Another World Trip: Journey with My Cat and an Otaku Loli Goddess Chapter 393 - Children Taking Drugs Is Cultivation

[Wait, Keyholder I misspoke—!"

“I will melt you down to a porta potty, unclog the heavenly constipation that has plagued me and unleash upon you a collection of evil so vile, so malodorous that Gods will weep and Devils shall Bawl. Not on your life are we doing this. We're going to find another way around this.”

****

Some people just say things that really grind the asshole. Allow me to say this. A trope I hate in cultivation novels with every fibre of my being, (even the fibre needed to assuage said asshole from the heavenly constipation) is the nerfing.

Oh, how I hate it. It's usually riddled with oodles of young masters that compete with each other to see which one can bring the reader to madness first. There are other detractors I've been subjected to because of it, but I won't bother to list them since, unlike Mina, I care about my brain.

I can't tell you how many computer screens were smashed, how many pages were ripped to shreds all because Pebbles fuse was cut short every time this trope reared its ugly head.

So, you can only imagine how I felt when all I was doing was enjoying my journey like any fair-giving MC only for the sentient slab of unknown material, which may or may not be literal bull's shit, to actually put forward the advice, nay, the steaming pile of what it may comprise it, of nerfing my ass.

Again, I must clarify that this is not my literal ass, but the metaphorical ass that is my entire self. Then again, if we’re being technical, my literal ass would be nerfed as well. Which is interesting to see what that would do for the heavenly constipation, but I digress.

Regardless, you all needn't worry about this happening. You see, I will never nerf myself, nor consent to it.

[Keyholder, if you're not willing to lower yourself, even temporarily, then how will you replace your spiritual qi with spiritual essence?]

"We'll find another way." Can you believe this guy is still on that? Goodness, just the thought alone is harrowing.

"By the way, why do we need to wait until Shen Ling and the others are all at the ninth core of the Core Formation realm before we can give them these pills?"

I was already outside the cave at this point and was making my way back to the portal. It was gonna take a while, so I thought I'd suckle on the teat of knowledge within me in the meantime. Oh yeah, I put Steely back inside me. He gave me what I wanted so I wasn’t so angry anymore.

[There are levels to the condensation. You can start it at any level within the Core Formation realm. However, if you start to condense it while you are, for example, at the second core, then the concentration of your spiritual essence at that time will be only two cores worth of spiritual qi strong. To take this to the limit, if you have nine cores, you would be condensing the spiritual qi of nine cores into spiritual essence. You can imagine how intense the concentration would be by then.]

"I guess." There was a cultivation novel I knew of that had something similar to this, and if it's anything like that, then the dao of masochism would be called upon soon, and I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.

"Wait, so just one pill would be enough then, right? You just take it at the ninth core and then bam, you'll condense nine cores worth of spiritual qi into spiritual essence. Then we’re good."

[Not exactly.]

I was too naïve. It would have been too easy. It's never that easy.

Steely then continued. [Once you condense the spiritual qi into spiritual essence, the quality increase will result in quantity decrease. In other words, all that spiritual essence will be in only one core. You’ll need to keep that spiritual essence in one of your cores until you transform the rest of your spiritual qi into spiritual essence. You’ll then absorb more spiritual energy, turn it into spiritual essence, partition it into another core and so on. Do it again for the third, fourth, fifth all the way to the ninth core until you’re done. Ah yes, also because you condensed nine cores worth of spiritual qi to build the spiritual essence initially, to prevent any qi imbalance, you need to make sure you do the same going forward.]

"That sounds pretty rough, to be honest. Wait, if one core already has spiritual essence partitioned within, then doesn't that mean if you fill the others with spiritual qi, you’ll only get eight cores worth for spiritual qi to condense into spiritual essence? That’ll cause the qi imbalance you were referring to."

[Hmph!]

I wasn't sure but I could swear I heard Steely smirk. How do you even do that?

Oh, I know what this means. He’s probably gonna impart some profound ingenious method to circumvent this right?

You know what? Maybe, I bash cultivation novels too much. After all, I read them and I—

[Just stuff nine cores worth of spiritual qi into the remaining eight cores.]

Could never bash them upside the head enough because they’ve permanently been afflicted by brain damage to the point where the skull is a glorified hospital bed!

“What do you mean just stuff nine cores worth of spiritual qi into the remaining eight cores? Why are you treating the cores like they’re airline suitcases??”

[I don’t know what this airline suitcase is, but it sounds like it's been abused.]

"Again… not inaccurate, but that’s not the point here. Roll back to the eight cores that you seem hellbent on procuring, for them, a severe case of anorexia."

[Do you think cultivating is meant to be simple? If it was, then even donkeys would do it.]

"I saw Super Donkeys a while back. I put nothing past you people."

[They are nothing compared to the Super God Donk—]

"I'm gonna stop you right there. Do not say another word. I think I know what you were gonna say, and first of all, shame on you. Second of all, those do not exist and I refuse to believe they do. They ain’t part of my canon. Explain the eight cores, please.”

[Right. How it works is that after the first round of condensation, your cores will undergo a slight transformation, in that they will become stronger than they were before. This will allow them to hold nine cores worth of spiritual qi. Once you complete the second condensation, the cores will be toughened further and further to the point, where your last ninth core will be able to handle nine cores worth of spiritual qi by itself.]

“That makes sense I guess. But if we’re doing all this, doesn’t it mean we are effectively cultivating back nine cores worth of spiritual qi nine times? How long is this gonna take?"

[You're not forming the cores again. You are simply filling them with spiritual qi, which is far different. It might take a while but it is worth it. By then, you can even fight across realms against those who have yet to cultivate spiritual essence. Which is not something that happens normally until you hit the Martial Grandmaster realm. But if you do it before then and then step into that realm, you’ll be much stronger than your average Martial Grandmaster.]

We just made it to the top of a mountain and I could see a bunch of people eating pills and cultivating in the distance. Beyond them, was the portal and then I'd be out of here.

"Looks like I have to find out how to create more of these pills whenever I can, so I help everyone under my banner."

[I have the pill recipe for that.]

"Come again?"

[I do.]

"Tell me."

[Can you refine pills?]

"No."

[I'll tell you when you can refine pills.]

"Why does that sound like something a parent would say? Don't you think that with your attainments in the Dao of Going To The Store For Milk, you could possibly never get the chance to tell me?"

[I'm not cultivating that Dao!]

"Sounds like something someone cultivating the Dao of Going To The Store For Milk would say."

[I’m not discussing this with you.]

“Suit yourself…” I didn’t take what Steely said to heart. Even though it said that it didn’t have emotions, it was more temperamental than most people.

I turned my attention to the people who were cultivating below eating pills. Ah, children taking drugs. A staple sight in any cultivation novel. What a world.

Everyone keeps saying that toxins will build up in your body if you eat too much of those, which, if you think about it, is the cultivation world’s equivalent of OD’ing. I love the freedom to express yourself here.

Whoosh!

[What are you doing!?]

“Hold that thought.”

Ol Steely was startled because I let my spiritual force run wild to its utmost limit!

When I saw all these pills, my ‘see a treasure and can’t walk away disease’ flared something fierce!

And you know what that means. It means I shall bullshit my way into soothing it somehow.