Months passed, Anton wasted little time before starting to teach Tevial more about the cultivation world. From different types of cultivators and the differences between the orthodox and the unorthodox paths.
Especially about the grim existence of qi beasts. No one really knows how they came to be, but theories suggest that they were heaven's way to cull cultivators out of the world.
Since their appearance had only been recorded since the emergence of cultivators. The more cultivators there are popping up in the world, the more animals evolve into qi beasts that hunt down cultivators.
And as cultivators reached higher and greater realms Qi beasts follow suit, never a step behind. This created a cycle of a never-ending war between nature and man.
At some point, when a certain number of cultivators gather around in a certain place. Beast tides would inevitably occur.
They are like the white blood cells of the world, and heaven’s will is the immune system that protects its body from the cancerous cells that are the cultivators.
Shaking his head at thought, his knowledge from earth had given him a different perspective of this new world.
Unlike the innovative people of earth, the people of this Qi world had given up on the natural sciences. The greatest of minds here have their full attention focused on cultivating.
Who cares about making lives easier for mortals? If they could instead dedicate their thoughts and wills in creating techniques or improving them to give their self or group an edge over other cultivators.
The only purpose of a mortal is to breed and survive, and if they are lucky, one of their kids will have an aptitude for cultivation.
There are two factors that are tested if a mortal could cultivate or not.
Their physical body, and their level of comprehension of understanding techniques.
From time to time, sects and clans come down from the peaks of the mountains to go over the surrounding villages in their territories to absorb some new blood into their group.
Only those above the age of thirteen are tested if they are suitable since anyone younger than that usually haven't fully developed their minds and usually fail the test for comprehending techniques.
As for their physical bodies, it is graded from D to A to determine how well their bodies could handle qi.
D-grade bodies could only refine about 25% of the qi they take in on their bodies and handle just as much. C grade from 26% to 49%. B grade around 50% to 75% and A grade up to 76% to 99%
Meaning, the lower the aptitude, the greater amount of resources they would require to form their core.
Tevial's body only has a D grade aptitude for cultivation. It's one of the reasons why he hadn't started cultivating yet.
Good thing that a physical body's aptitude is not fixed. There are mortal techniques like the ones Tevial is currently practicing to help raise his bodies aptitude and compatibility in cultivating the vital qi.
Unlike Tevial, most D grades will never be able to form their core due to it's low compatibility and lack of resources to gather qi. Either they would fail in forming their core or the qi energy would end up bursting through their seven orifices once it reaches its maximum capacity and they would bleed to death moments after.
This is why mortal techniques are coveted and are only taught to special members of a clan or personal family members of the higher ups in sects.
At his pace and familiarity of his body, it would take around half a year to reach C grade physical aptitude, which should be enough to allow him form his core without danger once he had gathered enough qi and around 3 years to reach B grade with some basic concoctions he could brew to help in speeding up the process.
As for reaching A grade, with his current strength. Even though he knows some treasures and pill formulas to concoct that could help reach that level he isn't strong enough to gather them.
Good thing he has Anton to help with some of that. It would probably only require half the time he needs to advance his aptitude to B grade with his resources to help compared to if it was only Tevial working on raising his aptitude.
He had to cultivate at least the third realm before he could confidently move around the mountain.
5 years. That was his limit for preparing his mortal body before trying to form his core. A year after that, a beast tide would occur that would sweep over boar meat village and where his Master, Anton would die.
For now, there was still a lot of leeway for Tevial in spending his time. At this point in his previous life, Tevial was still mucking about the stall as Anton's apprentice as a butcher.
It would be only after a year or so before Anton would have actually accepted him as his disciple and start passing down his techniques and ideologies of his own path of cultivation.
Being a year ahead, he had a bit more leisure time to think through and interact with the villagers. He had some plans for a few if them in the near future.
Walking through the dirt road that cut through the middle of the village, Tevial waited for the expected trade caravan to arrive along with a gaggle of other youths with starry eyes, that have excitement clear in their eyes.
It was always a big event for the village since it is one of the few exciting things they could be happy about in their mortal lives.
Traveling is dangerous and it is more so, for mortals. Even if qi beasts generally ignore the whole mortal population. Regular wild animals, especially those descended from qi beasts have no qualms in eating and killing mortals for food.
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So trade caravans are rarely just manned by just mortals. Cultivators are a staple need for caravans for protection.
These ventures are also spearheaded by either sects or clans that make trade with one another's specialty goods. These caravans also regularly make stops at villages like theirs to resupply their rations for the journey.
Around Tevial, the villagers are starting to form a crowd. Trade caravans only pass around twice a year so people try to take advantage of this as much as they can.
It was also an opportunity for Tevial. He may not be a cultivator but it took little strength to swipe some coins from unsecured purses.
And who would expect Tevial, Anton's apprentice to steal? He was living well enough compared to most people in the village. And there’s little to suspect about his motives.
Everyone was already aware of his position, news and gossip pass through small villages like theirs quite fast given that almost everyone knows everybody.
And it was not like Anton had kept it a secret.
"Their coming!"
"Move aside, I want to see the cultivators"
"I wonder if there's going to be a testing today?"
These are just some of the mutterings of the crowd. Most were there to browse for goods, some were hopefuls that want to impress the clan cultivators somehow to take them in as servants and possibly raise them up into cultivators of their own.
A few are merchants or merchants-to-be who are planning to join in the caravan and possibly make some living in the larger villages or even towns closer to the clan territories.
There are also some youths that plan to join the caravan to migrate to other villages for one reason or another. No matter, their lapse in awareness was Tevial’s opportunity to pocket a piece of qi stone or two to add to his collection.
“Hail!” One of the watchman’s at the village's gate shouted.
“It seems like this year's caravan is headed by the Woodward and Weaver clans.” An elder said as the gates were opened, and different carts that waved flags sewn with crests appeared.
It was a medium-sized caravan, a quite rare occurrence for something that big to stop by at a small village like theirs. But it seems that there was something that had occurred during its expedition.
There were signs that their journey wasn’t as peaceful as they would have liked. Some scarred cultivators here and there and some patchwork is done to some of the carts to fix some broken of broken wood and such.
“Where is the village chief?” One of the caravan crew asked, “Master Abbott is a known healer and we have need of his services”
A servant came out from the crowd, “Chief Abbott is still at the village hall”
“What are you waiting for? Call for him, we have some wounded that needs healing” The person barked turning back to his group among the caravaneers and issuing some orders.
The people under this person started setting up camp in one of the empty lots with their wounded members carefully carried out from one of the carts. Other than their group, the mortal merchants also took this opportunity to set up shop, laying out some of the wares they are willing to sell.
Tevial took this as his queue to stop flitting between the villagers and head towards one of the guards of the caravan.
“Hello mister, Master Anton had tasked me to pass this letter to one of the caravan masters, he has some good quality rations for sale!”
“Let me take a look at that” The man snatched the paper from Tevial’s hands, reading it before nodding his head. “I’ll take this up to one of the masters. Stay here for now”
Nodding his head, Tevial stood and waited as the guard walked away and let his eyes wander over the wares the merchants were selling near him.
No way… Tevial thought as his eyes glinted.
A seemingly normal black egg-shaped rock was being sold by one of the mortal merchants along with a variety of useless trinkets and toys. If his suspicions were correct, that seemingly useless but pretty piece of rock is an artifact called Silent Darkstone Egg.
It's not a literal egg but its shape gave it its characteristic name. He'd seen it at the hands of a powerful qi master once before. It allows its user to emit an egg-shaped field around them that isolates all sounds and blends the user under the darkness turning them nigh imperceptible to the eyes. Not only that but this artifact could even hide itself from the senses of stronger cultivators.
And with only the strongest of the caravan seemingly at the initial stage of the fourth realm, no wonder it hasn't been taken yet. Tevial eyed it greedily before taking off.
Artifacts are basically condensed forms of the natural laws of nature, or as others call it, daos. They could appear anywhere and come in multitudes of forms.
Not all artifacts are formed equal. They rank from one to nine, corresponding with the nine realms of cultivation. Rank 1 to 5 are mortal artifacts and could be found in multitudes in different and unique places.
With the right environment and materials, one could even create an environment for them to appear on their own if they are willing to bear the expense.
But unlike mortal artifacts, immortal artifacts, those reaching rank 6 and above are unique, they could not be replicated by any other unless the original has been destroyed. The reason for this is only immortals could uplift a mortal artifact into an immortal one.
By incorporating their own dao and path into the mortal artifact, they could transform it into a new and unique item of their own. This is why no two artifacts are the same. Even if two immortals uplifted the same mortal artifact into an immortal rank, their abilities and forms would always be different.
“Hello Beautiful Miss!” Tevial said to the woman sitting behind her blanket of goods. “I would like this, this and this, please” Pointing to a couple of random trinkets and toys including the egg-shaped artifact and gathered them into a pile.
“Hi, young one, you sure did pick up some good stuff. Where are your parents?” The middle-aged woman asked as she looked around.
“They’re not here anymore, Beautiful lady. My master had only tasked me here to send a letter for the caravan masters” He said sadly, “I want to give my master a gift for taking me in”
“I just want to show my gratefulness to him for taking me in when my parents disappeared” Tevial sighed to himself. Doing his best impression of puppy-dog eyes to the woman.
“You know I can’t give those for free even if you want them. An old lady like myself does have to make a living else I won't have anything to eat” She said jokingly.
Tevial nodded earnestly before fishing out a fistful of small qi stones, a meager amount gave the size of his hands. “What can I buy with this much, beautiful miss”
“Sigh, With that amount you won’t even be able to buy one of the trinkets with that pile that you’ve gathered over there.” The woman said but Tevial sneered inside. Miser old woman, I should be able to at least buy two or three of your useless trinkets with what I have in my hands.
“But since you are such a filial child to your master, I'll give you a discount. I’ll let you pick one of the things in that pile with what you have, and I’ll even gift you one for free!” She added, giving off an innocent smile and a pleasant aura.
“Thank you very much, beautiful lady! Here!” Tevial said as he passed the qi stones to the merchant then picked up a paper lantern and the stone egg. He was cheated for one item but that didn’t matter to Tevial. What was most important was to check if the stone egg is exactly what he had thought it was. If it is, even if he had to pay with every small qi stone he had, he wouldn’t even bat an eye.
As he took his new gains, he stuffed them in a sack and went back to wait for the guard. It didn’t take him too long in his wait, as the man went back with a couple of mortal servants.
“Bring them to your master, they’ll be bringing back the goods after checking them out.” The man said to Tevial.
Tevial only nodded before leading back leading the trio of servants to Anton. There was no rush to look at the other goods the other merchants were selling. Even if they didn’t have what he wanted, he had already gained so much more if his assumption is true.
And the caravan would most likely stay for a few more days before moving on given the state of their wounded.
Tevial had time.