Looking at his stats, intelligence stood out like a sore thumb. The average stat in this world was 10, and his intelligence soared over 200, which put him ahead of most people. Stats could be increased either by doing something to raise them yourself, or by using free points gained from leveling up. To increase strength you would lift weights, endurance would be jogging, intelligence would be reading books and expanding your knowledge, and was a measure of how much you knew and how well you could apply it. His intelligence being that high was most likely due to the fact that two of the five him were in some kind of college, with the Earth Slye being almost done his degree, giving him a lot of knowledge. The Cultivating Slye also had a perfect memory, which was something his new body inherited, giving him lots of points because his knowledge-recalling ability must have seen a tremendous increase due to it. There were some other factors, but having a combined lifetime of experience from different worlds gave him a huge boost to intelligence.
Slye could feel the increase too, his mind felt much faster than before, and his thoughts much more clear. His thoughts told him to check his quests, to which he did before he almost forgot.
{Sage Quest}
{Successfully cast a Rank 1 Spell}
{Reward: Access to Beginners Grimoire}
----------------------
[Cultivation Quest]
[Reach Peak Body-Strengthening Realm}
{Reward: 1x Ginseng Chi Pill. 1x Random Martial Art}
Both these quests had something in common, they were the beginner steps in the paths of both being a martial artist and being a magician. To start working with chi as a martial artist, you had to first overcome the Body-Strengthening realm, where you would rid imperfections in your body with chi and give yourself a stable chi base to be able to handle your own chi.
Magicians were almost a step ahead, instead of having to rid their body of imperfections they just had to cycle mana into and out of themselves until they develop a mana base. The problem is you need to cycle mana of your affinity, and most people don't have affinities, or don't know theirs and will be severely injured or die if they even try cycling mana they cant attune to. That is where Affinity-less mana is a cheat, there is said to be only three magicians in existance who ever had it, and each one of them became a great sage or equivalent. It is because people who's mana affinity is affinity-less mana can cycle and use any kind of mana, and myths even say that can turn mana from any element to another. The information on this kind of mana is extremely restricted, if there is even any information at all.
He thought back to his status too, and the fact that he had five class slots. According to everything he knows, every person only has one class. When he thought that, it made sense since his status confirmed he had five beings within him who could think, he was given one class per person he is. Slye still didn't know how to refer to himself, as a person or a collective. Maybe a collective of himself? A self contained hive-mind?
Hunger pain snapped him back to reality. It has been days since he has eaten, and he has been lying behind a dumpster in some dank alley, its a miracle he didn't end up dying (again). He should go back home, he could smell the garbage all over himself and he could tell that if we even tried entering the school grounds how he currently was, he would probably end up in jail for the night.
The school he went to was some prestigious rich school, it's what his parents saved for and what their life insurance was set to pay for after they died. They knew being hunters was a dangerous job, and they cared a lot about their son even if they couldn't see him much and that was their way to keep him safe in case they were gone. It just sucks he couldn't get on-campus housing, so he has to take shady porting jobs to pay his own rent.
It was luckily only a ten minute walk to his apartment through the high-rise buildings plastered with advertisements, neon signs, and spray paint. Not many people had horrible reactions to him, impoverished people weren't exactly uncommon but seeing a student walking through crowds covered in filth did cause some people to stare.
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Slye got to his apartment, it was in a less-than stellar area than town, and when he reached the front door he punched in the code to unlock the door and walked into the apartment. Going up to floor three, he got to his door and took the keys out of his jacket and went inside. It was exactly as he left it, nothing out of place and it barely looked like he was gone for more than a couple hours. The first thing he did was take off his jacket and hang it up, then he walked over to the fridge and opened it.
"Fuck" was all he thought seeing the inside of the fridge. The day he almost died was also grocery day, all he had left in the fridge was a quarter gallon of milk and a green onion. He took the green onion and ended up taking one of his last packs of instant ramen and used the onion to give the ramen a gourmet twist. He almost smiled at his joke while eating, the green onion almost added no flavor and it was as bland as it usually was. It was atleast enough to stop his stomachs incessant rumbling, so the threw the styrofoam noodle cup into the garbage and threw his clothes into the laundry basket.
Slye grabbed a bath robe out of the closet and took a shower. He came out and put the bathrobe on before looking at himself in the mirror. He didn't look exactly like how he did before, his face was a little more defined and he looked more handsome than he did before. He looked like a mix of all of the hims and his hair became a long and silky black.
Slye stopped admiring himself and took the laundry and a couple coins down to the laundromat, he was still in his robe but didn't care since most people wouldn't judge him anyway. He inserted his laundry, then his coin, and closed his eyes. With the instincts of his past life, he started meditating and focusing on chi around him. Feeling the chi around him, Slye could tell this body had a long way to go, it clearly hasn't seen chi before and had a hard time seeing it, like it was obscured by a thick layer of fog. What was surprising was that this world even had chi at all, Slye subconsciously thought that this world would most likely be devoid of chi and mana in place of the system everyone had by default, but it seemed like at least chi coexisted with the system here.
Green Lotus Cultivation given to him by the system was implanted in his mind, and he would most likely use it later but in martial arts the body-strengthening was the same for everyone. It was hard to specialize your technique when you couldn't handle chi, after all. Almost in a trance, Slye started the beginner steps for anyone on the cultivation path, he just breathed slowly in and out. Being able to sense chi was the beginner stage of body-strengthening stage. Next was intermediate-tier, and It would take a while but if you meditated and breathed while sensing the chi, slowly more and more would start entering and exiting your body with every breath. The late stage was when you learned how to control the chi within you and used it to get rid of all the imperfections within yourself.
Imperfections was a broad term, but it just meant any injuries, scars, or negative chi that was held within your body. It was also popular since you could modify your own body becoming a few inches taller, more muscly, etc, etc, if you became proficient enough with moving your inner chi. Once you were out of body-strengthening, it was impossible to do any more changed without help of specialized techniques from that point forward though, so a few people who invested heavily into vanity would take a little longer in that stage figuring out how to make themselves look best.
The fog in his chi sensing started becoming thinner slightly, and Slye was taken out of his meditation by the beeping of the laundry machine. He slowly opened his eyes and saw that someone else was in the laundromat, despite it being around one or two am. What startled him more was the fact that she was wearing the same uniform as the school he went to, and she didn't have any laundry with her.
Slye turned his back and started loading his laundry into the dryer when he heard her say in a strict tone, "Are you done yet?".
"Done? With what?" he replied to her, without even turning around to see her.
"Oh I don't know, your deep breathing, your laundry, skipping school? any of that ring a bell?." She said, in a meaner tone than before. Slye recognized her, she was the class president and was also the girlfriend of the bully who kept beating the shit out of him.
"What's your problem? Maybe if your boyfriend didn't try killing me I would be in school, I'll be there tomorrow so just leave me alone. I don't want salt rubbed in my wounds after I was left to die for a couple days." he replied in a stricter tone.
Frustrated, she replied "I'm the class president and it was left to me to give you a warning for skipping school, I had to come down to your poor neighborhood and this is how you treat me? No wonder you have no friends, and just wait till Bruce hears about how you are treating me.".
Bruce was the bully, and at this point Slye didn't really care for him. From today on he was a new person. Maybe not a new person but he didn't feel like having that conversation with himself again. Slye didn't reply and was met by her leaving the laundromat stomping all the way.
Starting the dryer, Slye saw the clock that said 12:30, it was past midnight and school usually started around 9. It was going to be a sleepless night if he wanted to make it, but honestly what would one more missed day be? One more droplet doesn't make a difference in a rainstorm.