Kevin slid his empty plate aside, pulled his campus map out, and stared down at it in consternation. The thought had struck him halfway through his meal, and it had been all he could do to finish before confirming the issue.
Once again, the problem was travel time.
Using the Earth aspected courtyard to cultivate all afternoon sounded great, except that it was even further away than the Fire version. It was far to the east, almost across the entire sect.
Kevin narrowed his eyes as he traced a circular path between the two courtyards. He’d seen this layout before. Continuing around the edge of the sect confirmed his suspicions; when you took them as a whole, the public cultivation areas formed the generative cycle around the main buildings of the sect.
Was there any significance to that? He couldn’t tell for sure, nor did it particularly matter. The issue remained that it would take him about forty minutes to walk all the way to the Earth courtyard.
Twice the distance of the Fire courtyard; that would significantly lower the time he was planning to gain by completing multiple cycles in one go. It all came back to time. While he might be free for the next few days, after that, it would become a critical resource.
And even now, it wasn’t like he wanted to waste any. Now that he had a working cultivation practice, he could feel the progress towards the next grade racing ahead. Just the results from this morning had pushed him a good way forward.
If he could keep practicing at speed, hitting the fourth grade before classes began was well within reach. His schedule was supposed to show up in a few days, and it was Thursday already.
Assuming he’d get it on the weekend, with classes starting Monday, that gave him three and a half days to focus purely on his cultivation. That a further grade, requiring more energy than the last, was within reach in such a short period felt incredible.
Already, the long weeks and months of slow progress in Ostale felt far behind him, yet the increasing Qi requirements of the coming grades threatened to bring it back. However fast his current progress felt, he needed to speed it up even further.
With a sigh, Kevin stood and slipped out of the building. Thinking on the way would at least make that dead time somewhat useful.
There were three key weak points in his current practice that were slowing him down. First was his limited ability to manage Fire Qi. If he could cultivate that endlessly, he’d race ahead.
Second was the speed of his Spiritual Void technique. No matter how much time he managed to cut out of the energy gathering portion, he’d still be slow if the second half of a cycle always took an hour.
Third was the travel time to his two different courtyard options. With that in play, even their incredibly rich energies struggled to exceed his ability when just cultivating in his room.
Progressing in any of those areas would show significant improvements, and if he could work on them all, who knows how fast he’d be able to progress?
While his logical side insisted that his progress so far had been more than solid, it was hard to have come all this way and still be so far behind. Walking through the sect like this only drove the point home harder.
Everywhere he looked there was a more powerful cultivator flashing off to some task. Some were nothing but a Qi-fueled blur, while others simply sprinted around with their superior physiques.
Kevin stumbled as if struck, gaping at the sheer simplicity of the solution staring him in the face. Why didn’t he just run to wherever he was going? Everyone else was sprinting around like a video game character, so why not copy them?
It was such a foreign idea. Another cultural shock that hadn’t filtered through his brain until this moment. Back home, people looked at you oddly if you moved faster than a power walk on your way to a destination.
Unless you were jogging in the park or on a street in the early morning or night, most people considered sprinting around to be rude and inconvenient. Even in Ostale, most people seemed happy to casually stroll around.
But here in the sect, running around seemed almost expected. Casting his mind back, the only time he’d seen a walking disciple was when they were deep in conversation. Even then, you saw some of the more advanced cultivators sprinting around in small groups, laughing and exchanging quips despite their speed.
He might not have any fancy movement techniques yet, but he was in the best shape of his life between months of outdoor work and the boosts from his advancement. Sprinting the whole way might be impossible, but a fast jog could still halve his travel time.
Chuckling at the world he now lived in, Kevin pumped his legs harder, speeding up with each stride. Reaching his regular jogging speed from before he’d become ill was nearly effortless.
An exhilarated grin spread across his face as he leaned further into the motion, accelerating until he was almost sprinting. Immortality might be the goal of his cultivation, but he had to admit the benefits along the way were incredible.
His stride hadn’t even shifted to a full sprint, yet he had to have exceeded eight miles an hour.
It was the same effect where high-realm cultivators could walk faster than his eyes could track. Qi amplified every movement, pushing them beyond what should be possible. He wasn’t at that level yet, but he could still see the first hints of that mystery in his own movements.
The trip passed in a blur, and Kevin soon skidded to a stop at a metal railing. A gaping chasm lay beyond, a circular hole extending at least five hundred feet in diameter. With raised eyebrows, Kevin looked out, spotting the island of stone in the center.
A massive pillar rose from the shadowy depths, a narrow wood and rope bridge extending to meet it. A series of figures sat atop it, forming a familiar spiral. This was the Earth cultivation courtyard?
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Both the edges of the chasm and the pillar were too even to be natural, and each bore marks that might be from a chisel. Had this been cut as part of some massive quarry, with the middle left for cultivation?
Faint echoes sounded from the depths, perhaps only audible because of his cultivator hearing, and on the far side of the chasm, past the cultivator pillar, a huge wooden lift clung to the artificial cliff.
This was far beyond what he’d expected to find while still within the sect's walls. The massive stone buildings made the need for such a quarry clear but didn’t explain why they’d incorporate it into a cultivation area.
Surely, it required more work to keep the central pillar intact than to dig the whole thing out; It had to be a hundred feet in diameter. That was quite an obstacle to drag loads of stone around.
Could cutting into the mountain release Earth Qi? If it was a free way to generate a cultivation environment while producing the building materials they needed, the entire setup made a little more sense.
As with the fire courtyard, the sect was probably getting two benefits for the price of one, even if this was a lot more out there than the charcoal mound. Still, he couldn’t argue that it would be an epic place to cultivate.
Kevin’s lips were already quirking into a smile when he checked his pocket watch, but they blossomed into a full grin as he saw the time. It only took sixteen minutes to make it all the way from his dorm building, less than half the time he’d expected.
To think there was such a simple solution to one of his problems. If only the others were as easy. Then again, they very well might be. It wasn’t like he’d checked yet.
There could easily be a pill or technique to better manage Fire Qi in his Sealed Land. It didn’t feel like something he should experiment with, but he had that checkup with Dr. Vaughan next week.
It might not be quite the man’s specialty, but if he didn’t know a solution, he’d likely know who to ask. If he was lucky, he might only need a pill he could access with his credit.
Then there was the spiritual void. For all he knew, that was just a matter of practice; he’d never had enough spare energy for it to be safe to push harder. And if that didn’t work, he could always check the library for a better technique when he had the merit to spare.
There was plenty to look into, but that was for later. For now, it was time to get some cultivation in.
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After a quick trip across the surprisingly solid bridge, Kevin settled into the next open position on top of the giant pillar. Energy flowed around him in the rough strength and composition he expected.
Like the previous courtyard, the spot he settled in had access to energy about four times the amount in his apartment. He was a similar range from the center, and the energy was about seventy percent Earth Qi to thirty percent Metal, give or take a few percent either way.
Starting a timer on his pocket watch, Kevin settled into his first round of cultivation. After a quick check of his body’s Qi levels, he moved straight into activating his energy gathering tattoo.
The formation lattice formed as expected and began filtering Metal from Earth. The process was faster with a generic mixture of energy but still slower than in the Fire courtyard.
At times, the flow would stutter out entirely as the formation vented excess Metal Qi, while at others, it flowed for minutes without interruption. By the time he’d filled his reserves, Kevin’s timer read eleven minutes.
Still some five and a half times faster than cultivating in his apartment, but half the speed of using the Fire courtyard. If that was the only issue at stake, his ability to keep going through multiple cycles would win out over both.
It might beat his home hands down, but different travel times and the boost from using Fire Qi made the calculation a lot more difficult. He’d have to do the math once he was finished.
For now, he moved on to the spiritual void component. For this first attempt, it wouldn’t make sense to push the method any harder than usual. He needed to get a baseline first to accurately guage any improvements.
With pure Earth Qi now floating throughout his body, the process was smoother than it had ever been before. The slightest hint of emptiness in his sealed land was enough to begin sucking in Qi.
More than anything, it felt like the energy was happy to be drawn inside as if welcoming its new home. The feeling was night and day compared to the resistance he’d encountered with Fire Qi.
Easier it might be, however, that didn’t seem to translate to that much of a natural speed increase. When it was all over, Kevin opened his eyes with a relaxed sigh to a time of fifty-five minutes.
Ten percent was still a solid improvement for having done nothing, but it was the pure ease that was the real joy. Instead of a mentally taxing exercise, using the spiritual void on pure Earth Qi felt almost like a relaxing nap.
His mounting progress felt amazing as well. While he might not get any extra Qi from degrading Fire energy, another full cycle still pushed the energy levels in his sealed land forward at a rapid pace. At this rate, it felt like he’d reach the fourth grade in eight or nine more cycles.
That should easily be accomplished before classes begin; hell, he should be well on his way to the fifth grade by then. The resources of a top sect really were on a whole other level.
A small water fountain sat by the entrance bridge, and Kevin took enough of a break to drink his fill before settling back down. He hadn’t caught the exact starting time of the gathering from Gerard, the man might not even have known at that point, but he couldn’t imagine it would begin before six.
Everyone was still getting settled into the sect, and from what he’d seen, cultivators lived pretty hectic lives. So, if he planned to be back by then, that gave him a maximum of three more hours to cultivate.
Or less if he wanted to get a shower and a change of cloths first. Two more cycles should take just over two and a half hours, which would fit perfectly. Three cycles had been his rough estimate to make the travel time worth it, in any case, and with that cut-down, it would be even better.
His second pass at gathering energy was almost identical to the first. No amount of extra focus or willpower caused any change in his tattoo’s rate of energy absorption. That wasn’t much of a surprise with it being an external effect, but it was worth a try.
The second round of the spiritual void, however, saw progress. This time, Kevin pushed himself to take the visualization to the next level. Acting as if he was still dealing with difficult Fire Qi, he dragged his existing energy stores deep into the canyons that dotted his sealed land.
Then, he focused on compacting the energy even more before turning his attention to the vacuum created above. Instead of letting it form naturally, as he always had before, he bent his intention and willpower toward its formation.
It was a more draining experience than his previous easy cultivation, but the results spoke for themselves. From fifty-five minutes on his casual attempt, he dragged the process down to forty-nine minutes.
Just over another ten percent improvement. It was a great start, even if he figured that it was mostly taking advantage of the lowest-hanging avenues of improvement. Cutting the time down further would likely be a lot more effort.
In total, the change brought his full cycle time down from seventy-seven minutes to seventy-one minutes.
That gave him an even larger buffer to make it back, though not enough for another cycle. Perhaps he could try for something shorter? Or… perhaps there was an even better use for the time.
A considering check of his sealed land found the last of the Fire Qi long burned out. Running back by way of the Fire courtyard would add some fifteen minutes or so to his time, but the benefits would be worth it.
If nothing else, he was eager to see if he could achieve similar speed improvements to his spiritual void without the easy-mode effect of pure Earth Qi. Further, he’d get more Qi overall.
And, it would be an excellent test to see if he could fit multiple Fire Qi sessions in by splitting them up during the day. If so, a morning and an evening session split around either classes or further Earth Qi cultivation could be the basis for his future schedule.
Grinning, Kevin checked his map for a direct route before turning to leave. One last cultivation session, then the gathering.
He just had to figure out if he wanted to fade into the background or make some waves to see who else might be like-minded.