The Spirit World.
It is a dimension where Spirits reside, and after forming a connection to a cultivator outside the Spirit World, they would then be called Martial Spirit.
There are many kinds of Martial Spirit, all of which hold different abilities, like how they all have differing appearances. Some take the form of weapons and items, while some take the spiritual beasts and ancient primordial beings.
With such a level of diversity, the spirits' uniqueness was apparent in their form alone. But more easily differentiated would be the degree of strength from one Spirit to another.
There were two separate planes in the Spirit World:
Material Plane, where the weapon-like Spirits are born.
Creature Plane where the other type of Spirits dwells.
The two have their own similarities and difference; however, Wang Xue was going neither of the two planes. The Spirit World holds many secrets that not many know, and because exploring it was no easy feat and doing so does not help in cultivation, the majority of Spirit World is left unexplored.
Wang Xue, on the other hand, was different from the others. Without any friends of any kind, he was left alone all his life; he was even an orphan left to fend for himself.
He had no one.
So alone and neglected, Wang Xue ignored others and went to the Spirit World to explore. There he saw many wondrous things, and before long, he even discovered places that no one had ever seen nor heard of, and one of these places was an independent plane of existence devoid of all and any Spirit that is except one.
Back at the present
Wang Xue flew with incredible speed and arrived at the separating boundary of the two separated planes. Such a place held no known significance to others.
Millions of ghostly figures pass through it every single day. It was not necessary or worthy of being noted.
Wang Xue didn't waste any time and landed on the ground. In the boundary of the two planes, an ordinary-looking white boulder found all around the Spirit World stood tall.
However, what not many knew was the secret that this boulder held.
At the base of the said white boulder, intersecting claw marks and weapon cuts forming unique shapes were present. Many people ignored this boulder, but Wang Xue didn't. He smiled as he placed his hands on those marks and injected his Spiritual Energy mixed with his soul essence.
After doing so, Wang Xue vanished all of a sudden.
Everything was shrouded in darkness, and nothing can be seen as far as the eye can see. In this abyss, the only visible object was a speck of blue light floating in the darkness, alone, without anything.
A bright light appeared in the abyss, and from it came Wang Xue walking out. The moment Wang Xue stepped out of the light and into the dark, the blue speck of light darted towards him.
It circled him energetically.
"You must have been lonely without me." The little blue ball of light didn't answer him in words and responded by moving up and down and tried hitting him on his body as if it was saying, "I was lonely." It was like how a little child welcomes their parents back from a long day of work.
The blue light stopped every movement after a while and just floated quietly in front of him.
"Seems like you've reverted back to your first form?" Stretching his right hand forward, Wang Xue tried touching the blue light. "Oh, this is so good. I never got to do this after you grew up, so I had long forgotten how this felt."
Wang Xue gave out a sigh of disappointment and said, "Isn't it good for you to stay like this? Wait, I take that back, at least reach your second form and stay in that form forever."
Thump! Thump!
The blue ball of light's anger was incensed. What a brute, 'He dare treat me like this after all the time we spent together? This jerk, if not for the fact that I am bound to him.'
The blue light hit Wang Xue with its body.
The human only laughed.
"Come on, we're going to the Spirit Lake and fatten you up. Let's go, Fenrir." Wang Xue called Fenrir by its name and prepared the gate out of the abyss. Fenrir sighed but still followed without making any ruckus or even starting anything with him.
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Fenrir was already Wang Xue's Martial Spirit before this life. Their connection remained beyond death, so the two didn't have to go through that arduous process of ripping apart the abyss. The two entered a gateway and appeared right above the Spirit Lake.
When they arrive there, Wang Xue had Fenrir go into one of the three Spirit lakes to start his cultivation immediately. He didn't waste any time talking to Fenrir, and it was impossible, to begin with since Fenrir was also incapable of speech right now.
So for him to make Fenrir gain his ability to speak again, Wang Xue needed to nourish him with spiritual energy through the Spirit Lake by cultivating.
Wang Jia's body possesses rather good physic, trained by manual labor, this body has fine muscles, and because he hadn't cultivated, it would be easy for Wang Xue to refine this body.
"With the experience and knowledge I accumulated through my previous life as the Bloodbath Monarch, this should be fairly easy."
The inside of the coffin was filled with darkness, and while he was in the dark, Wang Xue started checking his body.
Every nook and cranny of the body was examined for deformation. After which, Wang Xue swiftly located the impurities scattered all over the vessel, meridians, veins to be purged.
"The impurities in this body are surprisingly low. It is understandable he never did anything that abused him."
Wang Xue closed his eyes and tried to find a suitable refinement technique for his new body. He had slain many formidable foes from his past life, all of which held great treasures and methods. Most of these techniques were legacies left behind by their Immortal Ancestors.
After searching his memory for a while, Wang Xue finally remembered a good refinement that quickly gathers a vast amount of spiritual energy.
The technique was convenient, but that risked overloading the body and lead the user to die if not executed carefully.
He did not show any hesitation and began cultivating the technique.
He recited the text inside his head. His body's pores were forcefully opened, resulting in the spiritual energy to rush him.
Wang Xue found this particular technique after he annihilated an evil sect that was rumored to be creating a Martial Technique that makes a human body explode.
Curious, Wang Xue went to check if the rumors held any truth. But when he was found snooping around, everybody tried to kill him, so he did what he usually does and destroyed everything that wanted to harm him.
Unfortunately, no one survived that battle. Not even youths were spared.
But in there, he found a book filled with theories of how an average cultivator can immediately soar to the sky and skip the lower levels of the Spirit Realm and become a peak Spirit Realm cultivator in one leap.
However, this theory was still not completed; it was explicitly stated that to make this work, a master must be present to guide the energy flow in the body, so the sudden surge of spiritual energy does not kill the cultivator.
So far, no one had succeeded in doing this till the end, and now Wang Xue was attempting it without hesitations whatsoever. Call it arrogance or confidence, but Wang Xue truly thinks that he can easily do it in his current state.
A surge of vast amounts of spiritual energy rushed him like a tide, his body started quivering in reaction, but he quickly adapted, regaining control of the spiritual qi in his body.
It was stated that someone from the outside should guide the energy for the cultivator not to explode. So, in theory, the master's presence was needed to perfectly guide the spirit energy.
With that train of thought, Wang Xue reckoned he could do it with ease. With him being a person who was once a man that stood at the apex, it was easy for him to control such a paltry amount.
He guided the energy all over his body that held impurities and started refining it, skin, bones, and blood… it was all being refined to the tiniest details!
"Hehe, this feels like I am cheating in life by doing this." He said in a low voice as a gloating smirk surfaced on his face. The massive amount of spiritual energy continued refining his body, making it stronger and stronger as time goes on.
Click!
Then after an hour, a click was heard inside the coffin.
He already reached the first level of the Spirit realm. In an hour, he was able to the first level of the Spirit realm.
Click! Click! Click!
Level 2. Level 3. Level 4. In another 12 hours, Wang Xue broke thought continuously, smashing through the barriers of the realm; he had now reached the fourth level of the Spirit Realm in just under 13 hours.
The spiritual energy that was continuously flowing in him was simply too much and too abundant, he had not been expecting results this fast, but he was happy that it showed up so fast.
Inside the coffin, Wang Xue now lay on a pool of black liquid from his body. These were the impurities that were inside his body being expunged from his system. Feeling the fresh sensation of impurities leaving him was truly blissful.
Click! Click!
15 hours later, another two barriers of the Spirit Realm shattered, enabling him to reach the Sixth Level of the Spirit realm.
He didn't stop even after he reached this far, the unique refinement technique was too wondrous, and it wouldn't stop until he was at the peak of Spirit Realm.
3 days later, Wang Xue reached the peak of the Eighth Level of Spirit Realm.
It wasn't that he was having a problem with his cultivation; no, it wasn't that. It was because he was trying to contain a vast amount of spiritual energy. He planned to use the accumulated spiritual energy and directly burst into the next realm in one massive leap.
It was greedy of him, but it didn't matter; he was confident he could do it, use the excess and build up the first palace to reach the Jade Palace Realm in one swoop.
"Why stop here when the next realm is just in front of me." He said while grinning with greed; even in the dark, his greed-filled eyes can be seen.
2 days later, Wang Xue's capacity to hold reached its limit. He felt that he was about to burst, and if he didn't level up now, he would implode from his greediness.
Like a dam being opened, the spiritual energy he had stored rushed him like a tsunami. Wang Xue guided the spiritual energy inside his body to the ninth and last barrier of the Spirit realm.
Click
Level up!
CRASH!
He reached the Ninth Level, and with the excess spiritual energy in his body, Wang Xue reached the peak of the Ninth Level in no time.
But he didn't stop there; he initiated his breakthrough almost immediately after reaching the peak of the Spirit realm.
He went for the barrier that separates the Spirit Realm to the Jade Palace Realm, but when the spiritual energy met with the wall that separates the two, a Dragon's roar suddenly echoed in his soul, disrupting his control of the spiritual energy resulting in it to dissipate to nothingness.
"NOOOOOOOO!" Wang Xue shouted aloud!
His anger soaring through the skies.
Wang Xue rushed to his Spirit Lake to see what cost him his chance to reach the next Realm. He had his guess as to what it was, but he didn't know why.
In his Spiritual Lake, the Azure Dragon and the Golden Pagoda glowed with radiant light, which immediately disappeared after it was seen by Wang Xue.
Questions started appearing inside his head.
'What is happening? Did my own Martial Spirit just went and interfered with my advance?'
It was unheard of, a Martial Spirit interfering with a breakthrough.
He wanted to curse, but even doing so would not bring him a satisfying answer. He could act like a young fool or recollect himself and just reinforce his cultivation with what little spiritual energy he retained.
In the end, he chose the latter.
Two Days Later
Wang Xue suceeded in stabilizing his cultivation stage.
The impurities inside the coffin were now much thicker than before; the foul stench made Wang Xue forget his questions and was replaced by the urge to leave that place.
But he was buried six under, so he only had two options to get out:
Dig his way out, or burst out of there.
He didn't take long to decide that he would just burst out. Preparing himself, Wang Xue was about to create a small explosion when he stopped after hearing something.
It was the sound of someone digging through the ground, suddenly he heard voices coming from above.
"Brother Yi are you sure that there are treasures in this grave? I heard that this boy is leading a poor life, so how can he have treasures in there?"
On top of his grave, two muscular men were digging the grave.
'Grave Robbers?' someone was actually trying to act like a vulture to someone like him.
"No need to worry, Yi Bai. This is the grave of Li Xiu's deceased lover, so how can she not leave a treasure here? I heard she left him a massive Jade for him to use as the fee to travel to the Nirvanic Paradise. If we can get that Jade, we won't need to do this anymore. Just help me out here, and we can leave this place as quickly as possible; it stinks here."
Yi Man said to Yi Bai with a smile full of greed on his face.
The two's conversation was clearly heard by Wang Xue below the ground, who was just about to leave. A cruel smile emerges on his face after checking the movements of his body and joints were all good to go.
"Thinking of robbing me? This grave will belong to you guys after I am done with you."