Cody couldn’t help but smile as he read the news. He believed he knows why Blaze Guile had challenged Spinning Fist Dojo.

Cody was not naive, he understood that the girl with the high-pitched voice was mostly likely correct. Few cultivators achieved success on the Cultivation Quest without a sponsor and a Ronin like Blaze Guile could not go far. Blaze Guile probably knows that as well.

He may have done well enough on his circuit to qualify for the Mid-Season Conference, but Blaze Guile will need help if he wants to go further. He needs sponsorship and the best way to get it is to be famous. Blaze Guile wanted to put his name out there and defeating the Master of Spinning Fist Dojo was his way to do it. His name was now known, and many potential sponsors will notice that he is a cultivator who is still unaffiliated. Cody may not know much about business, but he knows the ins and outs of Cultivation Quest, and Blaze Guile is now a tempting target for sponsors.

Even if he is unsuccessful in his run, his sponsors will get positive PR just for their association with Blaze Guile. If Blaze Guile is successful at the Mid-Season Conference, the sky’s the limit for the sponsors. Who knows? Blaze Guile may even score a position in a Sect if he plays his cards right.

If Blaze Guile managed that, then it would be great for the sport. Stories like Blaze Guile’s, of a nobody who managed to achieve success through hard work and determination, are what Cultivation Quest is about. Cody glanced around the site some more and came to an unhappy realization.

Every season, Cultivation Quest has a two-month long mid-season break. Officially, this was a time for Wanderers and Masters to pursue additional train or to recover from injuries, but for successful Wanderers, it was also a time of opportunity. The Cultivation League holds a tournament during the break called the Mid-Season Conference and the top fifty Wanderers in each tier are invited to attend.

Although the prize money and cultivation resources for winning the Mid-Season Conference wasn’t as great as the ones on offer at the End-Season Conference, most Wanderers have a great incentive to take part. Wanderers who managed to enter the Top Four of the the Mid-Season Conference automatically qualify for the end season event.

This makes the Mid-Season Conference an attractive tournament as every Wanderer want to qualify for the End-Season Conference where the big prize money and chance for promotion are. In past seasons, some Wanderers who got into the Top Four at the Mid-Season Conference would shut down their run of the circuit and just prepare for the End-Season Conference. The Wanderer would just concentrate on training as it is safer than fighting Masters on the circuit. No Wanderer want to miss the End-Season Conference due to an injury.

With only a week to go before the mid-season break, Blaze Guile would qualify for the Mid-Season Conference but chances of him doing well were low. Cultivation Quest has a list ranking all the Wanderers in each tier. As long as a cultivator had registered with the League to take part, the League would put the cultivator’s name on the list, but the ranking only displayed the top one hundred Wanderers. Under the Silver tier, Blaze Guile’s name was safely located at number twenty- two in North America, but he would struggle to enter the quarterfinals, much less the semis if there are twenty-one better Wanderers in front of him.

Cody felt a jerk and looked up from his transceiver. He glanced to the front of the bus and saw that Luis had placed his hand on the steering wheel of the bus. There was a slight glow on the steering wheel, telltale signs of the transfer of Essence. It was about time to move off.

Unlike with the transceiver, Cody understood how the bus works. Like all cultivation vehicles, the main part of the bus is the Essence Engine. The Essence Engine is the heart of any cultivation vehicle and a driver need to activate the engine by pushing his Essence into the engine via a starting device, usually a starting orb.

Once the vehicle was started, the driver would place his hands on the steering wheel, and a constant flow of Essence would come from the driver to the engine via the steering wheel. As long as there was a flow of Essence, the vehicle could run and the driver could also control the speed of the vehicle via the pedals with higher speed, or sudden braking, requiring more Essence from the driver.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It is a tough job, and the constant drain of Essence makes drivers one of the least desirable jobs out there. Drivers usually leave their shift exhausted, but there are some cultivators who stick to the job for decades. Being a driver is considered good training for cultivators practicing Exhaustion.

Unlike the Accumulation Method which requires a cultivator to draw Essence to overload their meridians, the method of Exhaustion cultivation is the direct opposite. The Exhaustion Method calls for a cultivator to use up all the Essence within their body before filling it up, and exhausting it again in a constant loop. This constant exhaustion of Essence will force the meridians within a cultivator to break open much like how exercise force the body to build muscles most people do not use in daily life.

Exhaustion cultivation is a long and tiring method, but cultivators who practiced it have a good reputation as they are generally acknowledged to be hard workers. However, few cultivators practiced Exhaustion as it is a bit of a time sink, and most only did it if they had no other choice. Some schools don’t even teach it as a method of cultivation. Venspur West High School did, and Cody has as much luck with it as he did with Accumulation.

Despite his lack of success with Exhaustion, Cody had seriously considered driving as a career. There is always a shortage of drivers as few people want a job that leaves them in a state of constant exhausted, but Cody was informed by the company recruiter that he did not have the number of open meridians needed for the job. It tells Cody a lot about his future prospects when his cultivation wasn’t even enough to be a bus driver.

The bus pulled out of the school and Cody turned off his transceiver when he was unable to use the school’s array. Using the open arrays of the city cost money and he had no desire to be wasteful. Cody looked out of the window as the bus travelled down the streets towards the suburbs of Advancetown.

His father told him Advancetown used to be a quaint little town in his day, but there was nothing quaint about it nowadays. The expansion of the suburbs had filled it with chain restaurants, box stores, and shopping centers.

The school bus stopped a few times in Advancetown and several students got off. Kitty was one of them. They did not say anything to each other after the incident, but Kitty did give Cody a nod of thanks before walking off the bus. Not knowing how to react to her, Cody just gave her a nod of acknowledgement. The school bus continued its route and soon left Advancetown behind, onto the road out of Venspur City.

The landscape changed as they left the city behind, and Cody settled into his seat as the sun start to set. He looked out of the bus at the fields and forest they were passing as the sky began to darken with the approach of the evening. Cody wasn’t too worried about the coming darkness. He knew the roads were safe this close to the city.

As the bus drove on, a car would occasionally pass by the other way. Then, a cry came from the other side of the bus. Cody turned and saw a student pointing at the forest. Cody blinked and rubbed his eyes. After confirming that he was not seeing things, his mouth opened revealing his deep shock. He was not alone.

The bus slowed as everyone was staring at the numerous yellowish lights floating among the trees at the edge of the forest. The lights looked like lanterns from a distance, but Cody knew better. The lanterns were Windmore Jellyfish, a minor cultivation monster that was relatively common in these parts of North America. When Essence first erupted through the earth over three thousand years ago, humans were not the only creatures that were changed. The strange energy changed the animals and fauna of the world as well, and the cultivation monsters that appeared caused great destruction and chaos. To this day, there are parts of the Earth where monsters ruled.

Luckily, Windmore Jellyfish were considered harmless. They were slow-moving monsters that glide with the wind and their only offensive power is their illusory tentacles that extend from their umbrella-shaped bells. The tentacles can cause severe pain when they strike someone, but Windmore Jellyfish are highly visible at night as their bells emitted a bright yellow light. Only the blind get caught by them.

Most cultivators just ignore them unless they wish to see the monsters for their beauty. Despite their status as cultivation monsters, Windmore Jellyfish are spectacular-looking monsters. They are beautiful and the forest was now filled by them.

It was a beautiful sight.

Luis continued driving and Cody soon lost sight of the Jellyfishes. Without the monsters, the forests look eerie to Cody. Children were told from young of the dangers that were outside the towns and cities, and Cody often wondered why anyone would want to live in the occasional small farm or house they passed.

Cody sat back down in his seat as the bus turn off the main road and started down a side-road. Before long, the bus drove up a small hill and as it descends on the other side, a small town came into view. The town ahead was small, quaint, and looks almost charming.

Looks can be deceiving.