Reincarnated As God

With a shake of his head, Ye Jian dismissed those thoughts and bowed slightly to Meng Li.

"Thank you, brother." he used a more affectionate term to refer to Meng Li - after all those years, his suspicions had mostly disappeared. He had slowly begun treating Meng Li as a friend.

"No matter. Where do you want to break through?" Meng Li simply smiled and asked.

"I don"t know, but somewhere quiet." Ye Jian replied.

"Alright." Meng Li said and grasped Ye Jian"s shoulder. Although Ye Jian could easily avoid it, he chose not to - he knew what Meng Li was doing.

Suddenly, both Meng Li and Ye Jian disappeared. One moment they were there, and then, they weren"t.

They both reappeared in a small valley - it was the same valley where Ye Jian cultivated when they first met. After all those years, Ye Jian moved on to other areas, which had more Qi, but were also more dangerous.

Meng Li set up a barrier around the valley to keep the wave of the breakthrough in. Despite the strongest cultivator in Qingshui town being of the fourth layer, they would still be able to sense the waves caused by the breakthrough.

Ye Jian chose a spot to sit and started preparing to break through. Although Meng Li had offered him some resources to help with the breakthrough, he declined. Ye Jian wanted to rely more on his own talent rather than heavenly resources this time - despite rapidly increasing his cultivation, they would also destabilize his foundation. If he counted in the time he would need to cultivate to stabilize his foundation once again, the heavenly resources would barely speed it up, if not make it slower. As such, since he wasn"t in a hurry, he chose not to rely on them.

After several minutes of sitting silently, Meng Li suddenly sensed that Ye Jian"s Qi was revolving violently, to the point where he couldn"t hide it. The revolutions were quite violent, but weaker than the ones caused by a breakthrough to the Qi Sea Realm. It was interesting to Meng Li - after all, he breezed through the entire realm without learning anything. If he wanted to help Ye Jian create a sect, he would need to know at least something about the lower realms of cultivation to help the disciples.

He sent in his Spiritual Sense to spectate on Ye Jian"s situation. Ye Jian sensed it, but didn"t resist - he trusted Meng Li. And, in case anything went wrong, Meng Li would be able to more easily sense it and help him.

The Qi Gathering Realm was a simple one - the cultivator would only need to absorb more and more Qi, and increase the amount revolving around in their body along a special path. However, that was about everything which was happening in the Qi Gathering Realm - the Qi only revolved along the path, and if a cultivator wanted to replenish their Qi, they would need to cultivate carefully or use specific pills or herbs. If a cultivator didn"t consciously restore their Qi, they wouldn"t absorb any of the Qi from their surroundings.

However, the tenth level of Qi Gathering changed that. In the tenth level, the path the Qi pa.s.sively revolved around actually started incorporating small branches, leading outside the body. Small strands of Qi pa.s.sively flowed along these pathways, outside the cultivator"s body, absorbing a bit of the ambient Qi and returning. This meant that a Qi Gathering cultivator of the tenth layer would have some pa.s.sive Qi regeneration, even though it couldn"t be compared to the Qi Sea Realm.

Breaking through to the tenth layer was like half breaking through to Qi Sea Realm. The small branches actually would make the breakthrough to the Qi Sea Realm easier, since one step, creating these branches, was already finished.

Meng Li couldn"t help but think that calling it the tenth layer of Qi Gathering wasn"t quite the correct name - it would be more fitting to call it half-Qi Sea. However, even though it was such a simple step, it did really have benefits for breaking through. Since a cultivator didn"t have to do so much during the breakthrough, they could use more of their energy to strengthen the pathways absorbing Qi, namely the Qi Rivers. After all, they couldn"t be strengthened afterwards without completely stopping the pa.s.sive absorption, which was really dangerous.

Fortunately, Ye Jian didn"t encounter any problems with his breakthrough. After a few hours, the revolution of Qi in his body has returned to the normal level and the small storm of Qi around him completely disappeared. However, Meng Li didn"t dissipate the barrier just yet.

"Congratulations. When will you be able to break through to Qi Sea Realm?" Meng Li asked Ye Jian. He was already eager to start the adventure. It would be his first true venture into the world of cultivation. After all, despite enjoying painting, he could already sense that he hit some sort of bottleneck. He wouldn"t be able to break through it if he simply stayed here and cultivated. Well, he would break through eventually, but it would take him a lot of time, which could be avoided entirely if he had a lucky encounter. And, another simple reason was that he was quite bored.

"I could break through right now, but it would be practically wasting my potential. I should first reach the peak of the tenth layer, then break through. It should take me... Another year." Ye Jian slowly replied. He was eager to break through and start his journey, but he had to wait for another year... It was a bit disappointing.

"A year? That"s a shame... Maybe I could find a heavenly resource to help you cultivate faster?" Meng Li asked hopefully. He hoped that Ye Jian would agree, as a high level spiritual herb would be able to speed up the time required significantly.

"Sigh... Okay, if you find some herb which won"t make my foundation unstable then alright." Ye Jian replied with mixed feelings.

Meng Li showed a small smile and quickly searched the summoning tab for heavenly resources which could help Ye Jian.

With a bit of help from the system, he decided on a specific herb, or rather a fruit - the Green Immortal"s Peach. It was a fruit which could be created by any peach tree in the world, but it was so rare that only one appeared every hundred thousand years, and that was according to the description in the summoning tab, and Meng Li a.s.sumed that the description came from a world which was much, much bigger than his small planet.

The peach was small, the size of a baby"s fist, and much like a normal peach. However, it had a streak of green on its" skin, like a paint"s brush. It looked magical, and the presence it had made the person who saw it want to eat it. Even Meng Li, when he summoned it, felt a strong urge to simply eat it himself, but he was able to resist it easily. However, he could see Ye Jian show a yearning expression in his eyes. The expression quickly disappeared, replaced by confusion and a bit of wariness.

"What"s that? The moment I saw it I felt an urge to eat it... I might be only at the Qi Gathering Realm but my will is not much weaker than when I was at the Origin Soul Realm." Ye Jian asked Meng Li with confusion.

"It"s called the Green Immortal"s Peach. Its" main effect is increasing a person"s talent and it has an effect even to Primordial Realm cultivators. The Qi it contains gives a small boost to cultivation, useful only to Qi Sea cultivators. I chose it because its" effects are really gentle and don"t destabilize your foundation as much as other herbs would." Meng Li explained and threw the small peach to Ye Jian. Ye Jian caught it and studied it for a few seconds before eating it. What was the use of restraining himself if it wasn"t something bad?

After eating it and keeping the seed, Ye Jian returned to the cultivating posture. Meng Li sensed his aura growing slowly and steadily - at the rate it was increasing, Ye Jian would reach the peak of the tenth layer in a few days at most.

While Ye Jian cultivated, Meng Li summoned another peach for himself. If it could in fact increase talent, he wanted to try it for himself. However, what was more interesting to him was why the peach affected Ye Jian more than him.

Meng Li sensed the urge to eat the peach when he summoned it, but he was able to easily resist it in a split second, while he could see that Ye Jian took a bit more than a second to restrain it. Even though he was confident in himself, he wasn"t stupid - his will couldn"t possibly be more st.u.r.dy than an Origin Soul cultivator who lived for thousands of years in the cultivation world. Why did the peach not affect him that much? He held the small fruit in his hand while he asked the system.

[The peach doesn"t actually implant those emotions - it simply flares up the greed in the soul of the people who see it. You don"t have as much greed in your soul due to the fact that you practically have everything you need, so it was easy to resist it.] the system"s reply cleared up Meng Li"s confusion. Ye Jian lived for thousands of years as an adventurer, and he had to fight for cultivation resources. His greed was much stronger than Meng Li"s, but fortunately, since he was a righteous person, he didn"t succ.u.mb to it, unlike his traitor of a friend, who turned to the demonic path.

Meng Li thought for a few seconds and decided to eat the small fruit. There was no reason not to - he didn"t know what effects it could have on him, but it couldn"t possibly do something bad.

The Qi within the small peach was released the moment it reached his stomach. The Qi contained within it wasn"t much, and the most was contained within the body. However, the moment it released its" Qi, the small strip of green actually disappeared, and Meng Li felt a wonderful feeling fill his body. He could feel something grow within him... It was probably his talent.

In a few minutes, the feeling disappeared. Even though it was amazing, it wasn"t addicting. Meng Li had a faint feeling that even if he ate another peach, the feeling wouldn"t return.

With that, Meng Li tried to test his talent. To his surprise, he couldn"t sense much of a difference - his speed of absorbing Qi increased slightly, but it was at most an increase of about ten percent.

Meng Li asked the system confusedly.

[Your talent is extremely great, and the peach"s effect isn"t as much of a help to you as it would be to other people.] the system replied.

Meng Li was a bit disappointed, but he soon got rid of it. After all, what did he lose? Some Qi, which he recovered within a minute. And he didn"t actually lose anything, his talent was increased, after all. It was just that the increase wasn"t as big as he hoped it would be, so he felt some disappointment.

Meng Li slightly shook his head and checked up on Ye Jian. He was still cultivating - after all, less than even half an hour had pa.s.sed, and the time it would take to reach the peak was a few days.

Meng Li thought for a bit and decided to take out the painting equipment and paint Ye Jian as he was cultivating. It was a habit he had formed over the many years he had spent in the mountains. When he was bored, or he saw something interesting, he would paint it.

He finished the painting in merely a few hours. To no one"s surprise, it still lacked the essence. Meng Li wasn"t disappointed, and instead placed the painting in his bag of holding. He would give it to Ye Jian when he awoke, as a bit of a congratulatory present.