Thick clouds blanketed the night sky. My palace of ice glowed in the darkness on a hill of frozen death. The fire inside cracked in a random rhythm, attempting to soothe my soul. Instead, it bit at my back while I sat in passive cultivation.

The remainder of my day, leading me to this moment, was delicious and uneventful. I cooked and ate a wolfbear steak. It was as tasty as the rumors suggested. The meat was tender and juicy, and the flavor was rich. It was so good I cooked up another two steaks and devoured them with the same culinary enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I had no supporting side dishes or a proper drink to accompany my fine meal. Still, eating the wolfbear was the peak of my excitement.

The beasts never returned, and I have yet to sense or hear their presence. Maybe they thought night would give them an advantage. They might even be waiting for me to fall asleep.

I didn't feel safe enough to fall asleep or meditate—that left cultivation. Water coursed through my channels, pulling and purifying mana. The mana entered my cores, rolling like a gentle wave, ever pushing against its barriers. The more mana I added the more intense the pressure in my core became. It was vital that I shaped it and filled my new layer with mana if I wanted to grow. One thing I believed Tenty about was that I needed more power.

The thought of pursuing power brought a sad smile, and I chuckled. I had stopped chasing power a long time ago. Power only led to pain and hurt. As a failing merchant, I was quite content as a high-rank rook. I'd been burned enough by the path. Then, a royal pain—

The fragmented glimpse of Lana entering my shack of a store brought back too much pain. I banished the memory and forced my focus elsewhere. I was now a knight-ranked lancer. A budding knight… sure. It was still a tremendous feat, one that was usually cause for celebration. I was at the apex of the lancer stage.

Being a knight wasn't just a title. I felt powerful. My snow globe was thick and durable. I could freeze the ground several yards around me. My ice arrows were solid and potent—never had my glancing blows frozen enlightened beings so quickly. I could now traverse my ice fields with speed and ease. Summoned fog could conceal me. Before, my mana felt secondary to my skills. That was quickly changing as I grew more accustomed to my strength.

I continued to passively cultivate as I looked over at my pile of dull-white cores and contemplated what to do with all fifty of them. If I was closer to a town I could use them for resources. Besides my bow, all my other gear was damaged. I was fighting in rags and had no physical weapon besides my bow. I could use some physical arrows or short swords. I wouldn't be able to get much. The five thousand credits the cores allotted would only be enough for a couple pieces of armor for my rank. On the other hand, if I wanted to live an easy life, I could probably get by for a year if I was frugal. Combined with shop income, I could stretch it another three years.

I cut the thought off, stopping it from dredging up memories and emotions unsuitable for my circumstances. The easy road was not one of my pathways.

I could refine the cores and turn them into pills; they would be ingested and absorbed into my channels. However, that would take much more time and effort than it was worth. The surrounding mana from the battle was already providing more enrichment than all fifty of these cores combined, leaving me with a few options.

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Cores were essential to powering runes. Flint always yammered on about how he could change the world if he had enough cores and time. The tinker spent more time scheming new ways to include the soul gems into his contraptions than he did anything else. As much as our party gave Flint a hard time for his obsession, there was no denying it was impactful. The few years I spent around had earned me some trade secrets. My favorite tinker craft was rune bombs. The secret about rune bombs was they were easy to make and devastating to use. The last detail was not much of a secret.

I couldn't make my bombs as intricate as the tinker. Flint had years of experience, and even then, he used Lana to enhance the runes further, empowering his scripts with light. He taught me a couple of scripts, which I could only manage due to years of map-making. Even then, my scripting was only ever passable. That was fine for my needs.

A plan started forming as I thought about my next step. Before I could reach the next stage of cultivation, I needed to build a new layer of my soul. Calamari wanted me to pursue the mind path. I wasn't sure I could go further down that path until I reforged my mind—a process I knew very little about, and I didn't trust my parasite for guidance. Spirit cultivation was also foreign to me. I tried to learn what I could about that pathway, but the nobles hoarded the knowledge like it was a secret cache of wealth. The scarcity of knowledge about spirit paths conveniently let the nobles charge an exorbitant amount of credits for their training. I wasn't confident in my current knowledge to follow the spirit cultivation.

The pathways of the body were agility, strength, and endurance. I'd already developed my agility to rank two. Much of that training came in my youth running through the Kuokoa's forests, where I pretended to hunt beasts with—

Again, I suppressed memories of another life. They say time heals all. I was still waiting for time to fulfill its end of the bargain. I know my head was a mess. Suppress, forget, and move on… that was my training, and that's what I've known.

Strength and endurance pathways were straightforward. Get strong. Get hurt. Survive. Then repeat. My one rank in strength was because of that very practice with a sword. Drill after tireless drill. Basic training as an Alderian conscripted could be summed up as swing, block, parry, and repeat. It wasn't surprising the body pathways were known as 'the path of the people'. Anyone could cultivate the body. They just had to act. Hence, armies filled up to the brim with commoner classes—warriors, hunters, and berserkers.

It took effort to suppress body pathways if one did not desire to follow that path. I would no longer be suppressing myself. I would no longer be suppressing mine.

I left my ice palace one more time for the night to collect the needed supplies. I unthawed four frozen wolfbears and used a knife of ice to remove their pelts. The sharp blade and my practiced hands made short work of the task. I left the stripped bodies behind and glided back to my dome. Once inside, I laid out two hides, adding a soft carpet to my home. I created a poncho for protection from the third and used a bit of the fourth to make four crude pouches.

Get strong, get hurt, survive—simple, effective cultivation. As twisted as it was, cultivators gained essences faster when they were killing. I had plenty of justification for my actions and recited them over in my mind while preparing.

One by one, I scratched my scripts into the runes and added them to my pouches. When the wolfbears returned, I'd have pockets full of surprises for them. I claimed no high grounds tonight.