One Wish to Own the World

"Are you excited to have a little brother? It's a boy!"

"He's beautiful. What's his name?"

Even after having his brain and mind enhanced by both god and cultivation, he still couldn't understand what could possibly be beautiful in a baby, but he knew it was a nice thing to say so he said it anyway. Haoran and Mei exchanged a look and thought for a moment.

"We agreed on calling the baby Aaron if it's a boy."

Haoran said softly and Ken approached to touch the baby. He caressed Aaron's face gently and looked at him.

"Aaron, be a good brother."

His parents didn't understand the underlying meaning of his words. He was thinking of his brother from his former life, who watched him being beaten up, sometimes even by his friends, and only smiled in response.

"I'm going."

Ken turned around and left his parents alone with the new family member. In those past months, he read a lot. He read fighting techniques, he read cultivation manuals, he read alchemy books, and he read general knowledge of cultivation.

His brother's birthday was the day he set as a limitation to collecting knowledge; it was time for him to work on the last fifteen meridians. Although it sounded like he lost a few cultivation months, he spared a lot of research time for when he wanted to break through the next stage of his cultivation and learn battle techniques.

After trying the manual on Sol as always and adding a few last changes, he was ready to awaken his last fifteen meridians. Those fifteen meridians were mainly around the brain, heart, and lungs, thus making them dangerous to awaken.

It was also the reason that research in the sect on those meridians failed; one mistake led to the death of the subjects.

His manual already worked on Sol and she was still alive, so he wasn't worried about his safety. However, he invested all his attention in the process, nonetheless. For days he sat down and slowly awakened his meridians one by one, motivated by the chance to have a perfect foundation.

Although there were no Heaven-rank techniques in the sect, the belief was that those required all 45 collateral meridians awakened, and that's why their power was so great.

He worked on his meridians for two months and facilitated the process with newly invented pills. Although he already found out it was possible to obtain Merit Points by contributing new formulas, manuals, and techniques, he never shared any of his creations.

Having a new baby in the house gave much more work to Sol, who was expected to take care of both Ken and Aaron. Unlike Ken, Aaron wasn't as considerate. He would poop and cry whenever he wanted without regard for Sol's availability.

"Ah, so this is how real babies are. I almost thought raising kids was as simple as having a grown-up at home."

Sol complained to herself every time she had to attend to Aaron and make him cease his crying. Mei and Haoran weren't doing any better.

They chose to have a new baby because they got the wrong impression from Ken. They thought they just had to change the diapers when they were around and feed the baby from time to time, and everything would be fine. But it wasn't, the baby wouldn't stop crying and demanding attention!

Ken, however, had no responsibilities toward the baby since he was still a kid himself. Since Sol was busy, he chose to just go through his next breakthrough without experimenting on her. He felt that their cultivation and constitution were too different from each other because of his deep foundation anyway.

He kept her in the house and planned to give her a manual for the Soul Strengthening Stage, mainly because she knew too much about him to let her go, and because it was better to have a nanny that already knew his secrets rather than bring a new one and let her find them out too.

'I've completed awakening my collateral meridians and I still have around 70% of the Godly Qi left. It should be enough to complete the third stage and even advance to the fourth, but then I'd have to leave the rest to facilitate my natural growth to the maximum.'

Ken quickly calculated his reserves of Godly Qi and came to conclusion regarding his future.

'The Soul Strengthening Stage is about nourishing the soul and refining it. In the first and second stages, I've strengthened my body and mind, and now I'm capable of withstanding the pressure of strengthening my soul. This process requires me to first nourish my soul to the maximum and later refine it and repeat the process.'

Like in the first stage, there was the problem of using Qi that could affect the soul. To achieve that, the sect concocted pills called Soul Nourishing Pill and Soul Refining Pill made of special herbs that could affect the soul and helped the process.

Despite growing those herbs in the sect, it wasn't enough to supply the whole outer sect, thus making it impossible for the unprivileged ones to go beyond the Meridian Awakening Stage. Even if they could put their hands on a few pills, it wouldn't be enough to complete the minimum required for the stage.

'Luckily for me, I don't need to concoct those pills. The Godly Qi was used to carry my soul into my body, which means it can affect the soul as well.'

The soul rested in the whole body, with the largest concentration of it in the brain, also known as the mind, which rested in the sea of consciousness.

He channeled the Godly Qi according to the manual he invented for himself and nourished his soul with it. He felt his soul growing inside his body until he felt a sense of pressure that came from a source he couldn't explain.

When the feeling turned unbearable, he started refining his soul. This process mainly cut the weaker and unnecessary parts of the soul. In a sense, one could say it was like the unhealthy fat of the soul, and the refining process was a painful diet.

"AHHH!"

Ken screamed after cutting the first part of his soul. He understood now why he read that people barely advanced in the third stage unless they had an extremely strong desire to get stronger.

He took a piece of cloth and placed it between his teeth before biting it. He bit it tightly and cut another part of his soul.

"Mmmm!"

He still groaned, but he negated his screams mainly by biting on the cloth. Despite wanting to quit the process, he continued without stopping, and his sweat dripped from his body to the floor.

By the end of the process, his gums were bloody because of the bites, and his body was shivering from the horrible pain. Most people chose to do it in small parts because of the torture, but he chose to do it all at once.

'I only finished one cycle. Using this cycle as a reference I'd need to complete at least 30 cycles to get to the minimum required to advance, and 120 cycles to get to the maximum of my ability. I managed to invent one pill that can help me in this stage, but it would only add power to my soul. It's better to do the maximum and then use it, this way I can go beyond my limits.'

He judged himself to 119 days of torture. Each cycle took him an average of 10 hours, and after it, he would be too tired to start a new one, so he had to rest and do the next cycle the next day.

Despite the pain, he didn't skip a single day. Whenever he felt that he couldn't continue, he would just think of his old life. He didn't want to be stepped on in this life again, and only the thought of it made him forget the pain and move forward.

In every cycle, he also had to remain concentrated enough to tweak his cultivation as he learned more through the cultivation process since he didn't want to miss a single leverage.

He used the rest of the day to see Aaron and play with him for a bit, or just spend the evening with his parents before going to sleep. After 4 months of this routine, he finally got to the top of the third stage.

He would also talk to Sol less and less since he didn't need her cultivation anymore. During this time, she just watched over Aaron and cultivated her meridians.

He gave her a manual to open them but didn't supply her with enough pills to facilitate the process, so she needed around half a month to awaken each one of them. She never complained, but she was feeling abandoned.

'I'm finally done with the worst part. Now I need to take a few pills to strengthen my soul beyond my limits.'