After only a minute Naath paused and then asked.

“Wait a second. You never said exactly what the soul cultivation levels are. What the hell are they called?”

“T-this, uh. N- I mean young master, I don’t think you should start to truly cultivate your soul quite yet. A firm foundation with a large pool of soul energy as well as a concentrated and pure soul energy should be acquired beforehand. Forgive this old rune but I only taught you part of how to cultivate the soul. I believe this will only prove to be beneficial to you in the future.”

To Kings surprise, Naath didn’t lash out at him. Instead he sighed and praised him.

“Ah, I hate to admit it but your probably right, hell, I was even hasty in starting to be a cultivator. I really should have waited while training my mortal body to it’s absolute peak before starting. A good foundation is indeed invaluable, that might be the first good piece of advice that you’ve actually given me. Alright then, for now I’ll focus on laying down a proper foundation then. I’ll also give you one more chance and if you provide information that is correct and useful I will maybe start to believe you a little bit. If you really are as old as you say, then you should be able to spot any flaws in my cultivation no? For some odd reason I have this nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right with my cultivation.

It feels like I’m missing something, I cant say what, its just intuition. Like that nagging feeling that you get when you know there should be more food on your plate than what there is. An empty space that you know had something there, just that little seasoning or flavor that is missing. You don’t know what is missing but you know its something.”

“Ah, young master let me have a look at you bones then. I should be able to see any-. Yep that would do it, this damn backwater world doesn’t even know how to cultivate properly. Young master when you break through levels do you by chance just let the energy build until it shatters your bones and then reconstruct them?”

“Uh, yes. Is- is that bad?”

“Argggghhhh backwater trashy no name unintelligent world! It would be a miracle if anyone made it off this rock and into the starry sky. Fucking seriously!!! It almost even killed a once in a billion year genius like you! How many other potentially legendary figures has this backwater ball of useless rock destroyed?! If I still had a body right now I’d grab the nearest sectmaster and shake them until they had triple vision! Wheeeew, young master Naath, that is simply a completely irresponsible way to cultivate the body. The correct way is to fill your bones to the saturation point and then compress the energy and condense it into as small a space and as tightly as you possibly can. Repeat that process until your bones reach the saturation point and you simply cannot compress the energy any further.

Once you reach this point then and only then should you let the energy shatter your bones, this will increase your energy capacity as well as increase the purity of your bones. Wait, are you even infusing your bones with True Void energy? Or are you simply storing it in your bones and letting martial energy rebuild them?!”

After a moment of Naath being completely silent King had his answer.

“Gaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! Trash this world is utter trash! Nevermind I wouldn’t shake the nearest sect master, I would transmit proper methods into every soul on this planet and just behead anyone who still taught this trash! Young master, when you are rebuilding your bones make absolutely sure that you use your True Void energy in order to do so. I hate the heavens with every fiber of my being, but thank the heavens I noticed this in only the second stage of bone hardening. With this we can remedy the flaws in your foundation this would have caused. Given, it’s going to hurt, a lot.

Young master, I’m afraid we will have to destroy your cultivation by breaking your bones and releasing the energy stored in them. You are going to have to start over in your cultivation, else your future cultivation will be severely impacted by these early flaws.”

“Uhhhh, King, that sounds like a bad idea, also it sounds stupidly painful. I just broke through and now your telling me to reset my entire cultivation?! I’ll admit what you are saying SOUNDS good, but so far everything you’ve told me has been… sub par. If you want me to do this your going to have to give me some serious proof that you know what your talking about.”

“Fine, young master. What do you want to know, ask away!”

“King, what are the heavens? What do you believe that they are?”

“Going right for the sore spot huh? Fine I’ll tell you what the heavens are. The heavens as I see it are a set of laws, the dictate everything. They are like the universal law that light is the absolute fastest thing that can exist in reality. The differences is the heavens will impartially enforce these rules through the Dao and use energy to eliminate anything threatening the balance of these rules. What is called heavenly punishment or a heavenly calamity is simply the heavens determining through the laws and Dao energies that something threatens the order and must be eliminated. The heavens are emotionless and are a system that governs everything, making sure balance is achieved and stability maintained.

In my eyes though, the heavenly laws are flawed, and not in small ways. But how they are flawed is not information I can share openly because the heavens see the knowledge I hold as a threat to the balance. If you are to learn about it they will target you. The heavens don’t target me or my brothers and sisters because of some special reasons that I also cannot share with you young master. Does that clarify for you?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Hmm the heavens as a system of universal law like physics, interesting. However ultimately not enough. Tell me why people cultivate specific elements instead of pure martial energy.”

“Ughh, slave driver! Fine, people cultivating in elemental energy is the one thing that this backwards ass world actually got right. Cultivating in just martial energy is an opinion yes, but, it is limiting, very very limiting. Pure martial energy can be used to form any other element yes, but, it will always be lower tier elements and powers. Not only this but if you follow this path you will never develop an elemental body. An elemental body is the first major goal of body cultivators. You essentially become an envoy to your chosen element, your control over it reaches an extreme. Your body will also gain abilities related to these elements.

An example would be a fire cultivator who achieves an elemental body would never feel the cold and always be warmed. They will essentially be immune to all flames at a level equal to or lesser than their own. This is where energy purity comes in to play though, purity and density determine the level of ones elemental body. The more pure it is the greater the power of the body, again we will use flames as an example because it is easy to distinguish. There are red flames at low purities orange at a greater purity and then there is blue, white, and finally at the absolute pinnacle is the immortal black fire. There, young master surely that should be enough?”

“Hmm okay fine, I’ll trust you and give you this chance, if it is correct then I will listen to you more in the future and truly consider becoming your pupil. So how do I do this then?”

“Young master its simple, just focus on your bones and force the energy in them out rapidly, this will cause cracks in the bones that the energy will escape from. After the energy leaves completely your bones will mend using residual energy and your cultivation will be gone completely after that. It will be painful though so make sure you are mentally pre-”

*Crackle*

With absolutely zero hesitation Naath did as he was instructed and splintered all of his bones and let out the energy. Brutus nearby took note of this and instantly realized Naath’s cultivation had evaporated. But by this point he had accepted that Naath would definitely not treat him as some slave like animal and didn’t even think of harming him now that he was weaker. Naath who was not bound by martial energy for this process and was able to actually cry out in pain. However, compared to what he had just experienced recently this was nothing at all and he simply let out a low groan of pain.

Just like King had said once all of the energy left Naath’s bones sealed themselves back up and his cultivation was thoroughly gone. Feeling his body's cultivation disappearing just like that, Naath let out a breath and grew slightly sad. However, he could still enter and exit his soul and had his soul sense. He could also feel his True Void Membranes still in place, so even though he had lost his cultivation he still had his True Void Arts. They were after all completely independent of any of his cultivation, their own complete artform. As long as he still had his True Void Arts then he could always rebuild his foundations.

Feeling this Naath felt a sense of relief and looked over to Brutus saying.

“You might want to cover your ears boy, I’m going to break through my cultivation again. This time will probably be much, much louder though. I guess the way I had been doing it was kind of wrong so I undid my cultivation just now in order to correct a rather big mistake. I’ll give you a minute to get some distance from me and cover your ears, howl to me when your ready bud.”

Brutus, without any hesitation stood up, turned around, and ran away from Naath’s location. After a few minutes Naath heard a distant howl and smiled to himself. He was proud that Brutus had chosen to be his partner, an intelligent and strong partner to always watch Naath’s back for him. And then without any further delay Naath closed his eyes and started using his two True Void Membranes to draw in large amounts of True Void Energy. After cycling the energy once and purifying it to nothing he would then send it directly into his bones to cycle again there. This was to ensure the energy was as pure as it possibly could be for later. Naath also did not allow mixed martial energies from the world around him to flow into his bones without first being filtered through his True Void Membranes just to be safe.

Soon Naath felt that the energy had reached a critical point and his bones were feeling stressed. With this feeling Naath stopped the current cycle on the attraction phase and all of the energy in his bones compressed to the absolute limit, going so far as to become liquid energy. His larger bones had two or even three drops of energy while the smaller ones had only a single droplet. However even just this one droplet was incredible and something that most talented cultivators could only dream of. It represented that the energy had reached a threshold and was as pure and dense as possible.

If an energy had any impurities then it simply wouldn’t form a liquid energy, if it wasn’t dense enough it also would not form any liquid at all. The energy in Naath’s bones, thanks to his filtering process and the miraculous nature of the True Void Arts had reached a state of near perfection allowing it to condense. After the energy was fully condensed in each and every one of Naath’s bones he started to draw in more energy after cycling it through his true void membranes. Soon his bones reached saturation again and the energy had to be compressed a second time, and then a third and fourth.

Inside of his soul sea, King was watching closely and if he had a jaw it would be on the floor. The amount of compressions a person could achieve usually was a pretty solid measure of their talent. One or two was average, three to five was considered talented, five to ten was considered genius. After ten compressions a person was considered a demon level character, if a person achieved over fifteen they could be said to be blessed by the heavens. If the person achieved more than twenty then they were called heaven defying, as for anything past 25 there was simply no such instance of this happening in all recorded history.

As King watched Naath slowly compressed his energy again and again continuing the cycle, after only half an hour Naath was on to his 17th cycle. His bones still seemed like they hadn’t yet reached their limit yet though so Naath kept going. Finally at the 20th cycle Naath felt like his bones simply couldn’t take any more energy without him breaking through. So on the 21’st cycle Naath broke through to the first stage of bone hardening again.

*BANG!!!*

The breakthrough was intense enough that it actually didn’t cause snapping sounds but rather the sound of an explosion! The sound wave that swept out caused even the larger trees that would take at least five men to surround started to sway violently. A visible shock wave of sound spread out, warping the air and snapping smaller trees as it went. In the blink of an eye the sound wave had traveled for tens of kilometers echoing out. The shock wave produced stretched out, visible to the naked eye for kilometers until it settled down. Immediately after this and before Naath could even process this King spoke up.

“Kid- er Young Master, don't forget to use your True Void Energy to re-forge your bones! If you don’t the consequences will be severe later on!”