The Roots of a Stolen Path
Pyo Rip turned the page. His eyes scanned the text, absorbing the secrets he had left for himself across the veil of reincarnation.
Within the Nangseo Study lie forbidden texts not meant for public eyes. Dao-Slaughtering Life is a demonic alchemical manual that details the refinement of pills using cultivators of the Core Formation stage or higher as ingredients. While a typical demonic practitioner would have slaughtered them indiscriminately, I chose to execute only those whose crimes invited the wrath of heaven, refining them into spiritual pills. For every refinement, I utilized the Cloud-Dwelling Gentleman’s Cauldron, a spiritual treasure left behind by the former Lord of Nangseo Pavilion.
The pills refined are as follows:
Stealing the Path Root-Planting Pill: Extracted from the spiritual root and Nascent Soul of a demonic practitioner possessing a Dao Body. Refined with various rare materials and the techniques of Dao-Slaughtering Life. Since a spiritual root is essential for cultivation, if my next life’s body lacks one, this pill will forge it. If a root already exists, I shall save this to use as an Outer Pill upon reaching the Core Formation stage, or consume it simply to boost my cultivation realm.
Heaven-Defying Body-Sculpting Pill: Based on the physical shell of the aforementioned Dao Body, combined with the remains of 3,650 demonic practitioners and demonic beasts of the Core Formation stage. Ground together with precious ingredients and refined via the Dao-Slaughtering Life method. If I confirm my spiritual root, I must consume this to obtain a Dao Body.
Twelve Severing Corrosion Spiritual Pill: Refined by capturing practitioners who possessed single spiritual roots—five of the Five Elements and seven of the mutated variety. This pill will suffice to refine my spiritual root to match my Dao Body after I have obtained it.
“...” It was a level of preparation so thorough it was hard to believe this was merely the starting line. The logic—that if one lacked talent, one could simply harvest others to create it—was a philosophy truly befitting a demonic practitioner. It allowed for the artificial creation of both spiritual roots and Dao Bodies. Dao Body or not, the spiritual root was the absolute foundation of cultivation.
Unlike the magic or martial arts Pyo Rip had experienced in his other past lives, the defining characteristic of cultivation was the spiritual root. Without this innate talent, one could not even step through the gate. There were the basic Five Element roots—Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth—and the rare mutated roots derived from the interaction of those elements. Because so few were born with them, cultivation had become a domain strictly dictated by talent.
Even among those few, talent was further divided. The fewer the roots, the better. Pyo Rip had been the worst of them all: a Five-Element root holder. Because he had to cultivate all five, he could barely escape the Qi Condensation stage even after dedicating his entire life to it. If fortune favored him, he might have reached Foundation Establishment. That was why the Five-Element root was called a “Mixed Root” —the dullest of the dull.
It was a miracle that he had even reached the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, thanks to the fortuitous encounter with the former Lord of Nangseo Pavilion. Of course, some argued that having all five elements was an advantage. That wasn't entirely wrong; at higher realms, one needed techniques of various attributes. But the problem was the speed of growth. A Five-Element practitioner had to nurture five roots, while a single-root practitioner only had to nurture one. In the already grueling path of cultivation, that difference was despairing.
There was only one exception: the Dao Body, a vessel that had already realized the Dao. Pyo Rip finally understood the sheer magnitude of the arrangements he had made, slaughtering demonic practitioners in his desperation for talent.
“…Those demonic bastards were indeed disgusting.” They were creatures who didn't see people as people. Killing them had been an act that only served to solidify his own Dao heart.
“Hmm…” He wondered if he could have just consumed those pills in his previous life, but paradoxically, the plan only worked because he hadn't. If he had consumed them then, the high-ranking demonic cultivators who had lost their precious disciples would have used their arts and divine abilities to trace the causality, confirming the results and sparking an immediate war between Nangseo Pavilion and the demonic sects. He had avoided this by using an unimaginable method: shifting the causality of “the purpose and result of the disciples’ deaths” into his next life.
Letting those thoughts drift away, Pyo Rip’s gaze shifted to the bottom of the shelf.
These pills were stored in a Storage Treasure refined from the skin of a Void Rat and the wing powder of a Nether Butterfly, then branded onto my soul. I have named this treasure the Ethereal Pouch.
The first record ended with that kind explanation to himself. There was no need to hesitate. Pyo Rip exited the Nangseo Study and, while still lying inside the coffin, invoked his divine ability once more. Sim-po-tae-heo. Embracing the Great Void. Through this ability that encompassed all things, he felt the transparent, intangible pouch attached to his soul.
A storage treasure. Not a mere tool, but a treasure. If it had been a standard storage tool, one would usually wear it at the waist, but because his plan required carrying items across lifetimes along with his soul, this specific form had been created.
‘There’s certainly a lot in here.’ Pyo Rip chuckled, feeling a sense of absurdity as he examined the various items inside the Ethereal Pouch. ‘I actually pulled it off?’
Even when executing the plan, despite his conviction, a sliver of anxiety had always lurked in the back of his mind. He had gained the support of many high-ranking Nangseo Pavilion cultivators by helping the Lord ascend, but in reality, he had been nothing more than a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Yet, that daydream, fueled solely by the uniqueness of his own soul, had come to fruition.
“Ha.” Furthermore, the Ethereal Pouch contained more than just the arrangements he had prepared for his reincarnation. There were the tools he had used with his own hands, the rare materials he had saved, excited to use them someday, and keepsakes filled with memories. Items he had deemed worthy of carrying across lives. Each one felt so old it was unfamiliar, yet simultaneously as recognizable as the lines on his palm. Pyo Rip scanned them in silence. The realization hit him late. There was joy, but… a strange sense of emptiness accompanied it.
‘…Anyway, I’ll save the sentiment for later.’ The rattling vibration of the vehicle brought him back to reality. Pyo Rip took a deep breath and activated his divine ability again to retrieve an item from the Ethereal Pouch. Man-sang-gwi-a. All things are mine. As the ability to exert force and pull all things toward him activated, a small wooden box appeared in his hand.
The Stealing the Path Root-Planting Pill. Meaning it stole the Dao to plant a root, it had been made by extracting another’s spiritual root entirely. As written in the Secret Records of Fetal Theft, he had used a demonic practitioner with a Dao Body as the ingredient.
‘It will likely sprout an Earth-attribute root.’ Pyo Rip speculated inwardly. It wasn't without basis. The demonic practitioner’s Dao Body was the Chaos Gu-Poison Dao Body—a bizarre constitution that harbored a Dao of chaos, where the more chaotic and turbid the energy within the body, the stronger it evolved as the energies fought like venomous insects. True to the nature of that Dao Body, his spiritual root had been an Earth-attribute root with strong encompassing power.
Click. As he opened the wooden box, a stench of rotting iron and blood surged upward. It was an unpleasant scent, as if a living heart had been forcibly kneaded and dried. He couldn't see it in the dark, but he remembered its form: a lump of meat, rounded and lumpy, with black veins bulging out. He couldn't help but frown. The spiritual root of a Nascent Soul demonic cultivator. A lump of meat made by tearing away talent. It was a truly demonic object.
Pyo Rip swallowed the pill without hesitation. He suppressed the rising nausea and recited the Song of Mind Accordance. As it was a pill for a commoner, there was no need to chant a technique, but for a cultivator, contemplating the technique was simply a part of daily life.
The moment he consumed it, the effects of the Stealing the Path Root-Planting Pill took hold. A hot energy wrapped around the meridians extending from his dantian throughout his entire body.
Crack, crackle.
“Ugh!” His entire body screamed. It was as if his physical shell was relearning the very form of being human at this very moment. His meridians boiled, his internal organs twisted, and his nerves burned like fire. He had experienced countless injuries and the side effects of pills while living as a Foundation Establishment cultivator in his past life, but… this was different. It was the agony of forcibly planting talent into a body that had none. It was the pain of having his very existence ground down.
“Kuh!” The energy of the pill, having overturned his meridians once, now began to scrape against his bones. A sharp, stinging pain pierced his brain.
“Argh…!”
Next came the muscles, then the internal organs, and then his brain and the nerves throughout his body.
“Kuh…!”
He thought the pain was subsiding, but a moment later, the energy of the pill stimulated his meridians once again. It cycled through his muscles, organs, and nerves once more.
“One thought, lost in delusion… Kuh! Foot, self-mind…!”
The second wave of the pill’s effect hit, then the third, the fourth… Pyo Rip endured, reciting the technique solely to keep from losing consciousness. How long had he been at it?
“Haa, haa.”
He was exhausted, but Pyo Rip could smile. Finally, a spiritual root had firmly taken hold. It was a single Earth-attribute root.