I could grind the golem down, but every damn piece of rock was protected by a Formation. And fire and Wind did nothing to it. I really had no choice.

I handed over the golem core and promised to do better next time, like countless times before. I was getting better at it, but the progress was slow.

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The Elder just shook his head, clearly not believing me. I couldn’t blame him, he heard the same promise too many times already.

“Alright, alright… Enough for today, we’ll continue tomorrow. I need to come up with a harder opponent for you.” He then waved his hand and the stones were pulled back together, and the golem was reformed. The rock even mended, as if it was never broken in the first place.

I went to get a bite to eat and then returned to my room where I sat on the bed and meditated.

Sinking into my mind once more, I was met with the Divine Fragment sitting in the middle of my Sea of Consciousness. The pressure it was exuding was great, but I could already somewhat resist it.

After mending my Soul with the help of pills, I got an idea. Someone might call me stupid and a masochist, but really, I was just doing the logical thing. By having a piece of a Divine Soul put pressure on mine, I could temper myself, slowly but surely.

Every day I moved my Soul slightly closer, and every time I had to grit my teeth as the grip on my mind intensified. But, I was no weakling. If I wanted to resist stronger Cultivators, having a powerful Soul was a necessity. Otherwise, it wouldn’t matter if my body was indestructible if my Soul popped like a balloon by a single Soul Smite.

Also, those in the Spirit Realm could stop my body from regenerating. Elder Li could do it at any moment if he so wished. That was a problem. Having someone else control my mind and body was absolutely out of the question. I had enough of that shit back in the old world. Being chained by rules and regulations sucked all the fun out of life.

It’s not that I wanted to be a criminal, but there existed so many stupid laws that did nothing but perpetuate misery and suck the joy out of people. And I would do anything to get out from that oppressive thumb of the government, Cultivators, or heck, even God himself.

And to do that, some temporary suffering was necessary. I already consumed all the pills I bought a month ago, and then some. They had some really interesting medicines, those Brilliant Sword Sect Disciples. They helped me temper my body. The herbal baths from the Elder also worked great. I felt completely reborn.

I was just letting my thoughts flow when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my mind. I concentrated and saw my Soul cracking slightly. At first, I thought I was reckless and came too close to the Divine Fragment, but then I noticed some weird tiny golden dots spread across the surface.

[The hell?]

My Soul acted on instinct and tried to take a bite out of the glowing Fragment. It ended just as well as one might think. It failed and got hurt in the process.

But…

As I examined it closer, I saw my Soul slowly healing on its own. And the Aura changed, even if just a minute amount. Did it eat… the pressure? Or did the Fragment start to decay and it consumed a microscopic amount of Divine Essence? It couldn’t be, right?

I saw a tiny, so tiny it was barely visible, piece of Divine Essence split from the Fragment and slowly float away. It carried with it the same type of pressure, only much lesser. After a moment of hesitation, I decided to try it.

I ordered my Soul to eat it. Surely it couldn’t be that bad?

I was wrong! Despite it being smaller than a grain of sand, as soon as my Soul swallowed it, it was as if a bomb went off inside. The tough black skin violently split, spilling out my fiery Soul Essence. And the pain, oh god the pain, it was out of this world!

Luckily it only lasted for an instant and then went from a 15/10 to just 8/10. Good thing it did too because at 10/10 some people tend to try and kill themselves. Even if I was used to it, I didn’t think I could resist such agony for even a single minute.

The shock even threw me out of my meditative state and I awoke drenched in sweat. My head had a pounding headache and I could barely think.

I quickly threw a Soul-Reuniting pill into my mouth. Obviously, I had more. I bought quite a few once I realize I could train my Soul by letting it bathe in the presence of the Divine Fragment. Knowing myself, I bought a few just in case I did anything stupid. I was so glad I did. Even if it cost me some money, that was fine. I wasn’t stingy when it came to things that could save my life.

The cool healing energy spread and wrapped my Soul in an ethereal blue mist. The Essence stopped leaking and the wounds began to close one after the other. And then I saw a few more glowing golden specks on my black exterior.

And the pressure from the fragment diminished by another minuscule amount.

I opened my eyes to the real world again and smiled. I could do it. I could eat the chunk of Divine Essence. It might take a long time, but I could do it!

I could barely contain the grin spreading across my face. A Nascent Soul Cultivator, eating Divine Essence. What would the Elders think of it?

That was jumping… how many Realms? Golden, Spirit, Sky, Demigod, and finally, the Divine. And I had how many Memory Orbs again?

My body began shaking with excitement I could hardly contain as I smiled. Soon. Soon I would be able to eat it all. And I would become the strongest. The most powerful Cultivator in the world. I just needed time. And if there was one thing I didn’t lack, it was time.