He would need to figure out what he would sever from his soul.

He first though of the cardinal sins.

Greed?

He needed to be greedy to get where he was.

If he stopped progressing... he would never reach rank 10.

Lust?

This was absolutely something he lacked in the first place.

It wasn't a sacrifice for him.

So it would make for a poor severing.

Envy?

He couldn't remember the last time he had been envious of someone else.

Maybe a little envious of Gaia...

It was a poor choice.

Sloth? Wrath? Gluttony?

These all were things he didn't experience much of.

Pride?

This one hit the mark.

He definitely held a lot of pride in his heart.

But he refused to lose such an important aspect about himself!

He deserved the pride he had earned.

What about various virtues...?

Humility? Charity? Temperance?

He probably lacked Humility.

He had a slice of charity.

As for self-restraint.

He felt he had it.

Diligence and Patience were all essential for him.

What Zero couldn't tolerate was weakness.

He remembered his rank 7 dream.

He had been in a situation similar to where he was now.

At the moment before spirit severing.

Zero laughed again remembering back then.

Zero then realized something quite important.

"An ordinary person's personality is heavily based on their life experience and memories, and how they were raised."

"I on the other hand have experienced countless lives... my memories aren't linked to my soul or brain. Generally when someone severs something from their soul, say emotions for example. Their entire personality will change."

"But not only will my personality stay the same... I can heal my soul using my soul artifact."

"So in that case, I should sacrifice something important to me."

"I sever my Pride!"

A thread was broken off of his soul.

His body was filled with overwhelming strength.

He felt his arrogance fade.

"I see... my soul is still influencing me slightly. But it is minor."

But this was merely the first severing.

"I choose to sever my love!"

He lost the ability to love anyone or anything.

Even his love for progression.

This body at least.

The point of severing was kinda pointless to him.

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Who had a rank 9 main body.

Now it was time to do his last severing.

"I choose to severe my greed!"

Zero felt like his ambitions had shrunk.

He also felt like everything was pointless.

He didn't enter a depression though.

His soul artifact began to shine.

Restoring his greed.

Restoring his love.

Restoring his pride.

His ambition came back like a flood.

"I will make it to rank 10!"

He began to break through from spirit severing to transcendent body. His body went through deification.

But he forcefully stopped the process and suffered a huge backlash.

He directly coughed up blood.

Why did he stop himself from breaking through?

Zero had an idea.

What if he abused an exploit in this cultivation system?

You see... the system was designed with a limit for three severings due to that being the limit of the soul.

But Zero's soul would fully recover unlike other people.

So why stop at three?

Why not 10? Or more?

"I sever my hope!"

"I sever my passion!"

With each severing, he got a thread of soul that was split from the source.

Like whips held by his nascent soul.

"I sever my happiness!"

"I sever my sadness!"

"I sever my anger!"

"I sever my fear!"

"I sever my doubt."

"I sever my emotions!"

"My confusion!"

"My weakness!"

"And finally... I sever my limits!"

Zero's soul was about to shatter.

But the soul artifact started to stabilize his condition.

For an instance he felt like had lost everything.

But it was an illusion.

Happiness, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Doubt, Emotions, Confusion, Weakness. Limits.

They were all restored.

Then Zero got an even better idea.

There wasn't anybody to stop him from severing something he had already severed.

"I sever my limits!"

He waited for his soul to recover.

"I sever my limits!"

He waited...

"Limits!"

"Limits!"

"Limits!"

He spammed the shit out of his limits.

Once he had reached 100 severings.

When originally the body wouldn't be able to withstand more then 3.

He had lost track of time during this.

But he was no longer rank 4.

His Infinite Time Guard had shut down.

But with 100 threads of soul...

He had the power of 30+ spirit severing cultivators.

The energy in his body would have blown up an ordinary cultivator.

His Prose, Stasis, Four vital peas, and dantian were near bursting with energy.

"Hmm... I might've went a little overboard..."

"I suppose I'll stop at 100."

Zero had to use his will power to stop his body from breaking through to transcendent body.

Now that he was ready.

He relaxed.

And it was like opening up the flood gates.

His body began to go through a special change.

At this stage your dantian, meridians, soul and body fuse into one being.

Although Zero had completely caused an error through his exploit.

Normally the fusion creates a phantom over each cell.

The spiritual energy in his dantians that was bursting directly became soul energy.

The Qi was flushed out of his body in a burst.

100 threads wrapped around his core forming a shield.

Each cell in his body was imprinted with 100 threads.

He had broken the system.

Normally a person's cultivation would be imprinted in each cell allowing them to revive from a single drop of blood.

But his cultivation was broken literally.

He had caused an overflow in this universes laws for cultivation.

All 100 soul threads and his core containing his cultivation and nascent soul was imprinted on each cell.

His DNA collapsed in each cell.

His cells no longer looked organic.

The cell membranes dissolved as...

100 trillion copies of 100 threads surrounding a core were copied in each cell.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough spiritual energy in the environment to support 100 trillion copies.

Otherwise he would be stronger then 100 trillion spirit severing cultivators due to this glitch.

As things stood.

He was only as strong as around 30-40 spirit severing cultivators.

His crystals dissolved.

Six of the consciousness's merged with his nascent soul.

The spiritual artifacts combined into one.

He now had three artifacts.

A soul artifact.

A combined spiritual artifact.

And one spiritual artifact in his brain's sea of consciousness.

He combined the 'combined spiritual artifact' with the one in his brain.

Now he had two artifacts.

The one made by his main body.

As well as the one composed of eight smaller artifacts.

He combined them into one singular artifact.

His connection with his main body increased once more.

It was no longer a soul artifact.

It became a cosmic artifact.

Branded on his existence and beyond it.

He could now condense a physical form for it if he wished.

Just like his initial 'time machine'.

He unlocked a new function from this.

He called this new ability 'Save Slot'.

Inspired by his 'save point', 'reload', 'plot armor' and 'time skip'.

He had unlocked two additional save points.

He could use save point three times now.

'Save Slot 0', 'Save Slot 1', 'Save Slot 2'.

His abilities had essentially turned into functions.

He would now use reload by adding a command to it.

So 'reload 1'. would bring him to 'Save Slot 1'.

An example would be 'reload 0', it would bring him back to his first 'save point'.

His save points also have been stored as slots.

So 'reload X' brings him back to 'Save Slot X'.

A command has also been added to to 'save point'.

An example would be 'save point 1'.

Which would make 'Save Slot 1' save his point in time.

This was of course when he manually used 'reload'.

If he died.

He would automatically go to the last 'save point'.

Although with his connection increasing.

He could use his willpower to briefly revive in the abyss.

Otherwise he would automatically go to his last save point.

So if he had all three filled.

He would go to 'Save Slot 2'.

If he only had two filled.

He would go to 'Save Slot 1'.

If neither were filled.

'Save Slot 0'.

As his artifact became a cosmic one.

His body had finished merging together.

He had become a transcendent cultivator.

There was only one more level to go.

Immortal Dao Fruit.

He needed to comprehend a law.

Then fuse it with his existence.

And make a 'fruit' out of it.

The thing is...

Cultivators don't enter a sleep like when he comprehended his first law.

They do so through their waking insights.

"How do I go about this?"

Zero then got a great idea.

Why not just scan the body of the 'celestial emperor'?

"He can't be stronger then the god's can he?"