Despite Hui Yue having been attracted to the Blue Phoenix hairpin, he was definitely repulsed by this self-proclaimed phoenix. It was hard to explain why his feelings were like this, and he could not think of any valid reasons; however, something about the phoenix made him annoyed.

That being said, Hui Yue genuinely enjoyed hearing about this new world in which he had ended up. Especially the story of the four divine beasts which made his heart beat much faster.

The phoenix also had a good reason for why he was so arrogant. Not many were able to claim that they were the first born son of the Vermilion Bird.

‘I didn’t have many bodies to choose from you know,’ the phoenix replied. ‘You should be thankful. If I did not help you reincarnate you would have been stuck in the Netherworld for god knows how long, and then there would be no possibility for you to remember anything about your previous life.’

‘It was you who was complaining,’ Hui Yue laughed as he enjoyed hearing the phoenix trying to persuade him to feel indebted to him.

‘Shut up. Do you want me to continue with the story or not?’ Hearing that, Hui Yue decided not to argue any further and waited for the phoenix to continue.

‘It has been four thousand years since I was last here, so I don’t know how the countries are split up right now, nor do I know who controls what. But I do know about cultivation, and that is one thing that will never change.’

Hui Yue’s interest was piqued even further when he heard the word cultivation. He had cultivated in the past, but he never found it to be helpful.

‘Everywhere in this world is the essence of the heavens and the earth. Every person has something called a lower dantian. This is where one can refine the essence of the heavens and the earth into qi and store it in a qi spiral. Cultivators increase their strength by gathering essence and refining it into qi. Refinement is the first step in the world as a cultivator. The finer one’s qi is, the better their results will be. There are three different dantians in the body, but you can only gain access to the next two if you have enough strength.’

Very confusing Hui Yue thought, as he tried to follow the bird’s explanation. The phoenix within him explained quite a bit about this world in a very short amount of time causing Hui Yui to understand very little on the subject. All this caused a slight headache to come his way.

‘It’s not my fault it is confusing!’ the phoenix said without the slightest display of pity, and he quickly continued his monologue giving Hui Yue no time to digest the previous information.

‘Okay, listen closely. Cultivators are ranked into ten ranks of strength, and every rank is split into nine stars. The first rank is Student, then Disciple, which is followed by Practitioner. Those three rely solely on the lower dantian, and refinement of essence into qi.’ After this, the voice paused for a moment causing a smile to appear on Hui Yue’s infant face.

Although the phoenix claimed that he did not care whether or not he understood, he still paused and allowed Hui Yue to quickly think over the information given and commit it to memory.

‘If a person has enough qi of good quality and some cultivating talent it is possible to break into the Master rank,’ the phoenix continued with an overbearing voice pretending that the previous pause never happened. Hui Yue was quite amused but chose not to comment on how the phoenix seemed to act cold but was actually considerate.

‘After Master rank comes Grandmaster then Duke. When a cultivator reaches these three ranks, they still absorb essence into the lower dantian and also refine it to qi, but they also open the middle dantian.’

The phoenix took another short break before he continued, ‘Qi travels from the lower to the middle dantian and gets refined even further into spiritual power. It is much finer than the regular qi, and it allows the cultivator to use higher-ranked techniques among its other uses.’ The phoenix did not dwell on talking about spiritual power much because it would be a very long time before Hui Yue would even be able to see a spiritual power user. Hui Yue could only approve of this decision. He already felt flooded with new information which he tried to keep from mixing together.

‘The three ranks after that are King, Emperor, and Saint. To achieve the rank of King, you need to open the final dantian, the upper dantian. It allows the user to refine their spiritual power into wu wei. Wu wei is the ultimate strength, and upon achieving it, you will be in an entirely different league than all the other cultivators below this rank. However, it requires building some insane basics from the start at the lower dantian and continuing with intense, grueling training throughout the middle dantian. One can only hope to reach the Emperor rank, and because of this they are incredibly rare,’ the phoenix was quiet for quite some time while trying to think if it had explained all the necessary information.

This silence was well received by Hui Yue, who was working his brain at the highest possible speed. He managed to digest all the information slowly and made sure to memorize it all.

A frown appeared on his infant's face as he thought of everything the phoenix just said. ‘Isn’t that only nine ranks?’ Hui Yue asked slightly confused. ‘What is the tenth?’ ‘It’s the God rank,’ the blue phoenix answered swiftly. ‘But you don’t need to know about that yet. First, it is completely different from the ranks that rely on one’s dantians, and second, there have only been four Gods as far as I am aware.’

‘What rank were you before you were sealed?’ Hui Yue asked with curiosity but did not expect to be given a proper answer based on their previous history. Surprisingly, the phoenix replied to him honestly, ‘I was at the Saint rank before. As far as I know, there have only been four Gods in all of history, and they were the four divine beasts.’

‘If you were a Saint rank then weren’t you really strong?’ The hostility towards the phoenix was dropping slightly, and Hui Yue began to feel more and more curious about this phoenix, the only company he had. The thought of no longer being near Li Fen still hurt him quite badly, but if he focused all his attention on cultivating the essence of the heavens and the earth, there was a chance that he could get past his broken heart.

‘I was very strong before,’ the phoenix answered smugly; however, this smug feeling was quickly replaced by something that sounded like a sigh.

‘Right now I can’t use my powers very well. I am trapped in this body with you. If I was stupid enough to use my strength, I guarantee that this body would explode, and we would both die horribly.’

‘But can’t you just do another instant reincarnation then?’ Hui Yue asked. He knew that it was probably unlikely, but at the same time, he also wished to ask all his questions to get a definite answer from the only person who was able to give them