The Heavenly Martial God Divine Art

Jo Do-Yoon, now Tang Soso quietly nodded as she had gotten a glimpse of what had been going on. 

'Hmm...'

She rubbed her temple as another headache struck her head.

This was... quite the story. It hits quite close to home though. To think that the original Tang Soso had led such a rough life, just like her in the past.

Both of them had the worst talent possible for anyone in their shoes and were overcome with countless hardships due to their rotten luck, yet despite that, they still did their best to overcome it. The only difference was that Jo Do-Yoon's efforts paid off at the end while the original Tang Soso's efforts were in vain. She had no idea that the original owner of this body had so much in common with her, and this really made her sympathize with the original Tang Soso.

'But still, that was not the most important thing about this story. Although the original Tang Soso didn't realize it, she was actually under a ton of danger that was slowly accumulating in the shadows...' Tang Soso thought as her expression turned serious.

'The fate of a clan heir who failed to live up to their clan's expectation doesn't end in just being shunned by everyone around them. As time goes on, their disappointment would slowly pile up into a large boulder until one moment, they would decide to kick him/her out of the clan heir position.'

'After kicking him/her out of the clan heir position, the said heir would become just like an ordinary person within the clan, who was regarded as insignificant as everyone else. At that point, they would be prone to assassination by other clan heirs. Believe it or not, most clan heirs desired to kill each other the most since the existence of another person with the main bloodline of the family could threaten their position. Thus, if they think that the fallen heir is still a little bit dangerous, they would assassinate them without hesitation!'

'It was a miracle that the original Tang Soso could survive until now. Well, it's probably because she was fatally poisoned and bedridden, that way the other clan heir thought that she was no longer a threat. And also, what if the poison is still inside my body? There's too much uneasiness going on here... damn...' she cursed as a bitter taste was felt in her mouth.

She needs to change her original plan. This hidden danger lurking in the background has now been passed to her hands and she must find a way to clean up this mess.

At first, she was thinking of immediately grabbing a ton of elixirs from the clan's storage after this and immediately using the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art to cultivate her internal energy, breaking through a bunch of realms in one go. That way she could somewhat heal her impaired eyesight using a specific Qi technique she had in mind, while she also got one step closer to regaining her former powers.

But after listening to Old Jiang's story, she immediately discarded that plan. Those bastards definitely wouldn't give her even a single speck of elixir since she has long lost the Tang Clan's support, and the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art wouldn't be as effective without some elixirs.

Now Tang Soso had two choices.

She could either try to win the clan's support back and get her hands on some miracle elixirs. That way she could regain her powers faster and have an entire clan to support her as she fights Gong Ma, the mysterious man from back then who crushed her in martial prowess.

The other option is to grow and develop slowly, hidden within the background pretending to be an ordinary person. Although the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art could rely on a bunch of elixirs, it was still an extremely powerful cultivation technique. There was no need to use a bunch of elixirs for her to break through a bunch of realms and slowly become the great martial artist she once was!

'Hmm, to use drugs or not to use drugs... Both of them are great plans, except one is extremely risky and the other is extremely safe... Which one should I go with?' 

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Thinking of her choices, Tang Soso slapped herself on the cheeks.

'Well, why am I even thinking about something like this? It's already obvious...' her lips curled into a smile as she stood up with a determined visage. At this time, an undying conviction burned inside her blurry grey eyes.

She swiftly wrote some words on her signboard,

[ You may go now. ]

Jiang Sam who was still standing in the corner, being forced to watch his Young Miss doing absolutely nothing for the past ten minutes immediately breathed a sigh of relief. He was finally free from this torturous boredom.

"Thank you, Young Miss."

As the words slipped from his mouth, he immediately skedaddled out of the room. Now Tang Soso was left alone in her room by herself.

...

'Ever since I was a child, I have always aspired for greatness. Despite having the worst talent humanly possible, I still struggled through training after training with a stubborn heart in hopes of becoming the strongest martial artist. My friends and family have told me that it was an impossible dream, telling me to live normally like every other people. Yet, I refused to listen and continued to walk...' she muttered under her breath as she sat on the floor.

'Hundreds of hurdles and difficulties stood in my path as I continued to walk forward through the road of life. I have been met with disappointments, grief, anger, betrayals, and all kinds of emotions throughout my journey. Even after having a lucky encounter with the Heavenly Martial God's inheritance, countless enemies stood in my path as I realized that life was not much easier than before. The cruelty of the real world was extremely overwhelming, yet I continued to embark on my path to become the greatest in the world!'

Tang Soso slowly took off her clothes as she put them aside. Her bare, gracious body was revealed upon the world like a priceless pearl. Her skin gleamed with the candlelight of the room, and the gentle wind blew across her face like a thin sutra. Despite doing such a thing, she still sat on the ground completely unfazed. Her face was extremely calm as if she had done this sort of thing thousands of times before.

'From this day, I shall become the greatest martial artist of the justice faction! I will try my best to gain the support of everyone around me and climb to the top to become a great leader!'

'I have realized the mistake that I have committed in my previous life as Jo Do-Yoon. I believed that the only thing I needed in this world was power, and that was the only thing I chased for the entirety of my life. I stole countless martial arts from all sorts of people without considering their brewing resentment toward me. In the end, that was one of the reasons I met my doom.'

She bit her finger as blood started to appear, tainting her pale white skin. Tang Soso squinted a little as the pain started to assault the nerves on her finger. But in less than a second, she immediately recovered her composure and proceeded. Without wasting any time, she lifted her hand right above her head as the blood trickled down her forehead, forming a dark red mark. 

'This time, it will be different! I will become someone who will stand tall among the people. I will become a majestic pillar that everyone can depend on and admire. These desires came from the bottom of my heart and I will do my best to make it come true, no matter how risky it was. I still want to become the righteous hero I dreamed of as a child!'

Tang Soso firmly closed her eyes.

Heavenly Martial God Divine Art!

At this point, dozens of strands made of pure white Qi started to materialize out of thin air. Every single one of them slowly became denser and gathered around Tang Soso while covering the surroundings with its blinding light. Each strand of Qi circulated around her body as it danced around like a flowing cloud.

As those strands continued to circulate around her body, a profound transformation started to occur...

Hidden impurities lurking beneath her skin began to emerge as if they were drawn out by a strong magnetic force. These expelled impurities resembled a thick black liquid that covered her pale white skin with its repulsive appearance. They oozed out her pores, trickling along her pearl-white skin before dripping to the wooden floor right where she sat. 

As the process continued, more and more impurities were squeezed out of Tang Soso's body. Eventually, a puddle of black liquid was formed underneath her as her figure shrank little by little. Although to the ordinary eye, this looked as if her health and strength was worsening, it was actually the opposite. This process of removing her body's impurities actually improved her physical condition and energy circulation. Even now, her once sickly breathing has slowly become more stable and robust.

This process continued to go on for what seemed to be an hour. After Tang Soso felt that a good enough amount of impurities was squeezed out, she calmly smiled in satisfaction. The first part is finally over, now it's time to move on to the next step.

At this point, the strands of pure white Qi immediately stopped circulating around and finally went inside her body.

'UGH!!!'

Tang Soso's eyes widened as she felt massive amounts of energy going through her body all at once like a massive torrent. This sudden influx of power, while invigorating, brought with it an excruciating pain that seized her mind. Beads of sweat started to drip at the top of her head, this is one of the crucial parts of the cultivation technique and she must persevere through this pain.

The strands of pure Qi flowed through her blood systems, flesh, muscles, tendons, blocked meridians, and all sorts of organs inside her body as they wracked them inside out. With unrelenting force, they cascaded through everything, filling every organ they encountered with a surge of endless vitality. Each time they flowed through an organ, her internal state would grow firmer and more fortified as if they were reborn anew.

Finally, after some time, those pure strands of energy flowed and gathered inside her lower dantian!

SHIIIIIINGG!!!

Her abdomen suddenly grew extremely bright as if the sun had descended into the earth. Her lower dantian was being filled with an extremely high amount of pure Qi and it quickly expanded with each second, giving her body a stronger Qi flow. This went on for a whole hour before the lights died out and all white strands of Qi disappeared.

whoooosh...

Tang Soso slowly opened her eyes with a wide smile on her face.

'Good, good! My internal energy has increased by a whole five years in just one session of cultivation! Not to mention, this awful body is now even more purified, making it even more suitable for training martial arts!'

Tang Soso paused for a minute as she admired her improved body. At first, she noticed that her skin had become even smoother to the point of being as soft as jade. Of course, she couldn't see her skin, but the complexion of her skin had become slightly paler than before to the point of looking unnatural.

Other than that and having a smaller figure, her blurry grey eyes have also retained some trace of its original color, which is green. Now there's a dark green hue barely visible within her eyes and her vision changed from being completely black to a slightly less dark one.

Well, that's an improvement I guess.

...

'But... there's one thing that concerns me...'

Her expression turned serious as a bad feeling started brewing in her mind. When she was cultivating the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art just then, she encountered a massive problem. This cultivation technique that she performed just then was... incomplete...

Initially, the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art is one of the strongest cultivation techniques in the world and it was divided into five parts. Each part contains different writings and techniques to accumulate internal energy, and in order to fully utilize this divine art, one must master all of them and use them all at the same time!

Yet, the cultivation technique that she performed was only the first part, and it was terribly inefficient and impure compared to the complete counterpart that she used in her previous life. Had she used the complete version, she would have gotten way more than five years of internal energy!

'Of course, I wanted to use the complete version, but... why can't I seem to remember the other parts?'

...

Drops of sweat started to drip down Tang Soso's face as nervousness was present all over her face. The Heavenly Martial God Divine Art was the most valuable treasure that she currently has and she has used this cultivation technique all the time in her previous life. How could she forget it like this!?

'Wait a minute, n-no...! I'm sure I memorized it before...!'

'Ah yes, the first part of that cultivation technique was about the pureness and temperament of the body. It signifies how once one chases the path of the heavens, the heavens shall bless them with even more hardships. Though looking disastrous on the surface, those hardships shall temple oneself to overcome everything along their path.'

'The second part signifies the... um... what is it again...? Uh...' she stuttered along in her mind as she paced back and forth in panic.

'Uh...'

'I-I'm sure it was...'

...

...

...

'WHAT WAS IT!?'

Finally, after a whole minute of complete distress, Tang Soso could only fall to her knees in despair. No matter how much she tried to remember any further about the second part of the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art that she valued so much, nothing could come up in her mind.

It was as if there was something that was clogging the neurons within her brain, preventing her from remembering crucial pieces of information about it!

'Is this perhaps the price of my rebirth? If so, this is simply too much! This cultivation technique was the only thing I valued the most other than my life, how could something like this happen!?' she cried mentally while slamming the chair beside her.

This is a huge problem. Without the complete Heavenly Martial God Divine Art in her hands, advancing in martial prowess will be many times harder from now on. How is she going to be acknowledged by others as a great hero at this point? How will she take revenge on Gong Ma who demolished her in the past if she can't grow any faster than this?

At this point, she could only let out an exasperated sigh.

'Damn it...! T-This is still fine. Even if I didn't have the complete version of the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art, I still have a piece of it and that is more than enough to dominate the Tang Clan. Moreover, I still have my previous life's knowledge, experience, and improved talent that is unmatched by most people! At least surpassing other geniuses in the Justice Faction shouldn't be too much of a problem.' she calmed herself down.

Sigh, there's nothing to gain by grieving about the loss of her precious technique. Rather than wasting her time, she should focus on the positive side first.

Now that she looked back at it, despite only using a small portion of the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art's true power, the amount of internal energy that she got was actually quite decent?

'Back when I first cultivated the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art, I only received about a little less than a year of internal energy for every session of cultivation. But just a moment ago, I received a whole five years of internal energy within just two hours, and that was with just the first part of the cultivation technique!'

'Is it perhaps because this body is still very young? I have heard that young children have way larger meridians than adults, making them have an easier time accumulating internal energy, but I didn't know the difference was this large since I hadn't gotten the time to test it. Maybe this is why most sects and clans trained their successors from an extremely young age. Regardless, this is a huge blessing that will be extremely handy!'

This was an excellent news! 

This way, her potential has soared to an even higher place than her previous self. With the accumulation of her previous life's vast knowledge and experience, Tang Soso estimated that she could probably surpass her previous strength in about fifteen years at most. Not to mention, that is achieved simply by cultivating the first part of the Heavenly Martial God Divine Art without using any external factors.

If she were to consume the elixirs within her clan's storage, then her growth would go beyond all common sense!

Thinking of this, the dreadful feeling within her mind immediately disappeared like smoke, replaced by a new feeling of anticipation and excitement. Just thinking of her current potential had her drooling on the spot. Tang Soso had a strong obsession with power, this amount of soaring potential was euphoric, to say the least.

Tang Soso slowly lifted her head toward the ceiling. Even though she couldn't see anything with these impaired eyes of hers, the road to the future seemed to be way brighter than it had ever been before. 

 'I'm glad I chose to jump off a ravine.'

However, this joy didn't last long as her sense of smell suddenly picked up something that immediately wiped her smile out of her face.

'Huh...?'

UUECK!

The nastiest ungodly odor that she had ever smelled had suddenly hit her nose like a speeding bullet. The smell was so marvelously putrid to the point of putting her on the brink of vomiting in less than a second.

Tang Soso looked down toward her body and the floor as she suddenly realized the cause of this devilish scent. Her body was still covered in a thick black mucus made out of her impurities and there was still a large puddle of it lying on the ground. It felt sticky and slimy at the same time as it constantly spread the smell throughout the entire room.

If one tried to describe the smell, it would be as if they had put some dung in a jar and let it ferment for a week. A human body's impurities are simply concentrated waste after all, and Tang Soso's was no different.

'Uh... haha... this will not be easy to clean up. How am I going to explain to the old man after this?'

Forget about martial arts for now, she needs a bath ASAP.