Su Yuchen couldn’t think straight anymore.

If he decides to follow the cultivation practice mentioned in the book, then he might take a lot of time to progress in cultivation.

The sign in system could give him a lot of rewards, that will help him progress faster, but his body would then need to bear the impact of a lot of astral energy circulation. It would also require a lot of mind activity to cultivate.

Astral energy is both beneficial and harmful to an ordinary person, even for Meridian Refine Realm cultivators astral energy can pose a threat to their life if they make mistakes in their cultivation. Astral energy is attached to the life essence when circulating, any distraction with his mind can hurt the life essence. That means death or decrease in life span, horrible consequences in either cases.

The system might need to reward him with stellar rocks daily to have a better source of astral energy than the sun. If not, his cultivation will become more taxing when he has to rely on Solar Astral Energy for cultivation.

Solar Astral Energy is the energy, produced and released, from every stars. The Solar Astral Energy is a fusion of Yang Energy and Astral Energy. The star light from the stars carry these energies with it into the void. The starlight might be obstructed by the celestial bodies and the Solar Astral energy is absorbed by these celestial bodies.

Lifeforms absorb the Yang energy along with the astral energy.

Exposing himself to Yang energy for a prolonged period of time will disorder the balance between Yang and Yin and cause extreme damages to his body.

There is also Lunar Astral Energy, which is released from certain celestial bodies, like the three moons in the sky in this world. These celestial bodies have the star as their source of energy, and when they absorb the Solar Astral energy from them, the Yang energy is transformed into Yin energy and stored in the core of the celestial body. When a tiny fraction of the the star light is reflected by the celestial body, a tiny fraction of the surface Yin energy is fused with the disintegrated astral energy and reach celestial realms like his world. This small fraction of the Yin energy also makes it less harmful to the body.

However!

Exposing himself to Yin energy for a prolonged period of time will disorder the balance between Yang and Yin and cause extreme damages to his mind.

He doesn’t want to get his mind corrupted from evil thoughts.

Well, there is still another energy.

The Stellar Astral Energy is harmless to a person, its just minuscule amount of Star essence travelling in the void. The Yang energy with it is in negligent amounts and can be ignored.

However, its nearly impossible to gather sufficient amount of Stellar Astral energy for an individual cultivators use, without large formation arrays that are bigger than his Star Falcon Sect.

Relying on lunar astral energy and stellar astral energy will make it hard for him to progress in the Meridian Refinement Realm.

The system might give him rewards that can heal the damages from solar astral energy, but can his body bear the burden of those rewards?

If he could communicate with the system then he could be reassured to walk on this path. But the system never communicates with him.

He kept the book back in the system storage space.

He was not interested in practising cultivation anymore at the moment.

Su Yuchen decided to go the rune hall. Learning about runes is an essential part of the cultivation system. He also decided to become a rune master in the future.

It will be his profession.

Rune master is the most sought after profession in this world. Runes are related to everything in this cultivation world.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

At the rune hall, he can receive a book on basics of runes, and instruments required to draw them, brush, ink and scrolls. Inner disciples have free access to these unlike outer disciples. They have to use contribution points to be able to get them.

He is not going to give up free things.

Su Yuchen walked for 40 minutes before reaching the rune hall. It was a big, magnificent hall. As he got near to the entrance of the rune hall, the two inner disciple guarding there stopped him.

“Do you have a rune apprentice token?” asked the tall, muscular disciple.

“No, I am a new inner disciple.” Answered Su Yuchen.

“Pay a stellar rock to enter.” Said the tall disciple.

“Why?” Su Yuchen asked confusedly.

“To enter.” Replied the tall disciple.

“I didn’t hear of any payment to enter the rune hall.” Said Su Yuchen while making an ignorant expression. If he wasn’t weak he would have questioned them about bribery. He didn’t hear about any payments from the elder.

“Ask an informed disciple next time. Now that you have heard, pay the stellar rock to enter.” Said the tall disciple with annoyance.

The elder should obviously be not an uninformed person.

“I am still not decided about entering the rune hall. Sorry for wasting your time, senior brother.” Su Yuchen bowed and apologised to them. He decided to leave here and not give the stellar rock.

“Get lost, trash. Thu!” The tall disciple was irritated and spat on Su Yuchen.

Su Yuchen walked away faster and nothing spilled on him. ‘Bastard!’ he cursed that disciple in his mind and increased his speed while walking back.

The tall disciple was angered and a wisp of astral energy left his body.

Something caught Su Yuchen’s leg when he was walking faster.

Thud!

Su Yuchen slammed onto the floor. His chin hit the ground hard. A sharp pain pierced his mind from the chin and teeth. As he tried to stand up, he felt pain from his shoulders, knee and hip.

Seeing him trying to stand, the tall disciple shouted, “Junior brother, let me help you.” and released another wisp of energy that pushed Su Yuchen’s buttocks upward. Su Yuchen crashed into the ground again. The pain intensified and tears welled in his eyes, but he controlled himself from crying, he quickly stood up and walked away without looking back, bearing the pain from his hips and knee.

“Ha-ha-ha, Junior brother, you are so silly. As a your senior I should advise you, make a decision first to learn how to walk properly before trying to learn drawing runes.” The tall disciple mocked arrogantly while shouting at Su Yuchen.

Some of the disciples on the path also started laughing loudly.

Su Yuchen nearly failed to controlled the tears from falling down hearing the laughter around him. He felt many eyes fixed on him and nearly ran away, but still just walked to avoid further humiliation.

Listening to the sneers and laughter behind him, he was confused about whether walking away would make him more embarrassed than running away.

‘What am I thinking?’

Realising his cowardly thoughts he was enraged. He clenched his fingers and gritted his teeth.

That tall disciples face became more and more clear in his mind. He repeatedly imagined his face and tried to imprint it in his mind.

Thoughts and imaginations of killing him grew in Su Yuchen’s mind. A desire for revenge started to burn his mind and wanted him to turn back.

His body started to tremble while walking and he raised his tightly clenched fist in front of his chest, but the strength in it reminded him of his helplessness. He lowered his elbow.

Lowering his head and continuing to bend his spine, he walked forward with resentment.