Choosing a Cultivation Art, Breaking Through to First Grade

Boom!

The doors of the library opened.

An old man emerged, his figure stooped and his eyes cloudy, yet he gave the impression that he could see through everything.

"All Demon Suppression Guards may select one cultivation art and one martial skill below second grade. Demon Suppression Junior Banner Officers may select one cultivation art and one martial skill below third grade, and may also cultivate the Demon Suppression Bureau's seventh-grade body-tempering art: the Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art."

"You have an hour and a half. You may only memorize them, not take them outside. Anyone who violates this will be executed on the spot without mercy."

Having finished speaking,

the old man leisurely lay down in the rocking chair by the entrance.

Whoosh!

Hundreds of Demon Suppression Guards immediately turned their gazes toward Chu He. Though their faces showed anxiety, not one dared enter ahead of him.

Clearly, they had all been intimidated by Chu He's earlier display. Chu He did not hesitate and strode into the Technique Repository.

His gaze quickly swept around. The Technique Repository had five floors in total, with higher-grade cultivation arts and martial skills on each successive floor.

The first floor held only cultivation arts and martial skills below third grade. Precisely because their grades were low, they filled over a hundred bookshelves.

Left: cultivation arts section

Right: martial skills section

Chu He wove through the cultivation arts section, occasionally taking out a cultivation manual to read:

"Primal Chaos Limitless Art: a third-grade cultivation art that can produce three layers of Primal Chaos Force, each stronger than the last."

"Empty Pine Art: a third-grade cultivation art, extremely easy to cultivate. Simply imagine yourself as a pine tree. However, its power falls a few hundred million tiny bits short."

"Seven Stars Art: a third-grade cultivation art that can draw upon the power of the stars to temper the body. Minor mastery grants the strength of a hundred thousand jun. Every strike fills the sky with starlight-extremely dashing and handsome."

Holy shit!

Chu He held the Seven Stars Art, his face filled with shock.

Drawing on the power of the stars to temper the body-this alone proved how extraordinary the art was, let alone the strength of a hundred thousand jun granted at minor mastery.

As he rapidly flipped through its pages, Chu He's expression gradually darkened. "Fuck, what dumbass made up this cultivation art?"

As it turned out,

although this was a third-grade cultivation art, one needed fourth-grade cultivation to draw upon the power of the stars to temper the body. Before that, one could only absorb some stellar power from meteorites. As for where to find meteorites, who the hell knew?

Once someone had cultivated to fourth grade, why would they still need a third-grade art for drawing upon stellar power? It was completely useless to those below, while those above couldn't care less.

Thump!

Chu He shoved the book straight back onto the shelf.

Just as he was about to move on,

he spotted a book pinned beneath the bookshelf. From the look of things, the shelf must have been uneven, and it had been used to prop it up.

At that moment,

countless scenes from the fantasy novels of his previous life flashed through Chu He's mind. Almost all of them had this scene:

The protagonist discovered a cultivation manual in the Technique Repository that no one practiced, or that was being used to prop up a table or stool.

It was bound to be a supreme cultivation art. Relying on it, the protagonist rose all the way to the top, trounced every villain, and reached the pinnacle of life...

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Chu He glanced left and right. Finding that no one was watching him, he immediately bent down, lifted the bookshelf, and took the book.

Excitedly, he opened it:

"Sunflower Yin Softness Art: a third-grade cultivation art. To practice this art, one must first castrate oneself. At major mastery, one can change one's sex completely."

Fuck! (▼皿▼#)

Whoosh!

Thump!

At top speed, Chu He returned the book to its original position and lowered the bookshelf, making a faint noise!

"Lord Chu, is everything all right?"

An eager-to-please Demon Suppression Guard immediately asked.

Chu He brushed the dust off himself, waved at the person who had asked, and walked toward the martial skills section with an expressionless face.

But his twitching lips betrayed his state of mind.

Damn it.

Sure enough, novels couldn't be trusted.

Peerless cultivation arts, cultivation arts that only the protagonist could understand when no one else could-it was all bullshit.

Just think:

These cultivation manuals had been thumbed through who knew how many times. How could they really contain anything particularly amazing? Even if there were some hidden compartment, it couldn't escape the eyes of the powerful. This wasn't a world of ordinary mortals.

Afterward,

Chu He quickly walked to the hidden-weapons area of the martial skills section and selected a manual:

"Nine Netherworld Controls: a third-grade martial skill. At major mastery, one can control nine hidden weapons simultaneously and render them invisible."

Holding the Nine Netherworld Controls, Chu He went straight to the entrance to collect the Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art, which only Junior Banner Officers were permitted to read.

This cultivation art!

It was said to have been practiced by the founder of the Demon Suppression Bureau. More than half the Demon Suppression Guards had practiced it.

Its original name was the Divine Martial Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art, a ninth-grade cultivation art. The current Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art was a simplified version.

Only after being promoted to Commander or above could one exchange a large number of merit points for the upgraded cultivation art.

But

even this simplified version was a seventh-grade cultivation art.

"Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art: a seventh-grade cultivation art with seven layers in total. At major mastery, one can gain the strength of divine dragons and elephants, tread hell beneath one's feet, and suppress mountains and rivers with one's fists."

Half an incense stick later,

Chu He closed the book. The copy he had read only recorded cultivation methods for the first three grades. The later portions likewise required merit to exchange for them.

"Time is up. Leave."

A Technique Repository guard shouted.

The hundreds of Demon Suppression Guards dared not hesitate and rushed outside, some with delight on their faces, others with frustration.

"The Primal Chaos Force I chose is very similar to my family's cultivation art, so it'll be easier to cultivate. Brother, why the long face?"

"Don't even mention it. I saw a secret manual propping up a bookshelf and thought it was some supreme cultivation art. In the end... I wasted so much time that I didn't get to choose a suitable cultivation art."

"Holy shit, you actually read that cultivation art? They say that ever since it was put under the bookshelf, dozens of people have looked at it.

"One of them even refused to believe it and wanted to try cultivating it. Guess what happened to him? He's now Yun Province's number one 'honest official'-courtesan."

A Junior Banner Officer who knew the inside story said.

In the distance,

Chu He heard this conversation, and the corners of his mouth twitched violently several times. He quickened his steps back to his quarters even further.

Thump.

He shut the door.

Chu He sat upright on the bed.

He removed the clothes from his upper body, revealing densely packed cracks across his chest and neck that were constantly spreading upward.

At that moment, Chu He was like a porcelain doll that could shatter at any time. All this was simply because his soul was too powerful.

To be precise: a mortal body, a supreme soul.

From the moment he had transmigrated, he had sensed how powerful his soul was. At the time, he had thought it was an effect of transmigration.

But afterward:

His soul grew stronger with every passing day. Soon, his body could no longer bear it. For this reason, he could only keep practicing body-tempering arts to strengthen his flesh.

Yet now he was still nearing his limit.

Huff.

Chu He exhaled a breath of stale air and began cultivating the Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art. A stream of black Qi coursed continuously through his body.

Every time the black Qi completed a circuit through his body, it absorbed a portion of the internal Qi produced by his original martial arts cultivation methods.

Boom.

Accompanied by a tremor, the system's attribute panel changed.

Name: Chu He

Position: Demon Suppression Bureau Junior Banner Officer

Cultivation: Unranked (a top expert in the martial world!)

Martial art: Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art (beginner, upgrade available)

Weapon: one copper coin

Demon Points: 11

"Upgrade."

"Ding, Dragon Elephant Prison Suppression Art successfully upgraded. Three Demon Points consumed. Current level: early first layer."

As the system's voice faded,

Boom...

Chu He's presence surged, streams of black Qi pouring out of his body, while the cracks that had split open now closed.

"First grade. I did it."