Samantha drank in each line of her status page greedily. She could hardly believe that she’d really done it—that she was a true cultivator! Sure, she was only Low Copper right now, but even being the lowest rank of the lowest cultivation tier was nothing to scoff at.
Cultivation in general was relatively rare. For starters, not all people could cultivate and many would never receive the quest to become a cultivator. Taking into account that there were those that received the quest but didn't accept it, along with those that didn't survive their attempt to complete it, it wasn’t too surprising that only a small percentage of people ended up as cultivators.
There were three tiers of cultivation that could be reached on the first floor: Copper, Bronze, and Silver. Copper and Bronze tier each possessed four ranks of advancement within it–Low, Mid, High, and Peak–with each new rank being more difficult to achieve than the previous. Low Silver was technically possible to achieve if an individual was extraordinarily talented and had an abundance of both resources and time, but this was a rare occurrence. Her own hometown of Yivesh had a handful of Peak Bronzes scattered throughout the most powerful and prominent families, but no Silvers.
Because each cultivator’s inherent ability, invested effort, and resources varied wildly, it was nearly impossible to determine exactly how long it would take someone to advance. Some individuals sped through the lower ranks in months but plateaued for years upon reaching the Bronze tier, while others struggled to leave the ranks of Low Copper behind them. In Samantha’s case, she planned to make up for her somewhat late start by training with diligence–unlike her cousin Thomas, who got his quest at age 15, but seemed more interested in impressing women than advancing in rank.
Thinking of Thomas reminded Samantha of the family that she had left behind, and she smiled a little ruefully at the thought of returning triumphant and proving everyone wrong about this 'foolish venture'. Initially, she had been heavily discouraged from pursuing the cultivation questline. She was given any number of reasons to reject the quest like so many others had before her. She was too young, the risks were too high, and she already had a fine future ahead of her if she inherited her parent’s shop. Some even argued that she didn’t need strength of her own if she married into a prominent house. These were all valid points, she could admit, even if she didn’t necessarily agree with the last one. In fact, if she were being honest, she knew that the risks so greatly outweighed the benefits that there was no way that her decision could be considered logical.
When pressed for a good reason by her friends and family to gamble her life, she told them that she wanted to gain the strength to protect herself and her loved ones. This was similar to the reason that Thomas gave when he left to become a cultivator, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Wanting to feel safe from dangerous spirit beasts or power-hungry cultivators was a part of it, however, at the heart of it, Samantha just wanted more from her life. It was well and good to be a shop owner or a wife, but she didn’t want that to be her entire future. She felt a calling to pursue greatness–to go beyond the easy path that was provided to her by circumstance. Some people went their whole lives without ever truly finding the limits of what they could achieve, choosing instead to fall back on familiarity and comfort, risking nothing and gaining little. That wouldn’t be her. Not if she could help it.
Realizing that she had let her thoughts wander, Samantha refocused on her original goal of examining her status page.
Name: Samantha Cray
Age: 17
Attributes:
Aptitude (Approximate Max Value):
Strength: 5
Low (8)
Agility: 8
High (13)
Endurance: 6
Average (10)
Resilience: 5
Low (8)
Cultivation Rank: Low Copper
Pattern: Entwined Circlet (Low Copper - Common)
Qi Pool: 10 / 10
Qi Regeneration: +0.5 / hour
Everyone in the World Spire had a status page as far as she knew, but only those with cultivation could access them. Up until this point she could only make assumptions about her Attributes and Aptitudes based on some basic physical tests, but that method was fairly inaccurate. She was excited to see that she had a high Aptitude for Agility, which meant that her maximum attribute value for that stat would be higher than normal and any Agility training she did would increase the stat more quickly than if she did the same amount of training for another attribute. She was slightly disappointed to have it confirmed that her Strength and Resilience were as bad as she had feared, but she didn’t let herself get too discouraged. Even with a low aptitude for those stats, she could still work to raise them to at least an 8 at this rank. And with each rank that she advanced, her upper limits would rise again as well.
Mortal values for Attributes typically ranged from 1 to 5. People with values of 1 were sickly, weak, clumsy, and/or fragile. In contrast, those with values of 5 were in peak physical condition--such as couriers who ran all day without stopping. After becoming a cultivator, all of Samantha’s stats had risen to the point where she could keep up with or surpass the strongest, toughest, and quickest mortals. She found herself briefly daydreaming about her small, five-foot-four-inch self winning arm-wrestling competitions against burly men with arms as big around as her legs, or outrunning someone delivering messages on horseback. After she had her fun imagining greater and more fantastical feats and scenarios, she moved on to the final section of her status page which addressed her cultivation.
Her qi pool and regeneration rate were mediocre, but that was to be expected since she was utilizing the most basic cultivation pattern available. She planned to save up some funds to purchase a better one once she returned home. Cultivators could make good money if they picked up the right jobs, so she was confident she would now only need to work for weeks instead of years to be able to afford such things. She’d still take time to help her parents run the shop, but she wouldn’t need to solely rely on saving up her allowance anymore.
Having gone through everything, she stretched her stiff limbs and rose from her sitting position on the ground. She’d been doing nothing but diligently cultivating for the last ten days, with only the occasional foraging, eating, and sleeping sessions breaking up the monotony. Long-term cultivation was a lot harder than she had initially thought, and she’d had all the sitting around that she could tolerate for the moment. She wanted to test out her new capabilities and once she had gotten used to her enhanced body she would finally learn [Inspect].
She closed her status page and another notification immediately took its place in her mind:
Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential (Part 3 of 5)
Cultivating at a qi nexus is not the only way to increase your power. Defeat a spirit beast and claim its core.
Accept? Y/N
This was the first chain in this questline that she had been given a choice whether to accept or reject it, which led Samantha to believe that this was an optional objective. Seeing no reason to decline it though, she happily accepted. This was exactly the type of thing she had been looking for anyway.
Contrary to what her enthusiasm demanded, she did not immediately go off in search of prey. Rather, she stuck to her plan and spent the next several hours testing her new limits and getting used to her recently raised Attributes.
She struck her limbs against the tough trunks of the trees beyond the meadow, feeling only minor discomfort as she blasted bark apart with punches or kicks. She marveled at the feeling of her qi enhanced body, knowing that if she had wielded this much force mere days ago she would have shattered her bones with each hit. Each successful palm strike and heel kick caused her confidence to soar, but she was quickly humbled after deciding that trees were not sturdy enough opponents and challenged a boulder instead. One solid front kick made her entire leg shudder with agony and the rock had the gall to not even budge an inch. After that embarrassing incident she hobbled her way back to the fount to lay down for a while, torn between crying from pain and laughing hysterically at her own stupidity.
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When the pain faded and she confirmed that nothing was broken, she moved on to spear forms. Every resident in Yivesh was experienced with at least one type of weapon. This was a matter of security as well as practicality, since mortals could not always depend on the Enforcers or Hunters to save them if a pack of spirit beasts broke through the walls and attacked. There were four main weapons favored by her town: the straight sword, the curved saber, the spear, and the staff. Each had their own benefits and drawbacks, but Samantha had always gravitated towards the spear.
When she was mortal, she knew that she would generally be weaker than a man of similar build. As such, she would likely be unable to wield the chopping force of the saber as effectively, bring out the true slashing or stabbing power of the straight sword, or strike with the staff hard enough to cause deadly injury. The spear with its extended reach, however, played to her one advantage: speed. She could use it to build distance and allow herself more time to react, or if left without an escape route, she could plant the butt of the spear in the earth to severely gore a charging beast.
She lifted her spear from the ground with shocking ease, the 7-foot-long weapon barely requiring any effort to maneuver compared to before. She checked the leaf-shaped blade for any nicks that needed repair and ensured that the tassel below it was solidly attached. Then, with a flourish, she whipped the spear over her head in circles and spun it around her body, beginning her forms. One of the drawbacks of such a long weapon was that it was difficult to fully overcome the feeling of it being unwieldy. Now though, with her increased Strength and Agility, it almost felt as natural as moving a part of her own body.
The wind whistled and whined as it was cut by the speed of her rapid jabs and slashes, but the weapon held together as well as could be expected even though the wood of the shaft flexed to a concerning degree. She frowned at the mundane wood and steel, wondering if it could continue to withstand the punishing speed and strength of her blows in real combat. It had been her trusted companion for many years, but she had finally outgrown it. Mundane weaponry was well suited for mortals, but cultivators needed qi forged or enchanted armaments to be able to fight freely. Cultivators could even channel qi through weapons to activate suitable combat arts, but if she tried that with a mundane weapon it would almost certainly explode from the spiritual pressure flowing through it.
“I’ll need to replace you when I get back to town,” Samantha told her spear with a sigh of dismay, “but should I do that before or after I save up for a better cycling pattern? Why must being a cultivator be so expensive?” She put those thoughts aside for the moment and continued to practice. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it.
When she felt that she had explored her new limits as best as she could, she returned to the nexus, fetched the [Inspect] manual from its home at the bottom of her pack, and excitedly cracked open the cover. She had read the tome several times while mortal out of curiosity, but hadn’t been able to properly access the qi inscriptions imbued into the pages. Looking at the manual as a cultivator, it felt like she had suddenly learned how to read a new language entirely.
Combat Art: Inspect (Common)
Qi Cost: Varied
Description: By focusing your spiritual senses on a target and expending qi, you can either retrieve basic information or gain useful insights that can be used in combat.
Note 1 : While successful usage of [Inspect] is not usually noticed by the target, failure to overcome the target’s natural qi defenses (see note 2) may alert the target of your attempt. It is generally considered incredibly rude to [Inspect] another cultivator without their consent (outside of the standard usage in a battle).
Note 2 : A cultivator’s natural qi defenses can be roughly determined by taking into account their qi pool size, qi regeneration rate, and cultivation rank/tier. Other important factors to consider are the usage of defensive arts that may hinder or block [Inspect], qi-enchanted armaments or clothing, and ephemeral aspects such as awareness/preparedness for the attack and overall mental fortitude or willpower.
Other Use Cases: While this art was initially intended to be used in duels against fellow cultivators, over the years several other useful applications have been discovered. For example, you may also use [Inspect] as a less efficient substitute for the utility arts [Identify] (inanimate objects) and [Analyze] (living beings). If you choose to use this art on mortals, objects, or spirit beasts, it’s important to keep in mind that…
As Samantha flipped through the thin manual, she felt an unfamiliar pressure building up in her mind. With each word and diagram her eyes passed over, mysterious, previously hidden knowledge seemed to release itself from the pages and settle into her consciousness. Intimate understanding of how to manipulate her qi into the correct flows and patterns to manifest the art became seared into her memory as if imprinted by a hot branding iron.
Turning the final page of the book, the entire thing crumbled into dust in her hands.
Congratulations! You’ve learned a new Combat Art.
Inspect (Common)
Qi Cost: Variable
By focusing your spiritual senses on a target and expending qi, you can either retrieve basic information or gain useful insights that can be used in combat.
Her head spun slightly as she read the System message, and she rubbed her temples in a vain attempt to shake off the disorientation. When the sensation didn’t immediately subside, she laid back in the cool, soft grass and closed her eyes.
After a few minutes of rest, the feeling relented.
Laying down in the peaceful meadow, Samantha realized that despite having been awake for the better part of two days she didn’t feel the need to sleep yet. She was physically tired from her training the last several hours, but still felt mentally sharp and alert. She decided that the best use of this unexpected windfall of energy was to continue cultivating the power of the nexus until she was ready to completely rest.
Now that her dantian was full, she would be using the qi she cultivated slightly differently. Instead of pulling ambient qi into her dantian to fill it, her dantian would consume the incoming energy to fuel compression. The more energy the dantian absorbed, the tighter it would compact, until the qi that currently swirled in her Entwined Circlet pattern condensed.
Samantha pulled herself up into the cross-legged lotus position and began the process of emptying her mind. As her thoughts cleared and she found that familiar feeling of inner tranquility, she couldn’t help but feel that there was something noticeably different from before. It took her a while to put her finger on exactly what it was, but it clicked when she sensed a small animal race across the grass about 15 feet to her left. Despite her eyes being closed and the lack of audible cues, she somehow just knew that something had passed near her. She opened one eye to peek and make sure that nothing dangerous was about to attack her, but saw nothing in the vicinity that caused her any alarm.
When she closed her eyes again and resumed meditating, that odd sense of her surroundings returned. Again, and she recognized that same small animal–now only 10 feet away–making its way aimlessly through a patch of tall grass. At first she was concerned by the foreign presence within her nexus, but then rationalized that it was bound to happen eventually. The obscurement boon she received was not a guaranteed deterrent and it was only active while she was inside the fount. The creature must have either maneuvered past the protections or found its way here during one of her outings. In any case, it didn't seem to be hostile.
As she observed it through her awareness, she found herself wondering about her new ability to sense her surroundings. It was like a sphere had come into existence around her body where she just knew where things were inside of it. Samantha was unable to determine any distinguishing features of the animal at first, but as her concentration honed in, the mental picture she acquired sharpened to the point where it was almost as if her eyes weren’t closed at all.
The creature was some sort of hare.
She enjoyed following its progress for a while, watching it munch on the stems of flowers or dig up worms in the mud. As the minutes passed and she grew more comfortable with this new ability, she decided to see if she could get [Inspect] to activate on the hare. After all, the art just said she needed to focus her spiritual senses on the target–it didn’t mention anything about actually seeing it. As she visualized the pattern for [Inspect] and willed the art to activate, she felt a small tug on the energy circulating within her dantian as it was pulled out of her center and into the correct shape.
The longer she concentrated on the hare, the more qi was drained from her and spent on the art, and the more information she gained about the animal. However, after a few seconds, the hare’s head snapped up and its body stiffened as if sensing danger. It immediately turned to look at her, then zipped away in a burst of speed, quickly leaving her sphere of perception. Once she no longer perceived it, [Inspect] fizzled out and she took a moment to organize all the different details she had been given by the art.
Lunar Hare (Rank ??? - ???)
Highest Attribute: Agility (12)
Lowest Attribute: Strength (???)
The Lunar Hare’s quick, agile movements make them difficult to catch. Their love for feasting on the best herbs and alchemical ingredients has gifted them with resistances to various poisons and toxins. With senses specialized for detecting danger and fur that keeps them well-camouflaged in their environment, you’ll rarely see one while it’s in its natural habitat.
She opened her eyes and turned her head towards where she last felt the hare, hoping to catch a glimpse of it, but no matter how much she squinted she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps it had completely fled the area after sensing her attention on it.
Realizing that she’d gotten distracted, she returned to her meditative state. She could only compress her dantian when it was full, but before long her qi pool was refilled and she cultivated the nexus for several more hours.
After becoming sufficiently exhausted from her efforts, she got ready for bed and laid on her sleeping mat. As she closed her eyes and began to drift to sleep her mind wandered from topic to topic without direction. She mulled over how far she had come since she left Yivesh and how much everything would change now that she was a cultivator. She remembered her family and allowed herself to miss them a bit, even imagining how surprised and happy they'd be once she came home safe. The tiredness slowly made her thoughts less coherent and sleep began to overtake her. The last thing that ran through her mind before she slumbered was that when she awoke tomorrow, the hunt would begin.