The memories continued:
This morning. Rowan arriving at Nova's cabin expecting to find a corpse. Instead finding a young man who radiated power and spiritual pressure impossible for someone supposedly at Qi Refining.
Aldric examining Nova through Rowan's senses. The Elder's soul stirring with excitement. "That's not a heavenly opportunity. That's a dormant physique awakening. And not just any physique—look at the spiritual pressure, the meridian quality visible in his aura. That's a supreme-tier physique at minimum."
Aldric's plan forming immediately. "We can extract it. Transfer it to you. I have a treasure in my ring—a Physique Extraction Disc. It was created by an Immortal Ascension expert specifically for stealing constitutions and bloodlines."
Rowan's greed taking over. Why serve the sect as a lowly supervisor when he could have a supreme physique? Why struggle through normal cultivation when he could steal Nova's fortune?
The plan: Wait until night. Use Aldric's intangibility technique to enter undetected. Place the Physique Extraction Disc on Nova's head while he was in deep meditation. Extract the physique. Slit his throat to eliminate the witness. Easy. Clean. Profitable.
Except it had all gone wrong the moment the spatial lock activated.
Nova withdrew from the memories, his expression cold.
Greed. The oldest story in cultivation. Someone sees another's fortune and decides to take it rather than earn their own.
"Thank you for the information, Supervisor Rowan," Nova said to the frozen soul. "Your memories have been quite educational. Even if you succeeded, you couldn't have extracted my physique. Afterall it is a forbidden physique."
Then he activated the refinement function of his technique.
The soul began to dissolve, its structure breaking down into pure soul essence. The consciousness within—Rowan's personality, his memories, his identity—was erased completely. All that remained was raw soul energy, purified of all corruption and impurity.
Nova absorbed it directly, feeling the energy flow into his own soul. A refreshing sensation, like cool water on a hot day. His soul strengthened noticeably—not dramatically, but enough to be measurable.
So that's what soul cultivation feels like, Nova thought. Interesting.
But Rowan was just an appetizer. The main course was still frozen inside that spatial ring.
Nova picked up the ring from Rowan's severed finger, channeling his qi into it to break the blood and spirit binding. The spatial interior revealed itself—a small dimension about 525 meters long by 350 meters wide(About 5 football fields placed side by side), filled with various objects.
And in the center, frozen solid by Nova's spatial lock that had penetrated even into the ring's dimension, was Aldric Mournshadow's soul.
Nova extracted it, pulling the translucent form into physical reality.
The soul was barely there—translucent to the point of near-invisibility, clearly damaged and degraded from centuries of barely surviving. But it still radiated power. This had been a Mahayana cultivator once, someone who'd touched the peak of mortal cultivation before failing to transcend.
The soul's mouth moved, the spatial lock loosening just enough to allow speech.
"Sp... spa... spare me," Aldric's voice was barely a whisper. "Please. I can serve you. Teach you. I know secrets from the ancient era. Techniques lost for millennia. Just let me—"
Nova didn't let him finish.
His consciousness invaded the soul structure, grasping the memories, the comprehension, the techniques, the Laws—everything Aldric had accumulated over his long life.
The extraction process was violent. Painful beyond description. Aldric's soul thrashed within the spatial lock, trying desperately to escape, but there was nowhere to go.
Nova pulled out everything:
Memories of a cultivation journey spanning over two hundred thousand years. Aldric's rise from a street urchin to a Mahayana expert. The wars he'd fought, the enemies he'd crushed, the techniques he'd mastered.
Comprehension of five Laws at peak level—Shadow, Death, Soul, Poison, and Blood. Each one refined through centuries of use, each one capable of devastating solar systems at full power.
Dozens of techniques ranging from Earth tier to Supreme tier. The intangibility technique Rowan had used. A soul manipulation method that allowed consciousness transfer. Assassination arts that could kill without leaving evidence.
Most importantly—the method for reaching True Qi Condensation Realm. The lost cultivation stage. Complete with all the safety measures and techniques needed to compress qi without risking deviation or death.
And a location: Aldric's hidden cultivation abode. A pocket dimension anchored to a remote mountain range outside the sect's territory. Inside, his accumulated resources and treasures from 200 millennium of collecting.
Nova compiled everything, organizing it systematically in his enhanced memory for later study. The process took several minutes—even with his upgraded mental processing, sorting through a Mahayana cultivator's entire existence was time-consuming.
Aldric's soul screamed silently throughout, experiencing agony beyond physical pain as its very essence was dissected and copied.
When Nova finished the extraction, he activated the refinement function.
This took longer. Aldric's soul, even in its weakened state, was still Mahayana level. The density and complexity far exceeded Rowan's. Nova's technique had to work harder, breaking down the soul structure layer by layer, erasing the consciousness completely, purifying the energy until nothing remained but pure soul essence.
Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.
Finally, the process completed. A sphere of concentrated soul energy hovered before Nova—pristine, pure, ready for absorption.
Nova drew it into himself, feeling it merge with his own soul.
The effect was immediate and profound. His soul expanded, strengthened, became more solid and defined. The feeling was incredible—like every aspect of his consciousness had been enhanced simultaneously. His thoughts came faster. His spiritual sense extended further. His control over qi became more refined.
This was real soul cultivation. And it felt amazing.
"I might get addicted to this."
Nova took a moment to savor the sensation, then turned his attention to the practical matters.
First: evidence disposal.
He channeled Fire Law through his fingers, directing it at Rowan's bisected corpse. The flames that manifested weren't normal fire—they burned at temperatures that exceeded anything mundane combustion could achieve. The body disintegrated instantly, reduced to less than ash. Even the molecular traces vanished, consumed by flames that operated on Law principles rather than chemistry.
Within seconds, no evidence of Rowan Valen's death remained in the cabin.
Second: inventory assessment.
Nova turned his attention to Aldric's spatial ring, examining its contents more carefully now.
Attack techniques—dozens of jade slips containing methods from Yellow tier to Supreme tier. Movement techniques that allowed flight, teleportation, and dimensional shifting. Defensive techniques including barrier formations and body-tempering methods. Auxiliary techniques for alchemy, formation crafting, soul manipulation, and more.
Alchemy manuals detailing pills that could extend life, enhance cultivation and comprehension, or even resurrect the recently dead.
A jade slip containing coordinates and access methods for Aldric's hidden cultivation abode.
Various treasures whose purpose Nova didn't immediately understand—strange crystalline formations, metallic spheres that pulsed with energy, vials of liquid that existed in impossible colors.
The Physique Extraction Disc—the blood-red jade that had nearly been used on Nova. He examined it carefully, understanding its function through the memories he'd extracted. A tool for stealing bloodlines and constitutions, created by an Immortal Ascension expert. Incredibly valuable and incredibly dangerous.
But disappointingly, no cultivation resources. No spirit stones, no pills, no medicinal herbs. The ring that should have contained centuries of accumulated wealth was empty of anything immediately useful for advancement.
The memories explained why: Aldric had burned through everything trying to keep his damaged soul alive after his failed breakthrough. Resources that could have sustained a sect for generations had been consumed just to maintain existence for a few centuries.
Nova set the ring aside with a slight frown. He'd hoped for immediate resources to fuel his cultivation. But at least Aldric's hidden abode should contain something useful.
Looks like I'll be taking a trip soon, Nova thought.
But first, he had work to do.
Nova settled back into meditation, but this time with a new focus. Aldric's memories contained five Laws at peak comprehension—Shadow, Death, Soul, Poison, and Blood. Each one represented centuries of refinement and understanding.
That knowledge was now stored in Nova's memory, but it wasn't truly his yet. He needed to process it, integrate it, make it his own comprehension rather than just copied information.
He could activate Infinite Comprehension and master all five Laws in hours. But again, he chose the slow approach. Let his natural processing power work through the knowledge organically. Let his understanding deepen through genuine effort rather than multiplied shortcuts.
It would take time. Days and weeks, probably. But it would be real growth.
Nova closed his eyes and dove into Shadow Law first, examining Aldric's peak-level comprehension of darkness, concealment, and the spaces between light.
Outside his cabin, the night deepened. The sect slept, unaware that one of their supervisors had died attempting assassination.
And in his small quarters, Nova Solis cultivated steadily, his soul strengthened by his first real combat, his knowledge expanded by centuries of stolen comprehension.
The path of cultivation was long. But he was finally walking it properly.
One step at a time.