"What is Cultivation?"

A layman asked to a wandering hermit, offering a bag of polished rice as payment. The hermit glanced at the layman and smiled like a blossom before answering.

"What is Cultivation? It's the art of refining the essence of Heaven and Earth into your very own self to reach beyond the skies, beyond the mortal realm, and achieve the truth of all living things."

"Wise hermit, pray tell why would one even cultivate immortality? Isn't living eternal monotonous and tedious?" The layman said, a look of curiosity on his face.

"Cultivation is not merely about reaching immortality. It's about achieving one's true meaning in life, about realizing. It's about overcoming the limits of one's body and soul, and ascending to a higher plane of existence."

"Overcoming the limits of one's body and soul? Higher plane of existence?" The layman repeated, his mind unable to compare the vastness of truth.

"Everything in this world is born with a fixed limit. A tree cannot become a flower, a rock cannot become water, and a human cannot become a god. But through cultivation, one can break free from the shackles of the mortal realm and achieve the impossible. The vast plane of void is a blank sheet yet, it also works as a body and soul suppressing array... Layman, have you ever thought why a mortal couldn't fly, why a mortal couldn't shatter the mountains while an Immortal can? To a fool, it's because of the Qi while, to the wise, it's the rules of existence."

"Rules of existence? Wise one what's the rule... Isn't it merely eat or be eaten in nature!?" The layman asked.

The hermit chuckled softly, as though the wind had told him a pleasant joke. A naive person remains unaware of the world, believing water flows downwards simply because of the law of gravity, when the truth is far more profound. The hermit thought to himself.

"What you said is the very first law of chaos and order. In order to survive, one must eventually hunt another. However, it is far from the vast Truth. Rules of existence are the invisible chains that bind us to our mortal coils. The four our great rules bind us called Sì Dà Zhèn Yã within Buddhist and Taoist scriptures." The hermit said, as if he were reciting an ancient verse.

"The four great suppressions?" The layman questioned, translating the Taoist phrase.

"The Great Four Suppressions bind all living beings beneath Heaven. They suppress the Ròu Shēn, restrain the Shén Hún, seal one's Dào Yì, and obscure the Zhēn Wǒ, according to Taoist scripture of Zen Puja. In simple terms, the four suppressions of the mortal coil are the suppression of the flesh, the restraint of the soul, the sealing of the Concept, and the obscuring of the true self. They are the fundamental limits that govern our existence, even the immortal cannot surpass these four, not even the Buddha. In the end, are we butterflies awaiting to be awakened or simply a man dreaming of a butterfly?" The hermit added, the phrase of Daoist philosophies.

"But wise hermit, why does heaven need to bind us, if it is absolute? What is the meaning of binding us in chains of rules and restrictions?" The layman couldn't help but ask, his mind puzzled by the words of the hermit.

The hermit looked at the layman for a long moment. The wind stirred the tall grass, and somewhere in the distance a crow cried.

"Young Man, the natural order is far more brutal than one can imagine, thus, the heavens have established the heavenly order... Imagine a world where nothing is wrong and nothing is right, at a glance, it feels divine but in the end, it's the world of utter chaos where the strong rule everything. The world that seldom acknowledges the existence of the weak, the world that punishes no evil and rewards no good. That's the world without the heavenly order..."

The layman fell silent, the weight of the hermit's words settling over him like the gathering dusk. He looked at his own calloused hands, feeling the invisible chains the old man spoke of—the aching of his back after a long day in the fields, the fog of forgetfulness that came with age, the inability to grasp the thoughts of the stars above.

A world that rewards no good deed and punishes no bad deed simply because good and bad never existed in the first place... The layman thought about it.

The hermit watched the young man sink into silence. The fading sun painted the sky with long streaks of gold and crimson.

"Knowledge is the source of all good and it can be the source of all evil. Cultivating is all about understanding the world and understanding oneself. The journey to understand the world is challenging but it's nevertheless a manageable feat, however, understanding oneself is the hardest part of cultivation... The intensest lust is lust for knowledge, the greatest pride is pride for knowledge, the never-ending greed is greed for knowledge. The more you understand the world, the more you will be tested by the world..."

"The journey to understand the oneself isn't as simple as living a monastic life devoid of intimacy or far from the touch of society. Or simply overcoming one's emotions to become a statue of ice," the hermit continued, his eyes twinkling with a mischievous light that belied his sage-like demeanor. "To sever one's emotions is to sever one's humanity. If a man cannot love, how can he cherish the Dao? If he cannot hate, how can he know the value of peace? And if he cannot lust, how can he understand the burning desire that fuels the pursuit of the eternal?"

"If there is no concept of chaos, order never exists... The path of understanding oneself can push even the sane Monks to bloodthirsty carnal beasts," the hermit added.

The layman shuddered slightly at the hermit's words.

"A bloodthirsty carnal beast…?" he asked quietly.

The hermit nodded.

"Indeed. The path of cultivation is not a road paved with lotus petals. It is a path walked upon blades."

He picked up a fallen leaf and turned it slowly between his fingers.

"Many believe cultivation is about purity—about abandoning desire, abandoning anger, abandoning the world... That's the path of escape, not understanding. To truly understand oneself, one must embrace the chaos within. You must accept that you are a beast, a saint, a sinner, and a savior, all wrapped in a single skin. To cultivate is both the Sin and blessings."

"Wise hermit, then what is the true meaning of cultivation? What exactly is the concept of refining the one self?"

***

These strange memories! Young Master Wang opened his eyes, his cultivation momentarily paused, his mind drifting away from the physical reality of the chamber.

It wasn't a vision on true sense but nevertheless, it was a vision. The memory of the hermit and the layman was his own. It belonged to his "past lives".

Based on the concepts of soul, those memories that existed in the form of Nascent Immortal matter must have been attracted by the Nhmm vibration of his Divine Soul.

The memory dissolved like mist under the morning sun, leaving behind only the lingering scent of old parchment. What a strange thing to happen, yet with his possession of True Devil Heart, he wasn't shaken.

Two days had passed, and he was within the closed cultivation session, trying to comprehend a reverse scale located on his chest, but it was disturbed by the sudden Enlightenment of old memories.

Also, the cultivation session was Madam Lian was fruitful, though his cultivation didn't rise, he managed to awaken one Yang out of his Nine Supreme Yang Physique— Sun Yang.

The Sun Yang was not merely a flame; it was the condensed essence of a hear, a fragment of celestial fury bound within his flesh.

It can greatly boost the effect of his star-shattering technique. The same technique he purchased within the system mall together with Calamity bloom lotus.

Star-shattering technique: A technique that condenses the power of a thousand stars into a single point, capable of piercing through anything.

Chapter One: The Singularity – Compressing the Infinite.

"The heavens are vast, but the truth is small. A star, a sun, a galaxy—all are but dust waiting to be gathered. Do not seek to expand your Qi; seek to crush it."

Chapter Two: The Event Horizon – The Gravity Well.

"A star does not die in a flash; it dies in a spiral. As the Singularity forms, it creates a well, a pit of gravity that pulls all things toward its center. This is the Event Horizon."

Chapter Three: The Supernova – The Shattering of the Sky.

"The moment of impact is not a collision; it is a release. When the Singularity can no longer hold the weight of the stars, it collapses. And in that collapse, the sky shatters."

Boom!

Young Master had an epiphany right away.

He was within the vast white space, watching a Serene female immortal, who was floating in the void, her body glowing with a soft, ethereal light. She was beautiful, yet her eyes were filled with a sorrow that transcended time.

Her hands moved gracefully as she performed the first chapter of the technique, condensing the chaotic energy of the void into a single, perfect sphere. It was not a ball of fire, nor a ball of ice, but a sphere of pure, crushing gravity—a miniature black hole that seemed to suck the light from the world.

Swoosh!

The sphere drifted forward, chilling and inevitable, rushing toward a colossal star floating in the void—one the size of hundreds of True Suns at the speed that shocked the light.

( A true sun = 1000 times earth's sun. )

Young Master Wang frowned as he gazed at the colossal star before him. Confusion was clearly written across his face. The star was vast… far too vast.

Though he was no sage hermit or heavenly scholar studying the mysteries of the cosmos, he still possessed basic knowledge of the space. If he remembered correctly, even the largest stars should only possess two or three hundred solar masses at most.

Yet the gigantic sun floating before him shattered that understanding. It did not shine with ordinary sunlight. Instead, it radiated pure Yang rays, blazing with a brilliance that seemed capable of burning the void itself.

More terrifying still was its scale.

Boom!

The explosion instantly shattered the silence of the void, a cataclysmic event that rippled outward like a stone thrown into a calm lake. The star, which had stood as a monolith of burning fury, did not merely vanish; it was unmade. The sheer force of the singularity's impact was so absolute that it tore the fabric of space itself, creating a shockwave of pure energy that distorted the very laws of physics.

Instantly the scene shifted.

This time, the graceful Female Immortal, glowing with ethereal light, performed the second chapter of the technique.

Her body was close to the star... She looked not even a dust compared to the massive enormous star, yet the moment the black sphere within within hands, the star began to spin massively radiating shimmering light of pure ernegy.

Eventually, the star vanished... Completely sucked within the sphere.

The scene shifted once again with no breaths to spare.

This time Female Immortal was face-to-face with Wang Gongzi, her slender finger, devoid of a single blemish, pressed against his chest.

The impact was not a physical blow, but a conceptual one.

Woosh!

Young Master was back to the physical reality, his eyes snapping open, the white space dissolving like mist unable to comprehend the third chapter to depth. But how can this be? With the presence of Dual pupils shouldn't comprehending all techniques be as easy as drinking water?