April 2027, Azure Profound Continent

  Kevin gathered the group in their hidden base, the familiar stone walls flickering with the soft glow of spirit lamps. Leo sat cross-legged on a worn meditation cushion, his divine sense still humming from hours of lifefbonding.

  "Do you remember the old geezer we ran into at the Pond Gazing Sect?" Kevin asked.

  Arthur nodded slowly. "The bathing one?"

  "That's the one. He's dead."

  "The sect is looking for outsiders to investigate," Kevin continued. "Whatever killed him involves their profundity, and apparently it's become extremely dangerous. They don't want to risk their own elders, so they're offering the Great Water Spirit Improving Elixir as a reward."

  "Supposedly it was developed through proprietary methods using the unique spiritual properties of their sacred lake. Increases water attribute spiritual roots by a significant margin."

  Leo perked up at the mention of spiritual roots. He knew his own numbers [25 Wood, 15 Fire, 26 Earth, 13 Metal, 21 Water].

  Everyone was born with 100 points spread across the five elements. In places like Azure Profound Continent or the Catacombs, his distribution would have been considered trash tier.

  Kevin caught Leo's expression and sighed. "You have no idea why this matters, do you?"

  "People in backwards realms like the Catacombs and Azure Profound Continent think it's important." Leo said. "But we, as enlightened earthlings, know better, right?"

  "You skipped every class that would have explained this." Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your mother calls Mike every week to complain about you. She doesn't know anything about sports. She complains that you're wasting your immortal potential spending time at Yale and not Harvard."

  "That's not the point." Kevin settled into lecture mode, a habit from his years as a graduate student. "Let me explain why this elixir actually matters to us."

  In the past, during the pre-WWII era of the cultivation legacy sects, the distribution of your spiritual roots mattered a great deal. You needed your spiritual roots to be concentrated in one or two elements to be accepted by a sect. You had to have at least 40 in one root, or a combined total of 65 in two roots.

  If you had 80 in one root, you would be considered a heavenly spiritual root, and all the sect's resources would be heaped upon you in an attempt to promote you to the Nascent Soul realm as fast as possible. Roots like Leo's that lacked concentration would be considered trash tier, and he would have never been given the opportunity to cultivate.

  Spiritual roots mattered for two reasons. The first was cultivation speed. A heavenly spiritual root could cultivate four times faster than Leo could. Luckily for him, this was the era of universal cultivation. Everyone, regardless of their spiritual roots, could cultivate with the Five Elements Spiritual Technique.

  In modern thinking, no one cared about cultivation speed. The idea that only a select few could cultivate extremely quickly was thought of as backwards, wasteful, and discriminatory. Modern cultivators looked down on the legacy sects for discriminating against those with more balanced spiritual roots.

  The second reason spiritual roots mattered was because they affected the grade of the Gold Core you formed. To advance from the Foundation Establishment realm, cultivators had to condense a Gold Core at the Zhifu point in their brain. Cultivators with worse spiritual roots would form Gold Cores with more flaws than cultivators with more concentrated spiritual roots.

  The number of flaws on your Gold Core would limit how far you could cultivate. If you formed an Inferior Gold Core, you would be stuck at the early stage of the realm. A Solid Gold Core could cultivate to the middle stage. Only a Superior Gold Core could reach the peak of the Gold Core realm and advance to the next realm of Nascent Soul.

  In the past, shattering and reforming your Gold Core to improve the grade was an extremely dangerous process. It required top tier spiritual medicine to be successful. But now, with the advent of modern science and medicine, it was no longer life threatening.

  Modern neurosurgeons used Stereotactic Radiosurgery to initiate a controlled shattering of the Gold Core. The most dangerous part of the process was the heat generated by the shattering. Doctors protected the brain from heat damage by first inducing a coma, then circulating the blood of the patient through an artificial heart with specialized cooling functions.

  They would use an Intracranial Pressure Monitor to detect spiritual qi spikes and manage qi deviation. Most Gold Core shatterings could be completed without any spiritual medicines. This controlled and monitored method, performed under general anesthesia, was far superior to anything a cultivator could accomplish alone.

  Shattering your Gold Core was no longer death-seeking. In fact, it had become a deliberate cultivation strategy. Each time you shattered and reformed your Core, the new one would be of higher quality than the last, your foundation strengthening with every iteration.

  As long as you had the time and money, even a pig could form a Superior Grade Gold Core with enough repetitions.

  This was why Earth no longer farmed spiritual root enhancing medicines. Although improving your spiritual roots could help you cultivate faster and save many years on the journey to a Superior Grade Gold Core, the vast majority of people chose to save their money instead.

  After all, what were a few years on the journey to longevity? Better to spend those years grinding, save the money, and preserve your immortal potential.

  Even if you were wrong, and scientists later discovered that spiritual roots held great importance, you could always improve them later. Even the powerful Deity Transformation old ancestors could enhance their roots.

  It would be far more cost effective to reach the Deity Transformation realm, then use the earning potential of that realm to max out and attain immortal spiritual roots.

  "But we don't have these limitations," Kevin continued. "We have access to the free spiritual qi of Azure Profound Continent. There are probably Tier 6 and Tier 7 spirit veins somewhere in this world. Our immortal potential is theoretically boundless."

  Leo straightened.

  "Switching to a faster cultivation technique becomes worthwhile for us," Kevin explained. "Saving a few years of Cultivation is a luxury only we can afford. In addition, maybe there are profound cultivation techniques in the Continent that are better than the Five Element Spiritual Technique. After all, we already have one Great Ascension Legacy, the Otherworldly Demon Summoning Technique. It's entirely plausible that we could find a second more."

  "But here's the real question." Kevin leaned forward. "How do we know Superior is the highest gold core grade? What if there's like a Super-Superior that Earth never discovered because no one bothered to look? After all, Earth's inheritance is naturally only limited to the Deity Transformation. We could just be frogs in the well, unable to see Mt Tai."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Leo, what if when you are in the Deity Transformation realm and then learn that in order to reach the next realm of Void Refinement you would need a Super-Superior Gold Core? How sad would that be if you only had a Superior Gold Core?"

  "We need to make sure that no Super-Superior Gold Core exists before you lock your core with the Infant Transformation Pill."

  "One of us will have to stay behind, constantly breaking and reforming their gold core, while improving their spiritual roots to make sure there isn't a Super-Superior Gold Core. It will probably have to be me, because Arthur doesn't have that much lifespan left, and Mike is too busy with his kids."

  "And if there isn't?" Leo asked.

  "Then we give up by the time you're ready to advance to Nascent Soul. No harm done. I'll just have an extremely stable superior grade core from all the practice." Kevin shrugged.

  "But if we discover a higher grade exists and you miss it because we didn't check? How tragic would that be for your immortal path?"

  Leo nodded slowly. Kevin would stay behind as the experimental subject, and if a breakthrough occurred, Leo would have plenty of time to go back and cultivate properly.

  "One warning," Kevin added, his tone turning serious. "We cannot afford to invite more people to the game world yet. Maybe if the war grows desperate and America faces direct invasion, we'd consider it. But we all share a critical weakness."

  He pulled out his summoning plate, the formation lines glowing faintly in the cave's dim light.

  "If this breaks, our access to Azure Profound ends. Our immortal path ends. We've taken countermeasures, but the risk remains." Kevin tucked the plate away. "We cannot let anyone else know about this."

  The weight of that vulnerability settled over the Leo. All his hard work, and all his plans and hopes, depended on small ceramic plates that could shatter from a single misstep.

  "The profundity investigation is worth pursuing regardless," Kevin said, steering the conversation back on topic.

  "The entire continent is named after profundities. Learning about them directly will be key to understanding this world's cultivation system and thus maximizing our immortal potential in the game world."

  ---

  The Pond Gazing Sect had changed dramatically since their last visit.

  Leo brought the La Ferrari Eclipse to a hovering stop at the lake's edge, his divine sense sweeping outward before they descended. Kevin pulled his own Eclipse alongside, taking a look.

  "Something's wrong with the water," Kevin said.

  Leo saw it too. The lake at the valley's center, clear and blue on their last visit, had turned the color of old ink. The surface sat perfectly still, reflecting nothing, absorbing light like a wound in the landscape.

  "No fish," Leo noted. His divine sense pressed deeper, finding empty water where spiritual creatures should have thrived. "No insects on the surface. No movement at all."

  "That's a corruption pattern." Kevin's voice had gone tight. "When a body of water loses all life like that, it usually means something has saturated the entire area with foreign Qi. High-level stuff."

  "Whatever's down there is pumping out spiritual energy that's incompatible with normal cultivation ecosystems."

  "How high-level are we talking?"

  "Hard to say from here. But for a lake this size to go completely dead?" Kevin shook his head. "We're probably looking at something that was at least Nascent Soul."

  A delegation had noticed them and came out to greet them: three cultivators in blue-gray robes, their faces showing the careful neutrality of people trying very hard to appear calm. The eldest, a woman with silver threading her black hair, stepped forward as Leo and Kevin landed.

  Her eyes fixed on their Eclipses, and her expression shifted. Leo caught the recognition: she could sense the High Gold Core power signature radiating from the formations. Then her gaze moved to their faces, and the recognition deepened into something harder.

  "You." Her voice remained polite, but tension ran beneath it. "The cultivators who robbed the Iron Rhinoceros Sect's Jade Harmony Bank."

  Kevin's face went red. "That uh... wasn't me"

  "The sect has distributed your descriptions across six provinces." Mrs. Zhao's hands pressed together in a greeting that carried more formality than warmth.

  "Remarkably young. Remarkably fast. Wielding treasures that exceed their cultivation bases by several major realms. Responsible for the only bank robbery in a hundred years. Quite the reputation for a Qi Refiner."

  Leo met her gaze. "I... uhh... heard those robbers have enough money now and aren't looking to rob anymore."

  "The Iron Rhinoceros Sect's grievances are theirs to settle. The Pond Gazing Sect walks its own path." Mrs. Zhao studied him.

  "We are willing to set aside this matter. I am Mrs. Zhao. But I will speak plainly: our sect maintains deep connections with the central continent. Our patrons would not look kindly upon those who mistake our hospitality for weakness."

  "We're here for the Profundity," Leo said. "I heard you're looking for outsiders to investigate?"

  Mrs. Zhao's posture softened the moment Leo confirmed their intentions.

  "Forgive my earlier sharpness." She gestured toward the sect's main buildings. "Two months of sleepless nights have worn our patience thin. Five deaths, including my husband. We have exhausted every resource and still cannot find a clue."

  "I'm sorry for your loss," Leo said.

  She acknowledged this with a small nod, grief flickering across her features before she composed herself. "Come. Let me show you the nature of the beast we face."

  They walked along the lake's edge, the black water silent beside them. Kevin kept glancing at it, his anxiety visible in the set of his shoulders.

  "You mentioned a Profundity," Leo said. "What exactly does that mean?"

  "A phenomenon that occurs when top-tier cultivators perish." Mrs. Zhao's voice took on the cadence of someone reciting studied material.

  "Their remains, saturated with centuries of accumulated spiritual energy, begin to alter the land around them. Strange effects manifest. Localized shifts in spiritual density. Unusual plant growth. Sometimes, the ambient Qi condenses into treasures of its own accord."

  Mrs. Zhao paused, her gaze moving to the still water. "Our ancestors chose this valley because they recognized the signs. Something of great power met its end in this lake. The spiritual properties of the water have been unusual since before our sect's founding."

  "What happened then?" Leo asked.

  "Whatever sleeps beneath the surface has stirred. Or has awaken." She resumed walking.

  "The ancient records suggest these phenomena appear across the entire realm, wherever great cultivators fell. Some scholars believe a treasure of immense power exists somewhere beyond our knowledge, ensuring the dead leave impressions that do not fade with the passing of ages."

  "A treasure that makes corpses more spiritually potent?"

  "A treasure that refuses to let the powerful truly die." Mrs. Zhao's voice carried weight. "Their bodies return to dust. Their souls pass through the cycle of reincarnation."

  "But their longing, their unfinished business and their deepest obsessions. These remain behind, crystallizing into something tangible. As the saying goes: the body may perish, but obsession endures beyond the grave."

  They reached the main hall's entrance. Mrs. Zhao paused at the doors.

  "Before we enter, I should tell you: a prodigy from the Iron Rhinoceros Sect arrived earlier today to assist with this matter." Her eyes moved between Leo and Kevin.

  "I trust all parties can conduct themselves with propriety. There are sufficient portions of the Great Water Spirit Improving Elixirs for everyone. I would hate for old grudges to poison new wells."

  Kevin's face had gone pale. "Iron Rhinoceros Sect? As in, the bank we... I mean, the bank those other guys robbed?"

  The doors opened.

  The hall held a long table, cultivation manuals arranged along the walls, and a young man in black robes who stood the moment they entered. His hand moved toward the dual swords at his hip before he caught himself.

  Recognition flared in his eyes.

  "You."

  Leo recognized him too. Mid-Gold Core, refined movement technique, dual blades. The cultivator who had pressed him hardest during their escape from the vault, whose scissoring attacks had forced Leo to retreat step after step.

  "Shen Tianyi," Mrs. Zhao said, her voice carrying a warning. "These cultivators have agreed to assist with our investigation. The Pond Gazing Sect has extended them amnesty within our territory."

  Shen Tianyi's jaw tightened. His gaze swept over Leo, measuring, remembering. "So the little thief dares show his face in the open. I trust you haven't mistreated my treasure."

  "My name's Leo, and I'm treating my lifebound treasure well," Leo corrected.

  The young prodigy's attention shifted to Kevin. His eyes narrowed.

  "And this one. You bear a striking resemblance to a certain foolish Foundation Establishment cultivator who was poisoned and dissipated outside our vault. The same brow. The same cowardly posture."

  Kevin's laugh came out strangled. "That's... funny story, actually. That was my long lost evil twin."

  "Your evil twin."

  "Yeah. Derek. Real piece of work, that guy. We don't talk about him at family reunions." Kevin's hands were shaking slightly. "Tragic, really. His death, I mean. Very sad. Anyway, I'm Kevin. Different person entirely."

  Shen Tianyi stared at him for a long moment. Then his gaze moved back to Leo, and something complicated passed through his expression.

  "Hmph. The Jade Harmony Bank's affairs are beneath my concern." Shen Tianyi waved a dismissive hand. "But Leo, once I've found myself a suitable treasure, I hope you won't hide when I come to regain my face."

  He sat back down, his posture rigid.

  Mrs. Zhao exhaled. "Good. Then allow me to explain what we know of these deaths."