Calculating My Way To Immortality

Xueling's eyes suddenly snapped open and she rose to a sitting position.

"You're finally awake," Yu Tian said, closing the book he was reading.

"How long have I been asleep for?" she asked.

"Don't worry, it's only been a few hours," he explained.

"Anyway, it's good that you're awake. We need to stabilize your cultivation," Yu Tian said.

She nodded and came to him. Just like before, they practiced together all night.

The next morning, Xueling opened her eyes. She observed her cultivation and confirmed that it had stabilized completely. It seemed Yu Tian's skills had improved once again.

"How's the spiritual root?" she asked.

"It's perfect," Yu Tian said.

The feeling of a high grade spiritual root was definitely different. Though to be honest, for him, it didn't make much difference. This was because he mostly cultivated using props and not normal cultivation of ambient qi.

Well, he supposed it was good for absorbing Xueling's energy. Before, most of what he absorbed went to waste, but now, he could make use of it completely without letting any go to waste.

That night, he had absorbed the remaining ten cores, completely stabilizing his cultivation and entering the second layer of golden core realm. After that, he had absorbed Xueling's energy throughout the night and entered the third layer.

Even so, his combat power was still at golden core ultimate peak.

He had wondered how this was possible at first. After all, the jump after the golden core realm breakthrough alone should be immense, not to mention the third rebirth. Yet he was still stuck at the same combat power.

But after some thought and a little research, he had figured out the problem.

He had realized this when reading the sixth grade part of "The Fall of Runesmithing & the Rise of Talisman Making - By Chairman Liu." The sixth grade corresponded to the nascent soul realm. In the sixth grade rune blueprints, he had noticed the common appearance of things to do with souls. It was then that he had realized what he was lacking.

Since he couldn't do soul damage, he was unable to match the combat ability of a nascent soul realm cultivator. Soul damage was a signature ability of the nascent soul realm. After one forms a soul, they could damage the souls of others as well as create items that dealt soul damage.

This meant that even though he had unlocked the sixth grade of runesmithing, he couldn't actually make the talisman the fairy had used. This was because he lacked soul power.

This was really serious. He had thought that with this breakthrough, they wouldn't have to fear the Dark Moon Hall ancestor anymore. But it turns out he had been wrong. Still, not all hope was lost.

The only problem was soul damage. When it came to physical power, he could completely annihilate a nascent soul realm expert. The only problem was that during the fight, they could deal soul damage to him, which was extremely dangerous.

And even if he somehow survived that and killed them, without soul damage, he would just destroy the body, leaving the soul, which they could use to attack him with soul attacks without him having a way of fighting back.

…

After brainstorming with Xueling, he had a few ideas that might work.

The most probable one was using a sneak attack and his immense advantage in physical power to completely obliterate the enemy's body and then run away.

He felt this was plausible. He should be able to easily get away due to the element of surprise and physical power advantage. As for the ancestor, the nascent soul wasn't strong enough to wander without a body for long, so he would wither away after some time.

Of course, that's without considering the fact that he could just possess a golden core cultivator.

And since the nascent soul realm focused mostly on the soul, if he possessed a golden core cultivator, since he already had a soul, the possessed body would automatically breakthrough to the nascent soul realm.

Still, not all hope was lost. From the book on runesmithing, he could see that not just people with souls could make items with soul aspects. Another way to make these items was through the use of soul stones.

These were similar to spirit stones, but instead of storing spiritual energy, they stored soul energy. With soul energy, he could engrave a rune on a sword that would allow it to do soul damage.

But there was a small problem with this plan. To engrave a sixth grade rune, he needed a sixth grade weapon or treasure. For weapons, common grade didn't have a grade or could just correspond to ninth grade.

After that was magical, corresponding to grades nine through seven - nine being low tier magical weapons and seven being high tier. After that was spiritual weapons, corresponding to grades six through four.

To engrave the rune, he would need a low tier spiritual weapon.

"If we can't get a spiritual weapon, why don't we just make paper talismans?" Xueling asked.

Yu Tian was also thinking of this. It's just that paper talismans were too inefficient. They required more soul energy for something that was essentially single use. The reason they needed more energy was because they were something that could be drawn on just regular paper.

The energy was needed to sustain itself. But for a spiritual weapon, it could already sustain itself from the materials used to forge it and thus required less energy. It was even multi-use, meaning if they attacked and missed, they could just do it again, unlike a paper talisman where you're pretty much done for when you miss.

"Well, I suppose we could do that," Yu Tian said, scratching his head. "We just need lots of them," he added. "We haven't even gotten it yet and we're already planning to use lots of it," he said with a sigh.

"I think I might have a way," Xueling said.

"What is it?" Yu Tian asked.

"We can use the gangs," she said. "Their information network and dealings with the black market have expanded quite a bit since then."

Yu Tian nodded. There was no shortage of things in the black market.

As long as one was willing to pay, someone was willing to sell.

…

A/N: You can use realms from the IA aux chapter. Everything is pretty much the same (ignoring the absolute source realms) me make an aux for CI soon.