After that little problem was sorted out.

I started wondering what time it was, since the time my watch was telling me seemed off.

What? I open the menu once again. Right there on the top right-hand corner it shows the time of the day. It’s 7:10 am. It even shows the seconds but that isn’t relevant. The dates are however broken, since it just shows “Day 2”, instead of telling me the dates system that is used here.

This wasn’t there before. And it’s not something I would miss either.

How about a mini-map too? Since it’s already so much like a game.

And somehow this already isn’t cheating?

Ignoring her unreasonable argument, I start walking towards the only door to the room, since I want to see what’s outside, but then I stop.

I could hear footsteps just outside it. The wooden floor isn’t exactly like carpet which dampens every sound.

I wait there for a moment as I hear the sound of footsteps a bit more carefully. That person, whoever it is, walks right up to the door but then stops and waits a few moments.

Just as I’m about to get impatient, the door is opened.

It’s a young girl dressed in light blue clothing. She bows respectfully after seeing me awake and standing there.

“Young noble, the priestess of the temple has called for you. Please follow me.”

I wordlessly start following her. Not like I’m really in a mood to talk or anything.

Another thing I didn’t notice before is that my skin doesn’t have any dirt on it from the lying on the ground activity I previously did. There’s only so much that clothes on my body can cover. My hands should have at least some dirt on them, but they’re completely clean.

That explains it.

I’m not interested in knowing.

I follow the girl through the hallways, and across a courtyard using stone path, And into another smaller building inside this temple. A temple inside another already temple like building.

We’ve been walking for about 10 minutes now. And I’ve been paying attention to the path. There are no repetitions. We aren’t going around in circles. Is this a maze or something? Just how large is this ‘temple’?

Stop humming.

I’m the one who should be getting bored here. I’m doing all the walking across these hallways and paths, just how unnecessarily far is this place where the priestess stays. Wasn’t I already in the temple itself?

No. Being extravagant is different from simply wasting resources for no particular reason. More than half the rooms are completely empty.

Finally, after walking another 5 minutes, we reach the location.

It’s a fairly big room. At least from what I could tell from outside. The girl stands outside and doesn’t say anything for a moment, as if to wait for the people inside to stop talking. Then opens the door and signaling me to go inside.

But I stay standing there.

I’m getting a really odd feeling. Not one that tells me of some impending danger. But it still feels really weird. Like some subtle pressure.

That feeling goes away. I then walk into the room to find 2 people there, sitting on mats. Or are those pillows? Mattresses? Anyways, they are padded for comfort.

There’s a bunch of such mats on the floor. Seems like this isn’t just a place used for one on one conversations but rather meetings and discussion.

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It’s odd they aren’t using any chairs. Since the bed I was laying on, was elevated from the ground, it’s odd that they prefer to sit on the ground instead. But I might be thinking too much into this.

Of the 2 people there, one is the girl I saw just when I woke up. The one I initially guessed was the priestess. But seeing the middle-aged woman beside her, who seems to actually be the one in charge, and thus, the priestess. I guess that the girl is something like a priestess in training.

The middle-aged woman motions for me to sit on a mat directly in front of the one she is sitting on. I calmly walk there and sit down. Imitating the way they are sitting, which is…. Seiza?

I look a bit more carefully towards the people in front of me. The girl looks to be about 20 years old, while the middle-aged woman looks as if she’s about 40. But the thing I noticed just now. All three women I saw today, looked as if they were from East-Asia. With their black hair and dark brown eyes. If I had to make a guess, it would be China, but it’s as good as a shot in the dark since these people aren’t from my world.

Their appearances have their own charm, and they look quite beautiful. But personally, I prefer the way Gaia looks.

The middle-aged woman starts speaking first.

“Welcome, young hero to the temple of god ____. I’m the high priestess of this temple.”

What god was it? Also, high priestess or just the priestess, does it even matter?

The priestess keeps an aura of coldness and purity or something around her, but somehow it feels forced.

“The temple is inside and belongs to the Exploding Heavens Sect.”

Exploding Heavens Sect? What does that even mean? Sounds like the name of some band from my world, if you remove the ‘sect’ part. But it really makes me believe the translation might be a bit faulty.

Maybe I should try talking to them and see if they understand me.

“I don’t remember anything. Could you perhaps tell me what happened?”

Feigning memory loss. That works perfectly. Not that I know anything about this world in the first place.

“Of course, Young hero. According to how much I remember, I received a prophecy a few days ago, telling about an impending calamity on this country, I was also told that the hero who could save the world would appear in the forests to the west of the sect. So, I sent my successor towards that forest to find such a person. She found you lying in the middle of such a dangerous forest, miraculously unharmed, so she brought you here. You have been unconscious for a whole night.”

A hero sent to save from some calamity? Could it be any more cliché, Gaia?

The young priestess-in-training sitting next to the priestess, whispers something to her. After hearing that she speaks up.

“I forgot to introduce you two. She’s the next priestess, Lena.”

That doesn’t sound like an East-Asian name.

Wait, how do you even know that reference?

It’s odd that her language would have a joke about the whole world being a computer simulation, but okay, there’s no reason to not believe her.

I suppose it’s just for my easier understanding that her name sounded like ‘Lena’ to me.

“I’m Gray. Nice to meet you.” I say with a smile.

I had been expressionless during this whole while but not showing any emotion at all would also leave a bad impression.

“We’ve discussed the matter along with the sect’s elders and have decided that you learning under my tutelage would be the best option for now.”

Staying here would just be delaying the storyline quest, so I say with a perfectly calm expression,

“I dreamt last night, where god told me that I had to go to the forest towards the north of the Wind Kingdom.”

Their expressions told me that they believed this blatant lie. Or perhaps it isn’t such an odd thing for a priestess who receives prophecies on a regular basis.

“I’m sorry, young hero, but we cannot allow you to do that. Your strength currently is too weak to go to a dangerous place like the Forest of Twilight. When you have reached at least the level of Earth Realm, we could allow you to go there.”

Seeing the clueless expression on my face, she thinks for a moment then realizes the reason.

“Ah, you haven’t started cultivating yet. Cultivating is gathering the ambient energy around you towards your body and storing it there. You also need to revolve this energy inside your body to temper it. Each stage is defined by one such activity. It starts with body tempering, then blood tempering, bone tempering then comes the spirit tempering, soul tempering, mind tempering and all that.”

Why is it called ‘cultivating’? And not something like ‘gathering energy’ then?

Explain these ‘cultivation realms’ to me later.

“I understand. I’ll start cultivating as soon as possible.”

“Good, I’ll teach you the method later. You must be tired right?”

What a standard statement to make. I just woke up after being unconscious for practically a whole day. Why would I be tired?

“Lena and you should stay together from now and train as fellow disciples. How about it? Could you lead him to his room, Lena?”

“Understood.”

Saying that, the young priestess-in-training, or rather, Lena, gets up from the mattress and walks towards the door after bowing to the high priestess.

Imitating her, I too do a light bow towards her and get up, following Lena, walk outside the room.

Though we were supposed to be as companions, as soon as I try walking a bit faster to catch up to her and walk beside her, she hastens her pace, thus keeping the distance a constant 2-3 steps between us. I slow down my pace and she does too, still keeping that distance.

What’s with her?

Sure.

I guessed that much. Dividing it into ranks didn’t seem to fit into a levelling based system.

So, does each of it classify as groups of 10 levels each? The first 10 being Mortal realm, then level 11 to 20 being nascent realm?

Before continuing, what is the difference between each level?

So, a level 2 is twice as strong as a level 1, and a level 3 is four times as strong as level 1?

What is wrong with this cultivation system? Why can’t they divide the stages based on equal divisions of strength?

It’s almost as if they want there to be a huge power gap between different realms.

I ponder as I follow Lena towards what is presumably the place where my room is located.