Chapter 46: Asking the System for Help
The more Mark read the cultivation technique Nexus gave him, the more his eyelids twitched. This thing had to be at least a few hundred thousand words long. How was he supposed to memorize all of it?
Just looking at the wall of text in this cultivation technique was enough to make Mark’s head spin and completely forget the embarrassment of being naked.
"Master, I’m a mortal! Your request is way too unreasonable. What normal person could possibly memorize all this?"
Mark was on the verge of tears. Just reading through this mountain of text once at an average pace would take at least an entire day without stopping. He had never even memorized a one-thousand-word essay before, so how could he possibly memorize a cultivation technique like this?
On top of that, he absolutely couldn’t memorize anything wrong. If he remembered it incorrectly, then when he cultivated and guided his spiritual qi down the wrong path, the best-case scenario was dying with his body intact. The worst-case scenario was exploding into pieces.
"Master, I know your realm is incredibly high and your memory is amazing, but I’m not you."
If Mark had only suspected before that Bell was lying about Nexus’s rank, now he thought Bell hadn’t lied at all. Even though Bell had never come into contact with cultivation, he definitely knew enough to guess that Nexus possessed a completely different kind of power from hunters.
But Mark still had no idea what realm his master was actually in. That damn nervous system was always insulting Nexus, and everything it said about him was complete nonsense just to satisfy its own ego.
[Hey, your disciple may be trash, but at least he knows his own limits. If you ask me, there’s no way he can memorize it. Don’t tell me you’re planning to wait a few decades?]
"Is there a problem?"
Nexus replied calmly. He was certain he had never said Mark had to finish memorizing it within a few hours or a few days.
Even so, his requirement was far too demanding. Normal cultivators only needed to memorize the cultivation method for the Qi Refinement realm. Yet Nexus wanted Mark to memorize everything for all eight realms.
The eight cultivation realms were: Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, Void Refinement, Body Integration, and Grand Ascension. These realms could be reached through one’s own innate talent and hard work.
The lifespan of the Qi Refinement realm is basically not much different from before cultivating, being limited to one hundred and fifty years.
Besides that, the weakening caused by old age happens very slowly, so even after reaching more than one hundred years old, they can still be at their peak. In the later realms, the lifespan will begin to increase significantly.
Foundation Establishment: three hundred years. Golden Core: one thousand years. Nascent Soul: five thousand years. Spirit Transformation: fifty thousand years. Void Refinement: one million years. Body Integration: fifty million years. Grand Ascension: everyone is different. Depending on the path they cultivate to become an immortal, their maximum lifespan will vary.
Of course, those were maximum lifespans. If they were killed, cultivators would still die. Also, if they didn’t cultivate, they wouldn’t have enough spiritual qi to sustain their bodies, so they would die very quickly.
[There’s a huge problem! If we wait a few decades, then where’s the greatness of this magnificent system supposed to show? If humanity can’t witness my supreme might, how are they ever going to kneel down and worship me?]
The system had been worried before that Nexus was too hasty in taking in a disciple, but who would’ve thought the one getting impatient now would be the system itself.
If it took decades just to memorize the cultivation technique, then when would Mark actually start cultivating? After cultivating, when would he become strong? And after becoming strong, when would he spread the greatness of the system?
The more the system thought about it, the more anxious it became. To the system, Nexus was just a mortal blessed by Michael. Even if Nexus lived longer than an ordinary person, at most he’d only live to around one hundred fifty or two hundred years.
The system did some quick calculations. If things kept going at this pace, Nexus would die of old age and the system would disappear before it ever became famous around the world.
[You stupid master! Did your brain get kicked by a donkey again? Don’t tell me you’re looking down on this great system? You...]
The system kept rambling nonstop in Nexus’s ear, making him feel annoyed. Even the cultivators who had hunted him down in the past hadn’t talked this much.
"I never said he had to memorize it by himself. All I care about is the final result, which is that he memorizes the entire cultivation technique. As for the process, that’s his problem, not mine."
Nexus replied calmly. To him, there was nothing wrong with taking shortcuts. As long as Mark could learn it, that was enough. The process mattered too, but the final result was what mattered most.
[Are you stupid? Even if you gave him two extra brains, it’d still take him forever to memorize it. A mortal like Mark doesn’t have any other option. Don’t tell me you’re planning to wait for him to invent a memory-enhancing chip and implant it into his brain so he can memorize everything.]
"Just do whatever you think makes sense."
After explaining it this far, if the system still couldn’t understand what Nexus meant, then there was nothing he could do. The method the system mentioned would work too, except the chip would have to be made by the system itself. If they waited for Mark to invent it, they probably wouldn’t see the results even in the next lifetime.
[Well, well. Looks like you stupid master aren’t completely stupid after all. If this great system steps in, there’s no need to implant any chip into his brain. Mark just has to say some sincere words about me, and he’ll memorize things thousands, even tens of thousands of times faster.]
The "sincere words" the system had in mind were nothing more than shameless flattery. If Mark actually dared to speak his true thoughts, the system guaranteed it would let him choose between the two most worthless spiritual roots possible.
As soon as the system finished speaking, it immediately appeared in front of Mark. Mark had been racking his brain, so when he saw the system, it was like a drowning man grabbing onto a life preserver.
"Lord System! I’ve missed you so much. Even though we were only apart for a short while, it feels like a thousand years have passed. As expected, a great leader of the Cultivation Academy like you would never abandon disciples like me who worship you. Please help me."
Mark immediately struck first, hoping to drown the system in bliss by satisfying its massive ego.
[Hahaha, you stupid mortal are finally learning how to talk. Wouldn’t it have been ten thousand times better if you’d acted like this from the beginning?]
That arrogant, condescending tone made Mark genuinely want to throw hands with the system. But for now, he held himself back because he believed that one day he would become strong enough and no longer be as powerless as he was now. When that day came, he would definitely curse the system out as fiercely as possible to finally vent his frustration.