Core Formation

Lu Shang walked into the cave abode on the mountain.

Compared with the grand hall, its interior was worlds apart, with nothing in common.

If this had been casually built while the palace was being constructed, then it had been far too casual.

There was almost nothing inside.

A stone bed, stone stools, a stone table-even the cultivation area deeper inside was made of stone.

"Isn't this a little too... too shabby?!"

Lu Shang could not help voicing a question from the depths of his soul.

Just then, Lu Shang heard a dripping sound.

It sounded like drops of water.

Lu Shang slowly felt his way toward the source.

"Don't tell me this place leaks, too?"

A moment later, Lu Shang arrived beside a small pool.

Lu Shang stared blankly at the pool before him, roughly twenty feet long and wide, with a trace of doubt and surprise as he sank into thought.

"System Sis, is this really a cave abode you built on the side? Why do I feel like this place has been here for decades?" Lu Shang asked skeptically.

Then Lu Shang asked again, "Wouldn't cultivating here for a few decades give me rheumatism, System Sis?"

"Are you an idiot? You're an immortal cultivator. How could you catch just any illness? Have a little confidence in your own strength, would you, my host!"

After that, there was no more sound.

"System Sis? System Sis? Are you still there? Are there any other cave abodes?" He fired off a triple volley of questions in one go.

After a while, Lu Shang was still standing there. The only answer he received was the "drip, drip" of water.

"Forget it. I'd better get cultivating. If I really get sealed away for a hundred-odd years, my brain will probably rust-I'm a high-quality office worker from the twenty-first century."

Although Lu Shang had joked that cultivating here might give him rheumatism, he still sat down on a large rock nearby.

Lu Shang quickly settled into meditation, and spiritual energy began slowly swirling around him.

Day after day, year after year, more than twenty years passed in the blink of an eye.

Lu Shang opened his eyes and looked down at his crossed legs.

"It feels like time sped up after I closed my eyes. Those drops used to fall only once in a while, but they became much faster once I started meditating and cultivating."

A moment passed.

Lu Shang summoned the system panel.

Aside from the mission to advance to core formation, there was not a single word left on the panel.

Only about one-sixth of that mission's progress bar seemed to remain.

"System Sis, how much time has passed?" Lu Shang spoke extremely slowly, taking almost a second or two over every word.

"Twenty-two years! It's been twenty-two years since you began cultivating in seclusion. You're now a late Foundation Establishment cultivator, just a little short of reaching the Core Formation Stage!" A familiar mechanical female voice rang out in Lu Shang's mind.

"Ah, there's still plenty of time. I'll take a break! For someone like me, who once had a lifespan of less than a hundred years, these twenty-two years were really hard to endure!"

Then Lu Shang spoke again. "Actually, I feel like being sealed away wouldn't matter that much anymore. System Sis, would being sealed away still use up my lifespan?"

"Of course it would. What do you think being sealed away means? Besides, once you break through to the Core Formation Stage, this system will upgrade, too. Are you sure you want to die sooner or delay it by a hundred-odd years?"

"Upgrade? Are you going to get a system shop, too? Will it have any top-grade magical treasures or supreme cultivation techniques?"

In an instant, only the sound of water dripping into the little pool remained in the cave abode. Everything else fell silent.

After another moment, the mechanical female voice finally sounded again.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Lu Shang asked.

"Then isn't this so-called upgrade of yours just a trick, System Sis?"

"I'm an omnipotent system. Why would I trick a mere Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator like you? Besides, I've never upgraded before. How would I know what new things an upgrade would bring?"

"Get back to cultivating. Stop wasting time. Understood, kid?" System Sis said sternly.

Lu Shang waved his hands. "All right, all right. Cultivate, cultivate."

At the end of the day, Lu Shang was still an ordinary person. His way of thinking had not yet fully adapted to the world of immortal cultivation.

Even ten or twenty years of meditative cultivation left him feeling somewhat bored and restless.

Through completing system missions, Lu Shang had already acquired a mutated spirit root, so he naturally had no fear of obstacles to breaking through to the Core Formation Stage. But seclusion lasting anywhere from a few years to several hundred was indeed an ordeal for someone who had yet to fully adjust.

Perhaps Lu Shang would have to truly live for more than a hundred years before he could fully accept this identity.

Before long, Lu Shang had mentally prepared himself, intending to muster all his determination and break through to the Core Formation Stage in one push.

Lu Shang rested his open hands on his legs and entered meditation again.

As spiritual energy swirled around him, Lu Shang once again began cultivating.

Once more, he cultivated through dull days and years, one after another.

Lu Shang had no idea how much time had passed.

During this period, Lu Shang could only sense the sound of water dripping into the nearby pool, though as his cultivation improved, he seemed to begin sensing a little of what lay beyond it.

Every so often, similar sounds seemed to come from outside the cave abode. Lu Shang judged that they were most likely raindrops.

There were other sounds as well, but Lu Shang could not identify them.

While cultivating, Lu Shang could not devote too much attention to anything else.

Perhaps another long stretch of time had passed. Without Lu Shang noticing at all, the shimmering blue spiritual energy around him turned a bloody brown.

Several months passed, and the blood-colored spiritual energy surrounding Lu Shang underwent further inexplicable changes.

From time to time, one or several blood-colored threads of lightning would appear around him.

Whenever these blood-colored threads of lightning appeared, they were accompanied by faint, tiny sounds.

Their crackling seemed almost no different from thunder during a storm, except that it was exceedingly quiet.

Lu Shang barely noticed at all. The lightning seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever.

System Sis watched all of this, seemingly without the slightest surprise, as though this was exactly how things should be.

When Lu Shang was truly only half a step from the Core Formation Stage, his aura began to surge, and even the lightning that had remained still for months grew restless.

Lu Shang sensed that he had reached a critical threshold. It felt like a wall that was difficult to break through.

This feeling was a sign that he was about to break through.

Unlike condensing a nascent soul, which involved so many difficulties, forming his core felt to Lu Shang like it only required breaking past this threshold.

Another month or two passed.

Just one more step.

Lu Shang exerted himself, and his aura surged around him.

A moment later, Lu Shang finally formed his core!

But before Lu Shang could celebrate, the lightning around him, which had gathered in ever greater quantities as he threw himself into advancing, completely surrounded him.

At the very instant Lu Shang successfully formed his core.

The lightning around him stopped churning, and even its sound vanished completely.

Viewed from the side, Lu Shang seemed hidden within a cloud of bloody-brown smoke. No one knew exactly what was happening.

The instant the lightning stopped, countless bolts burrowed into Lu Shang's body.

But a closer look revealed that all those threads of lightning were burrowing toward Lu Shang's dantian.

Lu Shang immediately reacted, intending to stop them.

But before Lu Shang could act, a voice he had not heard in a long time suddenly rang out in his mind.

"Don't stop them."

Although Lu Shang did not understand why he should not stop them, after thinking it over, he decided the system would not casually deceive him, and let the lightning burrow unchecked into his dantian.