"Six years! It has been six years since I started cultivating."

The words escaped his mouth as he ground his teeth together.

At the foot of a tall mountain, there was a lovely river flowing with clean water. There was a youth sitting next to the river.

With his legs crossed, hands on each knee and eyes shut, he was experiencing a hopeless situation.

"Three stages! Damn it! Damn it!"

He opened his bloodshot eyes. Whether it was out of demonic possession or desperation was unknown.

He just wanted to improve.

He would be eighteen years old tomorrow. After being reborn in this world as a child, he grew up in a small farming family.

When he was twelve years old, his town was visited by a bunch of cultivators who took them to become cultivators.

Originally, he thought he had come to an ancient world. But when he reached the age of four, he found that this world wasn’t a normal world.

It was a world of cultivation.

More importantly, everyone was born with a spiritual root, which meant everyone could become a cultivator as long as their talent was enough.

Even his parents were cultivators. Although their situation was just like his current situation, they did become cultivators.

So, after those cultivators took him to a special organization known as Primal Origin Sect, they tested his talent.

No surprise, he had very low talent.

That was the Low-Grade Wind Element Spiritual Root.

The good news- his spiritual root was wind elemental, which was outside the five basic elements: Fire, Wood, Water, Gold, and Earth.

The bad news- Low Grade was the lowest grade. There was nothing below that. So, his upper limit was capped at the third stage of the Qi Sea Realm.

Because everyone was a cultivator, he was given a chance.

Reach the fourth stage within three years!

He tried. He did everything he could, even going as far as risking his life in the External Dark Forest.

He tried to learn different things. He tried to get more resources and use them to improve himself.

He tried everything, but nothing worked.

He couldn’t reach the fourth stage. So, he was kicked out.

But he didn’t want to give up. He had poured so much effort into this. How could he possibly give up?

So, he returned to his village and gave his parents fake news about being poisoned.

Of course, he believed his parents wouldn’t believe him, but he just wanted to create an illusion that he died.

In the world of cultivation, identity was important. If someone learned about him, they could find him through his parents.

He did this because he wanted to take a risk, a very scary risk.

He heard about a special lotus that was born on the outskirts of Taicho Mountain.

When he went there to find it, he was hit with the hardest realization.

He didn’t have any cheat.

The treasure was in front of him, but he didn’t have luck or any support to get that treasure. Other people were also vying for it.

With his measly third stage of Qi Sea Realm, nobody would take him seriously.

He was injured.

Not by a person but by the aftermath of someone’s attack. When that realization hit him, he silently withdrew from there.

For the next three years, he didn’t return home. He just helplessly moved around the Taicho Mountains.

After the treasure was taken by someone else, this place became emptier. So, he started living here.

For three years, he hadn’t given up.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but that last bit of hope stopped him from giving up.

When he came to the world of cultivation, he was happy for one reason.

He still remembered when he died due to an accident; the year was 2026. At that time, he still loved reading cultivation novels.

Not because those stories were very interesting, but because of that feeling of earning something, earning strength, earning those abilities.

That feeling didn’t come when reading comics and other anime. Yeah, the protagonists of those stories also trained to gain strength.

But their strength came from the abilities they got. There was always a limit.

If one wanted to become a reality warper, one had to awaken such an ability.

If one wanted to become superhuman, one had to awaken such an ability.

There was a simple sense of logic.

Awaken or get a certain power and slowly improve it.

Cheats and golden fingers speed up the progress, but they didn’t change the fundamentals.

He loved cultivation novels because the protagonists would start from ordinary power and end up being someone who could control space-time, reality, and even the universe.

This wasn’t because he was given such power at the start of the series. It was simply because he went through a series of events that helped him learn these powers.

Of course, those comics and anime could also have these tropes, but they were very few.

Marx wanted to become a cultivator because he wanted those fancy powers.

He wanted to control space-time. He wanted to break everything with a single sword. He wanted to control destiny and fate.

He wanted to hold reincarnation and yin-yang in his hands. He wanted so much more.

That was his childhood dream.

But after six years of struggle, those remained just dreams.

"I should return to my family. I want to meet mom and dad."

He muttered.

Marx wanted to go home. He no longer had that strong desire to cultivate.

He realized that no matter how hard he worked, he could never become a proper cultivator.

But there was still a small hope, a lingering feeling in his heart that he shouldn’t give up.

Maybe, just maybe he could turn things around.

It was just an intuition, but Marx was so hopeless that he could only put all of his hope in this illusory feeling.

He released a deep breath and said.

"Let’s continue! Maybe, just maybe I could continue becoming a cultivator."

He closed his eyes and began absorbing the spiritual energy from the surroundings.

This was the most normal thing for cultivators. The surroundings were full of spiritual energy.

By absorbing spiritual energy, one could refine Qi.

The process was done by the spiritual root.

That’s why the grade of the spiritual root was so important. The low-grade spiritual root could refine four portions of spiritual energy into one portion of Qi.

The middle-grade spiritual root could refine three portions into one. The high-grade could refine two portions into one. As for the top-grade, it had a one-to-one ratio.

So, having more than one spiritual root could speed up the refinement process.

That’s why if he had five elements spiritual roots instead of one, even if it was a low-grade, it would still be incredibly fast.

That’s not all.

The Qi refined by the spiritual root also had levels.

For example, with his third stage of Qi Sea Realm, he could use a spell, Wind Step, three times.

If he had a middle-grade spiritual root, he could use that spell four times.

Qi was similar to the components in CPU chips. The better the components, the less energy it required to run the CPU.

That meant that for the same software, it would consume less electricity and give more runtime. So, Qi wasn’t electricity; it was hardware where the software ran.

Spells were similar to software. They could also change their performance based on the level of the spell.

Since Wind Step was a low-grade spell, it could be run on Qi refined by a low-grade spiritual root.

Even if he found a middle-grade spell, at best, it would work partially.

As for high-grade, he didn’t even need to think about it. They wouldn’t work at all.

But there was another way to affect the quality of the Qi, just like how the Operating system could affect the performance of the software.

For cultivators, cultivation techniques were the operating system.

They absorb the spiritual energy, flow it through the Dantian and meridians, use it to enhance the functions of body parts, and even participate in their refinement process.

Unfortunately, Marx practiced the simplest cultivation technique one could find in the market.

Even the name had the word basic in it.

[Basic Qi Refining Technique]

If he could reach the fourth stage, he would’ve been able to buy the Advanced Qi Refining Technique.

These were the normal techniques that could be found in the market. Primal Origin Sect sent these techniques to their cultivators for free.

That made sense considering they could just copy the text and make more copies without costing much.

Even if it did, the sects could easily cover up the cost using the money from missions.

Unfortunately, to enter the sect after the age of fifteen, he must have a High-Grade Spiritual Root.

Marx tried not to think negatively, trying his best to focus on his cultivation as he silently kept absorbing spiritual energy.

At midnight, his mind was suddenly invaded by a strong force.