Death

A turbid breath escaped his mouth, Wu Xue was tired but extremely happy. He looked at his masters and saw joy written on their faces.

"I want to rest for a few days," he said with an apologetic smile, "Sorry, but I'm almost collapsing into sleep right now."

"Just rest your portion," Ru Meng said and disappeared along with Xu Ling, they wanted to drink a few cups of tea after a week of continuous work.

Wu Xue then collapsed on the ground, but it felt warm and cozy to him.

After two days of sleep, hunger awakened him. He got up from the ground and found something to eat in his kitchen.

After eating, he took a bath to wash away the accumulated sweat and blood in his clothes. He bleed during the last step of transforming his body.

He then wore nice and clean clothes and went to his Xu Ling's courtyard, where Ru Meng also usually was despite having her own courtyard.

"Disciple greets his master," he bowed to them with a hand holding his fist, "Sorry for the delay."

"Don't be so rigid," Ru Meng drank a sip of tea, "We know you were too exhausted to even talk properly."

"Thanks for your understanding," Wu Xue smiled and kotowed on the ground, "Thanks for all your efforts in helping me achieve my goals, I thank you from the depths of my heart."

"You are usually childish, why are you acting so serious now?" Xu Ling said with narrowed eyes, she found his behavior a bit asynchronous.

"I'm just being sincere," Wu Xue explained, "It's small for you but an extremely important step for me."

"Yes?" Ru Meng muttered, "Are you going to try and loosen your shackles now?"

"I will!" Wu Xue nodded, "I must transform this mortal physique and soul into my greatest opportunity."

"That's the right thought!" Ru Meng nodded with approbation, "You can go back, we don't need you to show your filial piety repeatedly, we aren't that old-fashioned."

"I understand!" Wu Xue got up from the ground and bowed to them for a last time before leaving.

"He sure is dedicated," Ru Meng muttered with a faint smile.

"I'm glad," Xu Ling was also smiling, "I hope his nature never changes."

"Are you hoping for him to always be a child?" Ru Meng giggled, "He might grow up to be like his father and the others."

"In truth, I don't need to hope for it," Xu Ling said with a meaningful tone and expression, "He will probably grow to be as he already is."

"Well... it's possible," Ru Meng nodded, "He always acts and thinks in ways difficult to predict."

"I have known him for much longer than you," Xu Ling smiled, "If I said he is going to be like that, you shouldn't doubt my words."

"Oh?" Ru Meng lifted an eyebrow, "Aren't you acting more like a child than him?"

"I think you are the one thinking I'm being competitive," Wu Ling giggled gracefully, "I never intended to make you feel threatened."

Ru Meng laughed softly but smashed the cup she was holding into smithereens.

"Oye?" Xu Ling covered her mouth, "I can't believe it! Are you seriously feeling competitive over a small child?"

"You are lucky this is just an avatar of mine," Ru Meng snorted and disappeared from there.

"Hehe," Xu Ling felt satisfied and continued to drink tea.

"Witch!" Ru Meng's voice suddenly reverberated in Xu Ling's courtyard.

Xu Ling just giggled at her provocation.

In his cave abode, Wu Xue was reviewing his changes again. Of the four paths of cultivation he was majoring in, three were initially integrated with an artistic conception, and his literary path carried the meaning of 'Imitation,' which could imitate the Order artistic conception he comprehended.

Those four paths were his four pillars, he would build his future cultivation upon those pillars.

Wu Xue circulated his True Qi according to the Boundless Heart Technique and began to refine his True Qi. His True Qi began to quickly increase in quality and density. After a few hours, it was about ten times denser than before.

It was the first time since when he began cultivation that he actively increased his cultivation base.

Soon he felt a barrier blocking his way, it was the bottleneck to the next realm.

"It was all for this moment," he muttered with dignified eyes, "All those years... all my efforts...

"It was to expand my limits! To break them!"

He concentrated his mind on the task and immediately broke the bottleneck, his cultivation base began to advance to the second layer of the Essence Refining Realm.

"Suppress!" he shouted and used all his energy to stop his breakthrough. His soul power and Blood Qi ruthlessly suppressed his increasing True Qi.

Originally, it would have been more difficult, but because of his fortune of having cultivated the Pseudo Dao Integration technique he had higher control over his power.

His soul power forcefully controlled his violent True Qi and his Blood Qi and body resisted the pressure brought by his action.

Suddenly, something unexpected to him occurred. He felt a huge throbbing coming from his literary heart and inspiration came to him.

"Order!" he muttered and his literary power flowed from his literary heart and formed the character 'Order' on his forehead. It was full of the Order artistic conception.

"Suppress!" he muttered and a web spread from the character and covered his whole body.

"Merge!" he muttered, and his literary power infiltrated his whole body, it reached the depths of his marrow, busy meridians, and his busy Dantian.

"...Fuse!" he muttered for a last time.

The four energies coursing his body came to a sudden standstill, he felt like everything was under his complete control, and he easily suppressed his breakthrough.

He suddenly reached a realization, "My literary path... is going to be my most important path!"

It was a complex fact. Although the soul is the true ruler of a being, his literary heart had a much higher ability to control his body.

And the fact that all of his energies carried the same artistic conception, the fact that this artistic conception was Order, an extremely unique and complex concept, all of this allowed him to attain ultimate control over his state of being.

He felt he could even make his blood stop flowing and continue alive. He felt he could make his heart stop beating but still maintain his blood flowing.

A stroke of light enlightened his mind and four imaginary pillars appeared in his mind, the main pillar was the literary path and the others were just auxiliary.

When he suppressed his breakthrough, he felt that the Order artistic conception was passively expanding his cultivation base without increasing his Realm, it was literary increasing his limits.

He focused and muttered, "Expand!"

As a decree from the emperor, the word 'Expand' appeared in his Dantian. It wasn't formed only by his literary lower, but by all his energies, the literary power was acting as the force mending all together by his will.

The literary power's source was a cultivator's pure will, beyond the simple soul power that could contain his soul's emotions. That was what enabled it to be possible.

By his will, the blend of energies that contained his comprehension of the Order artistic conception began to actively refine his cultivation base at the same time his breakthrough was suppressed.

He circulated the Boundless Heart Cultivation Technique with that blend of energies instead of only his True Qi, and it brought him great effects.

His True Qi was constantly growing more and more dense and in turn, it also refined his Blood Qi and Soul Power. It occurred because all those energies had both his literary power and the Order artistic conception as balancing and normalizing forces.

Wu Xue began to laugh hard, he never imagined that a flash of inspiration would give him such a pleasant surprise.

He found he didn't need to cultivate three of his cultivation paths separately from then on, by cultivating one the other two would grow as well.

"Spread!" he muttered and circulated the blend of energies throughout his meridians and spread it all over his body.

The growing Blood Qi strengthened his body and the growing Soul Power refined his soul.

"I think it's suitable to rename this technique," he muttered with an excited voice, "I name it... Boundless Fun Technique!

"Pfft! Hahahahah!

"No, of course I won't do it.

"Alright, let's call it the 'Colorful Horizons Unity' cultivation technique.

"Yes, that's a cool name. My own cultivation technique, but I wonder what my master will think.

"Well, I will cultivate for a while first, I have been waiting for years..."

He then began to focus on absorbing the rich aura around him and increasing his cultivation base to the limit.

When one of his paths, except the literary, showed signs of a breakthrough, he would suppress it and continue refining his cultivation.

He lost himself in that repetition, he found boundless enjoyment in the constant increase of his strength without the need of advancing his Realms.

Days, weeks, months... He spent a whole year cultivating non-stop, only occasionally stopping to eat. He didn't even bother to send a message to his masters, he thought they could see his situation at any time if they wished.

After a whole year of obsessed cultivation, Wu Xue found that no matter how much he tried, he couldn't refine his cultivation base further. He hit a true limit.

He felt that the problem wasn't him, but the world around him. It was like shackles formed around him and the world was suppressing him.

He pondered and tried to break those shackles, but it only made the shackles stronger.

A warning went directly to his mind, "No authority, go through the permitted procedures." A huge sensation of fear arose in his heart and realizations entered his heart.

He understood, it was the very world telling him it was not allowed for him to try and go further, it was completely forbidden for a reason he didn't understand.

It annoyed him greatly and he cogited asking his masters for help, but gave up after some thought.

He knew that the 'world' that was suppressing him was the 'greater world,' rather than the small world he was living in. He knew it purely because he was directly warned by it.

Asking his masters for help would be like asking ants to stop a meteor from falling.

He sighed and shook his head helplessly, he meditated for a whole day without stopping after that.

His literary heart began to beat faster and faster at the end of his meditation and it began to grow arteries and veins from itself. His literary power began to grow stronger and his soul was the first to receive the benefits, his soul was washed by his literary power violently and his soul power grew immensely, ignoring even the shackles the world bound him with.

While his increasing soul power would eventually benefit the other two energies, his literary power increasing had no direct impact on them. It was also the limitation of his new cultivation technique.

His soul power increasing wasn't the result of the blending of the energies, but the result of the literary path being closely related to the soul path.

The Colorful Horizons Unity technique didn't allow for all his paths to benefit from the advancement of his literary path, just like the advancement of the other three paths didn't increase his literary power at all. Even when his soul power was increased it didn't feed back to his literary heart at all.

When his literary heart grew a few centimeters of arteries and veins, it stopped. But that small increase in size brought him an exponential increase in his literary power.

The literary path didn't have an exact division of Realms, everyone had their own path starting from the literary heart being condensed.

Some people changed their literary hearts into brushes and pens, others changed them into flowers and fruits...

Wu Xue was evolving his literary heart and aiming to grow an entire body out of it, it was a feat brought by his inner literary path, 'Imitation.' He was imitating his physical body.

With the increased literary power, he felt that he could ignore a bit of the suppression brought by the world. He didn't know the exact reason for this, but it was a happy thing.

He quickly resumed his routine of refining his cultivation base without breaking through.

Time flew fast.

When he found he couldn't refine his power further, he would then try and advance his literary path. When it advanced, he would then return to his previous routine.

It was only another year after that things changed, lightining fell from the sky, ignored the defenses of his cave abode, and directly hit his head.

He instantly died.