The next morning, as the sun rose, Lu Bao was preparing tea in a good mood, moving around with a spring in his step and a rhythm in his hum. An exhausted Finlay exited from his room. Although he looked tired and sleep deprived with red eyes, there was still some delight in his face. He greeted the cheerful Lu Bao.
“Morning, brother Bao! It seems you’re in quite a good mood today?”
“Haha, of course! I’m very close to breaking through the next level into the mid stage. Unfortunately, I’m out of pills for now, but it isn’t long till the next pill distribution. And with another 5 of those pills, I’m confident in being able to break through the 5th level at this rate.”
“Wow! That is rather impressive indeed. At this rate, you might be able to complete your Body Transformation in as little as 8 months of the 2 yrs of allotted time. I must congratulate you ahead of time.”
“Hah! That is just a dream. Don’t tease me senior brother. 8 months is only possible if you had absolutely no bottlenecks or problems throughout the entire time, which is impossible for a normal candidate like me. You on the other hand, I’m sure you must be doing even better,” Lu Bao wryly replied with a shake of his head.
“Well, that may be, but it is still an impressive speed.”
Finlay realised he was relatively privileged with his high cultivation talents and elemental affinities. Other than minor hiccups like the last day, he never truly had much to fear in terms of bottlenecks and straying onto the wrong paths with respect to cultivation. At least not at the lower realm he is currently at.
With another 3 days to go till the date of the next pill distribution, Finlay didn’t have much else to do other than focus on cultivation and Alchemy. He ran out of the Beast cores and the Body transformation pills on the last but one day and used the time he was fatigued from Alchemy to learn and practise the movement art he had purchased. The movement art was not a particularly high level one but was focused on practicality.
More importantly, he discovered another issue with his cultivation. With 2 of the attributes completed, the 3rd element that he chose to cultivate, wind, was facing even more resistance during his cultivation sessions. While Beast cores were the main victims of the new development, similar to the last one, even the regular elemental Qi absorption from the surroundings and the pills were suffering from the same fate even if a little milder. Finlay had to bitterly smile at the irony of facing issues with his cultivation right after he noted how he will not be having anymore issues during cultivation.
He came up with a plan to investigate a few potential theories, but said investigating would require a lot more time than he had before the big day and he didn’t want to be interrupted during the process. So he postponed it for now. By the end of the last day, he had reached level 4 with the wind attribute, a mere 1 and a half level increase with 2 mid stage beast cores and 2 Body transformation pills. Achieved basic proficiency with the movement art both in combat and fleeing, albeit he didn’t have enough practising space for the latter. The biggest gains were in the Alchemy practice. He basically improved as much as he could with the water methods and now had moved on to practising the pill congealing methods by using materials like plant starch or muddy water. He would soon be ready for the methods using the herbs he had bought along with him from the hunting zone.
----------------------------------------
The big day started like any other. Except, it seemed like everyone was a bit excited and there was a noticeable hubbub outside from the first years living nearby trying to find others to move in a group for the sake of safety. It seemed like after the last 2 months, everyone had wised up and realised the danger of getting robbed on the same day they received the all important pills. Lu Bao wasn’t an exception, but seeing how Finlay seemed to not care, he did not go out to find other groups to join. Their neighbours from the first day actually came offering to take them into the group they were a part of, but left a bit confused and disappointed when they were politely refused. Finlay felt a little bit of happiness from how much Lu Bao seemed to trust in his judgement without questions.
On the way to the Square, he simply stared at the antsy groups that stuck together with darting vigilant eyes. There wasn’t much incident of note as they made it to their destination and the pills were soon distributed. As soon as the pills were distributed and everyone was dismissed, the whole crowd sprang into action at once. Everyone gathered into their predesignated groups and changed into various outfits to conceal their identities, bringing up the hoods of their cloaks or putting on masks. Then each group set off separately, keeping as much distance from each other as possible before they shot off towards wherever they’ve previously agreed upon. Looking at the chaotic scene, Finlay couldn’t help but chuckle.
Lu Bao didn’t run off on his own and stuck with Finlay, but he still bought out a black cloak and the mask that Finlay had given him before. Even as he put them on, he noticed how Finlay was simply standing there chuckling to himself and called out to him, prompting to do the same.
“Senior brother, what are you waiting for? Quickly put on a mask and cover your face. We can’t be too late or we will definitely get in trouble. We need to hurry.”
*chuckle*
Finlay let out another chuckle and patted Lu Bao’s shoulder as he said, “ Hehe, no need for all that Brother Bao. We can just walk back without any such fanfare this time.”
Hearing that, Lu Bao paused but still tried to continue persuading him. “Senior brother, no matter how strong you are, we can’t possibly compare to multiple 3 or 4 year old seniors. Or are you referring to the protection offered by that Meng Peng fellow? That only applies to their one gang, you may not be aware of it since you’ve been busy but there are plenty of such gangs here. Quickly! Before someone is here, we must leave.”
Finlay simply shook his head and started walking back.
“Forget it. Follow me, we’ll just go back now.”
He kept walking even as Lu Bao had a frown, following behind him. It seems he still trusted in his brother’s words, even as he stayed behind him, trying to spot any seniors, looking around frantically.
As they kept walking, Lu Bao was starting to grow sceptical as it seemed like nobody was following them or trying to rob them as he had anticipated. After half way through, he realised that today, there were going to be no attacks and stealing and that Finlay knew something others did not about the whole situation. The more he thought about it, the more he felt certain that Finlay was absolutely certain there would be no danger today even before that day. They eventually reached home completely peacefully and without even.
“Senior brother, you know something don’t you? What happened to them? How could those greedy, thieving bastards be so well behaved today all of a sudden? Tell me!”
Finlay didn’t tell him the exact details of how Senior Elder Kang was responsible for this but he still said how the seniors of the valley have been disciplined and probably won’t be bothering the juniors too much for the time being. Lu Bao, as expected, celebrated at the villains’ misfortune and cast admiring glances at Finlay for being so well informed of happenings of the valley despite his busy schedule.
After grabbing some food, both of them immediately went into their rooms to continue cultivating.
With the big day out of the way, Finlay could now focus on solving his cultivation problem. He did not use the new pills but tried to cultivate various elements and perform different exercises to analyse and dismiss theories. Like that 3 days went by as Filay alternated between investigating, practising Alchemy and the movement art. He finally got a rough picture of the situation of his cultivation.
First, he determined that five element body transformation art that he was practising worked best when he cultivated the various elements simultaneously or at least with a minimal difference in levels between them. This made sense from the point of view of the Five element theory in cultivation as well. The Five elements represent harmony and growth through supporting each other. They represented a small whole, a gathering of elements that could represent a majority of existence. Although that theory is factually not true, simply by the mere existence of other elements like Lightning and Void/Yin&Yang, the theory is still true to a certain extent. The Five elements’ biggest factor is the harmony and the self growing nature of it.
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But unfortunately, Finlay could not afford to follow this process since he had already established a major imbalance between the elements and the resource availability was also not suitable for this method. The positive side of this was that this concept could be applicable to anything related to the Five elements and could potentially save a lot of time and resources in his future cultivation. At least until he switches over to the primary cultivation method, bestowed upon him by the Nine, the Origin Srushti mantra.
Second, based on the above conclusion, combined with the already observed information, he determined that the first element’s cultivation was the easiest, followed by the second. The 3rd and the 4th would be the worst at around half the speed of the 1st element. The 5th element, he estimated, would take about as long as the 2nd.
The third point being that due to the requirement of harmony in the Five element art, the 3rd element was the most difficult to cultivate due to the situation presenting the most imbalanced state. The 4th element was ever so slightly easier than the 3rd. This counter intuitive situation is because of another factor that a balloon is harder to fill, the more it is already filled up.
From the 2nd and 3rd points, he understood that he would have to choose carefully what elements he would cultivate at 3rd and 4th position if the Five elements are already at an imbalance. Naturally, the more abundant the resources for the given element, the better it is to cultivate in these 2 places. He knew that water element would have been perfect for his 3rd and perhaps earth for the fourth. Alas! He had already completed these 2. From his remaining choices of Metal, Wind and Fire, the answer was obviously going to be Wind for 3rd and Fire for the 4th.
The only consolation in this unfortunate situation was that it seemed that absorbing the elemental Qi from nature and pills didn’t suffer much of an efficiency penalty, even though the Qi requirement itself was higher. If he could gain some basic proficiency in the pill recipe listed on the stone plaque he discovered, the pill could help his situation somewhat. It was called “Harmonizing pill” and was supposed to be helpful in improving the absorption efficiency of Elemental Qi. While Finlay’s Natural and Body Transformation pill’s efficiency was almost perfect, his beast cores suffered a much bigger penalty due to the five element imbalance and hence would theoretically benefit the most.
Having determined the issue and forming a plan for his future cultivation, he was a lot more at ease. For now, he decided to put away the pills and only cultivate the wind attribute through the natural process. Afterall, he could use up the pills much faster than the normal people and wouldn’t be getting anymore till another month.
He left his house to pick up the order of arrows he had placed at the blacksmith. Due to the no rush timeline and ordering a larger quantity, he got a better value of 70 arrows for the half a spirit stone’s worth. Together with the previous 30, he now had a 100 arrows and he could easily sell 50 to 60 of them for a decent price and make a handsome profit at the Archery stone plaque, as long as he was open about accepting other materials instead of money. With nothing keeping him from going back, he decided that he would head back to the hunting zone soon and immerse himself in Alchemy.
Before he set off, he wanted to review what he had learned one last time and get some practice with his movement art. He grabbed 20 arrows and the bow and went for a stroll through the outer zone. He couldn’t help but remember how much he struggled and how afraid he was going into the hunting zone for the first time. It had only been 3 months since he started his cultivation, but he is already much stronger than back then.
He first checked his speed when running. Combined with his shoes that boost the water elemental Qi, his speed instantly doubled from before. He was confident in easily outrunning mid level mosquitoes and chasing twin horned rabbits. This was only with basic proficiency. As he got more proficient and increased his cultivation, he would get much faster. Next he used the bow with the new arrows both normally and with the Archery art he picked up. After a while of testing, he was itching to try his new arsenal on an actual hunt. He strolled through the surroundings, looking for prey to hunt. He found that Azure rabbits were a little tricky due to their quick response and zigzag running pattern, but it didn’t take too much effort to hit them with the arrows or simply, run up to them and hit them with the spear. He didn’t see much reason to kill more of them with their cores and materials essentially being too little of value.
He suddenly thought of the green feathered birds he had encountered back then that moved in flocks. It didn’t take long before he spotted a flock of said birds, but there were too many in this one and he wasn’t confident about taking on so many as a mere test. He kept moving, looking for a smaller flock of birds. It took some time to find one of a size he was comfortable with, about 6-7 birds.
They were perched on the canopy of a tree with a couple of them flying about, completely oblivious to the danger lurking below them. He wasn’t confident about hitting the flying ones and hence decided he would start by picking off the resting ones. He sneaked as close as he could and used Analyse on the bird within his range.
???? bird; Magical Beast :
Tier 1 (Early stage)
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 and 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