I had spent an entire week reading and refreshing my knowledge of the Golden Core Realm. The way to advance was nothing complicated. Well, most things in Cultivation weren’t. A Cultivator just required enough energy to compress all layers or shells of the Nascent Soul together and fuse them into one.

The problem was only if steps were skipped and the Soul was hastily built, as then it could crumble or shatter during the merging process if it lacked Essence.

But that would only happen if a person decided to break through with the minimum requirements for each level.

I had no such worries as I went above and beyond, with the maximum possible amount of Soul Essence my Soul could hold for each step. Instead of being like a weak styrofoam, my foundation was like a diamond. A diamond made out of stolen Souls, but a diamond nonetheless.

During my studies, I also found some information on the ritual that allowed a Cultivator to partially merge with a beast. It wasn’t clear how to do it, but I at least realized it could be done at any point in the Golden Core Realm and wasn’t necessary to do right at the start, though many did so. It was usually so they could get the maximum value out of their choice.

I didn’t feel like doing it. Not that I wouldn’t like to gain more powers, but if I had to choose, I would take a Dragon. Or at least a subspecies. Some techniques and Martial Arts I knew of required specific bloodlines, and as far as I knew a Dragon was the strongest one. Apart from a mythical beast such as a Phoenix, of course. But I was already merged with that one.

But, could I do it again?

I suddenly scratched my head in wonder. I had a vial of genuine Phoenix blood. I managed to save it from the void prison together with the Memory Orbs and all those other things.

Could I double merge with it if I did the ritual? That was an interesting thought. Maybe my bloodline would improve, gaining even more abilities.

There were no records of people doing double rituals with a single creature. Hell, there were no records of people doing the ritual more than once. But I knew I had at least three creatures inside of me.

The first was the Soul Eater. I wmost likely merged with it when my blood mixed with its core at the very beginning. Or when its energy powered the Gate that brought me to this world. The second was the Phoenix that combined with my flesh when I died. And the third, or maybe even the fourth one were those birds that fought in the skies.

When I ate the flesh of living Spirit Beasts and drank their blood while absorbing fragments of their Souls, my blood became corrosive and poisonous after that.

So yeah, I didn’t know why I couldn’t double-dip on the Phoenix bloodline.

I decided to think about it for a bit, maybe a few weeks, I had time anyway.

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It was time to advance! I was ready! Everything was prepared for this grand occasion.

And by that I mean I got a good night's sleep and a large breakfast.

With the memories of countless Golden Core cultivators, as well as my personal study in the library, I knew everything there was to know about advancing to the Golden Core. In fact, I felt as if I had done it many times already, with all the experiences of the dead in my mind.

It should be easy. I needed an hour max.

I sat on a cushion in a lotus position and took a few breaths to relax my body. My eyes were closed, and without further ado, I began the process. It was so simple, it just took some time and effort.

The best way I could explain what I had to do was to compress all nine layers and then merge them. It was as if trying to compress a large spring, with each layer of the Soul being one turn of metal, and then weld them together when they touched.

Sounded simple enough. The only effort required was to use enough pressure to push the shells close enough for them to merge.

And I did just that. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I started slow. I began pushing with my mind, but my Soul was too strong and resisted. So I tried harder, gradually increasing the force applied. I already expected it would take more effort to cross into Golden Core than the people in my memories, so I was prepared. Yet I was still surprised with how much effort I was exerting and still nothing happened. I began getting worried.

But then I decided to throw caution to the wind and used 100% of my power to push! I forced my shells together for a few moments and then suddenly opened my eyes.

[Huston! We have a problem!]

My Soul wasn’t budging! Not even one bit! And worse yet, Huston didn’t respond to my calls!

[What the fuck!]

I took a short rest and tried again just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. Nope! Same result! My Soul remained rigid as fuck, refusing to compress. The pressure I was exerting to step into the Golden Core Realm did absolutely nothing! And then I realized my utter foolishness!

[I messed up! Noooooo!]

The Divine Fragments, while serving me well to empower my Soul, also made it resistant to outside forces. But how could I know that would make it resistant to me?! I was stuck! How could a peak Nascent Soul possibly compare to the Divine?! I was fucked!

[Wait, no! It’s not yet over! Don’t panic!] I gave myself a slap to get my head back straight. There had to be a way to solve this issue.

There were pills to dissolve Cultivation in case things went awry or the Soul was damaged beyond repair. It was better to lose a few levels and start over than leave an ugly scar on your Soul. Otherwise, it could become an obstacle on your path.

But I seriously regretted consuming so many Fragments. If it was just one it would have probably still been difficult, but I could manage. But to eat multiple… what was I thinking?!

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Divine Essence reinforced my Soul like rebar, crisscrossing it entirely and protecting it from outside attacks, but at the same time, it prevented me from moving further.

It was such a mess!

I quickly left my room and ran down the mountain into the Inner Sect to visit a few pill shops. I bought a Soul-Dissolving and Soul-Compressing Pill to maybe add to the pressure, though I wasn’t optimistic. Both were stronger than normal and the cost reflected it. In total, I nearly had to give a Spirit Stone for the two of them.

I quickly returned home and tried it out immediately. I threw the Soul-Dissolving Pill into my mouth and waited for the effect to take hold. I didn’t have to wait long for a tingling sensation to reach my Soul. Some sort of energy tried to corrode my Soul's Essence and break it apart.

Unfortunately, it first tried to dissolve my Sea of Consciousness, or what I created in it. I had to quickly guide it to envelop my Soul and hope for the best. It did work, somewhat. My Soul almost showed the signs of damage. An optimistic guess would be I just needed another 999 pills to remove the ninth shell.

[Fuck off, man! What is this garbage?!]

Each pill was supposed to remove a layer or more for an average Cultivator. I took an even stronger version and yet the results were so pathetic! Did I have to bathe in this medicine for it to do anything? But that wasn’t even the proper effect. I needed to soften my Soul, not break it. I was just hoping it might help, but of course, it didn’t.

I massaged my temples in frustration. I didn’t even bother taking the other pill since I already knew it wouldn’t do anything. My Soul was so much stronger, anything used by the common Cultivator would have little to no effect. I had to think outside the box. I had to come up with something insane, turn it up to eleven, and maybe, just maybe it would work.

How about asking an Elder to squish my Soul? I’m sure that wouldn’t be suspicious at all. Surely the power of a Spirit Realm would be enough? But then again, that was exactly the reason I even ate those Divine Fragments in the first place. I wanted to be immune to the effects of a Spirit Realm Soul attack.

I remained seated for a long time, racking my brain for an idea. I haven’t tried it out yet, but what I already came up with just didn’t seem like enough.

I scoured my mind for information about this particular problem, but anything the people I absorbed knew, was about the opposite problem. When the Soul wasn’t strong enough. That was understandable, yet incredibly frustrating. It didn’t help me at all.

Elder Li dabbled in Alchemy, however, he was nowhere near being a true master. I had read the books and scrolls he had, yet there weren’t any pills or elixirs I could use to solve my problem.

I briefly considered giving up, but then I decided that was the mentality of a loser and squashed that thought.

Taking some time off wasn’t bad though. My Cultivation advanced quickly and I reached the first bottleneck, though it was by my own stupidity instead of a natural barrier. Either way, the result was the same.

I left the underground chambers and began roaming around the Core Sect. The buildings there were much sparser, with walled-off pavilions and palaces off to the side. Shops were few and far between, but I did find some. Unlike those in the Inner Sect, these you could enter and not stand outside.

So I stepped inside to have a look around. I already wrote in my notebook the options I had. Ask the Elder for help, take a few strong Soul-compressing Pills, maybe even surround my Soul with the remaining Divine Fragments so their pressure would multiply.

It was an idea I had, though I didn’t put too much hope into it.

I browsed through the shop but found nothing that would interest me. I mean, there were plenty of fancy things, even pills, but none of them did what I needed them to. Heck, most of the things there were a luxury. Fancy furniture, house decorations that had Qi-Gathering Formations built into them, and even a Divine Complexion Pill was on display.

Apparently, it could rejuvenate you and slow down the aging process. It had to be taken once a month though, and with the price of 5 Spirit Stones each, that was exclusively reserved for the rich.

The shopkeeper even offered me a catalog of pills I could order, but once again, what I wanted just wasn’t there. Who knew having a partially Divine Soul would be such a problem?!

I was nearly ready to give up when I decided to visit a weapons shop.

They had a myriad of weapons there. From simple swords and curved blades to bows, spears, sickles, even a large kanabo, a mace, and a spiked club were among them.

But what attracted my eyes weren’t those weapons, but instead a stack of needles and throwing knives. Once again, the weapons themselves weren’t the ones that interested me, but instead the things that could be bought with them. Flasks of poisons.

Poisons! How could I forget?! I didn’t need pills or elixirs, I needed devastating poisons that targeted the Soul! If a beneficial pill could reinforce it, why couldn’t there be a poison that did the opposite? Weaken the Soul, make it more malleable, more vulnerable to pressure.

Well, I checked the poisons they had on display and even asked to see the entirety of their collection, but there was none of what I was looking for.

Oh, there were poisons for the Soul, but the Spirit-Festering Soul-Rot Poison they had was a bit too aggressive for my tastes. It could dissolve even a young Spirit Soul in mere moments and was difficult to get rid of. That meant it was equally difficult to control, and on top of that it was ridiculously expensive, 183 Spirit Stones for a single bottle. If I was an Elder, I could get it for only 175 Spirit Stones.

Haha, these guys are so funny.

Fuck no! It was not in my budget, and it wasn’t something I could use anyway. But this gave me hope. There were all kinds of venom and poisons out there in the world, surely one of them had to do what I required. The only problem was finding it. But at least I knew what I was looking for. Instead of searching through Alchemy books, I should look through a Bestiary. Or a book about poisonous plants that had no practical alchemical uses.

[Hah, I got plenty of research to do...]

I went down into the Inner Sect just to try my luck there before locking myself in a library. I wasn’t holding my breath, but you never know. I first made my way towards the Trading Hall where copious amounts of goods were exchanged every day.

People there were buying and selling in bulk all kinds of stuff. There was meat for sale as well as some herbs and spices, there were winter fruits, some designated to be made into wines, others into pills…

I could see ores and metal ingots of all kinds, as well as wood and special magical stones… There were so many things exchanging hands, let’s not even talk about beast cores or other, more valuable body parts.

It was much livelier than the last time I visited, probably because the Beast Tide was coming to an end and people wanted to sell the stuff they collected during the winter. Furs and tanned hides especially.

Spirit Stones were exchanging hands and items traveled back and forth from the bulk seller to middlemen and then to artisans or the other way around. It was organized chaos.

I walked through the crowd of people bartering or advertising their goods while the attendants there struggled to keep all transactions recorded properly.

There weren’t many herbs on display as it was just the beginning of spring, but there were some. I recognized a few, but not many, and had to ask a worker there for help. I quizzed him on the effects I wanted, but he just shook his head, saying things like that were traded rarely, if ever. He proposed I should find a poison master and try with his suppliers, but he couldn’t give me any names.

I just shook my head in dismay and walked away. Poison masters were rare in the Myriad Beast Sect, and I didn’t know any. Most of them were probably Elders with little time for a Nascent Soul Disciple like me anyway.

Also, money was tight unless I wanted to sell my Spirit Swords. They were probably worth a nice chunk of change, about 100 Spirit Stones each was my guess. But that was my safety net, as well as my trophy of defeated enemies. I didn’t want to sell it. Not to mention that Tiny needed a better body, and those swords were perfect for it. Mithril would be the perfect material to reinforce him.

But then I noticed a familiar face walking away from the Trading Hall. I recognized that Disciple and his face was clear in my mind. I abandoned my search immediately and followed him. It was the first time I had personally seen him, but that bastard, Sicario, oh, he knew him very well.