Lorcan sat down on his prayer mat and inhaled the calming medicinal smell of the incense.
He really couldn’t understand how some cultivators consolidated their Dao or skills right on the battlefield or immediately after, seconds away from death. They probably lacked the mental fortitude, and of course intelligence and wisdom stats, to hold their inspiration. He preferred a prepared environment and matching cultivation aids.
After some breathing exercises, he fell into deep meditation.
He recalled all the times his quick thinking and mental speed had saved him. He contrasted it with the similar feeling of good reflexes. The speed of running with [Doublestep]. How he could see obstacles much better and react accordingly.
Then he analyzed in his mind the parts of the [Doublestep] skill fractal that supported each function. His mental attributes were just monstrous for someone at F-grade, so he knew the complex shape by heart, down until the fractal edges became too small to see, much less comprehend their meaning.
He used his ring to summon a Mind crystal in his hand. With Its energy circulating in his mind, he activated the assistance array and copied the base of the fractal. Usually, anything to do with increasing mental speed would be placed on a mind slot, but he imagined his new skill to later become a full body boosting skill, so he placed it on his sternum slot, right at his body center.
He removed all parts only assisting movement and extrapolated the rest. Since he had planned it’s form and position in advance while holding the exact pattern in his mind and using assistance arrays to plot his own pathways, it fit perfectly. He quickly connected it and was done.
Common knowledge, as well as common sense, dictated he should now stop, rest his mind and consolidate his pathways. He did not plan to do it this way.
He checked his Mind Crystal and found it still almost half full. He slotted new Nexus Crystals into the array and sat back down. He took out the expensive new skill crystal he just got from the anonymous expert and infused energy into it. Design schemata filled his vision. Merchant spatial class skills, beast master skills and information about the basics of worldring design. He isolated the parts he needed and remembered the feeling and structure of the Brallgramoth queen. She’d had to have a massive spatial inner space to house the dozens of giant eggs of her swarm. Same with the Stell-Stabbing-Wasp queens, even if those had been filled with higher numbers of smaller eggs.
We went back into meditation and activated the assistance array again. This time he felt resistance from his mind, as it was still tired. He circulated the mental energy from the Mind Crystal and the strain lessened. Then he started writing his new skill into his pathways. He placed it on his back slot, mostly because it was empty and was rarely used for class or bought skills. It also seemed fitting to carry his spatial containment on his back.
The experts design studies were worth every Coin. He could mostly copy the relevant functions and add his own modifications by inserting prepared fractal parts. A few things seemed of, so he changed them. The fractal filled its slot and he connected it to his pathways. It settled down perfectly.
He felt a slight headache, a harbinger for a much bigger pain if his mind didn’t get its rest soon. He didn’t plan on giving it. He swallowed some healing pills, replaced the Mind Crystal and went back to meditation.
Hours passed. When he felt completely in the right shape of mind, he ate the Dao fruit.
He smelled hours, tasted minutes, heard the racing of time. Felt it glide over his skin, ever onward. Never stopping. Never slowing.
He had planned for months, adapted the plan, scrabbed it, started anew. He didn’t tell anyone about it, because to try it at F-grade was foolhardy to the extreme. Only, he had to try. He had to get an edge.
He went into the Dao vision with his mind already taxed to its max. Something that was cautioned against. Pain blossomed in his mind, filled it. He circulated more mind energy and powered through it. His nerves threatened to fray, but he held them together with pure willpower.
He concentrated on his two Dao Seeds of time. Seed of Timing (Early) and Seed of Haste (Early). Only thanks to his peak affinity could it work… and it did. His Daos both evolved to middle proficiency while also harmonizing. If he managed to evolve them together two more times, they’d combine to a Dao Fragment almost effortless. Or so he thought at least.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Seed of Timing (Middle): Intelligence +25, Wisdom +5
Seed of Haste (Middle): Dexterity +25, Intelligence +5
Torran, probably informed by his aides that his ward powered down the room’s arrays, welcomed him when he left the chamber. “You took longer than I expected for a Dao vision. Did anything unplanned happen?”
Lorcan shook his head: “No, everything went as planned. I now sport two new skills and a total of four middle proficiency Dao Seeds.”
“You did all of this in one session? Are you mad or did you intent to break your mind?”
“I could have done each separately, but I figured, my mental abilities are my defining feature. They will have to hold most of the stress of my future abilities and fighting style. They therefore need to be tempered.”
Torran failed to suppress a groan: “You’re doing Mental Tempering? I always thought Body Tempering was a somewhat masochistic and suicidal endeavor for brute warriors, but torturing your mind to the edge of breaking? Would a Soul Strengthening technique not be better?”
“Soul meditation techniques are consciously slow and directly clash with my goal of increasing mentals speed. I’ve read a lot about Mental Tempering; it much more fits my vision of my path.”
His trustee waved his hands about in exasperation: “You’re a century away from formulating a path. I’ve read about Mental Tempering. Mostly in obituaries. But you must do as you seem fit. Meanwhile, I’ll get some specialist healers for mental traumas on call, just in case.”
Lorcan used an adjacent room to rest after his mental ordeal and used the special Cleansing Array his trustee had prepared. Even the efficient and pure pills he used had some impurities. The array was helping him to remove them faster. It wasn’t really necessary yet, but you couldn’t start early enough to get rid of impurities. If he had to much of them in his body when trying to form a Cosmic Core, his cultivation path could come to an early end.
When he woke up hours later, he looked at his new skills and run some tests.
[Mental Overclocking] – Proficiency: Early.
It was the boosting skill for intelligence and wisdom he’d imagined. At early proficiency it granted a passive increase of about 6% to both attributes. He could double that by infusing it with the Dao of time. He felt some synergy with [Doublestep] which would now increase his speed in the skills passive state and even more while empowering it with the Dao.
[Monster Pocket] – Proficiency: Early.
He had to wait to test that one until he returned to the monastery. There he called for Vokari.
The six-legged beast came running from a nearby hiding place and leaped at him. He caught it in his arms and praised it for a while before setting it back to the ground: “Listen, I’ll be going on a long journey. I probably won’t return.”
The beast obviously understood, because it squeaked in dismay and dug his claws into his trousers.
“Now, don’t worry. You can come with me if you want. I have prepared a very special place. Now, don’t be alarmed. I’ll take you there by folding space. You will stay there for a minute, then I’ll take you back out to check if you like it there. Are you okay with that?”
Vokari squeaked in approval and waited. Lorcan activated the skill for the first time. Vokari vanished. He checked the time and waited for a minute, then returned the beast.
Vokari appeared next to him. He looked up from the floor. Then hopped up and down eagerly.
“You like it? You want to return?”
The hexasquirrel raced out of the room and returned with some cushions. During the next few minutes, it collected a small hill of stuff he obviously wanted to take with him. Lorcan placed them inside his Monster Pockets dimensional space. After some tries he found, that he couldn’t place anything inside that contained inscriptions or cosmic energy in any form. Food, simple tools and furniture worked. He estimated it to have the area of a comfortable apartment, but he had to leave most of it empty since it had a rather small containment limit for inanimate objects. He estimated it could fit four or five more hexasquirrels at early proficiency, but no more. Well, he hadn’t planned on smuggling Brallgramoths.
After testing both skills he sat down and relaxed. He’d had a massive amount of help, so he probably wasn’t entitled for one of the famous titles you could get to design a completely new skill alone. On the other hand, he was still in F-grade, a whole grade below most cultivators even thought about trying to mess with their skills and potentially ruining their future paths. This early, most were content with class skills and those bought from repositories. He took a deep breath and then looked at his title page. To his relief, he actually found a new one:
Runic Prodigy: Create and/ or unite multiple middle quality skills while still in F-grade. Intelligence +5, Wisdom +5, Intelligence +10%, Wisdom +10%
A percentage modifier! He really wanted to know what he’d get if he’d managed to create a peak quality skill, but he estimated this was the highest quality he’d manage until E-grade. Except if he got some mind-blowing inspiration or some peak system reward.
Two evolved Daos and a new title. Now his attributes started to look more like a Heavens Chosen.
Strength: 69
Dexterity: 157
Endurance: 64
Vitality: 85
Intelligence: 231
Wisdom: 127
Luck: 24
He sent a message to Torran with an update of his status und titles, expecting kind of praise.
What he got was a short answer: “You’re well on your way, but you do know one of the titles expected of a First Seed requires a 1000 points in one attribute before evolving to E-grade.”