Cultivator’s Path to Infamy [Progression | Cultivation | Villain Lead]

After several transactions with Old Man Jo, An spent seven spirit stones on various first-rank spirit plants.

After saying goodbye, he walked through the trading stalls on both sides of the Outer Hall.

In the end, he managed to find a few disciples willing to exchange fruits and some of his homemade pills for spirit plants.

Finished with his purchases, An remembered that soon he would need to complete a mandatory semi-annual mission from the Sect. So, he decided to look at armor techniques in the Scripture Pavilion.

While he had been locked up in the dungeon, analyzing his fight over and over, An realized that his Qi Armor technique wasn't deep enough, he needed new, fresh ideas to improve it. He decided to pick up a few cheap techniques and, with the help of some Qi Enlightenment pills, try to upgrade his Qi Armor.

Entering through the open doors of the Scripture Pavilion, he saw Elder Wu behind the table, in the same position as two months ago.

After approaching and greeting him, An headed straight for the shelves with Universal Techniques.

In the end, he chose four techniques:

Double Skin, using Qi, this internal membrane is created to act as armor. The difference from his technique was that he created an external membrane, wrapping himself in a layer of Qi from the outside. Double Skin enveloped the body beneath the first layer of skin, effectively adding an extra layer made purely of energy. One feature of this technique was that the Qi didn't extend beyond the body's boundaries and didn't mix with neutral Qi, resulting in better defense and much lower activation speed due to the absence of energy conflicts.

Turtle Shell, this technique created an external shield in the shape of a turtle's shell. The size and thickness of the shield depended on the cultivator's level. An was interested specifically in the shell's structure. If he could borrow it and recreate it in his Qi Armor, his defense would be many times stronger, and it would be much easier to distribute Qi flows to specific parts of his body.

Steel Organs, a technique for protecting internal organs. An decided he could try to apply it not only to his organs but also to his bones.

And the last technique, not related to defense, General Soul Cultivation, a technique for developing and growing spiritual consciousness. An chose it because he had been interested in it before, but its price of 100 contribution points had been too high. The technique allowed him to strengthen his soul, willpower, resistance to illusions, and the prevention of attempts to invade and mess with his memories. Even though this technique was low quality, An couldn't find anything similar, let alone anything better.

Taking all four booklets, An approached the table, placed them on it, and put his plaque on top. Elder Wu glanced at An and elegantly took the plaque between two fingers.

After checking it, he looked at An.

"My congratulations, little An... That'll be 175 contribution points." Elder Wu, seeing that An had become an Apprentice, nodded and sincerely congratulated him. After deducting the points for the four techniques, he handed the plaque back along with four scrolls.

"Thank you, Elder Wu." An took everything and put the plaque in his pocket and the scrolls in his pouch. After saying goodbye, he walked out of the Scripture Pavilion, and stopped dead in his tracks.

Two people stood before him.

One was a massive giant. The other, lanky.

The three of them looked at each other with roughly the same thoughts running through their heads, but sensing their numerical advantage, one of the two spoke.

"Junior Brother An, how have you been... You know, I was very worried about your condition after our last meeting." It was Rollo Por. And the second disciple, the one who had helped him orchestrate the attack. The massive giant, not hiding his killing intent, drilled his gaze into An standing before him.

An clenched his fists until they turned blue, trying to suppress the emotions bursting out of him, the very emotions he had been running from for so long. Quickly pulling himself together, a slightly twisted smile suddenly appeared on his outwardly calm face.

Seeing that smile, Rollo frowned. This twisted smile gave him a very strange feeling, so much so that he even took a step back. He could intuitively feel that An was radiating fear and panic, but at the same time, something else, something that made Rollo's legs tremble.

The giant, clouded by rage, saw the smile and boiled even more, taking a step toward An.

"I challenge you to a duel!" An managed to force the words out through gritted teeth. As he spoke, his smile kept trying to twist into something else. The moment he said it, he didn't even understand why those words had escaped his tongue, but he felt a thrill, a powerful desire to see the giant's face smashed into the arena floor, to feel the giant's skull and teeth shattering under his fists, digging into his own flesh. At the visualization of it, at the anticipation, his hands began to shake. Adrenaline started mixing with panic and a thirst for revenge, for blood. All of it together created a strange sensation inside him.

Hearing this, the giant's eyes turned red. He hadn't expected such audacity from this little insect. Even though he was at the fourth layer of Qi Condensation, his talent lay in Body Cultivation, meaning he was stronger than ordinary cultivators at the same layer. Even though he had lost last time, he excused it by thinking the insect had just gotten lucky, and that in a real fight, he couldn't even withstand a flick.

"I..." The giant was just about to shout, afraid the bug would take back his words and the chance to squash him would slip away.

"N-no!" Rollo stepped in front of the giant and cut him off. Unlike the brainless friend, he understood the situation. Two months ago, having just arrived at the sect and having been there for almost no time at all, this strange disciple had managed to reach the third layer of Qi Condensation. Come to think of it, Rollo wasn't sure he knew any cultivators who could cultivate that fast. And now, after nearly two months in a dungeon, where all a prisoner could do was cultivate and wait. Moreover, being good at reading body language, just one look at An made him uneasy, feeling something was wrong in his guts.

Looking into Rollo's eyes with his green ones, burning a hole through him, An's smile seemed to crack and stretch even wider, almost from ear to ear. After staring at both of them like that, he managed to force himself to take a step and walk past them.

"I... we'll meet again..." An muttered, barely audible, but loud enough for Rollo and his friend to hear.

"Why did you stop me! I would have smeared that annoying little insect across the arena floor, and that would have been the end of it! How can we let him be so arrogant! Bah!" The giant boiled over and spun sharply toward Rollo.

"When we attacked him, when he wasn't prepared, when he was at the third layer of Qi Condensation, three against one! He almost managed to crush your head! If I hadn't used that talisman in time, even your own mother wouldn't have been able to identify you..." Rollo frowned and glanced at the brainless giant.

"Ha! He just got lucky, caught me at a moment of weakness in my technique! Right now, I would crush his head like a watermelon myself! Like two watermelons!" The giant roared and threw a glance at bug's retreating figure.

"Enough! We need to think rationally. Brother Uku is still in the Workshop infirmary. I don't want you to disappear because of your own stupidity too, my big and naive Brother Badu," Rollo cast a thoughtful, heavy look at An walking into the distance, already running through dozens of different plans for how they would deal with him. The giant, Badu, lowered his head, thinking about Brother Uku, their third brother.

Trying to walk straight, An wrapped his legs in Qi to steady the trembling from his overwhelming emotions. Thinking about his decision, his involuntary challenge to a duel, he realized that he had been ready to kill. Right there, in that moment. To strike with the intent to take a life. This realization added another massive spectrum of emotions to his already boiling head.

Continuing to walk forward, just as far away from that place as possible, An closed his eyes and squeezed them tight.

'This is not my world! This is a world where the strong are right! There are no laws here! No order! Only strength! There is no place for emotions here! No place for my emotions!!' Repeating this thought, about getting rid of emotions, distancing himself from them, An suddenly felt a strange sensation. A feeling of loss, and at the same time, a brief pain in his head, as if he had been pricked with a very thin but long needle.

Not attaching much importance to it, he suddenly stopped. His seething emotions suddenly became empty, hollow, leaving only a shell of themselves.

Standing in the middle of the Outer Platform, An looked toward the path leading home and realized it was time to return.

Just as he passed through the wooden gates at the edge of the forest, he stopped and looked back. His gaze settled on the trading stalls. He suddenly thought about spirit plant seeds.

'My lifespan is twice as long as other cultivators. When I broke through to the fourth layer, my lifespan increased to 240 years.' He stood under the gate, thinking.

'With a lifespan like that, if I'm very careful, I can grow spirit plants without any problems no matter how many seasons they need to mature.' He nodded, convincing himself that buying seeds was an excellent idea.

Turning around, he went back and walked through all the trading stalls again. He bought over thirty seeds, all different spirit plants, but all first-rank.

Checking his pouch, An nodded and finally headed home.

Approaching his gate, he opened it.

Immediately, he heard the rooster squawking, running toward him at full speed. Baldi ran up and started circling around him, clucking constantly. An smiled, took out four fruits from his pouch, and used Qi to deliver them to his stove, placing them next to it.

Baldi saw this and ran toward the fruits with a cry.

Approaching the stove by the shore, An sat down next to it and laid out all the sets of spirit plants for Qi Enlightenment and Golden Body Qi pills. He arranged them beside himself and he decided to begin his cultivation cycle.

Three weeks later.

An opened his eyes and released a dense cloud of Qi through his mouth. The grass growing right beneath him, sensing this energy, rich in the Wood element, its particles imbued with immense vitality, began greedily reaching toward him.

He had noticed this before. Ever since he broke through to the fourth layer, this had been happening constantly. And the more filled his dantian was, the higher his cultivation, the more plants around him tried to absorb the Qi he released during cultivation.

"Finally! The fifth layer of Qi Condensation!" He jumped up and activated his Qi to examine his body. During this time, he had managed to push his physical strength to 43%.

An had also used up all the spirit plants for Qi Enlightenment and Golden Body Qi pills within the first week. But due to the limitations of his cultivation at that time, he had only managed to achieve a 12% potency loss for both pills. It was only thanks to the high-quality Golden Body Qi pills that he had been able to push his physical strength to 43%. He realized that fruits alone wouldn't cut it anymore. Even pills with an effect several times more concentrated than the fruits had only given him a one percent increase over three weeks.

On the other hand, thanks to the Qi Enlightenment pills, he had managed to integrate concepts from Steel Organs and Double Skin into his Qi Armor technique. Now, when activating his technique, both external and internal membranes appeared, along with separate coverage for his organs and bones.

But one thing greatly puzzled An: Qi consumption.

During this time, he had managed to reduce the consumption of the external and internal membranes, but the separate coverage for his organs and bones, despite many modifications, was still very high. The only temporary solution was to make the membranes on his organs and bones very thin. But thanks to his fast Qi control, he didn't see this as a big problem, since at any moment he could quickly shift denser Qi to his organ and bone membranes when needed.

As for the Turtle Shell concept, he realized that until he reached the late stage of Qi Condensation, there was no point in thinking about integrating it. Again, the same reason, massive Qi consumption.

At the same time, An had incorporated the General Soul Cultivation technique into his routine. The essence of this technique was very simple: the cultivator had to 'enter' their inner world and simply imagine expanding it, while using their Qi, essentially commanding their Qi to follow their fantasy of expansion. Even though this technique was very low quality and its effects were very weak, almost imperceptible, An still found it very useful. Over these three weeks of constant cultivation, he had managed to expand his inner world by 0.02%.

"Heh. A 0.01% increase every ten days. To expand my Inner World by 100% of its original size, I would need... 274 years... Pretty cool, though!" He smiled, realizing how long it would take. Even though 0.01% every ten days seemed insignificant, he realized that even this tiny increase had given him a significant boost. His cultivation cycles had greatly increased in effectiveness, his responsiveness and manipulation of Qi had improved, and even his thoughts had become slightly clearer.