Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Slowly but surely, Mira made her way back to the Outer Court. Fortunately, she wasn't too far away after that battle. Thus, she was able to make it there in about an hour or so.

Walking through the Outer Court, she got many stares as she was drenched in blood, and anyone with eyes could tell she was severely injured. However, nobody stopped to help her. This was partly due to the Outer Court's competitive environment but also because everyone was busy with their own things.

The Outer Court is no place for the weak, and that's something that the older members preach along with the Elders of the Sect. It's not a place for making friends or having a good time. It's a place for creating warriors! Although teamwork can be important, as a whole, anyone in the Outer Court is nothing but canon fodder in times of war.

Sure, there'll be times when those in the Outer Court will have to go on team missions or learn how to cooperate together, but individual strength will always be more important.

As the saying goes, a team is only as strong as the weakest link, and the Outer Court strives to weed out those kinds of people.

That's why, although many people felt like the right thing to do would be to help heal Mira, they kept it to themselves. They understood that Mira needed to overcome this herself.

However, there's one more, very simple reason why nobody wanted to help Mira.

She looked way too scary right now!

Those crimson eyes, clothes, and tails covered in blood, mangled limbs, and the savage aura radiating around her made her seem like a demon straight out of hell! What sort of crazy person would help her? She's too scary!

Mira just ignored all the stares and slowly made her way back home. Luckily, when she reached the valley, her subordinates noticed her and immediately brought Mira to her cave mansion.

Maria, who was sitting in the bedroom cultivating, immediately sensed that something was wrong!

She nearly had a heart attack when she came out and saw the state Mira was in!

"Mira!! What in the world happened?! No, wait! Forget that! Let me heal you!"

Maria rushed over to Mira, gently picked her up, and carried her into a room that Maria transformed into an infirmary while Mira was out doing missions. She had a feeling that they'd be needing something like this, but she just didn't expect them to need it so soon.

After being laid down on a soft mattress, Maria immediately began using the [Transcnedent Restoration-Earthly Invigoration] technique. That, combined with Mira's natural high natural recovery rate, allowed her to heal extremely quickly.

Unfortunately, due to Mira's severe injuries along with her strong body and overwhelming strength compared to her cultivation, it'll take Maria about a day or so to fully heal Mira.

However, neither of them were sad about this. Just take Asami as an example. It took her nearly a full year to naturally heal from her injuries, and some of them weren't even as bad as Mira's!

Granted, she doesn't have a special bloodline or technique that can boost her recovery rate, and she was also unconscious for half of that time. This time definitely could've been sped up should she have any pills that could help heal her or if she was conscious for the first six months, but it still took her almost an entire year to heal nonetheless.

This just goes to show how powerful Maria's new Light Qi and Healing Technique is. Though, Mira also speculated that part of her quick recovery speed is also attributed to the Phoenix blood running through her veins after she broke through.

Although she doesn't have a Phoenix Bloodline, it seems her bloodline did take on some of the characteristics of  Phoenix.

***

A day later, Mira was sitting in her bed with all the books she received from Elder Sandra placed in front of her.

Over the last day, Mira turned in her mission along with a few other missions that she inadvertently completed and received 6 Merit Points.

She also told Maria everything that happened yesterday, though there's not really much either of them can do there except getting stronger.

Mira also asked Maria to go do missions over the next few days and to also find Celaine. She was going to use them as sparring partners to help get used to and learn more about her powers.

For now, though, Mira wanted to learn a bit more about the Cultivation World.

The first book Mira started with was called [Mortal Cultivation Realms]. Just like the name implies, it's a book about all the Mortal Cultivation Realms.

The first three Realms, the [Body Tempering], [Qi Condensation], and [Foundation] Realms, are all relatively straightforward.

In the [Body Tempering Realm], one has to prepare the body by strengthening it to allow Qi to be collected in the body without bursting apart.

In the [Qi Condensation Realm], one has to absorb Qi into their meridians while constantly condensing for 9 stages. Doing so will allow the body to acclimate to having a higher density of Qi inside it while simultaneously strengthening it.

The [Foundation Realm] is similar to the [Qi Condensation Realm], except that instead of absorbing Qi into one's meridians, one has to absorb Qi and spread it out equally throughout the rest of one's body.

It's this Realm that truly separates the talented and hardworking from the lazy because there isn't exactly a set standard for when one should break through to the [Core Formation Realm]. While each person might have a different limit for how much Qi their body can store, you don't actually have to reach that limit to breakthrough into the [Core Formation Realm].

As long as you go through the necessary steps to break through the Stages in the [Foundation Realm], then you can break through to the [Core Formation Realm]… supposedly.

Fortunately, when Mira, Maria, and Celaine broke through to the [Core Formation Realm], their bodies were at the absolute limit of what they could handle in the [Foundation Realm].

Just as the name implies, the [Foundation Realm] sets a foundation for what your cultivation journey will be built on. Then, in the [Core Formation Realm], you try and bring this foundation to its fullest potential.

Although oddly enough, the [Core Formation Realm] isn't too different than the [Foundation Realm]. However, instead of collecting and condensing Qi equally throughout your body, you only do it inside your Core.

However, there are still a few differences that separate the [Core Formation Realm] from the [Foundation Realm], all of which come from the Core.

One's Core is essentially a materialization of one's foundation. Using a Core Formation Recipe can help increase the depth of this foundation if used correctly while also adding other benefits as well.

It's this foundation that sets a limit to how far you can rise in the cultivation world. If you didn't spend enough time or resources deepening your Foundation, then you'll eventually reach a bottleneck that is impossible to cross no matter what kind of treasures you have.

The reason being?

Your Core won't be able to handle the pressure of the Qi needed to breakthrough. The density of Qi inside your Core will be too much for it to handle, and it'll burst apart, causing all of your cultivation to go down the drain.

This is why so many people in the cultivation world preach about deepening one's foundation because it's literally your potential!

The next 5 Realms after those are the [Nascent Soul Realm], [Soul Transformation Realm], [Mortal Shedding Realm], [Divine Sea Realm], and the [Ascension Realm] or otherwise known as the [Immortal Ascension Realm].

According to the book Mira was reading, these Realms are essentially there to help set the foundation for when you try ascending to immortality. This is because an Immortal isn't as simple as just someone who is capable of living forever. No, those classified as 'immortals', are higher forms of life.

They are superior to mortals in every way possible. In fact, calling them gods instead wouldn't be that much of an exaggeration.

The book doesn't go into much detail as to why these Realms are necessary to breakthrough, much to Mira's disappointment. But it made sense.

Fortunately, it did go into some details for each Realm. For example, the [Nascent Soul Realm] is about turning the ever-elusive soul into something tangible and then making it stronger.

The [Soul Transformation Realm] is about turning your soul into a personification of your 'path', whatever that means, and further refining it through the various minor Realms. Mira didn't quite understand this one, but she wasn't too bothered by this.

The [Mortal Shedding Realm] is all about, well, shedding your mortal shell and prepping your body for its 'Ascension'. The book didn't go into a whole lot of detail about this Realm except that during this stage, your appearance will transform back into its peak form.

For example, if an old and decrepit-looking person went through the stages of the [Mortal Shedding Realm], they'd turn back from an old person to someone who barely looked a day over 20. Doing this will help bring out your full potential.

As for the [Divine Sea Realm] and the [Ascension Realm], there was hardly anything written about them in the book, but Mira wasn't too surprised by this. In fact, Mira had some serious doubts as to whether the Battle Maiden Sect even had someone at the Ascension Realm.

This book seemed to be made based on first-hand experience along with testimonies of other cultivators, so it's only natural that information on the two highest Realms in the Mortal World wouldn't be recorded in some book that any Elder of the Sect can get their hands on.

All this information was great and helped broaden Mira's horizons. However, what truly surprised Mira was the last paragraph in the book.

It talked about how these Realms are more like guidelines. While one needs to go through these Realms in order to Ascend, that doesn't mean that everyone will go through them equally or the same.

One's understanding, cultivation technique, bloodline, physique, Dao, affinity, and more all play into one's cultivation path.

This surprised Mira as it made her think about her own path and how different it would be compared to others.