"Dammit," Issei muttered. It had already been four months since he had entered the second level of the Nascent Profound Realm, and he was still far from getting stronger.

Normal people would normally take 2-3 months to get past a level on the Nascent Profound Realm, but not Issei. Issei was a rather special case. He would need, at the bare minimum, forty months of non-stop cultivation to step into the third level of the Nascent Profound Realm.

If it was limited to only that, it wouldn't be too pressing of a matter. However, there was something even more troubling. After calculating a little, he discovered that in the Elementary Profound Realm, by each level he increased, the amount required would increase by twenty-fold. It would always be twenty.

After reaching the Nascent Profound Realm, it seemed that it started increasing by forty-fold each level, which meant that if his theory was correct, he would need more sixteen hundred months to reach the forth level of the Nascent Profound Realm. That was more than one hundred and thirty years!

Although he had the bonus of three hundred years because of his Grim Reaper's Mark, he would only be able to reach the fourth level at the end, because it would take fifty three thousand years to reach the fifth level!

That number... it was simply inconceivable! At that moment, Issei had three choices. The first was to give up on the path of cultivation. Needless to say, there was no way he was going to choose that.

The second choice was to change his Cultivation Skill to a higher level one, but it was probably impossible. That was because even the Jiang Dynasty, the strongest power by far of the country most powerful Cultivation Skill was only rank 4!

And, finally, there was the third option, which was to use cultivation resources. Cultivation resources were things like plants, pills and medicines that could greatly increase one's Spiritual Power.

"Seems like I'll have to get myself some cultivation resources, huh?" muttered Issei as he stopped cultivating and left his room. Throughout the four months that he had spent cultivating, Shinso had provided him some cultivation resources. Strangely enough, when using them, the progress that he would make was leaps and bounds above normal cultivation. As such, he had begun using them.

There is a rule among cultivators that is to not make use of too much cultivation resources continuously. It's said that the body would get too used to it and the person would end up becoming stuck in the later levels, with no means to increase their cultivation.

Sadly, it was Issei's only option. Even if he did get stuck, he decided that he would get the strongest he could!

After walking around a little, he reached Shinso's study. After knocking three times, he entered it.

"Oh, Issei!" Exclaimed Shinso as he looked up from some papers he was working in. "You came at just the right time!"

"Hm?" Issei muttered, his head slightly falling to the right side as looked at Shinso puzzledly.

"I have found a way to solve your cultivation problem!" exclaimed Shinso as he passed the paper he was examining on to Issei.

After picking up the paper, he couldn't help but to be surprised. It was an invitation to a tournament. Apparently, all the great powers, schools, cities and sects of the Azure Province were invited over to it.

"Shinso?" asked Issei, still confused. Although he was extremely smart, with so little information, even he couldn't figure how that would help him.

Seeing Issei's expression, Shinso began explaining, "You see, there is tournament that happens once every two years! To it, the greatest powers of the Azure Province are invited. Normally, my city wouldn't be, but I'm an old friend of the person who hosts the tournament, so he always invite me. I have been refusing him for thirty years, but he keeps inviting me!

Now, that's not the important part. As you know, the cultivation resources of this city are scarce, and won't be able to help you. Even I don't have many, since in my entire life I would always focus on Cultivation Skills.

But, it just so happens that there is a school in the Azure Province that meets our criteria, the Heavenly Might School!"

"Meets our criteria?" asked Issei puzzledly. He had long since entered sharp mode. "Do you mean that they have large amounts of cultivation resources?"

Shinso then shook his head, "Yes, but it's even better. They have a rather special policy. They would only give their disciples an extremely low amount of cultivation resources every year. In turn, they would give almost all of theirs to a single disciple. That disciple is obviously the one with most talent."

Upon hearing to that point, Issei had already figured it out. He wasn't devilishly sharp for anything. "So, I'm assuming that this school will participate in the tournament, right?"

"Yes," nodded Shinso, a smile on his face. It was obvious to him that Issei had already figured it out.

"And that I should also put on a show there to catch their attention and have me invite me to their school, right?"

Once again, Shinso nodded.

"Once there, since I caught their attention, I would already start at a high position. Then, I would slowly climb my way to the best disciple and then use their cultivation resources?"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Shinso excitedly. Even after these four months of living with Issei, he still couldn't get over how smart that the six years old and a half kid was! He was able to actually figure all that out so quickly and with so few information!

"But, you know that I can't fight, right?" continued Issei, "I don't know a single Martial Skill, since I have spent my entire time or cultivating or learning about this world..."

Shinso once more nodded his head, "That's true, you can't fight." He begun, "But it's not like that you are participating in this exact tournament. It happens once every two years. I plan on having you participating four years from now, once you have reached ten. You'll also spend these four years continuously learning techniques."

"I see..." It really did sound reasonable, but Issei still found some flaws, "But, aren't I only on the second level of the Nascent Profound Realm? By that time, I would be, at most, on the third level. I don't think that's enough to put on a show."

And that, Shinso could help but to snore. "Issei, at that time you'll be only ten. Most of the participants will be around sixteen-eighteen. Furthermore, the powers wouldn't send their strongest disciple and at most their weakest core disciple. They obviously don't want to reveal their true strength to others!

Since they are only weak core disciples, they should be around the middle or later levels of the Nascent Realms. The chance of people from the True Profound Realm is really low!

Now, remember that because of your Profound System, the quality and amount of your Spiritual Power is much higher than people of your level. On the third level of the Nascent Realm, your Spiritual Power should be as strong as someone from the around the seventh level of the Nascent Realm.

And, there is even more. The ability in which you can comprehend Martial Skills is otherworldly. If you spend the next four years continuously training and learning Martial Skills, people of the tenth level of Nascent Realm shouldn't be a match to you.

Finally, your age will be lower by at least six years than all participants, but will still probably be above them in power. That will definitely catch their eyes!"

As Issei listened to all of that, he couldn't help but to be grateful to Shinso deep within his heart. It could be seen that he had truly put a lot of thought into that matter.

"So, what do you say?" asked Shinso, wanting to know Issei's opinion.

"Yes!" happily exclaimed Issei. The idea was undoubtedly the best chance he had at becoming stronger. To say the truth, Issei didn't really care about the act of becoming stronger itself. What he wanted was to make Shinso proud of him, and it seemed that being strong fitted the bill!

"Perfect!" exclaimed Shinso excitedly as he got up from his chair, went to one of the shelves and got various scrolls from it. After handing them to Issei, he said, "These are all Martial Skills of ranks between 1 and 2. Sadly, this are the only Martial Skills that I can give you, since all my other ones are specifically for vampires. Cultivate only to replenish your energy! Focus your entire time on mastering these!"

Issei then nodded, took them, thanked Shinso and went to practice in his room. Just as Shinso said, all of them were either rank 1 or rank 2 Martial Skills. Thinking about Shinso's other skills, Issei felt sad.

Most of Shinso's powerful Martial Skills could only be practiced by vampires. According to Shinso, he is from another continent that had vampires in them. These skills were from his home land and were specific to vampires. As such, only vampires could use them.

After studying more about this world, Issei learned that all of the inhabitants of the Profound Sky Continent were humans. It seemed like all the two other races, the vampires and the elves had countries specific to their own. Shinso was probably the only non-human cultivation in the continent!

He had also learned that there were various schools in the continent dedicated to teaching martial arts. They were usually clans, sects or schools. All of their disciples were divided in levels. The levels were the same, no matter in which place they were.

The lowest level of Disciples would be the Outer Disciples. These disciples normally had extremely low talent, was assigned the most chores and had little help from the school. After that, there were the inner disciples. Inner disciples were people with talent and had some future as cultivators. They would receive much more help than outer disciples, and would not have to do chores.

Lastly, there was the last level, the core disciples. Core disciples were the disciples with peerless talent within the clan. They had an extremely high standing, could treat inner and outer disciples as servants and had a lot of help from the school.

Obviously, within schools, there were areas separated to each level of disciples, as such, they wouldn't mingle with each other. Also, schools would regularly hold tests for disciples so they increase their ranks.

As such, it was possible to start out as an outer disciple and climb up all the way to a core disciple.

During the match four years from now, Issei would be facing the weakest core disciples of the sects, but he still needed to be wary of them. As such, he devoted himself to cultivation.

Not surprisingly, Issei quickly learned all the skills that Shinso had handed him. After that, he started practicing them individually and then tried out combos. After getting rather skilled, Shinso had him battle the other servants to increase his battle experience.

Just like that, three and a half went by.

Issei was ten years old and one month at the moment. He was sitting on his room, replenishing his Spiritual Power. After all this time, he had managed to reach the third level of the Nascent Profound Realm while not cultivating much due to constant use of cultivation resources.

During this four years, Issei grew taller. He was now only slightly smaller than a ten years old kid. Strangely enough, even after training a lot, Issei's body didn't appear sturdy. In fact, his skin was soft and he looked rather feminine. That was simply something that Issei could do nothing about. If Issei was to be described, handsome wouldn't be the words. It would be either beautiful or cute. If he were to wear a dress, he could easily pass as a beautiful young girl.

Even with all that, Issei didn't really mind. He couldn't really care less if he was handsome or beautiful. To him, how the outside world viewed him didn't really matter. In fact, because of his delicate appearance, people would underestimate him, which Issei liked a lot.

In a battle, the best thing you can hope for is to be underestimated. The enemy would unconsciously lower their guard, and at that moment one could strike the fatal blow.

During this four years, Issei also learned Shinso's personal hand to hand combat, how to incorporate his Martial Skills into it and also learned battle strategies. Issei also had quick reflex, and coupled with his extremely sharp mind, he was perfect for fighting!

At that moment, he had one objective in mind. He would show off as much as he could, specially to the Heavenly Might School! He was determined to gain their attention and to enter the school!

"Issei? Are you ready?" Shinso asked from the outside. "The carriage is already here!"

"Coming!" Exclaimed Issei as he got down from his bed and opened the door. He then entered the carriage with Shinso.

On the way, Issei's hear couldn't help but to beat in an elevated speed. When fighting with the servants, they were going easy on him and it was only sparing. Soon, he would be seriously fighting! Although Issei was a person who would have it's emotion brought forth easily, the prospect of a battle was just to appealing!

"Well," Issei muttered, his face serious, on sharp mode, but still excited, "Time to see how strong these core disciples are!"