’Is she angry at me or not?’ Liam wondered, standing before his cave’s open entrance, his gaze fixed on the rising path, his mind still lost about the matter.
Nevertheless, Liam quickly pushed aside that confusing topic to focus on Lucy’s meaningful speech. That wasn’t his first time tackling it. He had already made his decision, too, but he had a better understanding of cultivators and the cultivation world as a whole now.
Might made right. That much was undeniable. Fairness had no value in the face of superior strength.
However, Liam’s goal had forced him to associate it with bad things. He wanted the strength to avenge his family, failing to realize that it could also create room for something good.
Actually, it had already done that. Despite everything, Liam had rescued Lucy, someone he didn’t want to see hurt or die.
Liam also knew what strength meant for a cultivator now. It came from a mixture of the cultivation stage and mastery over arts, be it martial, alchemical, or whatever else existed.
Liam still believed actual battle strength was better. Still, the Pale Moon Sect apparently had a high status among Sects in the eastern side of the Outer Circles thanks to its elixirs, making them another undeniable version of power.
Nevertheless, the cultivation journey did sound like a continuous, desperate search for resources now.
Cultivators needed resources to get stronger, to prevent their cores from withering and receding, and to get even more resources. It was a vicious circle that Liam had no idea where it ended, if it did at all.
Liam was also right in the middle of that, now more than ever. Without the drug, he would eventually need resources to prevent his core from withering. He didn’t know if prolonged drought could turn him back into a mortal, but the risk had to exist.
And, having superhuman abilities was indeed nice. They weren’t something Liam would give up willingly now, let alone if they reached even higher, unfathomable levels.
Yet, Liam now had the knowledge and direct experience to consider something that had never managed to cross his mind before.
’Is it worth it?’ Liam wondered.
Weakness didn’t sound nice, but that seemingly endless and solitary struggle looked bleak, too. The latter needed to have valuable rewards to make it worth pursuing. Settling for less and risking becoming a victim of the strong would be a better way of living life otherwise.
Of course, Liam had that choice made for him. His desire for vengeance and bloodline basically locked him on that path, which probably stretched as far as the cultivation journey went.
However, Liam considered that point anyway, and he had to admit that it wasn’t all bad. The cultivation journey had forced him to kill, but it had also opened the path toward an unfathomable world he had just begun to see.
Liam had met Lucy thanks to the cultivation world. He had seen a two-meter-tall wolf and beat it barehanded. His home was a magical structure that rested near the peak of a literal mountain, and he had even witnessed people setting their hands on fire.
It was unclear if that was enough to justify the cultivation journey’s struggles and ugly parts, but Liam also realized he hadn’t seen much of it yet.
Also, despite wanting to suppress any naivety, Liam had to admit that he was curious to see more of that magical world, and strength was the key to doing just that.
Liam entered his cave once the brainstorming was over, closing the entrance to fix his black eyes on the wooden container he had left on the floor. He had just obtained a new way of getting stronger, and he couldn’t refrain from diving into it.
Everyone had shown concerns about Liam’s state. Even the grumpy Alchemy Elder had told him to take care of his injuries.
Yet, Liam was all bandaged up now. He had food, and the circulation technique had long since finished refilling his body with Qi. Even his core had produced more of it, making him far from tired.
So, Liam fed on some of his supplies while opening the wooden container. Instead of a scroll, he saw a small, old book inside, and he carefully picked it up while reading the words on its partially ruined cover.
’Seismic Palm,’ Liam read, feeling as if a treasure was now in his hands. Regulations stated that the book couldn’t leave the Sect and that Liam had to give it back in a week, so that comparison wasn’t too off, either.
’Devastating palm strike,’ Liam kept reading on the next page. ’Qi consumption depends on the user’s choice, so Medium to Extreme. The training difficulty should be classified as Average, but the high likelihood of backlashes increases it to Hard.’
The Disciplinary Elder hadn’t looked too happy about Liam’s choice, and he had understood why even before his warnings. The flexibility in the required Qi meant that cultivators risked hurting themselves if they drew more energy than they could handle.
However, the risk was mostly with the arm used in the attack, not the foundation, so the Elder had let the issue go after his warnings. As for Liam, he couldn’t imagine a better martial art in his current state.
’With this,’ Liam thought, ’I could have killed the magical beast directly instead of just slamming on it.’
Even if killing the wolf directly was a stretch, Liam believed the martial art would have inflicted enough damage to render the rest of the battle trivial, and the reason for that stood at the core of his choice.
Unknowingly to anyone alive, Liam had ten spiritual roots, a talent described as divine. He would always have access to more Qi than anyone else at the same level, and his bloodline made his body the stuff of legends.
So, Liam could theoretically unleash strikes that no one else at the same level could fuel or endure, and he might not be limited to a few of those, especially if he contained his strength.
Also, the Divine Cult had already carved palm strikes into Liam’s fighting habits, which he hoped would shorten the training period.
Of course, legendary toughness or not, Liam could still get hurt, so mastery was paramount, and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth when he saw that drawings accompanied the instructions featuring many complicated words he couldn’t read.