Rictoli was a cautious and prepared person. So, anticipating a new life with limitless soul cultivation potential, he had prepared a cultivation technique for his reincarnation. From what Astoria could see, it wasn't a low-ranked technique by any means.
Cultivation techniques follow a similar ranking, like the Mortal, Earthly, and Heavenly realms for cultivation.
The lowest possible grade for a cultivation technique was a mortal-grade one, and this low-tier thing would only potentially allow someone to reach the Foundation Establishment/Bone Tempering/Infant Soul Realms at most.
(Qi Refinement, Body Tempering, and Soul Cultivation in order.)
Some mortal-grade cultivation techniques could allow someone to reach the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm, while others would only allow someone to reach the Skin Tempering Realm. Results varied depending on how well the cultivation technique was, but no matter what, a mortal-grade scripture could never allow someone to reach the Four Earthly Realms.
The Four Earthly Realms were reserved for earth-grade scriptures. These again followed the same script as their mortal-grade counterpart. Some were good, and some were bad. It just depended on which one you were reading.
Finally, heaven-grade cultivation techniques were at the top of the ladder.
These were the best of the best in the Nine Desoate Domains. Every single one was a treasure that no force would give to any individual without requirements.
A powerhouse in the Heavenly Seal Realms was like a nuclear bomb on Earth. Only the strongest and most influential forces were allowed to have one. And if a force that wasn't strong enough did manage to cultivate a Heavenly Seal Realm powerhouse, they would be judged accordingly.
This could either mean the force's extinction or an invitation to the Round Table.
That's how valuable heaven-grade cultivation techniques and powerhouses were.
Rictoli, though, was one of the most powerful people on the continent. Even amongst the Heavenly Seal Realm Powerhouses in the Nine Desolate Domains, he was at the top.
So, not only did he prepare a soul cultivation technique, but he also took it a step beyond the heaven-grade.
He prepared something akin to a myth on the Nine Desolate Domains, an immortal-grade cultivation technique!
The immortal-grade was the grade beyond the heaven-grade, and it corresponded to the Immortal Realms. But since no immortal could exist in the Nine Desolate Domains, immortal-grade techniques were considered to be myths by the broader public.
They weren't completely extinct, though. In order for a cultivator to ascend, they needed an immortal-grade cultivation technique for any three of the paths. So, any immortal-grade technique for any of the three paths was strictly monopolized by the strongest powers in the Nine Desolate Domains.
Rictoli was the leader of one such force and naturally had access to immortal-grade cultivation techniques.
But he wasn't lucky enough to find an immortal-grade technique for the Body Tempering path. He had immortal-grade techniques for the other two paths, the Qi Refinment and Soul cultivation paths, but they weren't of any use to him. Moreover, no other force would dare give Rictoli, that demon, an immortal-grade Body Tempering, so he was forced to reincarnate.
Of course, all of Rictoli's efforts were laid out on a platter for Astoria to steal, but that was something else. And Raiden didn't know this either. So, the kid was instead simply caught up in Astoria's words.
"You, you're willing to teach me?" Raiden asked in shock.
Ever since the Profound Saber Sect wiped out his clan, Raiden had experienced countless mentality-destroying moments.
He had been abandoned by the ones he used to call his friends and had some of his closest brothers try to kill him in order to curry favor with Chu Tian, his mortal enemy.
So, when Raiden saw this random spirit girl, whom he had known for less than a few hours, offer to change his life, he felt countless emotions.
Skepticism, hope, emptiness, and a few others, just to name a few.
He wanted to have more hope, but by this point, he was scared.
But like a light shining in the dark, Astoria dispelled his worries.
"I'm stuck next to you until I manage to construct a new physical body for myself. And by helping you, not only can I speed up the time it will take for me to get a new physical form, but I also get a new strong ally. So, why shouldn't I help you?" Astoria said as if what she was saying was simply the natural course of events.
Seeing her innocent yet confident expression, Raiden's mind froze for a moment, and like the sun shining through the rain clouds, all of his negative emotions vanished like rain.
Choking on his emotions and teary-eyed, he could only smile in gratitude and say, "Then I will have to rely on you, big sis."
--
Astoria left Raiden alone for a few minutes so he could clean himself up by a lake they found, but after that, the two gave each other a small introduction to help them bond.
Raiden could tell that Astoria wasn't from this domain and had no restraints. So he told her about basically everything about him that was of relevance.
From his clan's extermination to his luminescent-grade spiritual root being dug out and implanted into someone else, Raiden told Astoria a lot.
After hearing his backstory completely, Astoria was even more confident that Raiden had to be a child of providence or something similar. The scriptures were never wrong about this.
As for Astoria, she didn't tell Raiden the truth about her origin but instead made up a sob story that would serve as good motivation for Raiden in the future.
She said that she was supposed to be a cauldron for Rictoli, the Nine Desolate Domains' greatest rapist. But, thankfully, by a miracle, she had somehow successfully escaped.
But in the end, she was intercepted halfway home, where she then was forced to self-destruct, destroying her physical body but also killing the pervert as well. In addition, she offhandedly mentioned looting Rictoli's library, which gave her access to many martial and cultivation techniques.
The backstory was a complete lie, but honestly, it was much more believable than her real backstory.
Transmigration over from a different universe?
Landing into the sealed-off immortal ring of a deceased Life and Death Seal Realm powerhouse?
Even if she tried to make up the most unbelievable backstory, it still wouldn't top her real one. As such, she lied.
Maybe she would tell Raiden the truth in the future, but until then, Astoria planned to keep up this lie.
Also, Astoria knew just how important master and disciple relationships were in the world of cultivation.
Ten years a father, a lifetime a master.
A father could only be with their child for a limited amount of time before the child would eventually leave home and spread their wings. But, as a master, especially in a cultivation world where limitless lifespans were possible, it wasn't a problem to stay with their master for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
So, compared to the two or so dozen years at most a father would be with their child, a master was obviously much more important.
As such, grudges were usually inherited in lineage.
Of course, Astoria wasn't Raiden's master or anything, but tomato, tomato. She was basically it anyway, so it didn't really matter what title she was called.
Astoria, thanks to Rictoli's memories, already had a huge problem with that damned Pure Yang Sect he created, so even if it wasn't directly mentioned to Raiden, she still could tell that he also inherited this grudge.
'Let's hope this kid is a bit filial.' Astoria thought to herself.
This time, Raiden also told Astoria about Little Gold, the tortoise who was knocked out in her Spirutal Qi pond.
Apparently, Little Gold, back in his heyday, was the descendant of a divine beast known as a Dragon-Scaled Tortoise.
Sadly, circumstances arose, forcing him to abandon his previous strength. But at least there was a silver lining in Little Gold's case.
Even though he was the descendant of a Dragon-Scaled Tortoise, his bloodline purity was remarkably low.
However, after a fortuitous encounter, Little Gold found the vacant physical body of a divine beast who didn't even lose when paired against his ancestor. This divine beast belonged to a species of tortoise called Gold Plated Spirit Tortoise.
After finding the corpse of this divine beast, Little Gold decided that it would be wise to abandon his Dragon-Scaled Tortoise bloodline and take on the body of the Gold-Plated Spirit Tortoise.
Sadly, since the body was void of any universal essence, Little Gold would also be forced to abandon all of his previous body's strength, but the trade-off in potential was more than worth it.
Like a spring, Little Gold would bounce back up and reach a new height he wasn't capable of before.
Following Raiden's narration of Little Gold's story, the two lost much of their strangeness but also ran out of conversation points, so even if they had gotten close, it was quiet now.
Thankfully, though, the universe was omnipresent, and they decided to send them some entertainment.
Raiden lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Of course, this was not his first course of residence. He didn't want to live in a random village in the middle of nowhere, especially after being the young master of a cultivation family that housed a Palace Formation Realm expert, but he had his hands tied.
Without any money to his name and pursuers constantly chasing him, Raiden was forced to live in an extremely remote and cheap area.
Living here would save him a lot of money rent-wise, but, thanks to this village's lack of outside interference, Chu Tian would have difficulty finding him.
But no matter how backwater this place, there were bound to be cultivators affront. And when there were cultivators, there was competition.
Geniuses would appear, rise in popularity, become famous, leverage their fame to acquire more resources, and then repeat. It was how reputations were established and powerhouses were created.
However, to become famous, certain things were needed. The most important of things needed to create a genius was capable stepping stones.
If a genius wanted to become famous, one of the surefire ways to gain popularity was to step over other equally strong or mysterious geniuses. And Raiden, the mysterious new resident of village, attracted a lot of attention.
So much attention, in fact, that nearly every young, hot-blooded kid wanted to defeat him and hopefully become their hometown's number-one rising star.
However, Raiden is only mortal when he enters the village. He didn't open up his middle dantian then, either. So after he lost one fight and exposed that fact, every kid in the village no longer gave him any bit of face and would openly look at the kid with disdain.
And now, once Raiden entered village with Astoria floating around him, jeers sounded around them like locusts in the spring.
"Oh, look who it is! The trash outsider!" A taunting mock sounded to the duo's left, attracting their attention.
Astoria was curious about who was talking and spun her head rather quickly to see who it was. Raiden, on the other hand, mentally groaned at the voice.
To their right were four young men, with ages varying from 15 to 17. Dark, tanned skins, coarse, calloused hands, and even a set of brown linen clothes, the four young men couldn't look any more like a group of village children.
However, despite their humble birth and appearances, the four boys each had an arrogant stare that only an emperor could wear without gaining second glances in public.
Yet, no matter how arrogant they looked, no one around them stopped or said anything.
Obviously, this wasn't a very uncommon sight, and everyone didn't care anymore.
Raiden knew very well who it was and, even on a normal day, wouldn't spare the boy a glance. So, right now, after everything that had happened in the past two days, Raiden had even less patience for him.
Tilting his head slightly to look at the young man and give him the smallest amount of respect, Raiden tiredly said, "Lan Tie, I'm exhausted. If you'd like to trash-talk me and my trash state, please do so tomorrow."
Then, without any more words or interaction, Raiden continued on his merry way, mentally speaking with Astoria along the way.
Why was the village boy so energetic today?
Raiden really didn't have the patience to figure it out. Perhaps tomorrow he would, but not now. All Raiden wanted to do was sleep and get ready for the next day. After all, Astoria said she would teach him Soul Cultivation!
Sadly, no matter how little enthusiasm Raiden had toward his bumpkin rival, it wasn't matched. In fact, not only was it not matched, but it was even met with a great deal of anger and hostility.
The arrogant village boy Lan Tie already had an emperor's ego and a spoiled toddler's tolerance. He was allowed to disregard others, but others could not do it to him!
How could he, the top talent for miles, not be angered when a random outsider mortal waved him off like a servant?!
As a result, before Raiden could walk even a few feet toward his home, Lan Tie moved to stop him.
With a flash of light blue radiance, Lan Tie flashed from his original position and appeared a few meters away, blocking Raiden's path.
He used his cultivation base.
When Raiden saw the Spiritual Qi covering Lan Tie's body, his eyes showed deep envy, but he quickly remembered the girl floating a few feet to his left and suppressed his envy.
Envying Lan Tie for his minuscule amount of Spiritual Qi with Astoria by his side was like envying a waiter for her tips when you were a new hire at a Fortune 500 company.
Raiden could have everything Lan Tie had and infinitely more.
All he needed was time.
Envying a village boy was shameful.
Enlightened a bit, Raiden regained his composure and waited for the 192-month-old toddler in front of him to cry. This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened, so all Raiden had to do was wait it out.
"Who the hell said you could move trash?" Lan Tie shouted angrily, crossing his arms against his chest to appear imposing.
Sadly, it didn't work very well, and a certain immature ghost couldn't help but snicker at the sight of it.
"Haha!" Astoria cackled. She didn't expect to see a brain-dead idiot so early in her second life.
However, after realizing that her giggle had almost undone her invisibility spell, she quickly shut her mouth and composed herself.
It was just that Lan Tie still managed to hear her and was naturally angered. The boy couldn't even handle Raiden's lackadaisical answer. How could he handle Astoria literally laughing at him? It was impossible.
"Who?!" Spinning his head around at lightning speed, Lan Tie looked around to see who was laughing at him, but he found nothing. Even his lackeys next to him looked just as confused as he did.
They heard the bell-like laugh but couldn't tell where it came from, so they were stupefied.
The Soul Cultivation path was the most mystical and complex of the three. Because of this, sages were granted many cool and powerful abilities, one of which was Astoria's current invisibility spell.
Rictoli had anticipated himself to be the next coming of the Soul Ancestor, and along with the Immortal-level soul cultivation technique, he also prepared many basic and advanced spells for him to use.
And Astoria was now using one of them.
Since there were three main cultivation paths in the Nine Desolate Domains, and each cultivation path was equal in power at every realm, martial techniques, soul arts, and the like all had to have one uniform classification.
That classification metric was called rank.
The first realm of the Qi Cultivation path, the Meridian Opening Realm, the first realm of the Body Tempering path, the Golden Blood Realm, and the first realm of the Soul Cultivation path, the Soul Embryo Realm, were all jointly called Rank 1.
The second realm for each of the realms was called Rank 2, and so on.
The spell that Astoria was using was named Traceless Phantom. It was a Rank 2 spell, and its effects were basic.
What it could do was make her undetectable to any cultivator below Rank 2.
But if that were where all of its abilities ended, Astoria would've chosen a different one.
No, the reason why she chose this spell to use was because of its second, much better feature.
She could make herself invisible to everyone but also allow certain others to see her.
So, while Lan Tie and his village lackeys couldn't see Astoria holding her stomach and laughing, Raiden did.
Thankfully, Raiden was of noble birth and could hold his composure in the face of Astoria's break.
But that didn't mean he didn't begin to question his decisions.
'Is this girl really reliable?'
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