I disposed of the body of Muscle. He was very heavy, I could barely pick him up. Despite the fact that he was a real Beyond Mortal Realm cultivator, he was really poor. He didn’t have any treasures that a cultivator should have. No storage treasure, no weapon treasure and no armor treasure. I’m sure there are other types of treasures, but I can’t remember them right now. I doesn’t matter either way, he had nothing! Literally nothing but the clothes on his back. Fucking nothing! You are a cultivator Muscle, get your shit together! You made my opinion of robber/scammer cultivators even worse! And it was already bad!

God Muscle, you better have just had treasures at your base instead of here. Not that I’ll ever find it. You know what?

{Your question is too unclear to provide an answer. Please restate your question.}

That’s what.

{?}

Yep. I feel satisfied now. I guess its time to go back then. I turn around and leave the cliff edge, walking back towards the cave. Along the way, I notice something rather interesting. Its a forest with trees that have white leaves. I’ve never seen a tree with white leaves, so I’m interested.

Truthfulness: No shit Sherlock. Do you need to repeat that.

Shut up, your a figment of my imagination. Trees with white leaves are new to me, so I’m interested.

Instinct: Just stop, its painful.

Fucking fine. Hope you have fun in that pit of joy and acceptance you’re rolling in.

Instinct: I am. It was really good until you came around and ruined it.

I head to the trees, intent on getting a closer look at the white leafed trees (Instinct: Hey! Don’t ignore me!). As I step into the general vicinity of the trees, a weird feeling runs up my spine. Woah shit! That felt weird. I walk backwards out of the weird place of white leaf trees. Yeah no, I’ll come back in the morning. I turn around and head straight back to the cave, not bothering to check out the scenery once more. So, for now, just gonna put that aside.

----------------------------------------

I wake up in the morning, feelin’ great. Well, wake up is a bad term. I was cultivating through the night, which -thankfully- does the same thing as sleeping. Even better actually, more than just taking a good nap, I feel like I took that nap after soaking in a hot spring. Alright, I confess, I didn’t know cultivation felt that refreshing. I have indeed been missing out on this great, relaxing feeling. Please excuse me as I indulge in this new sensation.

“Hrmm… Ardven, are you awake?”

For fuck’s sake Rucia, do you have to interrupt everything I try to focus on?

“Yeah, I’ve been awake all night.” I tell her. Well, I’m not lying.

“Ah! I’m sorry if I made you do that.” Rucia quickly apologizes.

“No, that was my choice. Anyway, I found something interesting nearby. It’s a place with trees that have white leaves.”

“White trees…?”

“Trees with white leaves.”

“Hmm…”

She ignored me…

“Ah,” Rucia exclaimed. “I think its the Mysterious Soul Tempering Grove. Or something like that.”

“Alright, what does it do? I felt a weird chill when I went in there and from the name, it is obviously something that is useful to cultivators.”

“Um… I think it helps improve your cultivation base or soul. I’m not too sure though, I didn’t really read up on it. Though I do have a book with nearby important landmarks somewhere...”

‘… Helps improve your cultivation base or soul.’ It’s name was ‘Mysterious Soul Tempering Grove’ (God that’s long)? Yeah, no shit it helps improve the soul.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Here it is!” Rucia says happily, handing a book to me.

I take it and flip to the first few pages, hoping to find a table of contents. I’m not disappointed as I see the long list of regions and page numbers. I know what region I’m in, so I flip to the page that holds the landmarks of our region. The front page has its own table of contents, so I search for the Mysterious Soul Tempering Grove on it. Finding it, I flip to it’s page. The first thing that catches my attention is the picture of the place. Although it doesn’t look like where I entered, the description of the trees disagree with my thoughts. White leaves, brown and smooth trunk. Check and check. So it is really the Mysterious Soul Tempering- ah fuck it. I’m calling it Soul Grove, that other name is too long.

It seems this Soul Grove can -to my great surprise- can help in tempering the soul of a cultivator, and pushing them closer to the Mystic Soul Realm, which is just a level above Sky Stepping Realm. Although the Soul Grove is most effective for Sky Stepping and Mystic Soul Realms, cultivators who want to improve their cultivation base can come here and benefit from the refinement power that is deep into the Soul Grove. Apparently there are dangers in the core region where the refinement power is, and is recommended to bring a cultivator at Mystic Soul Realm to keep yourself alive. Please, if someone could get a Mystic Soul Realm cultivator to do that, then I’m sure they can also get pills, treasures and guidance that is worth much more than the refinement power. God author, think about this kind of stuff.

Hm? There’s a footnote. ‘Warning: Cultivators who are under Foundation Building are liable to hallucinations of their greatest desire. Please proceed with caution.’ Greatest desire huh… Insert Lenny face here please. Well, seems the time is not ripe for me to enter that place. It is literally a shit show of bad restrictions and benefits. There’s no point, absolutely none. Cultivators should have already cut the place down and used it for pills or something, it’s worthless as a training area. Mystic Soul Realm is a low level Realm. It’s like the average cultivation for core disciples in a large size sect. Oh. When I put it that way, it’s rather important, isn’t it. Nevermind, Mystic Soul Realm is rather important. A small sect would look up to Mystic Soul cultivators like gods, and mid sects would probably have the sect master at that level.

So, even though Mystic Soul Realm kinda is important, it is still a low level Realm, these people are just too weak and stupid (In terms of understanding cultivation, I’m not saying that they think 2+2=5) to understand that. Seems I’ll forget about that then. Cultivation goes normally then, seeing as how I’ll probably not make it to the core region in the forest. I look through the rest of the book, as I’m curious as to what else is here.

Although I looked at the world when I was… younger (?), I didn’t bother memorizing the names and functions of the places. Unless I made them, which I didn’t. For most of them, at least. Well, I’ll talk to Rucia about this for a bit.

“You wanna go there?” I ask her.

“I don’t mind, but do you?” She replies.

“I don’t care.”

“Then lets go.”

“Okay, if you want.”

Thankfully, there’s a river in the Soul Grove, so I can wash myself off when I break into Beyond Mortal Realm. Aaaaand, time skip!

…

…

…

(A\N: Author: Hey, that actually worked! Bill: 実行を停止する！Author: GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!)

I sit down and start cultivating. Me and Rucia are at the edge of the Soul Grove, right next to a river. Since I haven’t broken in to Beyond Mortal Realm yet, I’ll need to wash once I get purified. So, cultivation once more.

“...”

Aaaaand I broke through. Jesus that wasn’t even a minute. Oh, oh god, oh god. The impurities are here. Ew. Ew. They’re gross. They feel gross. They feel slimy. Ew. Oh god it’s like jelly. That came from me?! Oh god I’m disgusting. But there isn’t as much as I thought there was. I can only see about ten bead-sized black drops. Only ten where I can see? That’s a surprise. You’re supposed to look like you just took a bath in black sludge once you break through, but this… Anyways, jump into the river!

*Splash*

…

Brr. That’s a cold-ass river. I climb out of the river and use my qi to dry myself off. Thank god for qi, otherwise I’d be freaking cold. So, where’s Rucia? I look around, yet I can’t see her anywhere. Rucia? Did you wander off? Now I know I shouldn’t- fuck it, system help me. Where is she?

{Rucia is currently walking down the river you just exited. She is trapped in a delusion of the Mysterious Soul Tempering-}

Fuck, stop! I’m tired of hearing that name. Just curious, but what is she seeing?

{Delusions of being with her family and you.}

Family and me, huh? Me…

Me…

Family and me…

Why do I feel something is wrong here? Does she already like me? System, please answer that last one.

{Rucia does hold positive feelings that surpass that of what is considered a friend.}

Don’t you fucking fall for me Rucia, I’ll feel extremely guilty. I’m not one for love, I certainly can’t return it if you really love me. If you fall for me, I’ll be the worst boyfriend ever. Ah, screw it. I’ll deal with that when it comes to it. Since I’m not thinking about that anymore, where are you Rucia?! Swiggity, swooty, comin’ for that booty.

... 

… I’m freaking out too much from that. Argh, system? Can you erase the contents of the last 30 seconds from my memory?

{Affirmative. Erasing memory…}

…

What the hell was that?

{The system received your request and erase the last 30 seconds of your memory.}

My request?

{Yes.}

Must’ve been bad. So, where’s Rucia?

{Follow the river deeper into the Mysterious-}

Got it, following the river. Rucia, you’ll pay for making me save you this much. Hopefully in cash.