5 [The Elemental Divinity Scripture]
After Fan Zhi notified the ruler of his ability to cultivate, he walked to a specialised cultivation room. This room was designed with safety and ease of cultivation in mind.
It was located in the most defensible location of the Fan Clan, the single isolated cave that was also the residence of the Clan ruler.
This cave was not connected to any other caves and the front was surrounded by a wall that was the same size as the one surrounding the Clan's main fort.
Fan Zhi had a room in the very back, almost 25 mel of rock between him and any other cave.
This room had been specially prepared when the ruler was informed of the situation of Fan Zhi.
Since the day Fan Zhi and his parents returned to the clan the ruler had been subtly preparing for what they would do when Fan Zhi was able to cultivate.
Fan Zhi swiftly reached his new room, shutting the door as he entered and locked it.
This door was made of an incredibly dense stone that only those in the Sky Opening stage could break through.
Quickly sitting down on the ground, Fan Zhi sent his mind into his soul space.
Upon sending his introspective senses into his soul space, Yan Zhi was suddenly flooded with information from the runic engravings on his soul.
They not only gave the cultivation Art but also a manual briefing the paths of cultivation, their realms and details about his recreated body and energy systems.
Unfortunately, the manual seemed to have some strange restrictions on it.
From what he could tell, the manual would only give him information relative to the Domain he was within.
A Domain was a grouping of three cultivation Realms.
Each group of three Realms were named the same way depending on the path of cultivation and excluding a few Domains that bucked that trend within said paths of cultivation.
For Qi cultivation, the three Realms were Earth, Sky and Heaven.
For Soul cultivation, the three Realms were Disciple, Scholar and Sage.
Physique cultivation was slightly different, but still just as easy to understand; it had unique stage names, unlike soul and qi cultivation.
This meant that people usually identified a physique cultivators strength by their Domain and Stage.
Quickly reading over the manual, Fan Zhi discovered that his body was both much stronger and weaker than he thought.
The manual stated that since he received the full inheritance, then he had his body recreated, a complete set of energy systems specifically attributed to the Elemental Dao and his soul's affinity was strengthened; though not much due to the already incredibly high innate affinity.
However, all of these benefits had the downside of making him unable to cultivate anything unrelated to the Elemental Dao.
Not even branching Dao of one of the Dao within the Elemental Dao, like the Dao of Stone, for example, could be cultivated.
Sighing internally, Fan Zhi moved on to the Cultivation Art, recalling it directly from his soul.
The words appeared in his head with nothing but a thought. Reading the introduction of the Cultivation Art aloud, Fan Zhi was shocked.
"[Elemental Divinity Scripture]
Grade: Unknown
Call the Tribulations,
Cultivate the Elements,
Become an Elemental Ancestor,
Elemental Divinity Supreme!"
Fan Zhi was shocked at the introduction of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture].
The arrogance of the Art's creator was evident; it was an expert's supreme Cultivation Art after all. Reading through the art more, Fan Zhi was astonished at the simplicity of the art.
Although it was obvious that the Art gave the user incomparable strength, it was far too simple!
The Art was divided into four sections.
The first section was the Essence Cultivation Art, the [Elemental Ascension Art]; it was simple but gave the cultivator a surrealistic level of purity and density to their qi.
The second section was a Physique Art called the [Perpetual Elementalist Art].
This Physique Art took the simplest approach to the refining of the physique.
The [Perpetual Elementalist Art] refined the physique by flooding it with Qi of all the elemental qi-types the cultivator has.
The cultivator then used said elemental qi-types to refine his body through destruction and natural healing.
This method of destroying before refining was incredibly painful and slow, but this method was the only way to achieve the absolute limits of cultivating the physique.
The third section was a Soul Art that was called the [Elemental Awakening Art].
Similar to the other two Arts in the Scripture, the [Elemental Awakening Art] simply relied on nourishing the soul of the cultivator with their Qi.
It also instructed upon the best way to do this and gave a Meditative Art that was specifically suited for the Elemental Dao.
Fan Zhi felt relieved at the ease of cultivating the [Elemental Divinity Scripture], indifferent to the potential pain it could cause when he cultivated his physique until he read the final section of the Scripture.
When he read it, his face paled to a stark white in fear.
In the final section, precluding any mention of another Art, the creator stated that the Scripture was so heaven-defying that before the cultivator could advance into the next stage, realm or domain of cultivation in any aspect they would have to face a Heavenly Tribulation of the Elemental Dao.
It was also absolutely required if the cultivator wanted to advance in cultivation since the elemental energy of the tribulation was used to purify and further attune the cultivator to whatever elemental attributes the cultivator advanced in.
Swallowing heavily, Fan Zhi closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing to read.
The fourth section came with a Secret Art called the [Elemental Devouring Art]; it was made with only one thing in mind, to devour the elemental energy of a Heavenly Tribulation and use it to reach the absolute limit.
This section also contained the personal advice of the creator and a paragraph of extra information afterwards.
The advice given by the Art's creator was;
"Heavenly Tribulations are bought about by the heaven to both prevent the target from advancing, and to give the target a chance to reach perfection. Perfection, in this case, is the absolute limit that the heavens have imposed on the individual. Taking this into account, I advise the cultivator of this technique to stay within the same stage, realm or domain until he brings a Heavenly Tribulation naturally to all three aspects of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture] at once. Only if this is done will the cultivator have the highest chance to pass the Heavenly Tribulation and have truly reached their limit."
Fan Zhi calmed down slightly after reading this.
He already intended to stay in each stage, realm or domain until he could no longer advance within it and this information about Heavenly Tribulations effectively gave him a notification on when he should advance.
After the personal advice of the author was a couple more pieces of information.
The strength of the Heavenly Tribulation was decided by two factors; the first was what boundary was after the cultivator's current one, it was at its strongest when the cultivator was attempting to break through into a new domain and was at its weakest when the breakthrough was into a new stage.
The second factor that decided the strength of the tribulation was the level of the Scripture.
The level of the Scripture went from 1 through to 8 and was decided by how many elements are being cultivated by the Scripture.
Due to the [Elemental Divinity Scripture]'s three Arts all being exponentially stronger the more elements the cultivator cultivated, this increased the strength of the tribulation increased exponentially as well.
Fan Zhi started to sweat cold bullets when he read this.
'Wouldn't I have to face Heavenly Tribulations that are stronger than progressing through a domain with a single element cultivation of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture] when I am merely advancing a stage in my complete, eight-element cultivation of the [Elemental Divinity Scripture]?' he thought.
When this thought came to mind, Fan Zhi exhaled in helplessness.
He knew that no matter how difficult the Cultivation Art he received from the Pearl turned out to be, he was going to cultivate it.
This had been decided the moment he woke up that day and saw his benefactor's departure out to the void.
His benefactor had left only a couple sentences as a goodbye.
"Boy, I have to go now. I am known as Daoist Dawn, and I sincerely hope that in a millennium, your name will resound through the realm as a truly powerful expert. Farewell"
The wanderer, Daoist Dawn was who originally influenced Fan Zhi to this decision.
Over the years, however, as Fan Zhi began to train whole-heartedly in preparation for his future beginnings of cultivation, he fell in love with the feeling of training.
The intense concentration, pain and determination making him feel like his heart was on fire.
The ecstasy of finishing a long week of training and realising he had grown stronger was like a drug that was irresistibly addictive to Fan Zhi.
Therefore, although Fan Zhi's original determination was because of his admiration and desire to become an expert like Daoist Dawn; Fan Zhi's love for the training and growth of his personal strength had pushed that determination into an obsession.
With the mentality of Fan Zhi, he would never face any heart demons.
He wasn't fazed by losing a battle, nor was he fazed by being weak or incapable.
Fan Zhi wouldn't care about any of that, because the reason he trained and grew stronger was because he loved the very thought of training and strength.
So, Fan Zhi didn't fear any of the difficulties and dangers the [Elemental Divinity Scripture] possessed.
He felt a healthy dose of caution, but he didn't fear it.
He desired the pursuit of strength and if facing Heavenly Tribulations just to advance a realm fulfilled this pursuit to the utmost personal strength he could gain possible, then he would walk head first into the Heavenly Tribulations.
Fan Zhi's personality was naturally like this, even before he met Daoist Dawn and saw some of the fleeting memory fragments of the Pearl's creator that inadvertently emerged from the Pearl throughout the inheritance process.
A desire that had awoken by watching his father face deathly peril for him to survive and the experiences of his life that followed it had only strengthened that desire.
Fan Zhi unknowingly, due to the hidden potential within his mentality and the events of the past ten years caused him to have an incredibly strong heart of a martial artist.
