A month had gone by and I was getting beyond bored. There was no chance in hell I was going to continue with closed-door Cultivation even a second longer. 35 days of inaction were more than enough for me.

I spent a large part of that time washing my cells in Golden Qi and feeding my Golden Meridians as much as they would take. They were getting thicker by the day, capable of transporting more energy without sustaining damage.

The good thing was that, by becoming larger, they could absorb more Qi and grow even faster. Their growth was accelerating, and I had already reached escape velocity. I could keep low-intensity magic going for the entire day without stopping, and my Meridians would be completely fine. Short bursts of high intensity were also possible, though anything longer than a minute or two would bring with it damage and pain.

It didn’t matter how much Golden Qi my body contained, as long as it didn’t move, it was fine. If I tried to move it, however, the damage could quickly stack up. It was like sitting on a sheet of sandpaper versus trying to go down a slide made out of it.

I had to make my Meridians so strong and tough, that any damage done could be easily regenerated faster than they broke down.

And my physical Meridians weren’t the only ones that I was working on. As my Soul had absorbed nine Divine Fragments, it became all lumpy and uneven. The Fragments liked to clump in one place, making just certain parts of my Soul really strong. I didn’t like that.

Remembering the time when I almost died by getting my head decapitated, the only thing that saved me was a strand of Divine Essence that held both parts of my Soul together.

It was a crucial discovery that I decided to take full advantage of. During this month, I also reshaped my Soul slightly.

I took the clumps of Divine Soul Essence and moved them to my chest where the core of my power was. I then shaped it into a nice sphere and pulled out long strands of Divine Soul Essence to stretch over my Soul. It was just like the Golden Meridians, with two lines for each limb, so 14 in total. Arms, legs, head, and wings. They would guarantee that even if my Soul was once again cut, it would not completely separate.

While this technique sounded simple, it actually took me over two weeks of constant effort to do that. As it turned out, Divine Soul Essence was wildly unresponsive to my commands. Unlike the normal Soul Essence that I could shape like clay.

Not to mention that it didn’t like the new spread-out position and wanted to pull back to the core. Every day I had to stretch it again so it wouldn’t shrink back and would remain in place. It was very annoying, especially since it seemed I would have to do that for the foreseeable future. Or until I personally reached the Divine.

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I came to a decision. I was going to merge with the Phoenix! Again!

Were there any preparations that had to be done? No! It was… well, it was quite easy to do, but at the same time wasn’t so simple.

The hardest part was getting the materials, such as the blood and flesh of the creature you tried to merge with. Some people said you had to take a fragment of the Soul as well, but there wasn’t much consistency on that. People did it without and it worked just fine.

There were special Formations for each creature, but those were mostly for aligning Elements and other such things. If you were completely aligned with Water, then merging with a beast of a Fire Element would be difficult, if not dangerous. The glyphs, apart from guiding the merger, were there to align the Elements and Essence of the two beings. Those things were important.

I already had a fiery nature so I wasn’t worried, though I still chose the glyphs for Fire. Just in case, you know?

I went to the arena and drew a formation on the ground with my blood. It was complicated and required Spirit Stones to power it, but I had time and money to spare. After finishing that, I removed my clothes and lay on my stomach in the middle of the Formation. It took the vial of Phoenix blood and a knife, a Spirit Blade I stole from one of the traitors of the Sect.

Couldn’t remember who it was anymore. It wasn’t important.

I cleaned the blade and then used Telekinesis to move it. I used my Arcane Eyes, lifted my perspective behind me, and relaxed my body. I then began carving. The blade pierced my skin and I began cutting lines into my back, copying the Formation I already had drawn on the floor.

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It was painful, I wasn’t going to lie, but on a scale of 1 to 10, it was 7 at most. I could take it. I forced my wounds to keep open and not bleed so I could easily see what I was doing. It was a bit unusual to see myself from behind, but enhanced Spirit Senses allowed for such simple tricks.

About an hour later, I was done. I took the bottle of Phoenix blood and once again, with the help of Telekinesis, moved it to my back. I then filled all of my wounds, the entire Formation, with that burning blood.

It was a mythical flame creature, of course, its blood would be constantly on fire. It hurt, but not that much. I was already mostly immune to fire damage due to all those regenerations with Fire Mending. I only felt about 10% of the pain it originally should have been.

I tried to relax my mind and body for a few minutes and then activated the Formation.

It flashed brightly and I felt the skin on my back tighten as the blood was sucked into my body. A searing pain spread from there, bathing me in flames. I grited my teeth but didn’t scream. It was really painful. I already knew it would happen, but it was different from what I imagined. My every cell was being changed on a fundamental level, and that hurt. Soon I was feeling sore throughout my entire body.

The Formation burned on my back, and the one on the ground lifted off the ground and wrapped around me on the front. Very annoying, that’s all I’m going to say.

It lasted for… Ten minutes? Half an hour? It was hard to tell, but I was glad when it was finally done.

I was still feeling sore, but it was getting better. I flashed some Fire Mending to get rid of the damage and I immediately felt better.

Then I paused.

I flashed the Fire Mending again and felt it working intimately. My mood brightened. There was a drastic change!

I felt no pain from it anymore. None. Absolutely zero. Also, Fire Mending worked way better than ever before. I didn’t know if that was because I was using Golden Qi, or because I just double-merged with a Phoenix, but it was so smooth! My body felt reinvigorated every time I used Fire Mending.

In fact, it felt so good I even considered keeping it on all the time. But that would be weird, and it used quite a bit of energy, even if I could keep it up for a few hours.

After advancing to the Golden Core Realm, the efficiency with Qi and magic went up another order of magnitude.

I suddenly realized that meant my spells could become even more powerful. Every higher level of Qi could empower the spells. A Fireball made with Base Qi and one made of Golden Qi was completely different. No way you could harm someone in the Golden Core with the former, while the latter might just kill if it was good enough.

I then tested my Sun Ray as well. My eyes began to glow for an instant, and a concentrated beam of pure energy shot out. It was so thin and concentrated, way more than ever before, and empowered with Golden Qi, it felt super deadly. I summoned armor over my hand and looked at it intensely.

Sun Ray burned straight through but failed to pierce my hand, which was odd.

I removed the Qi shielding and tried to pierce through my bare flesh, yet the result was the same. My skin began to glow from heat, but I didn’t feel any pain, nor was there any visible damage. I pushed even more energy into the beam, creating a blinding blade shooting from my eyes, and then suddenly stopped.

I just realized I felt no pain from my eyes, nor was I blinded by the light. And I wasn’t using the Fire Mending technique to fix my eyes either. They just… didn’t burn.

[Oh… my god.]

I looked around the arena in excitement, but then quickly remembered I was alone. My mood soured a bit as I didn’t have anyone to share the discovery with, though I was still happy. If my guesses were correct, I had just gained immunity to fire damage. I mean Fire damage. The entire Fire Element! I couldn’t be sure, obviously, as maybe Fire spells made with Spirit Qi could still hurt me, but this was already incredible!

I couldn’t burn myself anymore! And flames didn’t hurt either!

But then I realized something else! I blasted full-power Sun Ray again and focused on my Meridians. They didn’t hurt or burn either!

[Hahaha! No way!]

I still had to grow them larger so I could use more energy at once, but that was great news! That was the one thing that all Cultivators suffered from in the early Layers of Golden Core. Overheating! But I could become a machine gun that never overheated! I would be invincible!

However, I had to work on my Soul Cuirass. It felt kind of weak when I tried to pierce it. I had to pump more Qi into it, that’s for sure. But for that, I needed larger Meridians…

[...]

Sigh. Does it really have to be this way?

[Maaaaaan! Fuck it! I’m going back! Who needs to move anyway? Sitting for years is just fine! Hallelujah!]

I got back to my room, slammed the door, and went back to closed-door Cultivation.

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Another week went by…

[Aaaaaargh! I can’t take this anymore!]

I burst out of the room and ran along the tunnel. Too much, it was too much. Six weeks underground without seeing the sun was pure torture. I needed to see nature, the sky, people… I didn’t even know what was going on in the Sect anymore. I knew the Brilliant Sword Sect had some plans to attack, but that was months ago. Did it happen? Was there a war on the surface? I didn’t know shit!

I opened the door and burst into the sun and saw… nothing!

[Wait… everything is okay?]

I was being paranoid. The Sect was fine, with no signs of battle anywhere. That was good. Otherwise, I would be kicking myself if I missed a Soul buffet.

Seeing the familiar place so nicely developing, with plants and flowers growing in the late spring, I decided to get down and explore a bit. I had no idea what was going on in the Sect. And what better to do than to go down for a chat, and learn some news?