Cruising Along in Desolate Era c4

As the tribesmen were arranging things for a journey to the West Prefecture of Ji Clan with all the stuff they rendered from Aquatic Rhino.

Ren was spending time with Mike Tyson—his first disciple.

For now, the teenager is simply showing some basics and checking out if the kid is serious.

He wants the cultivation version of Mike Tyson! It's not some ‘joke’. The gag has to stay strong for a very long time!

For that, he was showing him some boxing moves he recalled; he taught him how to hold hands and deliver the punch.

Ren told him that he would teach the next step once he mastered what he had shown.

The black-haired teen realised that his actual golden finger was knowledge.

While the Nuwa painting is very OP, that thing is just an accelerator, like Nitro to a car.

What actual value is all the stuff he read online, all the thousands of things created by countless people and their imaginations and versions of the myths!

Nuwa’s painting helps him to recall all that stuff, which only amplifies the value of the knowledge. It's like that novel Sovereign of Three Realms. The mc was a nerd who spent all his time in the library in his first life, and then in the second one; he was the mc.

‘Just like that, another trope.’

Ren sighed. He only needs to think, and just like that, he stumbled on a trope.

‘Sadly, I didn't die to be reincarnated. If I did, I would say, ‘I told you so.’ while pointing my finger at the heavens for being cliche!’

‘I guess the Heavens saved themselves from this.’

After thinking about the cliche, Ren walked to the back of the tribe and started to practise his swordsmanship. With his new fascination to become Jiren of the Cultivation world, the teen decided it was time to become genuinely OP!

The idea was to abuse Visualisation arts. Since he has Nuwa’s painting, which is among the top visualisation arts of the whole Desolate Era, he should piggyback on its potency and create bastardised versions for accelerated learning.

For a second, he closed his eyes and allowed the painting to blast its power. All those generating particles rushed into an imaginary sky before creating something like a lotus flower, which shattered into his consciousness.

What he desired was a ‘clear mind’ mode. The inspiration for this was Gundam Seed’s fighting mode S.E.E.D. In this mode, all unnecessary emotions are discarded, and the mind becomes clear for fighting.

But the reason Ren is creating something like this is to stop all unnecessary emotions and focus on sheer grind.

Just like that, everything turned blank for the teen as he tried to grind, but he quickly realised that it didn't work, so he tried to recreate the seed mode one more time.

A couple of hours later, he didn't need the painting anymore, only the potency basis. Before long, he created a ‘sea’ and a brown lotus flower. He tried purple and other colours, but it didn't work because he needed his eye colour as eyes are one’s soul's windows.

With all the conditions met, Ren activated the mental trigger, and the lotus flower opened, and his mind indeed went blank.

In this mode, his mental state is accelerated. Everything is processed at a rapid pace and compiled for maximum efficiency.

Once that was done, Ren proceeded to train, and train he did. Every move is analysed and ‘pondered’ upon until the best version is reached.

In his mind, he reread the manuals countless times, and each move is imprinted in his subconscious.

As Ren was training 108 swords of Devils and Gods, his progress was absurd. He put days and weeks into just a couple of hours.

By the time it was time to move, Ren already mastered the mortal rank technique, and he was ready to upgrade to Polaris Secret Manual.

~~~

“...Amazing. What is with that working ethic!? Young Master Ren has been at this for hours upon hours!” Dala and the rest dumbly looked at how the teen was swinging his blade constantly and just getting better and better!

While the tribesmen were dumb bricks who had no idea beyond basics, the snake watching this could only narrow her eyes.

The Azure Skysnake realised that this was something new. She had never seen him use anything like this in his previous training sessions.

Then her eyes widened as she realised something!

‘Did he create a new technique!? Some sort of mental one!?’

For a second, she got excited! Will he teach her!? He should! They have a bond for life! Unless he decides to discard her.  But that should be impossible. He likes to pamper her!

After a while, Ren’s eyes, which were blank for a while, returned to normal as he, for a second, swayed and nearly collapsed.

“Holy… that feeling such an overdrive.” He mumbled as he collapsed on the ground into the lotus position.

Qingqing swiftly crawled to his side and started to hiss excitedly.

“Yes, yes darling, I developed a new technique.” He said that while patting his soul beast.

The hiss only got more intense. The snake didn't expect him to create art like that! It's freaking crazy. Sadly, the snake has no idea that Ren has apex art like Nuwa Painting, while he won't be able to create anything like that painting. He can make cheaper variations of visualisation art.

Though even if it's ‘cheaper’, such art would still quickly help him to reach something like Celestial Immortal. After all, this art is auxiliary emotion control and focuses on training or fighting.

“Now come, darling~” He motioned for her to grab his hand.

As he walked to the group of tribesmen, he pondered what he learned. He shouldn't move on from 108 Swords of Demons and Gods.

Just because he mastered it doesn't mean he fully understood everything. This style is intended for one to reach ‘One with Sword’.

Swordsmanship Dao.

‘I still need to get a footwork art. ‘One with the world’ could allow me to stand on water like a ninja.’

Ren just found a reason why he should destroy a sect or a clan! For a footwork art!

“Young Master Ren! Everything is ready! We can leave!” Dala said to the teen.

“Sure, Mike is coming along. I will be instructing him.” He said to the burly man.

“Of course!”

~~~

The journey was quite tedious because of how much stuff they had. There were four wagons of meat and bones, so the speed was relatively slow.

Ren noticed the infamous Ji Clan's black armoured guards. Just seeing how ‘cool’ they were, the teen wanted to be the clan master even more!

The good part is that there are roads which lead to the Western Prefecture. Their ‘convoy’ was almost attacked several times, but Ren quickly sent all the losers packing.

There were no fights. He just revealed his aura. That was enough.

In this journey, Ren understood the true nature of this place. Because of Diremonsters, this place was in a permanent post-apocalyptic state.

The sheer size of this plane doesn't allow proper civilization to exist from one side to another because it's just too big! Because it's so big, the true Overlord Grand Xia can't manage things properly.

Because of that, loose vassalage exists. Because it's not adequately centralised, sects/clans/tribes can quickly cease to exist if proper preparations are done.

Especially when the top 10 superpowers want a clan to cease to exist.

The journey lasted for over a week. At that time, Ren trained his gag character, Mike Tyson. He was so bored that he even instructed Dala and his boys.

It was amazing to watch how, out of 30 men who came with him, 5 became Xiantian Lifeforms!

That's right! They were peak Houtian for years, so all he needed to do was help them circulate Qi and bam. They became Xiantian!

Eventually, they arrived at the city gates, where black guards greeted them.

“Halt! This city is West Prefecture of Ji clan!” Black armoured men were standing guard.

Ren jumped from the wagon and walked over to the guards. His aura roared to life for a short while. The guards instantly became stiff.

“My name is Ren. I am a Zifu Disciple body refiner. I killed Aquatic Rhino, a Xiantian Diremonster, in Eastermount March. I want to sell its parts for gold. Do you know where the best place to do that is?” Ren smoothly asked.

The guards trembled when they heard his cultivation realm!

The thing about the Desolate Era and its cultivation is that many things depend on when you reach Xiantian! If you reach Xiantian at eight, you remain looking like Eight for many years. As rapid ageing only happens at later stages of life.

So when they saw Ren looking sixteen and Xiantian, many of them were thinking one thing: ‘Genius!’.

Sadly, they had no idea that he reached this stage in a very short few moments when he found the manual of body refining based on something like Taoism!

“Disciple Ren! It's an honour! Please follow me. I will show it to you personally, where you can sell Diremonster parts!” The leader of the guard swiftly ordered his men. They were very professional. Ren almost got stars in his eyes. How cool these guys looked. As a nerd for such things, he can barely control himself.

As the wagons entered the city, one of the guards rushed to the Prefecture Lord’s Palace. He needs to tell about a Zifu Disciple visiting the city!

It's a perfect time to befriend such a Genius! After all, a Zifu Disciple is the core power of clans in this part of the world.

~~~

Ji Young, the Prefecture Lord of Western Prefecture, was only a Xiantian Lifeform. So, for a Zifu Disciple to come here made him nervous.

Especially a body refiner. A body refiner could one punch him to death.

Regardless, he decided to see this Zifu Disciple.

When he saw the wagons and the parts, he stopped in his tracks!

‘T-Those are Xiantian lifeforms!? What is this clan!?’ The prefecture Lord was nearly having a panic attack! This caravan has enough firepower to overrun his city!

The old man doesn't even realise that these men are literal fishermen Ren first met! Nothing more, nothing less!

He saw these Xiantian lifeforms carry loads of parts into the shop. Their Qi was evident.

The Prefecture Lord waited until they were done with the transaction.

Once done, he moved to interact.

“Excuse me. I am Ji Young, the Prefecture Lord of the Northern Prefecture of the Ji Clan. May I speak with Disciple Ren?”

The only thing he knows about this Zifu Disciple is he is young and has short black hair and brown eyes.

“That would be me. Prefecture Lord.” The fur-dressed teenager walked over.

‘So young! And— he practises both! Gods! He is a Xiantian Qi refiner AND Zifu Disciple body refiner! What a beast!!!’

For a second, his legs got weak. If this kid gets serious, their clan is doomed!

Their clan prefers Qi Refining and swordsmanship. A body refiner could pulverise them!

“I would like to invite you to visit my Prefecture Palace while you stay in the city.”

Ren didn't even look surprised by the proposal.

“Sure. That sounds nice. My thanks for the invitation, Prefecture Lord.”

Ji Young internally was delighted that Ren wasn't arrogant! In truth, he was pretty humble! That was good!

The old man didn't even realise Ren was respectful because he wanted that ‘Ji’ before his name! Yep! He wants Ji for his family name! He wants to be Jiren!

With a happy nod, The Prefecture Lord proceeded to speak.

“May I ask where you come from originally?”

“Well, I am a traveller, a self-learning one. I stumbled upon Eastermount March, where I killed Aquatic Rhino, tamed Azure Skysnake King and befriended people of the Metalstone tribe.”

Ren narrated his short journey. He already lost to Ji Young in the first part.