Leo sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, the yellowed book laid open before him. The pages had gone soft from years of handling, corners rounded smooth, spine cracked in familiar places.

  "The Five Elements Spiritual Technique by Deity Transformation Monarch Everlight"

  The Five Element Spiritual Technique was the greatest technique developed by one of humanity's greatest cultivators.

  The book itself was designed for elementary school students. Every person on Earth possessed a copy. Hospitals presented one to each newborn as a matter of tradition, and many parents would stamp their baby's first footprints on the inside cover, recording major milestones alongside.

  Leo traced his fingers over the faded ink impressions on the first page. Two tiny footprints, slightly smudged at the edges where infant feet had squirmed against the paper. Below them, in his mother's careful handwriting:

  Leo Chen

  Born: March 15, 2011

  Spiritual Roots: 25 Wood, 15 Fire, 26 Earth, 13 Metal, 21 Water

  Average across the board. Nothing special. The kind of spiritual roots that would have been considered trash tier if it were not for Monarch Everlight. Leo owed a lot to Monarch Everlight, if it were not for the Monarch, he would never had the chance to begin cultivation.

  When Leo had first transmigrated, almost everything in his room remained identical to what he remembered. The posters, the furniture, the arrangement of books on his shelf.

  Aside from the VR Pod, this yellowed volume had been the biggest difference. In his original world, no such book existed. Here, it sat on his nightstand like a treasured heirloom.

  His mother had caught him reading it once, during those early confusing weeks. She had smiled with a warmth that made his chest ache.

  "You used to make your father read chapters as a bedtime story," she had said. "Every night, the same sections. The Golden Path, the Five Elements meditation, the story of how it was created. You had them memorized before you could write your own name."

  Leo had smiled and nodded, pretending to remember.

  Now he flipped through the familiar pages, reviewing the contents he had studied countless times since arriving in this world.

  The book detailed the stages of the path to immortality with cheerful illustrations and simple language.

  Qi Refining (Lifespan of 120), where cultivators would begin to draw spiritual energy into their bodies and refine it within their dantian.

  Foundation Establishment (Lifespan of 160), where the accumulated Qi would seep outward from the dantian, saturating and enhancing the physical body with spiritual power. Cultivators could begin to use spiritual medicine and pills to refine their body.

  Gold Core (Lifespan of 320), where cultivators would form a condensed core of energy at the Zhifu point in the brain, dramatically refining their divine sense and mental capabilities.

  Nascent Soul (Lifespan of 640), where by consuming the infant transformation pill, the soul itself would condense into a divine infant capable of projecting a domain of influence.

  And finally Deity Transformation (Lifespan of 1280), where the infant would mature and condense a divine spark, approaching true immortality.

  Each stage was illustrated with friendly cartoon cultivators demonstrating proper meditation postures. Thought bubbles showed the internal processes occurring at each realm. Helpful arrows indicated the flow of Qi through meridian pathways.

  The book proclaimed the Five Elements Spiritual Technique as Earth's greatest cultivation method. Not because it was the most powerful, or the fastest, or granted the most impressive abilities. It earned that title because everyone could use it, and it was proven to be the best method for everyone to use.

  Every spiritual root, every realm, every person. From the earliest stage of Qi Refining to the peak of Deity Transformation. It was the pinnacle of cultivation given as a free gift to everyone.

  Later sections, intended for older readers, explained the technique's origins. After World Cultivator War 2, all the sects and nations and scientists had come together in unprecedented cooperation.

  President Harry Truman, known by his Daoist title Monarch Everlight, had ordered the seizure of all sect cultivation techniques and commissioned a massive research initiative to develop the perfect universal method. Using the newly developed computing machines, alongside the expertise of every surrendered sects' old ancestors, nearly every great cultivator of the era contributed to the project.

  After a decade of research and bloody debate, the Five Elements Spiritual Technique emerged as the mathematically proven most efficient cultivation method for universal adoption.

  The proof, simplified for young readers, centered on a fundamental principle of cultivation. A cultivator could only convert spiritual Qi from a spiritual vein into personal cultivation based on how well the element of their technique matched their spiritual root.

  For example, if Leo cultivated an Earth Element Technique, he would utilize only 26% of the spiritual Qi drawn from a vein. His Earth spiritual root sat at 26. The remaining 74% would dissipate uselessly into the environment. A heavenly spiritual root with an earth value of 80, would cultivate nearly four times faster, making far more efficient use of the same resources.

  But Monarch Everlight had recognized a crucial truth. If Earth was to truly embark on a journey of cultivation for all, every bit of spiritual Qi had to be used. A trash spiritual root wasting 74% of the precious resource was unacceptable. Likewise, even a heavenly spiritual root wasting 20% represented an intolerable inefficiency when multiplied across billions of cultivators.

  The Five Elements Spiritual Technique solved this problem through elegant simplicity. Rather than absorbing Qi of a single element, the technique allowed cultivators to separate unattributed pure Qi into its five elemental components and absorb each one sequentially.

  The speed of absorption for each element depended on the strength of the corresponding spiritual root. A Cultivator with heavenly Earth spiritual root would absorb derived Earth Qi rapidly, then spend way more time working through the Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood portions.

  Total absorption. Zero waste. Perfect efficiency.

  Of course, a cultivator could simply ignore the elements that did not match their strongest root. This would allow much faster cultivation in the short term.

  But every strand of spiritual Qi was metered. If you needed more Qi than your daily allotment permitted, you would pay substantially higher taxes and face cultivation audits by the IRS. No cultivator enjoyed paying taxes, and every chapter of the book emphasized the importance of utilizing every single bit of spiritual Qi.

  Leo smiled slightly at the memory of his father scaring him with his families tax forms in this world. Line items for Qi consumption, deductions for Qi consumption used in formations engravings, penalties for waste. The bureaucracy of immortality.

  The book devoted considerable attention to sleep. For example, physical exercise, despite appearances, did not actually increase strength. Exercise broke down muscle fibers and depleted energy reserves. The body only rebuilt stronger during rest, particularly during deep sleep cycles.

  Cultivation followed the same principle. The meridians and dantian did not expand their capacity during active cultivation. That expansion occurred during sleep, when the body could safely stretch and reinforce the pathways that channeled Qi. Attempting to cultivate without adequate rest led to meridian strain, Qi deviation, and potentially permanent damage.

  Good sleep habits were ingrained in everyone from birth. Respecting people's sleep and cultivation times ranked among the highest social courtesies. Disturbing someone's cultivation session was considered roughly equivalent to interrupting a surgeon mid-operation.

  The book also covered the critical importance of cultivation timing. Breaking into Foundation Establishment before the body reached maturity, typically around the eighteenth birthday, could cause devastating developmental problems. The Qi saturation process would lock one's body in its state upon advancement, preventing proper growth.

  Similarly, advancing to Gold Core before brain development was complete, usually in the mid twenties, could cripple divine sense.

  Several pages featured true stories of geniuses who had ruined their immortal potential by advancing realms too early. A prodigy who reached Foundation Establishment at fourteen and remained forever trapped in a child's body with a stunted lifespan.

  A talented cultivator who formed his Gold Core at nineteen and found his divine sense permanently stunted at half its potential maximum. Cautionary tales told with the gentle but firm tone of lessons learned the hard way.

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  The book detailed the "Golden Path of Cultivation," mathematically proven as the most cost-effective progression route. Begin cultivation at approximately age fifteen.

  The ideal method for breaking into Qi Refining was to be guided by someone trustworthy, typically parents, to avoid accidentally damaging fragile meridians during the initial opening process.

  Then, after cultivating for eight hours daily over three years, a practitioner would reach the peak of Qi Refining shortly after their eighteenth birthday. This timing minimized wasted waiting.

  Less idle time meant more opportunity for study, preparation, and simply enjoying youth before the demands of higher cultivation consumed ever-greater portions of life.

  The distinction between advancing cultivation and maintaining cultivation received careful explanation. Advancing required substantially more spiritual Qi, and thus substantially more money. However, the government granted every citizen a free allowance for advancement.

  This meant each breakthrough had to be planned with meticulous care. If you squandered your free advancement allowance on just a few minor realms and then lacked funds to maintain your level, regression would follow. And your second attempt at advancement would cost much much more without the free advancement allowance.

  Finally, the book described "play cultivation." Children could request free wisps of Qi from spiritual veins to practice the Five Elements Spiritual Technique in the mortal realm, before their meridians opened. The exercise taught the tricky process of separating unattributed spiritual Qi into its five elemental components.

  It was probably the most popular game every child played, a competitive pastime where kids would race to see who could split Qi wisps fastest or maintain the cleanest elemental separation.

  When Leo had first tried "play cultivation" after transmigrating, he discovered his body possessed excellent muscle memory of the process. Years of childhood practice had ingrained the movements and mental patterns. His fingers knew how to guide Qi separation before his conscious mind fully understood what they were doing.

  But that had been play. Practice without true absorption.

  Now his meridians stood open.

  Leo closed the book and set it aside. The familiar weight of it grounded him, connecting him to a childhood he had never actually experienced but which his body remembered perfectly.

  He settled into proper meditation posture, legs crossed, spine straight, hands resting on his knees. The position felt natural. Years of play cultivation had trained his body well.

  In modern society every wisp of Spiritual Qi was measured out and paid for. Waste was penalized and heavily taxed. Even Qi from theft needed to be paid to the IRS. Everyone on earth had an ID card tied to their personal usage and personal Qi could not be sold or transferred.

  Leo drew a slow breath, inserted his ID card, and started his daily allotment.

  Through the wall, he could sense the house's connection to the neighborhood spiritual vein. A thin trickle of Qi, carefully metered, flowing into the residence's cultivation formation. His daily allotment. Enough for eight hours of advancement cultivation, precisely calculated based on his spiritual roots and current realm.

  Spiritual Qi entered through the connection point in the living room, traveled through the house's internal formation channels, and arrived at the secondary node in his bedroom. It emerged as a soft silver luminescence that existed more in his perception than in physical reality.

  He extended his hands, palms up, fingers spread.

  The Qi pooled in the space between his palms. A small sphere of undifferentiated potential, waiting to be shaped. This was the critical step, the technique that Monarch Everlight had refined through a decade of research. The separation.

  Leo's fingers began to move.

  The motions came from muscle memory, ingrained through countless hours of childhood play. His right index finger traced a spiral pattern through the Qi sphere, and a thread of green energy began to separate from the mass. Wood Qi. It pulled away like honey stretching from a spoon, maintaining connection to the main sphere while becoming distinctly itself.

  His left thumb pressed against an invisible pressure point in the air, and a strand of red emerged. Fire Qi. Warm and eager, flickering at the edges.

  Both hands worked in concert, fingers dancing through patterns that had no names but felt as natural as breathing. Yellow for Earth. White for Metal. Blue for Water. Five threads extending from the central sphere, each vibrating with its distinct elemental nature.

  In play cultivation, this was where the exercise ended. You separated the Qi, held the separation as long as possible, then released it back into the air.

  But now Leo's meridians stood open. Now the separated Qi had somewhere to go.

  He drew the Wood thread toward himself first.

  The green energy flowed through his open meridians, following pathways that had been carved during his breakthrough. It felt like drinking cool water after a long run. Refreshing. Natural. The Wood Qi settled into his dantian, merging with the tiny pool of refined energy already present.

  His Wood spiritual root sat at 25. The absorption proceeded at a steady pace, neither fast nor slow. Each wisp of Wood Qi integrated smoothly, without waste, without loss.

  When the Wood thread emptied, Leo drew in the Fire.

  His Fire root was only 15. The red Qi flowed more slowly, requiring more time and attention to properly absorb. He could feel his body working harder to process the energy, his meridians straining slightly against the elemental mismatch.

  But it absorbed. Every wisp. Every strand. No waste.

  Earth followed. His strongest element at 26, and the yellow Qi flowed eagerly, almost rushing to join the pool in his dantian. Then Metal at 13, the slowest and most tedious absorption. Finally Water at 21, a comfortable middle pace that felt like settling into a warm bath.

  One complete cycle of the Five Elements Spiritual Technique.

  Leo checked his internal state. The pool of refined Qi in his dantian had grown measurably. A tiny increase, barely perceptible, but real. Tangible progress on the long road toward the peak of Qi Refining.

  He reached for the next portion of his daily allotment and began separating again. And then after what seemed to be only a few moments, the flow stopped. Eight hours passed. Cultivation flew by in a breeze.

  ---

  Leo didn't even bother going back to school to finish his finals. Now that his talent was proven and he had great immortal destiny, he didn't need to concern himself with mortal studies as a backup option. In fact, half of the incoming students, especially the rich ones, actually defered their enrollment to second year directly.

  The reality was, Leo did not have any time. The Divine Sense Press technique could only be done every 15 hours due to Leo's longer Qi Refinement respawn time, so Leo had to maximize his use of time in the Real World. Each day, Leo needed to spend 8 hours for sleep, and 8 hours for cultivation.

  If Leo wanted to go to school, he could save a lot of time by doing his 8 hours of cultivation in the Azure Profound Continent game world, combining his sleep and cultivation time.

  But this would slow down his cultivation of divine sense as he wouldn't be maximizing his death cooldown. Leo kept to 15 hour cycles of using the Divine Sense Press to maximize his Si growth. Dying 1-2 times a day was much much more manageable than the previous 7-8 times a day.

  Right now the the biggest bottleneck to Leo's plans was divine sense. Leo's goal was to reach 9999 Si, the limit of Qi Refinement Cultivation, before entering Foundation Establishment before Freshman year. This is because upon advancing Major Realms, one's divine sense would greatly increase.

  Most people didn't bother with Divine Sense cultivation because there was a 'minimum' of divine sense you would get every realm. Upon entering Qi Refining, your divine sense would reach of minimum of 100.

  Upon entering Foundation establishment your divine sense would directly triple, or reach 1000, whatever was higher. It was much easier to just enter the next realm, than to try to grind out your divine sense at Qi Refining.

  However some people would still do so. One group was young masters, with the resources of their family, they would enter Qi Refining early at the age of seven, and spend the years waiting for their bodies to develop, grinding their divine sense. By the time they turned 18, they would have 700-800 divine sense, tripling to 2000-3000 after foundation establishment.

  Another group that would do so was formation masters. If you wanted any hope of achieving high end Gold Core Divine Sense, taking advantage of the divine sense tripling was an important necessary step for any formation master.

  It became increasingly expensive to train Divine Sense the more you had, so every talented formation master took their time to grind out the limit of 9999 at Qi Refining, taking 40-80 years depending on how much money they could burn.

  The most popular training technique for Divine Sense was the "Full Breath Recovery Technique". If you emptied out your Divine Sense, and used the "Full Breath Recovery Technique" to completely recover your Divine Sense from zero, it would also strengthen your Divine Sense.

  The downside of this technique was that it relied on drawing from a spiritual vein to recover the divine sense, and needing to pay the corresponding spirit vein fees.

  If you used an early spirit vein to recover your divine sense, it would it cost about $1.20 per Si. So if Leo directly burned his divine sense, it would cost $2400 to completely refill, and this would only increase the more Divine Sense Leo had.

  Formation Masters training the Full Breath Recovery Technique would offset the cost by spending their Divine Sense drawing formations. Unfortunately the massive amount of Formation Masters of all levels grinding away at Divine Sense training ended up flooding the market with formations.

  Typically Formation engraving only commanded a 10% margin over the dollar value of Si used. If you made a mistake or were inefficient, you would lose money drawing formations for sale.

  Even though Leo has a free source of Spiritual Qi to recover his divine sense, the Full Breath Recovery Technique was a (comparatively) really slow way to strengthen Divine Sense.

  Even if Leo stayed 24/7 in Azure Profound Continent and constantly burned and recovered his divine sense. It would still take at least 12 years to achieve the limit of Qi Refinement.

  The only earthly way for others to increase their Divine sense was by consuming a drop of Essence Blood of Deity Transformation or higher cultivators. But there was no way for Leo to get that.

  The good news was that if Leo wanted to make lots of money, he could do so by using the free Qi of Azure Profound Continent and then drawing Formations at 100% pure profit. In fact, the three others of the group were frantically doing so.

  They had finished refining their life bound flying swords and to their surprise, they discovered they could transport life bound equipment between the Game world and the real world. Lifebound equipment is stored in the cultivator's Dantian.

  The group found that not only you could transport lifebound equipment across worlds, formations drawn on them would transfer too.

  There were a few problems with lifebonding. The biggest was it would take six months of lifebonding for eight hours a day to be able to use a lifebound treasure.

  Secondly you could only lifebond materials according to the grade of your Divine sense. So you would not be able to lifebond T3 Gold Core grade weapons unless your Divine sense reached Gold Core Grade of ten thousand Si.

  Most importantly upon being lifebound, no one else could use it again, sending the resale value of the treasure directly to zero, a great loss of immortal potential.

  Since Leo actually had Foundation Establishment grade Divine Sense. He could actually begin lifebonding a Flying Sword. And Leo decided to make that his number one priority. He had always wanted to fly, and now it was within grasp.

  8 Hours of sleep, 8 hours of cultivation, 8 hours of lifebonding. Leo would spend the next 6 months locked in his room in 'closed door cultivation'

  His parents directly bought him the best Flying Sword money could buy. Although life-bound treasures are restricted by the material, talented Formation masters could directly engrave higher tier formations onto lower tier material.

  Leo's life-bound flying sword his parents bought for him was inscribed with the La Ferrari Eclipse formation. It cost 1.2 million dollars and was a forbidden Tier 4 (Nascent Soul) formation, elevating the treasure to the strength equivalent of a Late Stage Gold Core Cultivator.

  Upon seeing Leo's La Ferrari, the other three of the group, green with envy, started mass drawing formations to earn money, finally working hard for the first time in many many years.