Two brothers sat together while eating.

Bing Qin Yang turned his glance lightly, observing that many servants were dragging various packages and backpacks.

"Oh, it seems that you're also invited to join to one of those IPPA groups?

Well...Is not that surprising, I mean people call you the 'Living Anomaly' for a reason."

Bing Sheng Wang squinted after hearing those words.

"Stop talking, just eat your spider's juice." He replied coarsely.

Which made Bing Qin Yang look at his own plate of food, while laughing bitterly.

That was one of the many 'rewards', he received from the patriarch.

The soup he received was of a very strange type of Soul Path spider, that could hypnotize others through it's unique web.

It was an excellent Cultivation material, but it made for a very poor food.

The spider was very sticky due to it's unusual soul-essence concentrated fluid on it's legs, a sticky, yet bitter substance.

Bing Qin Yang grimaced as he took a sip of this soup.

"Sigh, I'd rather receive my typical three-liter daily doze of water, please."

To distract himself of those matters, he looked at Bing Sheng Wang.

"Hey, I received an invitation from the Red Ghost Association, and you from which group you received one?"

Bing Sheng Wang raised his brows, while pondering.

"I received many.

First, the Living Elixir Association came, they are a bunch of crazed people who believe that Anomalies are the perfect source to acquire resources for their elixirs.

When they came, they gave me the 'attractive offer', of basically making me a huge piece of meat.

They wished to take samples of my hair and nails, a bit drops of my blood and a bit of my dead skin cells.

All, on an attempt to decipher my powers to create better pills." Despite his tone was mostly calm, one could still feel a bit of anger within his words.

Tough, Bing Qin Yang failed to notice this, he was far more focused on another part of the speech.

Recalling about a certain character which happened to have Wood Powers.

"Oh shit, everyone will inject themselves Bing Sheng Wang's cells." He giggled lightly, while considering such future.

Bing Sheng Wang did not look amused, however.

"Another group contacted me next, they're the Divine Revelations Association.

Those group of Cultist believe that Anomalies, are one of the various ways the Heavens reveal their plans, and intentions, that Anomalies are messages and warnings.

They believe that I am the son of god or something, because I happened to be born on the day of a Tribulation..."

The two kept chatting for a while.

Even tough, Bing Sheng Wang was not exactly the most approachable person, he was actually the only one he could talk to.

His father was out of the question, whilst the various servants, merely paid lip-service every time they shared words.

Bing Sheng Wang was in a very similar position, Bing Qin Yang was one of the few who did not fear him, nor who were trying to use him.

For a moment, the younger brother looked at bing Qin Yang and thought.

"You really have some enthusiasm...

If only I could have just a bit of it..."

Without him ever realizing, a tiny smile appeared on his face.

He recalled many memories from the past.

Since he had first use of reason, Bing Qin Yang always had a very strange enthusiasm.

Of course, little did he know, about the changes that had taken on the brother's psyche, since his reincarnation there was a change on his mentality.

He thought 'If Xianxia worlds are actually real, what else is real?

Were reptilians in my world actually real?

Ehem, if this world is real, then what about it's tropes?

With my knowledge why I cannot find my Golden Finger?'

For years, and years he pursued that fortuitous encounter, and while he had mixed results, and unexpected discoveries that he shared with no one, his expectations were hardly meet.

In the end, when he run out of options, he had another interesting idea.

'If Golden Fingers are not real, why cannot I create my own?'

He began his unique research.

...

Bing Sheng Wang who was at that moment, a mere 5 year old kid looked at his brother with wonder.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

Bing Qin Yang laughed heartily.

"History, I am making history!"

He took dramatically a golden mummy hand, and rose it towards the skies.

"I am moving beyond humanity!"

Bing Qin Yang paused.

"Cough, Cough.

What I meant, is that I am moving past my predecessors, and I am achieving what they could not."

He then pointed at a little shiny black stone.

"Do you know what that is?

Is graphite, a very common substance on our world.

One of the most versatile that may exist, it can be used to create diamonds, or create trees.

However, among the myriad shapes it can take, there is one that has been theorized and produced, yet which has yet to reveal it's use.

GRAPHENE!

When you pile graphite into a single bidimensional layer of an atom of depth, you create this material.

A material very tough, yet light.

A material that is 'hard', but also due to it's bidimensional properties, can be twisted, and bended without ever truly changing of shape.

Toughness and flexibility, whilst also being very light.

But that is not all.

It can also transfer electricity, and if my guess is not wrong, it can likely do the same to Qi.

By combining all of this our Clan could produce a cheap armor, that is light, tough, and flexible, and that can also be enhanced by various arrays to amplify it's use.

All with a common material.

There is an issue however, is very hard to split the layers of this material.

Until now."

He pointed at the mummy hand.

"That is a Soul Artifact, that moves between the line between tangibility and intangibility.

A material that is both physical and spiritual.

A material that can phase through matter, and become real again.

If that was not all, this material can also become partially tangible, in some parts, and intangible at others.

There is a massive potential in this property!

How?

Imagine this.

I want to grab a tiny sphere with my hands, is very easy right, I only need to clench my fist.

However, imagine that I did not want to close my fist, that instead I wanted to put it inside my hand itself.

That may sound crazy, but is actually possible.

By turning certain parts intangible, and others tangible, I could move the sphere, until entered halfway through my hand.

Then, I could turn the skin on my hand tangible, all while leaving the rest of my hand intangible.

On this way, the sphere would be caught by my skin as if it was a glove, yet it would no replace no part of my tissue, after all, it would still remain, just in another dimensional plane.

Having said this, what if I want to put two spheres inside my hand, but I do no to wish for either of them to touch.

How do I do this?

I could simply turn the middle point of my hand tangible, creating a wall that splits the two areas.

Then, what about four?

I could keep doing the same, splitting by more and more layers those spheres.

With this said, now imagine that I want to do this on a million's scale.

All until I reach the atom's level.

I am splitting the atoms on various layers of an atom of width.

Of course, the actual process is a bit more complex, I need to do this progressively to not produce much heat, ensure to not create a lot of pressure, displace the air, etcetera.

But you get the gist of it."

Bing Sheng Wang's eyes widened, his jaw fell.

"HOW?

Are you able to control an Artifact so precisely?"

Bing Qin Yang shook his head.

"No, I cannot.

But, we have technology."

He took a grayish pink sphere, with multiple roots and veins that began to grip into his hand.

"This Artifact can be used to give instructions to other Artifacts, you can do either telepathically, or you can write the instructions beforehand.

It took me a while, but I began to write some equations and..."

He explained the whole process in how he accomplished this, he was quite proud of his feat.

All while ignoring what was actually taking place.

Bing Qin Yang was not a physicist.

He was not even a scientist.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Hell, the last time he actually had read those equations was back on high school, and he had already forgotten them all by now.

The only reason why he was able to recall them is because he took special drinks made specifically to remember certain events.

After taking those drinks, he recalled some of the simplified theory he was explained back on his old classes.

Then, he begun a process of 'learning.'

In where he relied on his enhanced Cognition to decipher those equations, their meaning, their implications, the theories, the reason behind those theories, all supported by the knowledge he had figured on this world.

Of course, he never took the time to find physical evidence to sustain his assumptions.

He relied on the lessons he received in school, youtube videos, guess-work, hypothesis.

Everything but actual scientific method.

...

What he was even ignorant about, were the actual principles behind the Artifact he was using.

Was the Mummy hand designed to perform silly experiments?

No, it was an Artifact devised to kill and steal silently.

By materializing parts of itself, the user would be able to impale the heart of anyone easily, or take something before dematerializing it.

Never in a million of years his creator thought it would be used on such fashion.

Besides, it did not actually work as Bing Qin Yang thought.

To prevent cutting itself with the air, before materializing the Artifact released a soft push of Soul Force.

The push of soul force began to actively push the material.

Yet, it still had no space to move.

The Artifact was holding itself back, due to it's actual workings, it was on a very rare of knot with itself.

And thus, it was unable to free itself, which made it trigger it's safe-fail method, in where it automatically released more Soul Force to free itself, which in turn increased the pressure the material gave to itself, which on turn...

You know where this is going.

The temperature increased on the blink of an eye.

Until it finally reached it's breaking point.

A massive fog began to come out, and the material exploded.

Funnily enough, he actually had succeeded on creating an impure graphene, a graphene that entered into the nostrils of the two, this graphene was also mixed with other dust particles like diamond shards, scattered Soul Force among others.

The Soul Force was poisonous.

Bing Qin Yang was able to endure it's effect due to his absurdly powerful soul, whilst his brother, immediately fell unconscious.

Bing Qin Yang to carry by his arms his brother, to prevent him from dying of poisoning.

Despite all of this, he was unable to save him, from the poisoning, it took the help of many medics to treat the harm the little kid had received.

As for him?

Well, he also had his own trip to the hospital due to a bit of internal bleeding on his lungs.

...

So, after this happened, did he stop his experiments?

No.

He kept going.

Like that other time he tried to create ATP on an attempt to Cultivate faster, but ended up creating a very powerful, flammable poisonous gas.

But to be fair, this one was actually a partial success!

The patriarch saw that there was quite the potential in that fog, and that it could be used as a biological weapon if it was amplified by Qi.

Or that other time when....

in general, one could say that Bing Qin Yang had a very irrational attitude, a seemingly feeling of invincibility, but those feelings could be easily explained.

After coming back from death, he simply begun to feel partially immune to consequences, moreover, he was now stronger.

His current self could beat up a hundred of his past self, even before he had grown ill.

Another thing that made him this reckless was that on this world medicine was basically miraculous, even if he lost an arm and a leg, he could always recover safely.

Leaving that aside, for every bad experiment he made, he received various insights, and he was getting increasingly closer to actually performing real science.

He wrote each of his discoveries on his diary.

Of course, the diary was written in english so nobody could read it, and also had a very complex array, with a password, and which required his Qi print to be opened.

Bing Qin Yang was eager, hoping for the day where he could actually turn those fantasies into reality, as long as he succeeded once, he would become rich and powerful!

His attitudes were actually not that rare, they're very common in wanna-be alchemists.

Returning to the present.

Bing Sheng Wang frowned.

"Now that I think about it, IPPA groups tends to bring a lot of crazy, research-fanatics.

What am I going to do if I find someone even crazier than my brother?"

He snorted coldly.

"I am going to beat some sense into them, of course!"

Even tough he did not said a word, his aura spiked for a second.

The aura was so intense, that Bing Qin Yang's hairs stood up.

The older brother raised his eyebrows and said.

"Is there something troubling you?"

He said, while taking a sip of the soup.

Funnily enough, it not longer felt as bitter.

Even though he did not want to admit it, he was actually feeling a bit afraid for his life.

Qi suppression was no joke.

The younger brother shook his head.

"You know, I do not like when others try to get on my head.

Besides, will telling you about my problems, really do anything?

Can it cure my condition?"

Bing Qin Yang shrugged.

"Maybe?

I mean, Mystical Condensation Realm is all about control, control about your feelings, brain, Qi, etcetera.

Maybe if you talked a bit more, you could have an easier time on breaking through?"

The two looked at each other for a few seconds.

"Go back to eating bug's meat, and leave me alone." Bing Sheng Wang replied.

"Is arachnid, besides, you should not act all gloomy....

Just, chill out." He winked at his brother, clearly his final words referred to his condition.

"..." Bing Sheng Wang.

He slammed the table, breaking it into countless pieces.

Then he moved towards his room, with his clenched fists, all while cursing.

"STUPID BROTHER AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU WOULD SAY SOMETHING USEFUL!

BUT LOOK AT ME I ACTUALL LISTENED YOUR NONSENSE, SO I AM AN IDIOT TOO!

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN."

The more he complained, the angrier he got.

His words were heard by everyone nearby, the servants ran as far away as they could from him.

Even though he had yet to murder someone, nobody wished to try their luck.

The only one who remained calm through all this event was Bing Qin Yang who simply sighed.

"Is not easy to have a young master as a father, or a jade beauty as a brother.

Am I the only normal person on our family?

Oh well, he will eventually calm himself down, he always does..."

Bing Sheng Wang's room, looked quite strange.

It was very, very big.

And looked empty.

Yes, there were some basic things like some Cultivation Sutras, or books, and drawers were medicine was stored.

But not much more.

Also, everything on his room was put on the corners of it.

That was done to decrease the harm he would make when he had a tantrum.

Bing Sheng Wang jumped towards his bed, and grabbed a pillow tightly.

Tiny sparkles of light began to sprout around his back.

The flames began to appear and spread through his body, yet the bed remained stable.

It had been designed specifically to resist someone like him.

Of course, they did not protect him.

The flames became more violent, as the pain rose, his anger increased, which amplified the flames further.

He roared in pain.

"IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS IT HURT IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURT IT HURTS IT HURTS!" Multiple ice shards appeared beneath the skin on his chest, piercing through his tissue and making him bleed.

Bing Sheng Wang gritted his teeth.

"Why?

Why every time I get just a bit emotional, I have to endure this pain?

Why my mind gets fuzzy constantly, why I must suffer migraines?

Why I cannot sleep?"

From his nostrils a very hot steam began to come out, whilst a thin layer of snow appeared on his tongue.

"Why I cannot smell things?

Why I cannot enjoy food?"

His Bloodline Ability constantly healed his body, but not all harm could be repaired, every time he injured himself, there was always a mark, there was always a little bit of irreparable harm.

And yes, there were ways to make him recover his sense of smell and taste, by using precious medicines, but what would even be the point?

Soon enough, he would lose those senses again.

"Why...I must be the only suffering?

Why others can be happy?

Why can others be so carefree?" His eyes became red, filled with fury.

It was such the anger he felt, that his jaw began to tremble so much, that it dislocated over and over again.

"Why?" His aura began to shrink, the flames began to extinguish.

"Is not fair...

Is not fair..."

His aura became liquid, forming a bubble that covered his whole body, the bubble slowly began to solidify, becoming colder and colder.

Until there was a dome of pure ice around his body.

A dome filled with spikes.

His powers and emotions influenced each other.

When he was angry he would release more Fire Qi on his bloodstream, when he released his Fire Qi he became aggressive.

Similarly, the same happened with Ice Qi.

In the case of his body, when Fire Qi became dominant he became aggressive and violent, when Ice Qi was dominant he became depressive and shy.

Only when the two were in balance, would he retain a sober mind, of course that did not meant he was happy.

He was merely more aware of his surrounds.

His gaze was focused, he began to recite like a mantra.

"One day, I will be perfect.

One day, I will be perfect.

I will be perfect, no matter what.

No matter what I have to sacrifice, no matter what I will be perfect."

..:

The knowledge that you suffer from a terrible illness that is slowly eating you away, that is destroying your mind, and that will eventually kill you, would break anyone.

The only way to remain firm is to give yourself a purpose, a reason to stand up from your bedroom every morning.

To become perfect, that was the reason Bing Sheng Wang gave to himself to keep living.

A vague and an ambitious dream that he would fulfill no matter what.

...

Bing Qin Yang was not aware of this side of his brother, because when he was ill, he at least had some memories to cling to, some hope from a being that he no longer recalls.

Bing Sheng Wang was also not aware that his brother was actually a reincarnated man from another world, nor was he aware that the two had shared similar experiences.

Even though the two spoke a lot, they really did not understood each other.

Besides, Bing Qin Yang, had never considered 'why' his brother acted like that.

He simply had giving him a label based on the novels he had read, and thus had assumed that he had him all figured out.

...

Bing Qin Yang also had his own concerns.

He wrote on his diary:

"I Cultivate Water and Soul Path currently, with a bit of Fire Path, tough I rarely use that one.

Sigh, my Cultivation road has been severely hindered by our Clan's lack of expertise on Yin Paths."

It was a very simple logic, the more people Cultivated a certain Path, the more sutras they existed of that path, and thus they're more likely to have better creations.

Apart from that, Sutras constantly evolved, and the more people used them, the more thorough and complete was their development, whilst those used by few, were very stagnant and obsolete.

Of course, that only applied to old techniques, the new ones were even more innovative, but most of them did not meet a minimum standard and were far riskier to use, whilst those which were actually good, were usually kept as a secret by it's creators or rapidly became mainstream.

Leaving innovation aside, a reason why commonly practiced Sutras were 'better', was because well, there were more registers about them.

In fact, in some cases, the respective Clans or Sects would create entire libraries dedicated to the thousands of iterations of a Sutra through the myriad generations.

As long as you're given access to, you could acquire an endless amount of inspiration by looking at all the derived creations that were made by relying on the technique you use, as well as alternative ways to use it.

"Currently, I ended up in quite the predicament.

Almost all the Sutras on our Clan have on a way or another 'Fire' Path, a Path I am very bad at.

Which decreases my speed of Cultivation.

Apart from that, the amount of Yin Sutras are very few, and most of them are supposed to be used as 'complementary' sutras, and thus I was forced to use two 'complementary' Sutras, to compensate for the flaws of the other.

For example, my Boiling Ghost Plasma Sutra.

This Sutra consists on Boiling Ghosts, or rather the lingering will on the food you eat.

How this works, is simple?

Any living creature has a soul, a soul that upon dying usually leaves the body, leaving only a small imprint behind.

This imprint, carries a portion of their will.

This will cannot be used normally, as you'd be self-inducing some Soul Corruption in yourself.

What is Soul Corruption?

Well, every soul is like a drink.

Let us say that soul A is like a lemonade, whilst soul B is like apple's juice.

If soul A, was eating soul B, what would actually take place is that the lemonade would receive a sip of the apple's juice, changing it's taste lightly.

Of course, the drink is still considered lemonade, right?

But what if you gave it a sip of wine? A sip of oil? A sip of coffee? A sip of tea?

Basically, a ship of theseus.

With every part you absorb, you lost a bit more of yourself.

Naturally, this does not happen you eat, as the body expels the soul through complicated means I do not understand.

But if that is the case, how can a person Cultivate Soul Path?

Well...There are some ways.

In the same way that most drinks have at least some water, all souls have at least some common qualities.

Primordial qualities, that any soul requires to sustain itself.

But how can you isolate those universal qualities from the rest of the soul?

Well, the principle is funnily similar to the principles behind distillation.

You basically have to boil souls, until only the most important parts are left.

Quite complicated, if I say so.

Anyway, the process of Cultivating this Sutra consists on doing the following thing:

Soul Path carries the principle of Spiritual Magnetism which states that the equal attracts the equal.

You must bring pieces of your own soul essence and mix them inside the enzymes in your plasma.

Those pieces of your soul, will attract the lingering soul fragments of the foods you eat, and in this way you can attract them.

The absorbed soul fragments will be pulled towards those enzymes, until a change takes place.

Once the material gets close enough to the enzymes, another thing will happen.

Spiritual Magnetism implies that the equal is rejected by the different, and what is more different of the spiritual than the material?

On this point, the inner material will experience a change.

It will be attracted and pulled towards the object, the combination of the two forces will lead to magnetic friction, which will lead to heat, that will eventually boil the material.

Eventually when the enzyme is released as the catalyst of a chemical reaction, the remamment soul fragment can be easily absorbed...

...

Ehem.

This Sutra is very good at raising the soul foundation.

Anyway, I also practice another, this one is far more simple, is called 'Boiling Blood' Sutra, which basically consists in making the blood really, really hot to produce Water and Fire Qi.

Ehem, this one is really bad at everything, it produces very little Qi, but is quite good at tempering the body...

.....

Anyway, I have been having an issue as of late, because I am being forced to split my Cultivation Sessions in two different Sutras, my progress has been very limited, and sluggish.

I need to find a way to fuse the two...

I have some ideas, that I wish to test out, but I do not know if they will work.

Oh, well, they're worth a shot!"

....

Beneath the ground, whilst bathing on hot lava, there was a man with incisive eyes.

Bing Zhang Hung.

"There must be a way to get rid of this stupid contract.

Let's see, maybe I can create a shadow of my soul, and by using it, I can fool the contract into following that shadow, until it leaves me alone.

I also could try to rewind the contract so far in the past, that it did not even exist..."

He made a few attempts, but he simply ended up injuring himself.

He coughed blood.

"I failed." Bing Zhang Hung said reluctantly.

He sighed.

"No matter, is only about a matter of time until I leave.

I already gathered a sizable amount of resources.

I only need to pull a few strings, use some of my favors, and I can get the few key materials I require for my ascension.

Then I only need to create a diversion.

As long as I can distract that geezer, I will be able to breakthrough on the blink of an eye!"

...

Outside the mansion.

The patriarch was pondering heavily and was performing various calculations internally.

Under those years, he had improved massively on his Cognition Path abilities, albeit he did so, by borrowing the techniques of his son.

As well as his Heavenly Artifact.

He used his Cognitive Abilities to think of a way to cure his body, or at least delay his side-effects.

While he found some methods, they're not suitable for him, they either required to use methods like hibernation, were ridiculously expensive, or had a very high risk.

He needed to find another way.

In the end, realizing that he would not find a solution any time soon, he diverted his focus toward other tasks.

"Maybe I could use my Cognitive Abilities to improve the most used Sutras my men currently use, even if it's by a little, any amount of improvement may pile up into an incredible advantage on the future.

I should spend some more time specially in those who are being used by my seedlings.

Maybe I could even decide to lent the services of my Ocular Star to others?

I could find fugitive Cultivators, treasures or precious information.

No, that would be like quenching my thirst with poison, I cannot give my Clan any more enemies."

...

Every member of this family, had very different goals, ambitions and desires.

Even though they meet each other frequently, they actually didn't knew what was going on their heads, nor did they care.

They're lonely, a very lonely family.