Ascending The Martial Peak - 3 (Patreon)

"One smelly brat leaves and another takes his place." Treasurer Meng snorted when he entered the treasury building after speaking with Yang Kai.

He was of average height and build, with a head of pure white hair and a long beard to much. The old man was propping his head up lazily on one hand while leaning on his table.

"You know old masters are supposed to be wise and mysterious," Shen Lei snorted, making his way over to him, "You're just a crabby old bastard."

"Maybe if tardy little brats like yourself and that other idiot that just left came at proper times, I wouldn't be so crabby, I was having a perfectly good little nap before you two came you know," Meng huffed, before reaching across his desk to pull up a notepad and flipping through it, pausing on one page and looking it over, "One hundred and twenty merit points this month huh? You really are one weird kid."

"I don't wanna hear that from an old lecher like you who can't keep his eyes off of the female disciples," Shen Lei rolled his eyes, "So that's a thousand two hundred silver I can get if I cash it all in, right?"

Over the last year, he'd actually built up quite a tidy sum of silver from how many merit points he had collected over the time and selling stuff at the black wind market.

He tended to spend all of his merit points each month, since the sect was able to get their hands on materials he usually wouldn't be able to. Like yang fruit tree seeds. They were rarely in stock at the market and needed to be brought directly from the Red Blood Gang sect.

He'd planted three of them outside the back of his dorm and had been growing them for the past year. Usually, they took a good ten years to fully grow, but he had bought eight seeds in total. One of the most basic seal arrays of all was for gathering world energy, so he'd used the five extra seeds to set up an array that took in and transformed the taken qi into yang qi that would then permeate around the trees he was growing. With that, plus the yang qi from the sun, his fruit trees were pretty much fully grown now.

"Mhmm," Meng nodded absentmindedly, "That what you want to do then?" the old man asked.

"Most likely," Shen Lei shrugged, "Unless you have something that would be good for me?" he asked.

Now that he had reached the second realm, he was able to manipulate his yuan qi freely within his body, and he extend it over his body. It wouldn't be until the next realm though that he would be able to expend his qi outside his body, which limited him right now in what martial skills he could learn.

There was only one martial technique that second realm cultivators could use that belonged to High Heaven Pavilion. Heavenly Sword. Elder Su had passed on a text copy of it to him not long ago before he left his home to come to the treasury.

"Not really," Meng casually waved off his question, "All the stuff here is all low level crap, and since you've finally managed to break through and have that yang attribute, not much here will do you any good, you know how stingy those clan elders of yours are."

Shen Lei almost groaned at the reminder. Beyond Elder Su, the rest of the elders were all idiots playing power games using the disciples as their pieces, especially the Grand Elder and the fourth elder in charge of the disciplinary committee, both of them seemed to be trying to take full control of the sect together.

The grandson of the Grand Elder was a real piece of work. A weak piece of trash that wouldn't amount to anything at all without his grandfathers help. He was a stage three Initial Element, a stage above Shen Lei himself, but he had only reached that point, at seventeen years old, three years older than Shen Lei because of his grandfather practically stuffing him with pills and giving him special attention.

And the guy was a pussy on top of that, he always wore a defensive artefact when sparring with other disciples, despite that being against the rules. He'd challenged Shen Lei once, angry about the praise about his heaven defying talent, but the fool was a weakling and even with his bottleneck and not reaching the second realm, he'd made short work of the fool, defensive artefact or not.

"Wait," Shen Lei paused, "You can tell I broke through?"

Meng snorted again, "Brat, the aura coming off of you compared to last month is like night and day."

Ah, as expected of Meng. The old guy was seriously mysterious, he wasn't really an official part of the sect apparently, and Shen Lei had never been able to sense what kind of cultivation he was packing himself, and he always has amazing advice for him when asked and even was the one to help him get his hands on the materials he needed to get started with alchemy, artefact refining and seal arrays.

And he wasn't wrong about the difference in power. When cultivating, an appropriate analogy of it could be likened to stairs. Each stage was a new stair up, but when one broke through to the next realm, it was like taking another step up and then leaping up an entire staircase on top of that, and his own growth through breaking through his bottleneck, could be likened to almost two staircases, his strength was far beyond his stage at the moment.

"So," Meng eyed him seriously, "How did you manage to break through in the end? I'm quite curious, I've never heard of anyone ever suffering such a bottleneck in merely the first realm, well beyond the smelly brat that was in here before you."

So, despite everything the old man apparently knew, it was only himself and Yang Kai that struggled with bottlenecks like this at the first realm? Did Yang Kai perhaps have some issue like his own? Or come into something that let him break through his bottleneck like him?

He still wasn't sure at all about his other self within his soul sea and the memories he'd received. Meng was probably his only hope right now of getting answers.

"...To be honest it wasn't really through any effort on my part," Shen Lei admitted with a frown, "It was yesterday it happened. A splitting headache came over me and I staggered back to my dorm room and passed out. When I came to, I suddenly had memories of another persons life and my bottleneck completely disappeared as if it was never there in the first place and I broke through easily."

Meng's eyes widened in shock, "...You're being truthful?" he asked, suddenly leaning over his table and staring into Shen Lei's eyes.

"Yes, but not only that," Shen Lei nodded, "When I awoke, I was in a void of black, the place that will be my soul sea in the future I believe and alongside me there was a ghostly apparition that was completely transparent but in the shape of another boy."

"...Incredible, to think I'd find another one." the old man collapsed into his seat and ran his hand through his white hair.

Shen Lei's eyebrows furrowed at his words. Somehow, it seemed he knew exactly what was going on? "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Brat," Meng narrowed his eyes seriously, "Have you ever heard of people with special physiques? Born with special abilities in their bodies that lets them stand above the common person when it comes to cultivation?"

"Special Physiques?" Shen Lei hummed in thought, crossing his arms, "But aren't they just a legend?" he asked, head tilting to the side.

He'd come across mentions of them before in a few books, but he'd never read about anything confirming that they were real.

"No, they're very real," Meng shook his head, "You can trust me on this. It's just that they're so incredibly rare on top of being hard to notice sometimes. Less than one in a million are born with a special physique and they tend to appear randomly."

"Okay, I'll take your word for it," Shen Lei hummed, "And going by your words, you think I have one?"

"Indeed," Meng nodded, "If I'm not wrong, this should be the Divine Twin Soul Physique and it explains your bottleneck. From what I know, it is a special physique that allows one to inherit an almost identical soul and have a body capable of housing them. The problem is, those with the physique won't inherit the full soul until they reach the exact same age and cannot go a full realm above the inherited soul until then."

Shen Lei's eyes widened in shock. That made so much sense now. His other self, the one he inherited the memories of, he had come from a place where cultivation was believed to be fictional, so of course he could not cultivate himself. And as such, because of that, Shen Lei himself could not ascend beyond the first realm into the second!

" ...It's a good thing my other self died at only fourteen then, if he lived a full life I would have been stuck at this realm for decades," Shen Lei breathed a sigh of relief, shaking his head, "And here I thought these kind of physiques were supposed to provide amazing benefits."

"It's a mere minor draw back, trust me," Meng snorted, "And you were just unlucky to inherit a soul that apparently had no cultivation. If you had inherited the soul of say an Immortal Ascension cultivator, the echoes of that soul would have quickly let you ascend to that level as well."

Unlucky indeed. If it was a soul like that, he may already be approaching that realm right now.

"But that is a minor thing in comparison to the real benefits this physique provides," Meng continued, "The Divine Twin Soul Physique doubles everything. The rate at which you recover, the rate at which you can absorb the energy, the rate at which you comprehend things and most of all allows you to gain a second element attribute which you can freely use."

Shen Lei's lips twitched into a smile, "So what you're saying is, this physique will let me grow twice as fast?" he asked, excited.

Meng shook his head and huffed, "You're thinking far too small you smelly brat," he admonished him, "It's far greater than that. Indeed cultivation wise, it will double the speed at which you cultivate. But not only that, it will double the amount of energy you can take in while cultivating, double the speed you adapt and take it in and process it into your own qi and even doubles the increases in power you receive upon ascending stages and realms."

Shen Lei gaped, "....That...."

"Seems you understand what I'm getting at, at least a bit," Meng snorted, "Everything is doubled, and thus culminative. The speed at which you cultivate compared to before, could easily reach five times, more even, possibly even ten times and you will see much more increases in your power than others would at the same realm.

The teenagers legs shook a bit beneath him, his body almost going numb as he processed the sheer amazingness of what he just heard. "....Truly worthy of being called a legendary physique."

Heaven defying talent? That was almost small time now compared to what he just heard.

"Hmph, your luck is something else you brat," Meng groaned and leaned back into his chair, "Even the soul you inherited is a boon, from what you told me, it has no attribute, so you'll be able to choose which attribute yourself by exposing it to one."

He could understand exactly why Meng considered the initial draw back of his physique a minor one. What were those small draw backs compared to the absurd benefits in the long run?

                                                               ___________

Meng Wu Ya stroked his beard and stared at the entrance to the treasury building. Just a moment ago, that smelly little brat Shen Lei had just left and his mind was racing.

The boys talent could not be understated. He'd seen the two top disciples of the High Heaven Pavilion sect quite a few times, and in sheer talent, there was no doubt the boy was far superior to both.

The only one in this entire sect the boy lost out to in talent, even including himself, was his own apprentice Xia Ning Chang.

It was just a pity the boy apparently had something wrong with him completely blocking him from reaching through the first realm, otherwise not even the sky would have been his limit.

Only, that was not the case anymore. Divine Twin Soul. To think the boy had it. It explained perfectly why he was bottlenecked so thoroughly, before even with his more than five hundred years of living he'd had no idea what was wrong with him.

It was a physique that did not at all lose out to little Xia's Sacred Spirit Medicine Physique. It was possibly an even greater physique. Give the boy a decade or two at most and he would surpass Meng Wu Ya himself at his peak even without going up to the Tong Xuan realm.

Immortal Ascension? Hah, that level would be but a fly to that lad in the near future. If he wasn't cut down before he had enough time, that boy would stand atop this lower world and none could hope to overcome him.

And not only that, "...Such a powerful and dense yang qi," the old master stroked his chin, "That older guy is in the True Element realm and yet his own yang qi is much weaker."

That bottleneck the boy had went through, it in of itself was an amazing boon as well if thought through. All the efforts he went through in the last year to break through had allowed him to build up an incredibly power yang qi foundation. That little brat was probably capable of punching out fourth realm cultivators as he was right now in just pure physical ability.

"What do you think of him?" he asked to the empty room.

A moment later, his apprentice appeared at his side, she'd been here since Yang Kai had entered the building and hadn't left yet, "I don't really know him enough to form an opinion master," Xia Ning Chan pointed out, "Though, his talent cannot be denied, and his persistence and refusal to give up through that absurd bottleneck he had is admirable."

Meng stroked his beard once more, "Would you be fine with him?" he asked. Usually, he would not at all be happy with that smelly brat of all people helping his apprentice with that, but with his physique...it could vastly increase the benefits his own apprentice would get from the Building Dew Of Nine Yin.

Little Xia's own talent could not be underestimated. While she was 'merely' at the peak of the fourth realm, that was because he had sealed her cultivation partly and blocked her from ascending to the next realm. He wanted her to building her foundation more so that the benefits she received upon ascending realms would be much greater. If not for that, she could possibly be in the sixth realm right now, despite being so young.

The Building Dew Of nine Yin only appeared once a year though, on July seventh. Two months from now. And for little Xia to get it, she would need a man with a powerful Yang qi's help, whom had to ingest it orally and then pass it on to her. If the yang qi was too weak, the benefit would lower. But, Shen Lei had perhaps one of the most if not the densest Yang qi he'd ever felt. And with his physique....the benefits his apprentice would receive from it, he could scarcely imagine.

"....He's much preferable to the last one," she admitted, giving him a half hearted smile, "We still have two months, if we can't find a better candidate, I'll be fine with Shen Lei."

Meng sighed, shoulders slumping. He was afraid of that. Honestly, he might even prefer if it were Yang Kai, at least that little brat was still a virgin for the moment.

                                                                _________

In the end, Shen Lei cashed in his merit points for a thousand, two hundred silver. Which brought his total amount to, forty six thousand and eighty seven silver.

While nothing to the huge sects out there like the Yang family, it was still quite a bit of money for one as young as him with no noble background to have gotten his hands on.

Your typical commoner family would never have to work a day in their lives again with that amount of silver.

Still, despite the amount of money he had, he barely paid it any thought. Instead, as Shen Lei made his way back to his dorm room, his mind was running a mile a minute.

The focus of his thoughts being what old man Meng had just revealed to him. Divine Twin Soul Physique, a legendary body and he had it.

He'd already come to terms with it and was already thinking of all the ways he could abuse his inherent physique to rapidly grow in power.

"Before anything else, I should test out my new strength properly." Shen Lei mused. He could of course challenge his fellow disciples to spars, but he wanted to really cut loose, so they wouldn't be any help, and he doubted any of the people within three realms of him would be able to keep up with him anyway.

That meant, heading to the Black Wind Mountains to hunt monster beasts. Now that he had reached the second realm, he would be allowed to actually head into the mountains proper and not just hang around the outskirts.

The only problem with that though, was the Black Wind Mountains were dangerous and nobody below the second realm was allowed to enter for a reason.

After all, the place was full of monster beasts, and not just just weak ones. There were even species that reached up to the fifth order like the Horned Tiger, which was around the level of a fifth realm cultivator.

Much stronger than his level or not, Shen Lei could not hope to beat one of those in a fight as he was right now.

"Escaping from them is another matter though." he hummed as he arrived at his dorm building. Because of the high hopes the sect elders had for him when he initially displayed his talent, they'd given him his own dorm where as most others needed to share.

But, it was better to be safe than sorry, wasn't it?

So, instead of entering his dorm, he made his way around to the back of the small house sized building where three small trees had been grown personally by him over the past year.

Yang fruit trees. Otherwise known as Sun Fruit Tree's.

Between the three trees, a total of sixteen fruit hung. Quite a substantial amount all said and told, and each one was packing a hefty amount of yang qi within them due to having been grown for a full year in a place he specifically picked because of the mass amount of sun light that shone down on the area over the days that passed by, and the spirit array he set up to absorb world energy and transform it into yang qi and pass into the trees.

You'd think by the name the fruit from the trees would be quite appealing to look at, possible yellow or even golden in colour. But actually, they weren't very appealing to look at, at all. They looked like large brown pellets after all.

"If I eat these now my strength should rise quite a bit." Shen Lei mused. And, that was only taking eating them normally into account.

Now that he knew of his Divine Twin Soul physique, would the gains he would get not be doubled as well?

Almost giddy at the prospect, Shen Lei practically skipped over to the trees and one by one plucked the fruit then made his way into his dorm. And give it another year and another batch of fruit would probably grow as well.

Once inside his dorm, Shen Lei added his newest silvers to the chest where he kept all his money, set the small book containing the instructions for the Heavenly Blade on his desk and made his way over to his bed and sat cross legged down upon it.

"Here we go!" Shen Lei psyched himself up and quickly, one by one swallowed the sixteen sun tree yang fruit he'd grown over the past year.

Almost as soon as he did, a massive golden fiery aura erupted out of his body, his dantian's flooding with massive waves of yang qi released from the ingested fruit.

And then just as sudden, the wave of yang qi roaring through him surged and doubled in size and the aura around him swelled up monstrously, lighting up his entire room in a blinding golden haze.

Gritting his teeth, Shen Lei grasped tightly onto the yang qi within him with his own innate qi and bit by bit forced it to submerge into his own internal power.

And then his power began to rapidly incline as the yang qi was cultivated into his own.

In seconds, he reached the third grade of the second realm. But that was not all, moments later he blasted straight through to the next grade above and still his power continued to grow.

And the more he forced the yang qi into submission with his own qi, the easier he found it to control and manipulate his innate yuan qi.

When he was finally done Shen Lei stood up from his bed, the golden aura practically vibrating over his form.

"...Fifth Grade Initial Element..." he whispered in awe as he inspected himself. This was completely unreal. If he had the ingredients needed to refine the yang fruit into yang essence pills and enhance their effects, he could have probably broken through to the sixth, or even the seventh grade!

And once again the sheer amount of qi he felt within himself now. It was barely even comparable to what he had a half an hour ago.

By his estimates, the total amount of yang qi he had, had grown by at least eight times over, if not more!

"Hahahaha!" Shen Lei laughed, his voice echoing through the building. This was true power!

He could easily overpower a standard third realm like this could he not? God he felt fucking amazing!

He wanted to get out to the Black Wind Mountains right fucking now and go fight! Perhaps he wouldn't need to flee from a Horned Tiger if one showed up after all!

He grinned at the thought of killing one of those giant beasts! Ah, the amount of money he could make refining one of those into an artefact even at his level would be amazing, and he could buy much more materials!

Shen Lei examined the blazing golden aura around himself and with a thought, he compressed it down into his right hand, the sheer amount of yang qi lighting up fist casting a shining golden glow around it and completely hiding his fists skin tone.

At the second realm, it was impossible to expel qi completely outside the body, but the body could be clad in it. And the sheer heat he felt coming from his fist right now could probably melt through a tree and the amount of yang qi would definitely enhance the strength of his punch massively as well if he hit someone with this fist.

"Heh, this is practically a martial skill in of itself." the teenager grinned happily. All it needed right now was a cool name, like Solar Fist or something.

God he wanted to rush off to the mountains right now. But, as much as he wanted to, and as confident as he felt, there was one thing he still needed to take care of first before he left.

His eyes went to his desk where the instruction manual for the Heavenly Blade sat. First, he'd comprehend how to use it, before gathering what he needed for his trip to the Black Wind Mountains and then he could run wild all he wanted.