The Pathfinder AI was not lying about the pain. If anything, it hadn’t warned Alistair enough.
Alistair writhed in agony on some kind of ground. He didn’t know, because his eyes were closed. His mouth was open, though, and letting out guttural screams of pain.
He could hear the sounds of notifications popping up, but he didn’t have any strength to pay attention to that. There was only pain.
It made sense—if the difference between his foundations, his fundamental attestation on the Akashic Records, was that large, the system needed to adjust him to the new standard. That meant changing his body, mind, and soul from the inside out.
After what felt like an eternity, the agony subsided. Alistair let out a few deep breaths of air and opened his eyes. He was lying flat on the ground, looking up at the sun.
Getting to his feet, he took a look at his surroundings. He was on top of the white mountain that he and Oliver climbed, which corresponded to his last location before entering.
But before doing anything else, he had to look at the notifications.
> Achievement: Dao Node (I) (Dao of the Fist) — Second Deepening. Splits Kai’tazake Mutra into three - Tranquil Mind, Infinite Arsenal, Black Impermanence. Reward: +85 Agility, +75 Strength, Adds Spiritual Fighter’s Echo to all base strikes.
>
> WARNING: Previous save corrupted. [ERROR 920] // Pinging new changes. Ping complete—stats updated // End ERROR. Complete.
>
> Notice - Due to difference between registered stats and current bodily function, the following changes have been made to your stats (Second Deepening of Fist Node bonus added to second number):
>
> Previous Strength: 340 -> 500 (+11 added to base)
>
> Previous Agility: 723 -> 867 (-10 subtracted from base)
>
> Previous Constitution: 266 -> 319 (+30 added to base)
>
> Previous Endurance: 353 -> 362 (+5 added to base)
>
> Previous Intelligence: 503 -> 503
>
> Previous Wisdom: 318 -> 318
>
> Previous Charisma 501 -> 501
>
> Quest Complete: [Ultimate Skill]. Rewards: Tier 5 Expert Skill [Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva Judgment], Arcana (III) Achievement.
>
> [Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva Judgment] (Tier 5 Expert Skill): Forged from a pure heart, multitudinous hands of almighty justice rain down from the avatar of a Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara avatar. Formed of primary force and secondary lightning affinity Mana, wrapped in an exterior of Karmic energy that rends Fate itself, this is the wrath cast upon and final seal unto those who defile goodness—beware those of wicked hearts. Mana Cost: 650. Cooldown: 24 hours. Upgradeable (0/1000).
>
> Achievement Upgraded: (Arcana III) — NOTICE: As user has already acquired Arcana II before completing this Quest, user shall received reduced rewards of Arcana III. An ultimate move to absolutely defeat your foes. Reward: 150 Upgrade Points.
>
> Skill Upgraded: [Fighter’s Instinct] (Tier 5 Beginner Passive Skill): Become preternaturally aware of bodily threats. Scales with Agility. Upgradeable (140/300).
>
> Skill Acquired: [Steel Body] (Untiered Expert Passive Skill): Trained in the vaunted ways of the Silver Comet Sect, infused with the essence of an Adamantine Eggrock, having passed the Final Trial of purgatorial flames, let all attacks be naught before one's steel skin. Negates the Mana-related impact of Skills by 30%, up to a certain point (does not affect nue or Dao). (Special Upgrade Function).
Alistair took a second to register all the rewards he had reaped from his time in the Holy Ravine.
Starting off was the unsurprising deepening of his Fist Node. Given his ventures into understanding the principles of martial arts, he would have been a little peeved if there had been no recognition for his efforts.
The stats were nice, but the more interesting part was the splitting of Kai’tazake Mutra into three. As a profligate user of the ability, Alistair innately understood what had changed. Before, the Kai’tazake Mutra came in three stages.
The Mutra was, or formed an image inside his head—Alistair wasn’t quite sure of the causal link. The image was of a tranquil ocean underneath an infinite array of knives, with the red lips of death in between. Fluid, then still. Soft, then hard. The Kiss of Death. Alistair had repeated this mantra in the face of death and survived every time with its help.
While it wasn’t precisely a problem, Alistair had found it interesting how the Mutra worked as successive stages. Each stage subsumed the last. While going deeper in the stages still kept some of the effects of the earlier, they were primarily focused on their own thing.
For example, in the third and final stage, the kiss of death, Alistair became a killing machine intent on sending his enemies to the afterlife. But this came at the loss of some of his panoply of moves, and some of his tranquility.
The issue was that the kiss of death was by far the strongest. On its own, that seemed strange to say, but it made sense when you looked at it as the loss of versatility. When facing a strong opponent, Alistair always wanted to fight at its his strongest. Therefore, he was forced to use the kiss of death stage, since it far surpassed the others, even when accounting for compatibility.
But what if the ocean of tranquility was a better counter? Or if he was just in a better mood for that one? He would be suppressing himself to use that instead of the kiss of death, due to the sheer power differential.
Now, all that changed. The Kai’tazake Mutra was properly in three states—Tranquil Mind, Infinite Arsenal, and Black Impermanence. Each with their own focus, strengths, and goals. This came at the slight loss of adaptability, but he was willing to give that up. Like when he traded [Mana Strike] for four individual Skills, sometimes specialization was the way to go.
Each state was slightly stronger than the old kiss of death, and tailored all in its own specialty. Alistair smiled as he imagined rapidly switching in between states while fighting two enemies.
Also, with the Dao Node’s Second Deepening, came refinement. Tranquil Mind became complete peace with the world and detachment from earthly desires, granting inhuman reaction times and automatic movement—a souped up version of the Tranquil Mind he achieved in the Holy Ravine. Unlimited Arsenal increased the variety of techniques beyond all reasonable notions, borrowing from Zenaitsu Morogoni’s knowledge. Black Impermanence connected to his sense of justice and aims to right wrong, opening up a path to lethality in his mind against the evils of the multiverse.
Speaking of added lethality, that wasn’t the only special effect of his Second Deepening. Alistair felt out what Spiritual Fighter’s Echo meant, striking a nearby rock. A half second later, a ghostly coral afterimage struck once again.
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Remarkable, Alistair noted. It’s like a second attack of only the Dao. It only contained around 15% of the strength of his normal blows, but that would add up over time. Plus, he reasoned it would be much more effective against spiritual entities.
He did a couple more tests, seeing if he could modulate the afterimage's power. The answer was kind of—the default state was on, but he could focus and stop it from happening. However, it drew from his Fist Node, albeit very efficiently. Also, it only applied to attacks where he wasn't using a Skill. When he tested [Force Fist], there was no ghostly second punch.
“Dev’rox, you better not betray me now that I have this Skill,” he teased.
Next, Alistair moved on to the stats. After accounting for both the Second Deepening and reallocation, he stood almost 400 attribute points higher than before. Since he already had 3,000 before, it wasn’t an enormous difference—more interesting were the changes themselves.
He had never seen anything like that before. A decrease to Agility, sizable increases to Strength and Constitution, and a decent increase to Endurance. The result of his training with the Silver Comet Sect laid before his eyes. Still, his Constitution wasn’t anywhere close to Alexandra’s. Extracurricular training could only get you so far.
Alistair also knew this was a one-time affair. You couldn’t permanently train in suppressed regions to gain power. That was obvious. The only reason that it worked was because of his lacking foundations. Simply put, the talented scions of the multiverse who received inheritances and natal abilities had already established their powers within the Akashic Records and the Dao. He was playing catch-up, not getting ahead.
Moving on to greener pastures, he had completed the [Ultimate Skill] Quest. It wasn’t entirely what he was expecting, to be honest. Based on his bout of inspiration against Dragonus, he had thought it would be similar, an almighty chop that rendered the world in twain.
Instead, based on the description, he summoned an Buddhist avatar that rained down palms of justice on his foes. It seemed derived more from his earlier twelve-pronged [Force Fist] barrage that had barreled Dragonus deep into the ground. From the thousand within the name, he surmised it could also act as more of an area of effect attack. While he initially worried about its effectiveness against high-level foes, it would be an efficient way to deal with large groups of enemies, something that he didn’t necessarily have before.
The Skill didn’t include ice affinity Mana like his big karate chop had, or blood affinity Mana, but that made sense—those affinities were centered around his ghostly Dao, whereas recently he had been buffing up his fist Dao.
Speaking of Dao, Alistair could tell that he would hampered by his current imbalance. While it was only a Second Deepening in the Fist Node compared to a First Widening and First Deepening to his other Nodes, his foundations were remolded in the Fist versus those other Dao.
He would have to rectify that later—as to how, he had no clue. It wasn’t as if he could magically produce insights into the Dao of the Ghost or the Dao of Justice.
Also, a whole one thousand Upgrade Points to bring the Skill from Tier 5 to 6? That would take forever. Hopefully, it also meant that it was stupidly powerful.
Alistair quickly worked through the two remaining notifications. He put his 150 Upgrade Points into “Deliverance of Justice”, bringing the total up to 440/500. Close to the major tipping point that he believed was Tier 4 for the Badge. What awaited him on the other side of that upgrade, Alistair was excited for.
[Fighter’s Instinct] going up to Tier 5 was nice as well. Alistair’s ability to sense threats was already possibly his highest percentile ability compared to all other beings on the planet—this only added to that lead. His danger sense, aura sense, life force detection, smell, Karmic vision, and his sensitivity to demonic presence were literally almost too much information.
Finally, he moved onto the last notification. The addition of the [Steel Body] Passive Skill. Alistair was elated to see that the torture he underwent to acquire the Steel Body hadn't gone to waste. There wasn't a direct analogue for the effects of the Steel Body in terms of a Foundation realm, but this was as close as it came. [Steel Body] would protect him from the riffraff, who didn't have that much Dao energy or Mana.
The (Special Upgrade Function) where normally he would see Upgradeable made sense; he hadn't obtained the Skill in normal way in the first place, so Upgrade Points didn't help it. He probably would need to return to the Silver Comet Sect after they had fully unlocked their heritage to bring that Skill up.
At first glance, it the Skill appeared utterly broken, but Alistair knew that was an illusion. As one went higher through the realms, the Dao started mattering more and more. Already, an attack of his like [Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva Judgment] was heavily based in the Dao.
“Are you done yet?” Oliver asked. “I’ve been waiting here in the cold for like five minutes, man.”
Alistair jolted to reality, realizing he must have looked somewhat like a madman with his gleeful smile. “Sorry, I was getting a hold of all my changes.”
“Lucky you, all I got was a measly 50 attribute points. Why couldn’t we have found a dead world or a necromantic crypt?”
Alistair chuckled. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Alistair breathed in the bountiful Mana. It suffused the air. With every breath he took, ambient Mana flooded his system, where his soulcore filtered it into the proper types he needed. He remembered all those months ago when he first summited the mountain, how he had thought the Mana was so thin at the top.
Compared to being inside the Holy Ravine, it was like being drowned in the stuff. The Dao too—oh how Alistair missed the Dao. His Dao Nodes found communion with their multiversal source. Sufficient meaning and boundless truth once again permeated the world.
Alistair even tried feeling his nue. His use of [Draconic Roar] let him perceive the mental energy far better. Whereas Mana felt tangible and full of energy, Dao energy spiritual and transcendent, nue was like the concentrated force of one’s will. It felt like a shadow of himself, malleable and almost alive.
He couldn’t do anything with it sans [Draconic Roar]. It was slightly weird that the system didn’t offer more opportunities in that regard.
Alistair almost felt like they were purposefully downplaying nue to focus more on Dao energy and Mana. Was nue somehow weaker in the grand scheme of the multiverse? What even was nue in relation to the others, and how did Karma fit into that balance? He was so full to the brim with questions, questions that he might be able to get answers for now that he was free from the confines of the Holy Ravine.
He loved those people, he really did, but the valley itself was very limiting. Case in point, how could he have forgotten how good the raw strength coursing through his cells felt?
Every atom in his body felt unshakably strong. The injuries he had sustained in his fight against Brutus were already knitting themselves closed. Even his teeth. Alistair swallowed a Tier 2 Health Pill to speed that process up.
I’ll never get sick of this for as long as I live, Alistair thought. The beauty of a cultivator’s body was neverending.
First things first. Alistair touched the ground and activated [Lightning of Justice]. The clouds parted for the golden bolt of lightning, striking the summit of the white mountain. He dusted off the snow off his outfit, only to see Oliver staring at him.
“Woah,” Oliver said, pointing at Alistair. “Where’d you get that?”
Alistair looked down. It looked as if the Pathfinder AI had come in clutch. His request was granted.
All he had asked for was for a cosmetic makeover for his Mammothskin Raiment. Nothing so greedy, really, not like he was begging for extra stats. His puffy coat was now a sleek white jacket. Minimalist in design, Alistair hadn’t expressed any specific concept to the Herald, but it apparently knew Earth clothing styles to enough of a degree to give him some drip.
There were two designs on his updated coat—one was the tri-colored fist emblem on both the back and front. At least—he assumed it was tri-colored—the effects of the Mana Storms hadn’t gone away.
There was the small insignia over his heart—hopefully outlined in black and tripartite in gold, coral, and blue. Underneath the insignia was a chengyu, a four character Chinese idiom. 世外桃源—meaning an idyllic land that was a retreat from all conflict, a utopic paradise.
It could also have a double edged meaning—like the western concept of utopia being “no place,” the Peach Blossom Land had an interpretation as an unrealistic dream. That made it all the better. Idealism in the face of inexorable reality was Alistair’s Dao Path.
“I asked the Pathfinder AI for a makeover. You talk to it too?”
“Yeah, but it booted me out after ten seconds. Guess I’m not interesting enough for it.”
“It gave me some disturbing news,” Alistair said. “But that’s for another time. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“And the stormchasing mission?” Oliver asked.
“If my calculations are correct, then we’re already past the first wave. And onto the second.”
Alistair was about to open his freehold information page to assess the situation when he felt the release of a monumentous amount of Dao energy. It came from several kilometers away, but the force behind it was so powerful that the pulses in the Dao rippled all the way over to Alistair and Oliver’s location.
“Is that who I think it is?” Oliver cycled death affinity Mana throughout his body, creating a deadly layer of pure finality that corrupted anyone who dared attack him at close range.
“Alexandra,” Alistair confirmed. “The Dao of Karma too. We better hurry. Jump on my back.”
“Wha—”
Alistair grabbed Oliver before he had time to react, cycling his own Mana to block against the deathly aura. He wasn’t the biggest fan of heights, but sometimes, you had to go for it. Without looking down, he jumped off the peak of the mountain.