FInlay returned to his dwelling with his stomach full and a book on formations in hand. He was able to find a basic Tier 2 formations book. He had already studied the formations book from the valley, even if his catalogue of Tier 1 formations was small. He also got some very basic tools and materials to support his study of formations.
Unfortunately, his luck wasn’t as good with finding an Alchemy cauldron though. It went even worse when it came to finding Tier 2 Alchemy recipes. Even the commercially profitable Tier 1 recipes were tightly guarded secrets that demanded huge sums of money to be able to purchase. Here, Finlay finally understood the real advantage of having an Alchemy master. Wang Doshan would have no trouble with such Tier 1 or 2 recipes since he has a master who will probably pass them down as he advances in skill.
“*sigh* At least the Harmonising pill is still pretty profitable. Maybe I should focus on Formations and my Cultivation for now.”
With that, Finlay put away other thoughts and focused on his body cultivation till the morning.
Early in the morning, Finlay opened his eyes from his cultivation with a frown.
“It seems the speed is going to be significantly slower for Tier 2 body cultivation. I previously didn’t realise just how slow it is with the increased Qi in that environment.”
It seemed as though he needed direct elemental resources to improve his body cultivation at his current realm. He has no choice but to focus on other skills of his to earn some money.
“Also, it was mentioned that one should try to break through the midstage of Qi condensation with a balanced body and spiritual cultivation. I guess I should hold off on the other front for now as well.”
With his current circumstances clear, Finlay could now arrange his near future plans. Since he could not cultivate reasonably fast, he would focus on his skills both auxiliary and combat oriented. The auxiliary skills will offer him the necessary funds he needs to purchase cultivation resources. But combat arts on the other hand are a lot more important to him since he lacks any serious combat art at the moment, let alone spell arts that Qi condensation realm cultivators are finally able to use.
He would also focus on his sword, the weapon he is the most naturally gifted with. The issue right now is to find a decent sword manual or an instructor who can teach him the basics. Although he already got one basic manual from the valley’s library, it was truly basic knowledge and with no actual instruction or real world practice, he felt like he didn’t really improve all that much.
He would also need to focus on his system and its supposed new features. After the system update message he received last time, it simply never elaborated at the end except for a generic “System has been updated with new features.” He was starting to question the UI design capabilities of Mr. Jinn who was literally supposed to be a system design god.
“So, invest in my auxiliary skills for money, acquire combat and spell arts and improve my sword skills, all the while, keeping an eye out and experimenting with my system. But for now…”
He had classes to slog through.
*sigh*
----------------------------------------
So, history of the world. What comes to mind when I say those words? Anyone? Okay you. Tell me your name before answering."
“Shao Ye of the Shao clan greets the teacher. The history of the world teacher mentioned should be the details about how our realm of cultivation came to be and the divine war of the past that shaped this world.”
The disciple who answered was the young master who first spoke to finlay rudely and then completely ignored him when he found out that Finlay had no background or backing.
“Hmm an excellent response and you displayed the expected etiquette towards a senior cultivator,” the history teacher was seemingly very pleased by the display, causing the young master to swell with pride.
“The cultivation world is a lot larger than any of you can even imagine. In terms of length alone, it takes up up to 50,000 kilometres. For context, a mortal might not even be able to traverse that distance even if he spent his entire life dedicated to it.”
There were a few gasps and a lot of shocked faces, but it was mostly from those who came from humble origins. Finlay was also frowning in contemplation. He knew that he currently resided in a place called Hidden Golden Immortal Cultivation realm. It was supposed to be only a small piece of land on a larger planet. But from the numbers he just heard, it seems he might have been wrong or there was more to it.
After all, the planet he had come from, Earth, was a lot smaller at only 40,000 km circumference. If the numbers are to be believed, that would make just this supposed “small” piece of land, a lot larger than an entire planet. Moreover, he “felt” like the gravity was mostly similar to earth.
‘This is just bizarre! Is it something to do with Qi again?’
Finlay couldn’t help but wonder at the implications. At times like these, he wished that The Nine had just given all this information to him directly. They had to carefully teach him things without actually giving him knowledge that he shouldn’t possess about this world, for a just in case scenario where he might get caught shortly after reincarnating.
“This world of cultivation is a lot older than any of us, spanning untold millenia. Unfortunately, even the sect doesn’t have records farther than five thousand years and even according to those records, this land is at least older than 15 thousand years.”
There were even more gasps at the mention of that number. But Finlay felt the opposite.
‘Only 15 thousand years according to known knowledge?’
To him that was way too short of a time. He knew that this entire part of the universe was sped up anywhere from 700 to a 1000 times regular speed by artificial means of the faction the “goddess” belonged to. This meant that 15 thousand possibly only amounted to about 15 years back on Earth and FInlay was almost twice as old when he was taken away by the goddess. He was sure there were some logistical illogical problems with that, like why the Goddess ventured all the way to “slow speed lands” to capture him or why don’t the supposedly wealthy capitalist faction not breed promising mortals at 10000 speed and select the best candidates from there? But these are things he wasn’t allowed to know according to The Nine.
Coming back to the topic, he wondered if the reason the knowledge only extends to 15 thousand years is due to the inabilities of cultivators with stunted development of conventional/mundane sciences or perhaps because of their attitude towards knowledge and how it was stored or shared with outsiders. Either way, it seems the publicly disclosed number is such a surprisingly short number. He wondered what other information is stunted that would be considered crucial in any other civilization.
“I will let you digest this knowledge for today. Let us now move on to things a lot smaller in scale, our sect’s territory and the local land’s history…”
What followed was more mundane stuff like the local geography, especially the sect’s territory and the prominent cities located in it. Even though Finlay found such things boring, he was a lot more interested in today’s class compared to the absolute slog that was the etiquette class. It wasn’t long, even if it might have felt that way to some, before it was evening and the class came to an end.
“Remember that in the next class, before we begin, there will be random questions on the geography of the map you have received. Studying that will be your homework.”
Everyone in the class was given a crude map of the sect’s territory. It still contained some useful markers like important locations, particularly dangerous or infamous zones etc. Over all, this class seemed a lot more interesting to Finlay. This way, Finlay spent his next two weeks attending his etiquette and history classes or infamously called, noob academy by the other sect disciples.
----------------------------------------
It was a familiar scene of the small group of four of Lu Bao, Dokgo Xu and the other 2 waiting outside the same old building, standing guard. This time, there was another female with a guard beside her.
“Hmp! How much longer will it take? I agreed to help provide medical assistance only because of the promised herbs location. But you said it would be done in 2 hours. Hasn’t it already been long? Why isn’t he out yet?” It seemed like the woman was the sister Rong they had gone to for temporary help last time Meng Peng was severely injured.
“Sister Rong, why are you this impatient? It clearly hasn’t been 2 hours. Please be patient,” Lu Bao gave a wry reply.
“Yeah and besides, we didn’t make a deal for you to just sit there and leave. The agreement was that you will provide medical assistance to big brother Meng. Besides, stop acting like you don’t care.”
“*scoff* Who cares about that stupid idiot?! I will only do the bare minimum to fulfil the contract,” even as she said that, there was a flash of concern in her shifting expression.
Before the argument could continue further, there was a loud sound.
*bang!*
Everyone turned towards the door at once. There stood a battered and bruised Meng Peng with his face covered in blood that leaked from a big cut on the side of his head, but he had a big, toothy grin plastered over his face as he loudly announced, “I got the achievement! I succeeded this time!”
“Woah! Big brother, that’s great! Bu-But what is with the blood?! Are you okay??”
“Hahaha, Brother Meng, congratulations! Congratulations!”
“*sigh* I’m happy for you brother Meng.”
*snort*
As everyone was reacting in their own way at MEng Peng’s appearance, the woman only snorted and moved forward to deal with the clearly bad injuries.
“Hahahaha, it’s nothing. These are just minor wounds.”
“Hmp! Minor my ass. Some of these could have easily taken your life or crippled you if you made any errors.”
“Heheh, sister Rong, they are calculated moves. Calculated I say! Besides, it’s not very womanly of you to speak like tha- arghhh!!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Womanly, my ass!! Just stay still and do as I say.”
The others who were watching could only sport amused smiles watching the usual odd behaviour of sister Rong’s tough love and Meng Peng being the victim this time.
Lu Bao’s smile couldn’t help but slip after a few moments as he turned seriously towards the open door that led into that hellish “training arena” as it was labelled inside. With Meng Peng’s relatively safe return, it was now his turn to enter this place and try for the same achievement. This would be his first serious attempt under Meng Peng’s guidance.
“Let’s do this!”
----------------------------------------
After the first two weeks spending his time at the “Academy”, as the senior disciples lovingly referred to it, Finlay now understood most of the basic information regarding the sect and its immediate geography. The True Sky Immortal sect is one amongst many Core formation level sects, but with only Zifu realm power houses. In spite of this, it was considered powerful and competent enough that it retained its territory and status of its founding Core formation level status. This all changed during the recent demonic war.
“Unless you’ve all been living under a literal rock, you should all have heard of the demonic war. Perhaps in remote mortal towns one might not have heard much about the demonic cultivators or perhaps they did but that would inevitably result in the entire town being wiped out or at least completely destroyed. Enough that the surrounding wildlife and marauders finished the job.
“But it is my obligation to explain to you once just in case there are idiots who lived under rocks here. Wouldn't surprise me after all I’ve seen in this profession.
“One way or another, the Demonic cultivators secretly gained power and numbers from unknown support. Said Demonic cultivators launched an attack extensively on the orthodox faction, trying to provoke the other side to launch their own attack on our territory that was busy defending itself. If things had gone according to their plans, we would not have been here talking about it so calmly in a history class. So, obviously it was foiled by the brave and powerful seniors of our parent sect, the mighty Red Dragon Righteous sect.
“The war lasted 2 decades, but our side was able to persevere and completely defeat the Demonic faction. The remnants are being hunted down as we speak. Unfortunately, losses were inevitable in such long and brutal wars with a ruthless bunch like the Demonic faction. The fact that most of the mortal settlements were protected were a testament to our side’s strength.
“Amongst the losses, a lot of them came from our sect. Our previous sect master and vice sect master both offered their lives in a fight against Demonic spawn. They sacrificed to protect us and the continued existence of our sect. Each one of us should be proud of that fact. But unfortunately, it wasn’t just the powerhouses that we lost, several of the lower and mid level forces were also severely damaged. The sect will come out strong from this given time. You lot are our hope for the next generation. So, don’t disappoint us.
“That concludes the brief story of the recent demonic war. Any questions?”
He pointed to one of the several raised hands “Okay you. What is your question?”
“Tengfei from the Shoa clan greets the teacher. My question is this, your respected self said earlier that the demonic faction didn’t attack the other faction. What did you mean by that? Aren’t the unorthodox faction the Demonic faction itself?”
“You come from a decent clan yet still ask such a stupid question? *tsk* Who said the unorthodox directly means demonic? The Demonic faction is the Demonic faction. Unorthodox is unorthodox. How can they be the same? The Demonic faction is an evil incarnate. It employs all sorts of vile methods to pursue extreme strength regardless of consequences. The unorthodox is simply composed of people who aren’t completely traditional and may practise esoteric techniques, but they are not demonic. There definitely may be some vile scum amongst their faction but they do not practise demonic methods.”
After that, there were a few more questions but they weren’t particularly meaningful ones. Finlay had been silently pondering over the details of what he had heard in the class. Although he was aware of vague details, he was for the most part, one of those who “lived under a rock” with respect to this war. Neither was he informed by The Nine nor did Little Ming’s previous knowledge contain much information on the war. Finlay realised there were a lot of important details he had to learn about this world in spite of his supposed “cram school” before.
He would keep an eye open for the reopening of that library at the end of his first month, apparently due this month being considered vacation time for the majority of the staff and seniors. WIth that he started back. Regardless of if he was a cultivator with an evolved brain and stamina, his mind was very tired from having to focus in 6 to 8 hour long continuous classes. He was going to relax for a bit in a bath and then he had some good ideas written down to experiment with the system today.
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 2;
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)
Dabbling in Alchemy:
(Grade F-)
Rewarded for your meagre efforts in Alchemy. It boosts your success rate of any pill below Tier 3 by 5 %; Improves the control of the user over the Qi infused into the pill.
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