After his mother departed, Yue Xing took a moment to regain his composure before he started cleaning. Someone might’ve called this pointless, since he planned on leaving his childhood home for good after today, but it felt right. His mother took the time and effort to cook one last meal for him. The least he could do was tidy up.

When Yue Xing finished, he looked at the puppet his mother left behind with a complicated expression on his face.

On the one hand, while he didn’t know the puppet’s specific grade, it was clearly a high quality artifact in its own right. It would be a good idea to either learn puppetry or sell it, as his mother suggested.

On the other hand, this puppet used to be his mother’s body. Rather, it was the body she used to raise him and look after him. Using it or selling it seemed wrong somehow, sacrilegious even.

In the end, Yue Xing put off making a decision. It wasn’t like he was in a hurry. Instead, he took the storage pouch his mother left behind and examined its contents. Like his own, it was specifically created so mortals could use it.

The first thing he found was a white jade pendant in the shape of a flowering lotus. While it was made from a precious material, it didn’t seem like an artifact. Yue Xing guessed that this was the token that his mother mentioned earlier, the one for the peak master of Moon Gazing Peak.

Yue Xing put it aside and continued looking through the storage pouch. His jaw dropped when he saw everything inside. His mother said that it contained basic cultivation resources. However, the two of them must’ve had different definitions of the word “basic”, because the storage pouch contained a small fortune.

Inside, he saw a pile of spirit stones. While a fraction of his previous wealth, it was still a lot more than what he currently had. It would last him a good while.

In addition to that, Yue Xing also saw several pill bottles. He took one out and opened it. A medicinal smell wafted out, invigorating his soul. Yue Xing snorted. While he didn’t recognize these specific pills, he guessed that they aided in soul cultivation. The others must’ve been the same, or pills that aided in body cultivation.

Aside from the spirit stones and pill bottles, Yue Xing also saw a large amount of crafting materials, spirit herbs, and feed for spirit beasts. Any smith, alchemist, and beast tamer who saw this would go green from envy. He guessed that his mother wanted him to be prepared, no matter what path he picked. Her consideration warmed his heart.

When Yue Xing was a disciple of the Celestial Sword Sect, he focused solely on the blade. While a part of him felt curious about other paths, he never felt the need to indulge that curiosity. However, things were different now.

Why not experiment and see what suited him? The blade would be his primary path, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t explore others. Thanks to his mother’s generosity, he could afford to.

Finally, Yue Xing found the two manuals that his mother mentioned. As she said, one was for soul cultivation and the other was for body cultivation.

The former was called the Soul Nourishing Sutra. It was a Mortal-tier cultivation technique that would last him until he reached Foundation Establishment. Afterwards, he would need to find an Earth-tier cultivation technique to continue.

A cultivation technique’s tier had nothing to do with its quality. Rather, the tier determined the highest cultivation realm a person could reach by practicing it. Mortal-tier techniques could reach peak Qi Refining, while Earth-tier techniques could reach peak Golden Core.

As for Heaven-tier techniques, Yue Xing had never seen one before, but he knew they were required to reach the legendary peak Deity Transformation realm.

Yue Xing gave the Soul Nourishing Sutra a brief glance. Nothing about it stood out at first. As the name suggested, practitioners of this technique drew in ambient spiritual energy to nourish and refine the soul. However, he paused when he reached the part about the technique’s divine abilities.

Every cultivation technique came in layers, with each layer corresponding to a small realm within a major realm. The number varied for each major realm. Qi Refining was divided into ten small realms. The first nine could be grouped into early, mid, and late Qi Refining. The tenth was peak Qi Refining.

When reaching a certain layer within a cultivation technique, a cultivator gained a divine ability, assuming said technique granted divine abilities at all.

These differed from martial techniques and spells in that they were less versatile, but far more powerful. The strength of a divine ability depended on the quality of the technique it came from. The better the technique, the stronger the ability.

As such, a cultivation technique’s divine abilities determined its quality. Ones that granted no divine abilities were considered low quality, while ones that granted weak or average divine abilities were middle quality. Those that granted strong divine abilities were top quality.

The previous Mortal-tier cultivation technique that Yue Xing practiced was the Spirit Breath Method. This was the most common Mortal-tier cultivation technique in the cultivation world, and for good reason.

The Spirit Breath Method’s divine ability was a powerful shield. Nothing flashy or spectacular, but solid and reliable. The cultivation world was dangerous and being able to preserve one’s life was paramount. This was why most in the cultivation world considered the Spirit Breath Method the standard when it came to cultivation techniques. Anything worse was trash, and anything better was top quality.

The Soul Nourishing Sutra was a top quality cultivation technique, as shown by its divine abilities. First, its practitioners gained the ability to shield their souls. On the surface, this didn’t seem all the special. However, methods to shield the soul were rare, especially for Qi Refining cultivators.

Second, practitioners of the Soul Nourishing Sutra gained the ability to conceal their presence when they reached peak Qi Refining. The effectiveness of this concealment, and the shield, depended on the strength of the practitioner’s soul.

That led Yue Xing to consider the strength of his own soul. He reached mid Foundation Establishment before the Celestial Sword Sect expelled him. While they shattered his dantian and severed his meridians, that hadn’t affected the strength of his soul. This meant that if he practiced the Soul Nourishing Sutra, he’d be able to hide from mid Foundation Establishment cultivators and below.

Well, once he reached peak Qi Refining.

After Yue Xing finished studying the Soul Nourishing Sutra, he picked up the manual for the body cultivation technique. It was called the Verdant Spring Art, a Mortal-tier technique which suited cultivators with water and wood spirit roots. It was perfect for someone like him.

Like spiritual energy and soul cultivation techniques, body cultivation techniques granted divine abilities. However, these ones tended to be passive, permanent changes.

Some body cultivation techniques made one’s body as tough as an artifact. Others awakened special bloodlines within oneself. A few allowed their practitioners to transform into objects, beasts, etc.

In addition to enhancing one’s physique, the Verdant Spring Art gave its practitioners strong regenerative abilities. Wounds healed within a fraction of the time, even without taking pills. As long as its practitioners didn’t die right away, they could survive almost any injury.

There were limitations, of course. Practitioners wouldn’t be able to regenerate limbs. However, they could reattach limbs, as long as too much time hadn’t passed. This made Yue Xing pause in thought.

Wait a moment. Did this include the head?

Yue Xing read it again.

Yes. Yes it did.

There were limitations to this as well, of course. Total destruction of either the head or the heart led to immediate death. Even so, the ability to heal from almost any wound, including losing limbs, was very powerful. As far as Xing knew, no other Mortal-tier body cultivation technique came close to something like this.

When Yue Xing finished reading through the manuals, he realized that both were amazing, even for top quality cultivation techniques. That led him to once again question his mother’s identity. Who was she? Where had she gotten these techniques? What was her background?

After a while, Yue Xing shook his head. He could figure out the answers to those questions later, either from the peak master of Moon Gazing Peak or when he reached Golden Core and traveled to the Central province.

Right now, he needed to focus on his more immediate problems, such as which of the two cultivation techniques he wanted to practice first.

Yue Xing thought it over, before settling on the Verdant Spring Art. While he recognized the value of the Soul Nourishing Sutra, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to become a soul cultivator. On the other hand, the Verdant Spring Art suited him regardless of which path he took.

With that in mind, Yue Xing read through the technique’s manual one more time before he sat down to practice it. Given his experience, he estimated that it would take him about a day to reach the first layer.

Yue Xing cleared his mind and sought the ambient spiritual energy surrounding him. After sensing it, he took it into his body using the breathing method for the Verdant Spring Art. It cleansed and nourished his body, refining it into something greater.

However, a moment later, Yue Xing felt the Verdant Spring Art affect something within him. It took him a moment to figure out what it was.

The seed of the Divine Vitality Lotus.

Yue Xing thought it had disappeared after it remade his body. However, it appeared he had been wrong. Instead, it had remained dormant in his dantian until now.

The seed resonated with the Verdant Spring Art, causing it to take root. It was as if his body was the earth and the Verdant Spring Art was the rain. Once again, the seed started nourishing and refining Yue Xing’s body. However, this time it did so according to the Verdant Spring Method.

For a moment, he debated with himself whether to stop or not. After all, he didn’t know what effect this would have on him. In the end, he chose to keep going. His intuition told him that this was a good thing. After all, the seed aided him before. It had been the catalyst for his rebirth. This time, it was the catalyst for another change.

With the seed helping him, Yue Xing remade and refined his body. Little by little, he became stronger, tougher, and faster. His regenerative abilities became more powerful. At the same time, Yue Xing expelled impurities from his body. However, there were less than he had expected. This must’ve been a result from consuming the lotus seed the first time around.

An hour later, Yue Xing reached the first layer of the Verdant Spring Art, becoming a full-fledged cultivator once more. He opened his eyes and let out a little laugh. The Divine Vitality Lotus truly was a heavenly treasure. Not only had it repaired his dantian and his meridians, allowing him to cultivate again, but it aided in his body cultivation as well.

That said, Yue Xing pondered the long-term effects of having the lotus seed take root inside his body. A part of him wondered if it would grow and blossom into a full Divine Vitality Lotus. If so, what would that mean for him? Regardless of the truth, his intuition told him that it would only be beneficial.

A foul smell reached Yue Xing’s nose, interrupting his thoughts. Ah, right. The impurities that his body expelled. While there were less than he expected, they still emitted a strong stench.

Yue Xing cleaned himself off, including his robes. Afterwards, he bound both of his storage pouches to him using a drop of blood each, something he could do now that he was a cultivator again.

This would prevent others from stealing his things. Even if someone stole the storage pouches themselves, they wouldn’t be able to open them and access the contents. The only way to break such a binding would be to kill him.

Yue Xing stored everything in one of the storage pouches, including his mother’s puppet body. When he finished, he took a look around his childhood home. Now that he was a cultivator again, he had no reason to stay here any longer.

Nostalgia and melancholy filled him in equal measure. He had spent most of his childhood in this place. It contained many cherished memories. However, he knew that he would never see it again. He was leaving for good this time around, and he was never coming back.

Yue Xing said his goodbyes, before heading out. The house belonged to whoever claimed it next. He hoped that they filled it with cherished memories of their own.

With that, Yue Xing left his childhood home behind. He didn’t look back, not even once. Instead, he looked towards the future and the Myriad Path Sect.