The Dazed Finlay recalled the “meeting” he had had just now.

“Hahaha! Congratulations kid! We were all waiting so eagerly for you to arrive here. Hehehe, if you can’t tell, we all bet on how you’re going to handle it. And if you can’t tell by my grin, I won! Hehe! Let me tell you that Ronn was the idiot who lost the most. He bet that you would be choosing the fastest path, directly skipping the sect recruitment and simply becoming a rogue cultivator. Hehe, what an idiot!”

“On a more serious note, you did well. I know you must have had other faster, tempting options that you were hesitating over, but I’m glad you chose the right one by taking it slow and not relying too much on external factors like your sect. You have plenty of talent and plenty of opportunities. You should be focusing on a steady path right now. Establishing a solid foundation at these early stages always pays dividends later on.

“By the way, did you know that your sudden high profile birth almost caused a disaster in this place and even our entire plan was about to go up in smoke. Fortunately, Big Brother Dinn was there to save the day. He reversed the heavens and the earth, and forcibly suppressed the event. *sigh* sometimes I wonder just how strong he is.”

After that, he explained various important things regarding the plans of the Nine regarding the goddess and the enemy faction. There was even an almost headache-inducing explanation about the system functions and how sending out messages and update patches like this is not as easy as it looks. But it was just a one sided communication this time and Finlay had no choice but allow his brain to rot a little from listening through the technical nonsense that didn’t make much sense to him. After a long while, he ended the message with a goodbye.

“Keep up what you’re doing kid. You’re on the right path. I’m sure we will meet again many times. Hopefully we’ll be able to communicate properly next time.”

This message was very unlike all the other system messages in that it was only delivered directly to his brain without the system interface and only after knocking him unconscious. That alone showed how much importance was placed on it being secure. After listening to it, Finlay had a strange expression as if receiving a voicemail from an old friend after a period of loneliness. In truth, it had been over a year since he arrived here yet this was the first time he was hearing anything from the Nine. He felt like he had just received a lot of mental support and that he was reminded that he wasn’t alone in this journey.

It goes without saying that such a message cannot be delivered or saved in the system to view later on. It would be too dangerous otherwise. This was because the system was not an independent entity. It was effectively a way to hijack into the will and soul of such a grand world and introducing an entirely new system of their own will completely expose The Nine. This meant that the current system Finlay had was just part of the system given to him by that evil goddess. At least that is what was Finlay's understanding of the system from the occasional ramblings of Jinn.

With that resolved, Finlay briefly went through the notifications and the implication of some of the new features and abilities of the system.

The first message seemed like a very videogame-like thing, just what he would expect to be designed by a Nerdy God like Jinn. But unfortunately, he currently had no idea how he could earn Experience points nor did he know anything about earning credits. He will have to keep an eye out for those in the near future.

The second, it goes without saying that it was the most fundamental unlock right now. It should contain all the details regarding further cultivation. Finlay would have to spend a long time studying and understand the information presented here.

The third, seemed a bit unusual in that it mentions it will automatically unlock the memory when training with said weapon. He wasn’t sure what that exactly meant. He will have to test it out to understand how it works, but it will undoubtedly be the second most important thing that will aid in his survival after his direct cultivation level.

The fourth, this is something he already knew from Jinn mentioning it before. He will need to achieve enough proficiency in a skill to be acknowledged by the system with a skill like Basic proficiency in Alchemy, it would then also reveal more memories and information upon unlock, automatically improving both his knowledge and experience to a certain level. He was actually looking forward to earning that exact title with his Alchemy.

The fifth and sixth were just known standard system notifications. There wasn’t much more to ponder over them. He already understood that the system will keep unlocking things or upgrading as Mr. Jinn keeps adding to his creation. It’s just that the updating notification was un dismissable and he couldn’t yet access the information required for his next stage of cultivation. Without much to do, he could only wait for now.

Meanwhile, he spent some time practising Alchemy, Formations or studying any of the other techniques, movement arts or combat arts. He even had a specific goal with his Alchemy, so he began with that.

When he was sent inside, FInlay brought requests for a lot of herbs and other materials required for his Alchemy practice. There were even some containers provided for the specific purpose of preserving them for as long as possible. With so many good quality ingredients, he tried to make the same Harmonising pill with his perfected cultivation.

The results were surprising even to Finlay who had already set high expectations after the last few surprises. The new pure milky white Qi was so potent that he had to take a decent amount of time adjusting the quantity and control he exerted when using the alchemy cauldron. Once that was overcome, he had to keep his calm when he observed the potency of the Qi at improving the efficiency, efficacy and even the amount of pills made in one batch. He directly went from having a decent 70% success rate to over 99% success rate. Even that 1% was something he left to cover a just in case, unforeseen situation.

He also discovered that he could push the limits of increasing his success rates and potency of a pill much farther. Meaning, he could make a lot more pills appear in a single batch with a solid process that will leave no chance of failure. He could also push the strength and potency of the pill much higher if he focused on it. The unfortunate side effect being that the success rate was actually lower than the lowest possible before with his old Qi. This meant that he could create very high potency pills at an abysmal 10% chance of success. Even so, FInlay knew this discovery meant that he could theoretically create the most potent pill at a given cultivation, provided he had enough resources to burn and have enough practice in said recipe.

Next, Finlay needed to improve his basic skills of Alchemy. He knew that for this, he had to mainly just grind and practise by making as many pills as possible, but that average method would take too long now that his basic efficiency has already risen above 50% without the extra influence of his Qi. He came up with an idea to try and create the best potency pills only as he worked on his control and skill. Although this method can be said to be flawed and different from just grinding the skills by normal practice, he felt it should have some use at his current level.

And so, he began his Alchemy grind as he focused on putting in as much of his Qi as possible in each pill. The abysmal success rate was a bit frustrating in the beginning but each time he discovered something new, he would grow excited and would continue with renewed vigour. Unfortunately, this method was also the most exhaustive both physically and Qi stamina wise. He was forced to take frequent breaks to recover his Qi before getting back to it. He would jump into other things like reading about formations or other books he brought in with him to recover from his mental fatigue. He would also occasionally take a walk outside around the garden in the front when it became too much to do anything.

It took about 2 days for the system to finish updating and allowing Finlay access to the various new changes. He made some progress in his Alchemy during this time, but if he wanted that skill, he would need to practise for a lot longer. He put that aside for now and focused his gaze on the information on his next step of cultivation.

The information provided was very detailed and tailor made for his situation. Usually, most of the cultivation techniques at this level are simply written down in a book. Detailed descriptions of the meaning and the intricacies of the technique are very rare. Occasionally, there may be drawings, illustrating some aspects. Finlay on the other hand was provided a very detailed description, 3 dimensional static and hologram videos and even explanations of various concepts associated with the cultivation technique. This was a huge boon to anyone at this stage when blindly fumbling about in the dark path. Of course, it could also be said that some people might actually do more with less. You also need a level of comprehending ability to follow and make use of such teachings.

With the necessary tool in hand, Finlay wouldn’t waste time and start his next stage of cultivation, The Qi condensation realm. And the first thing one has to do to officially enter the realm is to create a Qi sea in their dantian and to do that, they would need to form at least one meridian in their body. Normally, opening more meridians at a given level makes things much harder to open them later on and it also makes breakthrough to the next levels harder due to a scattering effect of Qi when one tries to force and concentrate more qi into their dantian, a necessary process for slowly expanding the size of a dantian.

The Origin Mantra was not a simple mortal level cultivation art after all. The Origin Qi is very unique compared to a normal person’s natural Qi. It’s potent, flexible and most important of all, it’s ability to bend to the will of the cultivator is very high. This increase in control was also a major philosophy followed for the technique’s Qi condensation level. The overbearing nature of the technique is such that it gives an incredible amount of control over the Qi during the time of cultivation. This enables the ability to open all the meridians at once right at the beginning. This also ensures a balanced foundation and his body’s harmony with his cultivation further boosts their synergy.

Since all of the meridians open at once, there is no need to worry about the difficulty of opening more in later levels. As for the issue of Qi scattering, it was directly negated by the increased control over the meridians when one is cultivating. If the cultivator finds it difficult to concentrate Qi at any point, they can simply close off meridians individually to make things easier. Although that is of great help, It is still somewhat of an issue in this method and can be considered the only drawback of this technique.

Fortunately for FInlay, he has a heaven defying level of cultivation talent with his current body and not only that, his current environment is very abundant in Qi and is ideal to cultivate such a technique. Finlay studied in detail for an entire week before he made his move.

He first took 2 pills used to cultivate in the Qi condensation realm. Normally, 1 pill was enough to establish the Qi sea and open a meridian with plenty left over to cultivate a bit further, but he knew the initial process of opening all the meridians at once would be an incredibly Qi intensive process. After achieving a calm meditative state, he started chanting a mantra under his breath as he controlled the Qi inside his body according to the instructions. As he continued with concentration, the Qi in the surroundings slowly drew around him, even as more Qi was pouring into the room from the Formations and spirit stones set up around the cultivation room. He suddenly felt uncertain and took another pill into his mouth before continuing.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Once the Qi around him reached a threshold, it slowly turned into a dense white haze. As the chanting grew louder, peculiar and mysterious symbols began to appear in flashes around Finlay’s sitting form. If one were to observe carefully, these symbols are just part of more complex Qi circuits. These bizarre looking circuits of Qi that hung around him previously when he achieved harmony of elements were no longer clearly visible inside the white haze. As these symbols appeared, they channelled Qi at particular spots all around his meridians.

In this way, his meridians slowly formed and strengthened all at once. This process took a long while and Finlay struggled to maintain his concentration as sweat began to cover him from the effort. Fortunately, his efforts with Alchemy seemed to have come in handy as even under the strenuous effort of continuously channelling an enormous amount of Qi, he still held on till the end. After an unknown amount of time, FInlay finally finished the process of opening and solidifying his meridians.

Despite this, there was almost a big disaster towards the end. He had previously taken 2 pills and then another extra pill to provide him with a large amount of Qi and then the Qi rich environment also supplied a massive amount for his process of forming meridians, yet he had almost ran dry at a point towards the end. He barely managed to hold on till all of the meridians opened a bit more at which point, the external Qi rushed inside him to compensate. He could only bitterly smile at how such a point was not carefully mentioned amongst the instructions. In the end, he could only assume the quality of pill the Nine were familiar with could probably not be compared to these lowly ones made by mortals, resulting in a misestimation.

This was only half the process of entering into the QI condensation realm, after all opening the meridians is only part of it. Next he would have to open his Qi sea. Finlay simply waited and rested to recover both his mental and Qi exhaustion. Once he rested enough, he took a couple more pills to provide Qi and started taking Qi into his dantian. As the pills dissolved more and more, the rate at which the Qi was pushed into the dantian increased.

Initially, there was some resistance when pushing Qi inside, but as the speed at which it poured inside reached a certain threshold, the Qi started rotating almost like a storm in his dantian. As he kept increasing the density of Qi more and more, eventually, the turbulent and opaque storm slowly cleared up and clumps of clouds could be seen forming from the Qi in the storm. After a certain point, the clumps started to attract each other and come together, eventually, the entire storm turned into a one big clump of cloudy Qi. They looked almost opaque and retained the bright, milky white appearance. Once the Qi in the pills was exhausted, Finlay stopped the process and opened his eyes with a brilliant light in them. He smiled as he observed his body.

‘Haha! I’ve officially stepped on the road of cultivation. I’ve reached at least mid stage in the first level. It is a shame that I didn’t have more potent pills. I could have easily leapt much farther at once.’

He smiled and raised his eyes to look at the expected notification from the system. But his eyes couldn’t help but grow wide when he read it, causing even the breath he was holding to be disturbed. A series of sounds of violent coughing and throwing up sounds ensued…

*Ding*

Congratulations on successfully reaching the Qi condensation realm.

Restriction Unlocked on skill : Analyse (Grade E+ –> Grade D-)

You can now identify additional item types; New features unlocked.

To be continued.

Preview - System Status

Identity :

Finlay

Male

14 yrs old

–

Mortality :

Sura (Mortal)

Job :

None

Titles :

None

Cultivation : (Body cultivation)

Perfected Body Transformation stage;

Perfect Harmony of all elements;

Cultivation : (Spiritual)

Qi condensation realm Level 1; (🠕)

Origin Qi;

Skills :

The All seeing eye (Analyse) :

(Grade - D- ) (🠕)

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 :

(Dantian 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