The First Cultivator - Changing Existence

He didn't think it would be too complicated. Or at least he didn't hope so.

He made sure to spend some time every day researching how he could increase lifespan with a Magic circle. When it came time to engrave another Magic circle on himself, he would make sure he could add some lifespan.

Nothing special happened as he practiced his Magic. But he grew stronger and stronger every day.

Eventually, he reached a limit.

He had theorized countless Magic circles and was ready to give it his best shot.

He set it up in the same manner as before. When the branding was done, he noticed his hair falling out and regrowing. His skin shed, and impurities left his body.

He used a spell to create a wall of ice and looked at himself. Indeed, he looked like he was back in the prime of his life. Even all of that built up facial hair had fallen off.

Although his hair had regrown very long, he cut it short. It was inconvenient otherwise.

With this new increase in control, he was overwhelmingly powerful. He didn't think that this world could contain him for much longer.

But he was cautious of space. From all of the knowledge he had read, space was something very different from living within air.

It was colder than anything in the world, and there was no way to breathe within it.

Not being able to breathe was one of the biggest issues, but there was also some other force that acted on living things in space. It would destroy things without sufficient power of body.

He needed to either develop a spell strong enough to allow him to survive in space, or have his body be able to resist the effects itself.

Either way, he could instinctively tell it was beyond him right now.

He continued to practice, but his spells were becoming so powerful that even cities extremely far away were being shaken and evacuated with a single spell.

Many beings died. His spells could engulf entire mountain ranges. He was like a god among mortals.

And as such, some people started to worship him. Or at least the idea they seemed to have of his existence.

They created statues of a being bathed in light and worshipped him as a god, despite the statue not even looking like him.

To Fa Zhu, this was something irrelevant and minor. It was only when people started venturing out to try and find him that he was a bit annoyed.

Some actually made it, and he had to kick them out. If it was just one or two people a year who were able to avoid getting hit by the spells he cast while practicing, then it wouldn't be a very big deal, but after a few survived and told stories, there were tens of thousands of people a day coming to practice.

This place was treated as a holy ground where a god existed, and in an alarmingly short time, an entire country was formed.

After a while, Fa Zhu just went underground. They wouldn't be able to find him there.

He went so deep that he imagined the core of the earth was nearby before he stopped.

He hollowed out a large cave and made a living space.

Since he didn't want to destroy the world, he made sure his spells wouldn't go far enough to touch the core.

He practiced his spells down here, destroying large amounts of the earth. But on a larger scale, it was negligible.

Years passed. It was harder to tell the time down here.

Time came and went as he reached another limit. He used a more advanced version of the last Magic circle to break through this barrier.

He couldn't even really practice his spells down here anymore. Each one risked hitting the core unless he was very careful. And the destruction caused was getting annoying to deal with.

He left the depths of the earth and returned.

He flew around and found the largest mountain to set up on. In order to avoid annoyances, he created a Magic circle around the mountain. It used the same logic as the ones he engraved on his back, but its function was very different. It summoned a Magic shield as powerful as he had been with three circles.

He was on his fourth circle now. He was more than powerful enough to destroy an entire mountain range.

And nothing in this world would be able to break the shield and bother him.

He was finally able to practice his Magic in peace. He didn't interact with the world around him at all. When he reached a limit, he estimated he was around eighty years old.

It was hard to tell since he hadn't paid much attention, but he felt it was a good guess.

When he was ready to inscribe this Magic circle on himself, he flew into the sky. He eventually reached a point that marked the end of the atmosphere and the beginning of space.

He cast a spell, which he had developed to make the process of engraving a Magic circle on himself easier.

A diagram appeared in front of him that he drew a Magic circle on, and with every stroke he added, a stroke appeared on his back. When it was complete, the Magic circle shined. Previously, the Magic circles had two or three effects.

For the first two, they only increased how much Magic he could control and the rate at which he could control it. The next two increased the same thing, but also increased his lifespan.

This one had a fourth effect.

He flew up, facing down, and let his back barely break through the atmosphere and touched space. He felt an immense pain, but merely gritted his teeth as the Magic circle fully activated. When it was finished, he moved his back out of space.

It took mere moments to heal fully, his body's regeneration abilities having long been inhuman.