Ryu gathered a few fruits around the pond and sat down to cultivate. He was excited to try out his new combined cultivating method. It took a week for Ryu to get the basics down. After another week Ryu was cultivating at a rapid pace. He had already reached level 3 in his second reservoirs. His “new” body seemed to be better in every way, he could feel the tiniest changes in his body and inside his reservoirs. Before he had no idea when he leveled up but with all seventeen channels opened up, he could tell easily when it happened.
Ryu decided to focus on his second reservoir first and have it catch up to the first one which was at level fifteen. The main reason was because of the Infinity Tome, it can only use Qi from the second reservoir. Another reason was actually provided by the Soul Fusion manual.
The Soul Fusion manual doesn’t really double the rate of cultivation since the incoming Qi is limited but it lets you decide where cultivated Qi goes. You can divide it evenly between the two reservoirs or focus it all into one. You are able to refine in both reservoirs at the same time though.
I wonder what it feels like to be fused with another beast, is it permanent? If I do fuse with a beast would I have three reservoirs at my disposal? Ryu was extremely curious, unfortunately there was no manuals in Alexis’s possession regarding the actual fusion, there’s only a cultivating one.
The greatest benefit of fusion is that you can use two sets of skill at once! Usually to bring out the full potential of a skill, you’ll have to devote the majority of your Qi reservoir into supporting it. With a second reservoir you can use another skill concurrently! However there is a downside. The cultivation rate is slower obviously. Another is that as long as one reservoir is deleted or damaged, you’ll suffer greatly regardless of the other reservoir. The reservoir can’t interact either, you cannot use the first reservoir to refill or back up the skill powered by the second reservoir.
After a month of training, Ryu had gained a whopping twelve levels! Most people would be ecstatic about this. If you had a cultivation of ten at the age of twelve you would be considered a peerless genius by the majority of people. Even if one were to see it, no one would believe it.
However Ryu had a depressed face for someone with unprecedented cultivation progress. A few levels ago he felt something was wrong within his second reservoir. The refining speed is actually too slow. He noticed that the Qi that is entering the reservoir is been absorbed into the center where an unidentified object was. The Qi that didn’t get sucked there was later refined but right afterwards, a major part of it was absorbed into the unidentified object!
Ryu had no idea what it was until he reached level 10, the Intermediary Domain, for the second reservoir. The foreign object inside his second reservoir actually sprouted like a seed! A small strand of vine with a tiny leaf appeared. Ryu was at first panicking over this. He tried to control a part of Qi inside his reservoir to poke at it but realized an invisible force protects it. Since there’s nothing he can do, he decided to wait and see how it plays out. By Ryu’s estimate half of his raw Qi goes towards the seed and another half of his refined Qi goes there too.
This second reservoir is really mysterious! The first one has always been pure and clean, the color is transparent. The second one is pure golden, it’s as if it’s a sea of gold… Ryu has never seen anyone with a transparent Qi or golden Qi so far.
Even if Ryu encountered an unexpected obstacle during his cultivation, he shouldn’t be discouraged. His overall speed is still many times faster than his previous cultivation rare.
In the second month Ryu experimented eating various fruits with high quality of Qi but unexpectedly he ate one orange peach like fruit that contained a very forceful Qi that’s too dense and made him throw up blood. Ryu didn’t know that eating something with a much superior Qi is deadly to normal people. Due to his superior refining method and the fact that the mysterious seed inside him absorbs half the raw Qi, he had been casually eating fruits that flourished in an extremely dense Qi environment. The usual fruits he eats as his meals are all above level 40. If other people knew, they would die of shock. Any cultivator at the grandmaster stage would give up a finger or two to have just a few of these fruits to help hem advance in levels.
This incident took him a week to recover and he paid more attention to what he ate from then on. As he was recovering Ryu couldn’t cultivate properly so he spent the majority of his time looking through Alexis’s memory crystals. After traversing through a few thousand years of memory, Ryu’s previous naïve attitude was gone. He never knew he lived such a simple and sheltered life before, away from all the greed and corruptions of the outside world.
The number of officials from the Lin Empire that uses Alexis’s organization, the Death Origin, to do evil deeds are over a thousand. The number of people suffering in this province are innumerable. Ryu lived in the eastern side of the province where the middle class resides. The northern part of the province was where the capital is at and the upper class citizens live in luxury. The western and southern part of the province are borders to two aggressive provinces. War for territories happen frequently, the number of people that die from conflicts and starvation is simply unimaginable, and slaves… Ryu was shocked to learn of the slave industry. The number of tragedies that occur in his own province is already countless, forget about the rest of the world.
Ryu subconsciously decided to use his gift for good. All the evildoers in the world will curse Alexis’s and chase him to the depths of hell if they knew that it was because of him, Ryu was inspired to be a hero that will bring salvation to the innocents and carry out justice everywhere he goes.
At the end of the second month, his second Qi reservoir finally caught up to the third. By the end of the third month he had finally broken into the Advanced Domain. The seed inside him grew even larger, more leafs grew out.
For a kid that’s only been around for roughly a decade, this is truly a miracle. Ryu decided to test out this new domain by learning some techniques but to his surprise, it was a hundred times harder for him to learn the fighting techniques than cultivating ones.
His technique training went extremely slow. Unlike controlling Qi, a technique is a mix of Qi control and martial arts. Although his body seems to have been reborn, his reflexes and battle sense are just average. He is able to sense every miniscule thing regarding Qi but… regarding his body it’s a different matter, he can barely reach down to touch his toes! Take away the Qi and Ryu is just an ordinary boy. He can’t achieve the physical demands most of the technique requires. For example, the low level Tai Chi Fist style wants the practitioner to redirect an incoming arrow and throw it back without any Qi.
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Sigh, well I guess it was too good to be true. It’s being a week since he started looking at some techniques but he hasn’t made much progress. He thought by now he would be doing something cool like punching a crater into the earth or splitting a waterfall with a sword strike.
The Fairy Lady and even Alexis said that I had exceptional control over Qi. I don’t have trouble with the Qi utilization part in the techniques but my physical prowess is pathetic... After contemplating for half a day, Ryu made up his mind to focus on Qi based attacks with minimal physical components for now.
The Fairy Lady also told me to understand the concept behind techniques, not just learn them brainlessly. To Ryu, the Fairy Lady is like a goddess. Her words are sacred to him.
By now Ryu could cultivate in his sleep already so he decided to build up his physical stamina by simple exercises such as jogging, pushups and swimming while cultivating his Qi at the same time. Since it takes barely any effort to cultivate, he tried to understand the theory of profound techniques he had chosen to learn from as he exercises.
Another three months passed and Ryu had successfully made it into the Master Domain. His reservoirs almost doubled in size and his Qi feels a lot more condensed than before.
This is incredible! This must be the first step to true cultivation! Ryu could feel the new boundless force within him. The changes were much greater than any level ups he had before. Even the seed inside him had started growing into a small plant. However, the Qi absorbed by the plant is greater than before now.
Previously the Fairy Lady had talked to him about “specialization” skill that one could have per domain starting at the Master Domain. The techniques manuals also talked about it and Ryu realized how significant it was now. You are basically making a pact with your Qi reservoir through a small ritual. Conditions have to be laid proposed and the tougher the conditions, the greater the power that’ll be granted. The nature of the “speculation” skill that’s granted is based on your demands but if they are unreasonable, the ritual will fail and you’ll suffer a devastating recoil. Your own accomplishments will also play a large part at the chances of success.
It’s recommend getting your specialization just before you enter the next domain, if you enter without successfully establishing a speculation then the opportunity is lost forever! Ryu couldn’t help but look forward to his specialization.
With his new cultivation base, Ryu was eager to try out some moves now. He had been itching to practice the Qi elements. Mostly because it’s all Qi based. Inside Alexis’s collection, there were manuals regarding many types of elements and their theories. In fact, compared to technique manuals these were not rare at all. That’s because even if you know the theory behind an element, without affinity and talent you can’t summon it at all.
Ryu found a small open area beside a small creek and summoned the four basic elements at once easily. Not one by one but all four at once! For anyone else it they would’ve only accomplish the same in their dreams. Beside fire, Ryu could borrow the other three from nature which saves him a lot of energy but if needed he could convert his Qi into those elements as well.
During the past few months Ryu has been contemplating on the style of fighting he wanted to master first. Back when Ryu was studying at the Infernal Fist academy, he had spent nearly two years reading about legendary battles between gods, demons, immortals and much more. Nearly all of these stories were inaccurate or fictional but it gave Ryu countless ideas, combined with his creativity he actually decided to create his own style just like how he did with his cultivation.
The first step would be elemental fusions! According to a lightning manual, this is a fusion between air and water elements. The majority of the manual explains how to get the two elements to interact. Ryu had no idea summoning two elements is ridiculously hard so he was confused when the manual says it takes over ten years to produce a spark and if after thirty years there’s no progress then there’s probably no hope of achieving complete fusion.
Since he could already produce electricity, he just glossed over what benefits this fusion has. Besides its devastating range and destructive power, strikes containing lightning Qi can also disrupt an opponent’s Qi. Ryu also wondered if he could use electricity as part of his Qi refining process to purify his own Qi. I’ll try that out later.
Next elemental manual Ryu looked at was the Dominating Magma manual. The theory wasn’t hard and after half a day of studying it. Ryu successfully fused the two elements and produced magma. Next he experimented and successfully produced ice. Following another manual he quickly produced quagmire. This went on for a whole week, his understanding of the elements skyrocketed. There was a particular fusion he wanted to achieve and on the seventh day he was successful. He can now move onto the next step.
The second phase of his training he actually spent the majority of his time between studying advanced blacksmithing manuals and various sword based technique manuals. This is where the Infinity Tome helped the most. With the ability to recall any information he wants, he can cross reference between manuals that were copied into the tome with a single thought instead of flipping through countless pages between the actual physical manuals.
As his second reservoir leveled up, the tome seem to have grown as well. The size increased quite a bit as well, it is now the length of his whole upper body. An additional ability granted seemed to be drastic increase in short term memory. In the past even if he could recall anything he wanted, he could only hold so much thoughts in his head. He could only focus on one section of a manual before. Now he can hold many sections of different manuals in his mind which increased his understanding speed tremendously. To paint a picture, Ryu could previous only process information that fills up an entire page at any one time. Now he can process ten pages at once.
With his mind occupied in the day time, Ryu only cultivated his Qi as he sleeps. His cultivating rate is much slower after entering the Master Domain. Originally he wanted to cultivate for three years straight but he realized that without any techniques, he’ll still be powerless on the outside.
As Ryu dove deeper into the world of cultivation and martial arts, his interest spiked and he found joy in training where many kids at his age would dread. In a blink of an eye almost two years had passed.