It was not very long after the fighting ended when the village elder invited us both to his home. The village elder is an old man about 60/70 years old which the rest of the villagers think of as a leader. He said that he wanted to thank us because if not for us they will all be dead.
Looking for information, I of course agreed, but the white robed man said he had to go.
Before leaving I asked the white robed man what was his name, he said he was called tang xian. I told him my name which is Leo, he nodded and went away.
This is some story line material I thought and made a notice on this man in my mind.
Anyway, right now I am sitting on a wooden chair inside the house of the village elder, he told me to wait and that he will come shortly with food.
"I'm sorry you had to wait young hero"
The elder gets into the room with a tray holding some food and tea.
"I am sorry for not being able to give you much, but as you can see we do not have much for ourselves. Without food our villa…-"
"Stop" he seemed to be afraid, probably think I will do something if I get nothing in return.
"There is no need to give me anything. Actually, I can't remember much, only parts from here and then. I think I lost my memories for some reason, all I really want is some information and a place to sleep until tomorrow"
What I learned from playing games, not only the witcher, is that if you give up a prize at one point it will surely return to you later but bigger and better.
"Of course that’s the least we could give you. Young hero, do you still remember your name?"
"Yes, my name is Leo but that is all I can remember. Before we eat, can you tell me the name of this area? Maybe I will remember something?"
"Yes, of course. This is one of the many an unnamed villages in the outskirts of the xelos kingdom. Do xelos kingdom tells you anything?"
I faked a sigh and answered the elder
"Sadly not… may I ask if you recognize those coins?"
I took out some novigradian gold crowns, I wanted to know if I can use them here.
The elder eyes went open for a slight second but he fastly regained his composure
"n-no… I don’t think I've ever seen those coins or sigil. You are probably not from around here."
"Amm ok. Let me ask you another question. Do you know what a witcher is?"
"A witcher? No I do not know what are you talking about, can you perhaps specify?"
Ha, a witcher is sitting right in front of you and even wearing a witcher gear, yet, you do not know what a witcher is… it looks like there are no witchers in this world.
"Witchers are warriors with special powers… you could call it magic. They have signs which are like spells and are stronger than the normal humans."
I choose not to include the 2 swords and the mercenary like behavior since I'm not sure how he will react. The elder thought for a second before answering back. He took a sip of the tea then proceeded to answer.
"Can you be talking about cultivators?"
Cultivators? Are they not some people from Chinese stories? Wait, the white robed man was named tang xian...and his robe too…
"Can you please explain what do you mean by cultivators?"
"Do you not know what cultivators are?" the elder was a bit surprised by my response. Does everyone know what cultivators are around here?
"Cultivators are people who use the energy of the world, qi, to strengthen their own bodies in the way to ascension to immortality. Are you not one?"
"No, why did you think I was one?"
"The fire created out of nothing… and your eyes, they glow…"
"Did you happen to watch our fight?"
"Yes…"
He seemed to be sorry, probably because no one helped us.
"No, sadly I'm not one. By any chance, do you have books on the cultivators you are talking about or a book about the history of this kingdom? I will probably need a map too."
"Yes, I will get it right away."
He went out of the house for a few minutes before returning with 2 books and a scroll.
"This book is some basic information about cultivation, and this one is talking about the kingdom of xelos. Ah I found a map to give you but… it might not be up to date…"
"Its fine, all I want to know is where the closet city is. Did you find a spare place for me to sleep in?"
the elder again relaxed.
He nodded and told me to follow him… in the end we didn’t even eat anything.
Walking around the village I could see bodies of bandits and villagers still laying around. People were crying and mourning on their loved ones who died. Some fires were not even off yet. With a number less than 30 I'm not sure how can this village keep going.
I kept following the elder until we reached a house, the one I will probably sleep in.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"This is the house of a man who died in the bandits hand… I hope you don’t mind?"
He again seemed afraid of my answer, but it's not like I can't deal with a ghost if it appears.
"Its fine I don’t mind it, I will now go to read the books you gave me so if nothing is of importance then don’t mind me. Ok?
"Yes, of course." He said and left me alone.
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Walking into the house I could see a simple wooden bed, chair, and table, the house had nothing special in it. I sat on the bed and took one of the books the elder from before gave me.
The time was late and I could see the sky turning dark so I decided to read the shortest book I had.
The book was like a child story, it was only a few pages long.
"Cultivation"
In the game as long as the language isn’t counted as "forbidden" or "ancient" you could instantly talk and read it. It was made so players moving areas in the game will not have problems understanding and communicating with the npcs. So basically, it was English for me.
..
Page 1:
Qi is the essence of this world, an energy bound to every living things and every corner of this world. Without qi there is no life. Even if a person have only miniature amounts of qi in his body he still have some. In this world there are some people and beasts capable of using this energy, drawing the qi from the heavens and earth to strengthen their own body and reach immortality.
Those man and beasts are called "cultivators."
Page 2:
In the human body there is a limb called "the dantian". The dantian is like a lake that is not filled with water, but qi. To fill the dantian with qi humans need to draw the qi from the heavens and earth through their meridians and finally to their dantian.
Every time the dantian will be filled to a certain amount of qi he will "evolve" by a rank, every rank the dantian will change his capacity and purification ability of the qi that stored in it, every time by small amount
When a cultivator break through 10 ranks, not only his dantian will "evolve" by a large sum and his qi will transform, but the qi he will be able to draw from the surroundings will be a qi of higher level of purification.
The ranks go as such:
Warrior, Halfling, xiantian, master, true warrior, king, emperor, ??? -
There are probably more ranks but they are unknown for this day.
Page 3:
"Simple breathing technique"
The page had 4 pictures:
1: a man sitting in a lotus/meditation position. The picture had nothing else
2: the same man was still there, but now you could see through his body, you could see some blue lines that seemed like veins. It was said that they are the "meridians"
3: the picture showed the same man from picture 2 but with blue aura around his body, some of his veins started to glow.
4: the same man from picture 2, but now with other veins glowing. Those veins were located near the low abdomen where the dantian, a round crystal like limb was located.
It was actually a Routh, a Routh to lead the qi across your body and to your dantian.
Filled with curiosity, as this might be a new option/power of some sort, I immediately sat cross legged as I was used to in order to regenerate my health. (Witcher thing)
I tried to remember the pictures, and imagined myself as a dry lake and the air as water that flowed in. quickly, I felt the energy the book was talking about. This "qi" was like the energy I feel when I use my signs, but to compare those energys will be like comparing the first plane to a space rocket.
Felling the energy flooding my body I remembered the 3 pictures from page 3. I tried to target and move the energy by the Routh I was seeing in the pictures... but I couldn't. It felt like the energy was blocked, like I tried to move through a door that was not even there.
After 10 minutes I just gave up but that’s when a much unexpected things happened.
The energy moved by itself into the place where my dantian should be. It didn’t follow the Routh I saw in the book but was moving by its own inside my body.
When the energy reached my dantian I felt an explosive powers, like the one released when I drink my potions.
Did I just… breakthrough?
I wasn’t sure If broke through or not but I loved this feeling of explosive power. So I kept meditating, absorbing this energy until morning quickly came and when I broke through to the third level of the warrior stage.
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