The day was coming to an end as Finlay made it back to his place. He first took out the newly purchased items and inspected them for any defects he might have missed. He checked the bow by pulling it with an arrow to see the draw strength and effort it took him. He found it to suit his strength much more, he was able to almost completely draw the bow without having to completely put his efforts into it and in a quick fashion. It should suit him well for at least a little while, but as he progresses more in his cultivation, completing more of the 5 elements, he would need to switch out for a higher draw strength bow to take advantage of his growing strength.
Next, he checked the Alchemy cauldron. It was a simple device but had multiple places around it where a body transformation practitioner can place his fingers to input and circulate Qi freely as if they are doing it internally in their own body. These multiple inputs served different purposes from controlling the temperature of the closed space in the cauldron where the ingredients are heated up, to allowing a mixing/stirring of the materials in it and even forcefully increasing the pressure when the lid is placed to help in the congealing process of pill making. Once he was sure there were no obvious defects in either item, he put them both away.
He next took out the book with the movement art. He briefly looked into the description of the art. It was called the Azure quick step movement art. It was a simple yet practical type of movement technique. It was both useful in combat and out of it. Although it was more focused on the combat side of things. FInlay felt like while his attacks were very simple with his spear, they were effective when connected and his style of combat took advantage of the range of both his weapons. WHat he was currently lacking in was his footwork during combat and his lack of speed when keeping the distance between him and the enemy. He felt this technique will serve him through his time in the valley. He did not choose to comprehend and read through the book, instead putting it away.
He had been focusing mostly on external things for the past 2-3 weeks extensively, pushing his cultivation to take a back seat. Tonight, he will focus on his cultivation. He took out all the extra cores he had saved for the purpose. There were 3 late stage earth attribute cores, 2 Mid stage wind attribute cores, 2 Body Transformation pills and 1 special pill gifted by Elder Kang from when he last dealt with Peng An. After a brief calculation, he determined that the earth attribute cores would be enough for completing his earth element. Completing 2 of the 5 elements would significantly boost his strength, especially with the earth element that represents strength and stability.
Apart from the Earth and the Water attributes, he has the highest progress in metal at a mere level 3 and that too, just barely above the threshold. This is after using more than 4 pills and cultivating when possible for about 2 months at this point. This is because of the significant lack of metal element in the Body transformation pills. Finlay focused on it despite it lowering the apparent value of the limited pills because from his investigation, he was informed that it’s essentially unheard of to find any metal elemental materials in the valley, not just the hunting zone. Despite it seemingly being faster than the others, there are materials to aid their cultivation available in the valley for the right price. There are magical beasts of late rank from amongst all the other 4 elements as well, however rare they might be.
*sigh*
‘I wonder how long it will take for me to finish the metal attribute at this rate’
This was despite his body’s natural talent in the element being the highest of all the attributes which significantly aids in naturally absorbing the elemental qi. He had so far used up 6 total pills on the metal attribute alone and by his estimates, it would take another 27 pills, ignoring the natural absorption to complete the element.
Having reviewed his cultivation progress, he closed his eyes, slowly entering a meditative stance and took in an earth attribute core in his hand to slowly cultivate his earth attribute towards completion. He continued to do so until the afternoon of the next day.
‘That’s unexpected. I thought those 3 would have been enough for completing the Earth attribute. Why did I still fall short?’
He considered using the pills to complete his breakthrough, but he hesitated as not understanding the specifics of his situation meant that he could be wasting more resources by the wrong method. He eventually decided that he would put it off for later and ponder on it for a while. He still had to go back to get his special arrows from the blacksmith.
Seeing Lu Bao locked inside his room, he did not disturb him and left for the blacksmith. It didn’t take long before he was there and was looking at a stack of the special arrows, made according to the specification he had ordered the previous day. He had asked the blacksmith to prepare as many of them as was possible with the equivalent of a quarter of a poor grade spirit stone, but he was surprised to find 30 arrows in the stack. He took one of the all metal arrows into his hand and inspected them, finding them to be of very high quality and much to his liking.
He sincerely thanked the salesman and made his way out of the store when he paused with a contemplative look.
‘Hmmm…I do have another 5 bits with me. I currently don’t have any other immediate need for it. Since I’m going there anyway, why not sell some of these arrows to those studying archery in the deeper areas?’
Finding the idea very profitable and feasible, he decided to act on it. He returned to the store and asked them to prepare as many of these arrows as possible with all his remaining money. Without much else to do with an empty pocket, he made his way back to his place, only buying some cheap food with the mortal currency he had left on him.
Once he was back, he did not waste anymore time and entered his cultivation room. He still had no clue about what’s slowing down his earth element completion and so put it aside for now and took up his Alchemy cauldron and the books on the subject. He carefully went through the contents of his first practical.
He placed down the cauldron, lit a small fire using some cooking stove from the kitchen, under it. He then partially filled it with clear water. Then, he went through the motions with his cauldron without the actual ingredients placed inside. He started by practising the rotating motions that aid in mixing the ingredients. This went on till the water boiled in about 5 minutes and then he would practise the temperature control function by slowly reducing the temperature until the water just stopped bubbling and tried to maintain the state for as long as possible. This trained both his Qi control, endurance and concentration ability. He would need all of them to do any basic activities in Alchemy. Once the water has evaporated enough that it is too low to properly fill the centre of the cauldron, he would refill the water and repeat the process.
The results were that he failed and failed miserably over and over. His Qi control normally is excellent but in a practical situation where it has to interact with both the poor Quality Qi circuit in the cauldron and oppose the resistance of the water, he felt like his control has slipped back to how it was at the end of the first week after his start of practice, way back on that hill at Yellow Rock Town. Not just that, keeping concentration on said stressful task for any length of time was proving very difficult as well.
In the end, he had to stop due to mental and Qi exhaustion after what felt like half a day. He went out to take a break and recover. He found that only 3 hours had passed since he started his practice. Learning that fact, he felt helpless and depressed. Thankfully, Lu Bao exited his room just in time.
“Ah…Brother Bao, you’re a sight for sore eyes!” Finlay replied in a cheerful tone.
“Uhhh…what do you mean Senior brother? We’ve been in the same house since yesterday…”
“Bah! Semantics! What do you say about taking a nice stroll and relaxing a bit?” Finlay suggested, deflecting.
“Hmm…that does sound nice, but in that case, is Senior brother treating me?”
Finlay could only helplessly smile and say that he was actually a pauper now. Fortunately, the ever generous silver spoon, Lu Bao didn’t mind being forced to be the spender and they set off to the market area in a relaxed manner.
“Brother Bao, another productive cultivation session I assume?”
“Haha, it’s all because of your kindness Senior brother! WHat about you? How was your cultivation?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
*sigh*
“It wasn’t cultivation, but I’m trying my hand at Alchemy and it is going terribly so far.”
“Alchemy?! Brother, most folk from our year probably don’t even have the time and resources to cultivate, let alone try their hands at the grand immortal arts such as Alchemy.”
“What grand art? What I’m doing can’t be considered anything remotely grand.”
Looking at the almost crying face of Finlay, Lu Bao burst out laughing.
“Hahaha, Senior brother, it is rather funny to see you struggling so much at something. Now I must know what it is exactly that has got you in such a pickle…”
Cracking such jokes and discussing their situations, they walked, bought some meat buns, ate in a garden area nearby and talked about trivial things till sunset.
On the way back, Finlay and Lu Bao were walking in the road as a group of people with serious faces came up to him from the front. The group was made of imposing looking people surrounding a person in the middle with fancy clothes and an air of young master attitude, which Finlay had known to be typical of such cultivation stories. He immediately frowned and had a bad premonition that things were about to turn south from the arrogance of the other party.
*Snort*
“What are you idiots looking at? Move aside so we can pass.”
“Ye-Yes brothers,” Lu Bao quickly lowered his head and pulled Finlay to the side.
The group passed them by as the Young master character stared back at him, slightly condescending. They then entered the sect sponsored restaurant that was particularly known to be grand both in terms of price and the spiritual meals it would serve.
Noticing the slightly envious look in the eyes of Lu Bao, Finlay magnanimously declared, “Haha, brother Bao, Next time, we too can go. Don’t worry about it too much.”
Looking at the confused panic in the eyes of Lu Bao, Finlay quickly reassured, “My treat!”
*chuckle*
“Senior Brother, you’ve already done enough for me. Even if you could make such money, you already have your cultivation expenses to worry about. How could I allow you to spend it on expensive things such as this?”
In response, Finlay simply gave him a mysterious smile.
After returning from such a relaxing time, Finlay went back inside his room for the night. He was reluctant to go back to the tedium of Alchemy practice and instead decided to cultivate his Earth element without using external aids.
It wasn’t long before he opened his eyes in surprised joy. He discovered that his natural absorption of elemental Qi hadn’t changed as much as with the beast cores. After some careful thinking, he came to the conclusion that since the pills contain Qi that was much closer to the natural Qi, its effects and properties should also be similar. Then, would that mean it would also not suffer the problems of the beast cores?? After coming to such a conclusion, Finlay immediately took a Body transformation pill and started to cultivate his Earth attribute.
It wasn’t long before the Earth elemental Qi reached a threshold inside his body, finally breaking through the barrier and the now familiar, impurities secretion event happened. A chime rang in his head, indicating a notification from the system.
*ding!!*
Congratulations on completing the second layer of cultivation of the common realms.
Restriction Unlocked on skill : Analyse (Grade E -> Grade E)
You can now gain more information upon your target.
This time, he wasn’t that particularly unhappy with the smelly situation since he was too excited from his increased Qi pool size and strength. With his current strength, he should no longer have to fear the mosquitoes or the stronger Deer type Magical beasts of the deeper areas. He might even try his hand at taking on another red kicking Demon. This time without any traps and schemes.
Checking over the notification, he noted how the Grade E didn’t actually go up despite it indicating otherwise. He guessed that the change in the skill rank was very small and might take multiple such changes to stack before the grade went up. He now had another thing to look forward to when completing his Body transformation stage.
He quickly cleaned himself and took out the cauldron again, albeit a little less enthusiastically, but was delighted to find that his Qi control had significantly increased with the added Earth elemental Qi, alongside his water elemental Qi. He found out that his increased Qi channelling capacity had actually helped fill out the Qi circuit channels properly which seemed to have helped stabilise the circuit in turn. With renewed enthusiasm, he continued his Alchemy practice throughout the night.
To be continued.
Preview - System Status
Identity :
Finlay
Male
14 yrs old
–
Mortality :
Sura (Mortal)
Job :
None
Titles :
None
Cultivation :
Body Transformation stage level 9 (Water & Earth Dual attribute cultivation)(🠕)
Stats :
→open←
Skills :
The All seeing eye (Analyse) :
(Grade - E)(🠕)
Authority granted by the first god of the world, Dinn. You can peer into the secrets of things and beings of this world as long as you know what you’re looking for. (Requires activation conditions)
Inventory space :
(Locked until Foundation Establishment)
Universal Language comprehension (Grade A+);
Mana Blast (Grade F+)
Preview - Stats
Spiritual :
Cultivation Talent :
S+ Grade (Appears as C-)
Divine Sense :
None
Law Comprehension :
S Grade
Physical :
Body Type :
Five Element body (Grade : B+(Aggregate)) (Appears as C-)
Elemental Attunements :
Metal
S- Grade
Five Element Body Type
(Dominant trait)
Earth
A Grade
Wind
C+ Grade
Fire
C- Grade
Water
D Grade
Light/Darkness(Yin/Yang)
D- Grade
Lightning
F+ Grade
Other Talents :
Weapon Talents :
Sword/Bladed type
A+ Grade
Ranged
C+ Grade
Hand to Hand
C Grade
Polearms/Spear
D Grade
Soul based/Mental type
D- Grade
Qi Circuits :
(Arrays, Formations, Magical Restrictions)
B- Grade
Crafting Talent :
C+ Grade
Alchemy Talent :
D+ Grade