The slowly declining power of the internal nexus lasted longer than Samantha expected, taking several hours to fully dissipate. By the time the fount vanished from within her, her cultivation was pressing up against the threshold between Peak Copper and Low Bronze. Unlike her previous experiences with being on the cusp of ranking up, the jump from Copper to Bronze felt much more significant. The amount of pressurized qi in her dantian and meridians was nearly equivalent to how much she needed to accumulate in all the previous ranks combined. It made her feel bloated, like she had eaten too much at a feast and was on the brink of a stomach ache.
She could sense that even a little more cultivation would push her over the edge and rank her up to Low Bronze, but she didn’t dare to advance just yet. Her body needed some time to acclimate to the new rank before gaining another. As it stood, despite her best attempts at stealthing, she was unable to contain her new potent aura. She also needed more information about what happened during the Low Bronze core formation process before committing to it. Lastly, and arguably most importantly, it would be much too suspicious if she gained two cultivation ranks in a day. She could explain going up to Peak Copper if she told people she was close to ranking up before her duel with Eileen and then advanced after the fight. No amount of explaining could rationalize her going up to Low Bronze, however.
A small part of her was frustrated that she needed to stifle this growth spurt to avoid complications. She had gotten a taste of what true strength as a cultivator could be like, and she wanted more. But, she knew this was for the best. Because of how quickly she had been progressing through the cultivation ranks, Samantha was even further behind on reaching her full Attribute potential than before. Luckily, being 100 gold richer, she could now afford some alchemical aids to speed the attribute training before she ascended–supplements that the average cultivator would find too expensive to invest in just to save some training time.
All she needed to do was get her discounts after dealing with the cultivator terrorizing the Southern Business District, figure out what she wanted to purchase in preparation for the next floor, and then calculate how much money she’d have left over to play with.
After taking a break to recover their strength, Silas and Samantha maneuvered their way back to the surface and found that night was falling. She quickly pulled up her hidden quest notification, but was glad to see that the time remaining still only read ‘15 days’, meaning she hadn’t spent multiple days down in the sewer processing the elixir. In fact, if she hurried, she might even be able to catch the troublesome cultivator in question tonight.
She went straight home to take a thorough bath and wash off the stink of the sewer. Then, she swapped out her dirtied Braxand stealth armor for the repaired Steel Boar Lamellar that the Braxands had delivered to Cray’s Creations earlier that day. Hoping she wouldn’t be too late, she went down into the streets to see if she could catch the Verdant-Stallion-Riding-cultivator traveling to or from his favored brothel. While she patrolled the roads, Samantha pulled up her and Silas’s status pages to reflect on the changes.
Name: Samantha Cray
Age: 17
Attributes:
Aptitude (Approximate Max Value):
Strength: 7 => 10
Low (10 => 11 => 14) => Average (19)
Agility: 11 => 14
Exceptional (24 => 28 => 31) => Extraordinary (33)
Endurance: 8
Average (15 => 17) => High (23)
Resilience: 6
Low (10 => 11) => Average (16)
Tenets: Ambition
Cultivation Rank:
High Copper => Peak Copper
Pattern: Vital Wellspring (Mid Copper - Rare)
Qi Pool: 82 / 82
Base: 20, Meridian(s): +21, Qi Saturation (x2)
Qi Regeneration: +6.0 / hour
Base: +1.3, Vortex Mark: +0.2, Sage’s Rumination: (x2), Qi Saturation (x2)
Cleared Meridians:
Heart: +1 Endurance, +3 Qi pool
Mind: +Mental Processing Speed, +6 Qi pool
Left Foot: +1 Agility, +2 Qi pool
Left Leg: +1 Strength, +3 Qi Pool
Synergy: +0.5 Agility, +0.5 Strength, +1 Qi pool
Right Foot: +1 Agility, +2 Qi pool
Right Leg: +1 Strength, +3 Qi Pool
Synergy: +0.5 Agility, +0.5 Strength, +1 Qi Pool
Passive Arts:
Prey’s Awareness (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
Standard Effect: Gain increased awareness of your surroundings. Affects all senses.
Alternate Effect (Rank 1: 15 foot sphere): Can enter a hyper-focused state that greatly enhances spatial awareness of immediate vicinity
As One (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
You and your bond share vitality. If one is wounded or healed, the effect is split between the two parties. You will rise or fall as one.
Poison Connoisseur (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
Inherit the toxin processing abilities of your bond. You will more easily gain resistances to any poisons you encounter.
Current Resistances:
Draff Toxicity: Rank 2 - 34% (-⅔ effectiveness and duration)
Corrosive Poison: Rank 1 - 13% (-½ effectiveness and duration)
Sleep Poison: Rank 0 - 16%
Combat Arts:
Inspect (Common)
Qi Cost: Variable [+50% Efficiency]
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.
Swift - Rank 1 (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: 0.5 qi/second [100% Efficiency]
For every 0.5 qi points spent per second, gain +1 Agility. While active, your steps gain perfect traction.
Flawless Regeneration (Rare)
Meridians Required: Heart
Qi Cost: Variable
By cycling qi through your heart meridian and circulatory system, you can regenerate flesh to heal your body to flawless condition. 1 qi invested will restore approximately 1 ounce of flesh per minute, with additional qi invested resulting in diminishing effects.
Flurry (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: 1 qi/second [100% Efficiency]
By spending 1 qi point per second, your kick speed will be doubled and kick damage will be increased by half.
Translucence - Rank 1 (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: 1 qi/30 seconds
For every 1 qi point spent, you will become partially transparent for 30 seconds. Remaining motionless while translucent will make you exceedingly difficult to spot.
Mindsets:
Sage’s Rumination (Rare)
Qi Cost: N/A
Embodies unshakable tranquility and allows one to maintain a meditative state without entering a trance.
Spirit Bonds:
Lunar Jackalope (Rank 4 - High) [ View More ]
Silas - Lunar Jackalope
Rank 4 - Mid => High
Attributes:
Aptitude (Approximate Max Value):
Strength: 4 => 5
Average (12 => 14)
Agility: 14 => 15
Exceptional (20 => 24)
Endurance: 7
Average (12 => 14)
Resilience: 6 => 7
Average (12 => 14)
Active Abilities:
Passive Abilities:
Thump
Cooldown: 30 Seconds
Herb Hunter
Leap
Cooldown: 10 Seconds
Poison Connoisseur
Swift
Cooldown: Variable
Prey’s Perception
Translucence
Cooldown: Variable
Iron Gut
Antler Genesis
Cooldown: Variable
As One
Offered Bond Abilities:
Bond Ability Points (BP) Remaining: 4
Swift (Rank 2)
[2 BP]
For every 0.5 qi points spent per second, gain +2 Agility. After ability ends, effects will linger for a short time before returning to original levels. While active, your steps gain perfect traction.
Herb Hunter
[1 BP]
Like the Lunar Hare, you have the uncanny ability for finding the best quality herbs around.
Translucence (Rank 2)
[2 BP]
For every 1 qi point spent, you will become mostly transparent for 60 seconds. All other signs of your presence will be partially muted (sound, smell, aura, etc). Remaining motionless while translucent will make you exceedingly difficult to spot.
As One (Special - Rank 3)
[3 BP]
???
Energizer (Special)
[1 BP]
You and your bond can share vital energies. Pulling energy from your bond will instantly restore some of your qi pool in exchange for increasing the cooldowns for their abilities. Your bond pulling energy from you will reduce their ability cooldowns in exchange for consuming qi from your pool.
Antler Genesis
[1 BP]
You can spend at least 1 qi point to grow an antler from any bone. Size and shape of the antler can be affected by increasing qi investment during creation. Once disconnected from the body, the antler will continue to exist for 1 minute or until consciously dismissed.
The most obvious differences were the changes from opening new meridians. She had gained three attribute points in Strength and Agility and had her approximate max values raised accordingly. In addition, thanks to the meridian synergies the costs for [Swift] and [Flurry] had been halved.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Apart from meridian bonuses, she also had gained more bond ability points, the ability to share senses with Silas, and two new bond abilities: [Energizer] and [Antler Genesis]. The emergence of a second ‘Special’ ability was exciting in and of itself, however, there was something else that she almost missed, too. Rank 3 of [As One]--which had previously stated that she had not met the requirements to purchase it–was now missing that detail. So much had happened she had no idea why this had changed. It could be anything from the reforging of her body, to her or Silas’s rank ups, to the freshly cleared meridians, but it didn’t matter much in the end. All that she really cared about was that she could purchase the ability now if she wanted, even though the description still was only listed as question marks.
The question marks puzzled her somewhat, but investing in [As One] had never been a bad decision for her. She wondered if maybe the question marks were a signal that there was something special about the third rank. Before she could get lost too deeply in musing about what the third rank could be, she saw him.
Samantha could tell by the way that the man’s eyes looked ahead without focus and his body wobbled unsteadily from side to side as the Stallion walked that he was inebriated. His ornate, golden robes were slightly askew, revealing smears of lipstick on his neck and chest.
He must’ve had a busy day at the brothel.
She stood in the middle of the empty street–impossible to miss. Still, despite her being the only other person in the road, he showed no sign of stopping or steering his horse away from running directly into her. Wanting to get his attention, she had Silas grow the most intimidating pair of horns he could and she unleashed the full force of her Peak Copper killing intent towards him.
His gaze sobered slightly as his eyes honed in on her location, and he pulled back on the Stallion’s reins to signal a halt. He squinted blearily at her for a moment, seemingly confused as to why she was standing in his way. Once he realized that she was a higher rank than him, however, he bowed his head in deference and began to steer towards her left to go around her.
Samantha stepped sideways to block his path again.
He paused somewhat uncertainly, then addressed her, “Honored sister, I am trying to get home.”
Deciding not to mince words with the man, Samantha made her demands clear, “You’ve rudely traveled this area on horseback without concern for others, pushing aside and nearly trampling on those who get in your way. I assume you must be from another town, because in Yivesh those traveling with mounts or other beasts of burden are expected to take the wider roads. It’s rude to go through business districts that have heavy foot traffic. I will give you two options on how to atone. Option one: pay 10 gold to make up for the injuries and loss of business you have caused for these shops–one of which is owned by my family–and agree never to travel through this road with your steed again. Option two: I will challenge you to a duel right now and beat you within an inch of your life in the Coliseum, and take the gold anyways as a wager. In either case, if I or other cultivators in my family see you in this area again with your steed we will challenge you to fight. Now, choose.”
The man looked taken aback by her words, but had the sense of mind even while inebriated to not immediately speak rudely to someone of a higher rank. After a few moments of thought, he said, “I recall no laws that forbid me from traveling anywhere in the city on my mount.” He smiled smugly, as if he had won some great debate.
“It is called ‘the law of common courtesy’, and it is usually not required to be written anywhere for those with any sense. Are you claiming you are unaware of how to be decent to others? Perhaps if you did not go out of your way to be a nuisance, no one would have had an issue with you in the first place.”
“A nuisance? To whom? We cultivators are gifts to these sad mortals. They should be thankful I come through here at all! If a spirit beast attacked I could protect them.” he declared haughtily.
“The only spirit beast they need protecting from is yours.” she said with growing irritation, “Now, what will you choose to do? Pay up, leave, and only return here if you travel on foot? Or will you fight me?”
The man sat up straighter and looked down on her from his steed, his previous politeness vanishing, “You think to challenge me? Do you know who I am? I–”
Samantha sharpened her killing intent on the man as she lost her patience, the horse rearing back slightly beneath him as the weight of her aura settled on them. The man began to sweat under the pressure and his words faltered in his throat.
“My name is Samantha Cray, and I tire of your stalling. Choose, or I will challenge you. Keep in mind, the last people to challenge me were exiled from this floor.” she said with steel in her voice.
A spark of recognition flared in his eyes at those words. He looked over her attire, her spear, and down to the hissing Jackalope by her side, then his eyes widened. He knew exactly who she was. Although he had not personally attended the duel yesterday, talk of the exciting fight and the results were a popular topic of conversation everywhere in the city. His straight posture deflated at once, “Forgiveness, I understand now. I will pay the requested amount and I will not travel through here with my mount again.”
Struck by a sudden burst of inspiration, she ordered, “Give me an oath.”
He paled slightly, but nodded, “I give you my oath as a cultivator that I will not travel through here with my mount again.”
A High Copper cultivator has offered you an oath (Oathbreaker Marks: 0). Violating this vow will result in the promiser receiving a permanent Oathbreaker Mark.
Accept? Y/N
At least it seems he keeps his word. I don’t think the business district will have further issues with him.
Samantha drew back her killing intent as she accepted his oath. With the uncomfortable pressure on him gone, the man fumbled through a waist pouch for the coins and handed them over to her. He proceeded to bow and then turned around, directing his mount back towards the wider main thoroughfares of Yivesh. Satisfied with the outcome, she made her way to Clyde’s house to inform him of the good news.
“Good evening Samantha. What can I do for you?” Clyde asked her with a low bow.
“I’ve finished the job you hired me for–that cultivator won’t be bothering you again. I even got him to swear an oath.” she explained.
“Marvelous! Simply marvelous.” Clyde said, clapping his hands together excitedly. “Thank you for your fine work. I’m sure everyone will be thrilled at this news.”
Samantha handed Clyde the 10 gold she had just taken from the High Copper cultivator, and he looked at the shining coins with great confusion.
“Distribute this money evenly amongst those who contributed funds to hire me for this job to reimburse them and repay some loss of business they may have suffered.”
Though Samantha was not required in any way to hand over the funds she had received, she considered many of these people to be like family to her. She didn’t want to be the reason for financial hardships for any of them. Besides, she had more than enough money right now as it was. Clyde’s eyes began to water as he was overcome with unexpected emotion. But before he had the chance to get too sentimental, Samantha gave him a sly wink and added, “...Also, please let everyone know that I’ll be doing my shopping tomorrow to receive my discounts.”
----------------------------------------
Samantha woke up feeling blissfully rested. After her brutal battle against Eileen Braxand she hadn’t had much time to recuperate. She was dragged to the Braxand manor, tasked with stealing an elixir, had to stay up memorizing the combat art manual, went immediately to the sewers to rank up, came out of the sewers to confront the Verdant Stallion cultivator… it was understandable why she needed to sleep so desperately.
Now refreshed and revitalized, she was raring to go. She was determined to browse every store in the Southern Business District and look for anything that could potentially help her on the next floor, or perhaps could be a gift or memento left behind for her parents.
As she got ready, she noticed that five silver pieces had been placed on her bedside table next to a small note that read, “Allowance for your shopping today. Have fun! -Mom and Dad”. Her parents must have set it there after she had fallen asleep.
Samantha’s heart warmed at the sight of the note. After giving Clyde the money she’d gotten from the cultivator, he’d given her five silver to pass on to her parents to reimburse them for their contribution towards hiring her. Apparently, her parents decided to pass those funds back to her instead. She believed that they probably needed the money more than she did at this point, but couldn’t bring herself to try and return it to them a second time. Ultimately, she added it to her overflowing coin purses and decided to accept it. Extra money never hurt when shopping, after all.
All in all, the entirety of her personal wealth amounted to 100 gold, 37 silver and 46 coppers. This was the richest she had ever been in her life, and she was likely going to make herself poor again in short order. Samantha immediately set aside 40 gold pieces for training with the sadist. She planned on leaving for the second floor 13 days from now (1 day prior to the ascension deadline) to prevent any possibility of accidentally exceeding the time limit. This meant she would need 12 days for training since she was using today for shopping. She opted not to set aside the full 60 gold pieces to fund the training, banking on her ability to win the ‘free training’ prize at least once every three sessions. This would leave her with 60 gold, 37 silver, and 46 coppers to freely spend on whatever else she wanted.
She met her parents in their kitchen and gave them hugs in greeting. Silas was already feasting on his breakfast herbs, but as delicious as her parent’s freshly cooked pancakes smelled, she wasn’t feeling the least bit hungry at the moment. She hadn’t eaten since the feast at Ol’ Man Whispers, but she still felt physically satisfied despite the lack of recent sustenance. Perhaps this was a result of her ranking up to Peak Copper, similar to how her body generally required less sleep? Or maybe it was a result of her body being reforged and becoming more efficient. She’d have to wait and see.
She left Silas behind to be spoiled by her parents and visiting patrons and told everyone she’d be back by dinner. Then, her shopping spree truly began.
Samantha decided that her first priority should be survival gear. A way to start fires, build shelters, find and store water, tools for cooking and preparing meals, and utility items like ropes or light sources. She had no idea what kind of environment awaited her beyond the ascension obelisk, so she’d have to prepare for everything as best as she could. This led her to the ‘Caravaner’s Depot’, a store that specialized in stocking caravans for travel necessities as they moved goods through the vast wilderness between cities.
She clamped down on her aura as tightly as she could as she walked into the shop, unable to fully suppress it but hopefully mitigating the effects enough where no one would be too uncomfortable standing next to her. It would probably make a mortal’s hair stand on end–like there was a danger nearby–if they walked near her, but it would not cause them to feel sick or faint.
She was welcomed by the owners like a member of the family, and after telling them that she planned on ‘taking a journey’ outside the city soon and explaining what she thought she would need, they offered her some items they thought could help.
A majority of the items they showed her were qi enchanted on account of her cultivator status. Qi enchanted items came in many varieties, and depending on how they were scripted could be powered either by ambient qi (like the Granvich backpack she had found that preserved the goods inside), use of spirit pearls, qi from the cultivator, or a combination of the three. This made them expensive, but especially useful for a cultivator in a survival situation where resource availability was uncertain. After all, at least a cultivator would always have their own qi to rely on.
The first enchanted item that caught her eye was a canteen. The large container looked like it should hold about a gallon of water, and had a heavy-duty adjustable strap that could be looped over the shoulder to carry it. Samantha was confused at first by exactly how sturdy the strap was, as it seemed like it should be connected to something much heavier than the canteen, but after the shop owners explained what the qi enchantment did she understood.
The container could actually hold 10 times the amount of water inside of it, though the weight of the water itself would not be reduced at all. With Samantha’s Peak Copper body generally needing less sleep, food, and water than a mortal, this meant she could carry well over a month’s worth of water with her at once. The rank 1, water-affinity spirit pearls that typically powered the canteen (such as those that came from aquatic creatures) would last for about 6 months before needing to be replaced by a new pearl. Thankfully, these low rank cores were only a few silver each, so she decided to buy the canteen and a few extra pearls just in case. In a pinch, the canteen could also be powered by non-water-attuned pearls or raw qi from a cultivator, but would only hold five gallons of water and would need to be recharged more frequently. If the container was full when it lost its charge, it would eject any water that could not normally fit within the one gallon volume violently from a specially designed release valve integrated into the lid.
She was informed that these containers were normally placed in a cart and carried by a beast of burden, and were not meant to be carried by a singular person since a full canteen weighed over 80 pounds. However, she was confident that with 10 Strength the weight wouldn’t hinder her much. She could also dump out some water if it turned out there were plenty of water sources on the next floor and she didn’t need to hoard so much of it.
The second enchanted item that interested her was a scripted fire-starter. The obsidian, fist-sized sphere could emit a small, fingernail-sized flame when activated through the use of ambient qi. A larger flame could be created by fueling the sphere with a spirit pearl or qi and could be used to cook or create warmth with. Since Samantha didn’t know how much wood or kindling would be available on the second floor, she considered this an essential purchase.
The third and final enchanted item that she got from this shop was a handheld lantern. Samantha’s [Prey’s Awareness] gave her the ability to see better in the dark, so she chose not to invest in the most expensive and feature-rich lantern they sold. Instead, she purchased a small, sturdy lantern that only ran off of ambient qi and emitted a dim light in an adjustable beam.
The rest of the survival gear she got from the shop was relatively mundane: a woolen blanket, bedroll, waterproof tarp, cooking utensils, small cooking pot, 50 feet of sturdy rope, small hand shovel, an ax, saw, and a few other minor items. The total of everything together would normally cost around 15 gold, but with her discount combined with minor haggling it was brought down to only 11 gold and 3 silver.
Samantha went through the next several shops trying to spend at least a silver at each. She purchased food stuffs, clothing for different temperatures, hygiene and personal care items, gifts she planned to give to family members, and some small items that could entertain her such as dice and cards. And, even though she still wasn’t hungry or thirsty, she bought something from every food vendor just to enjoy the flavor. Anything left over she happily shared with other shop workers she visited or the children longingly staring at her snacks– provided their parents didn’t mind. This only put her out a little over a gold piece.
Samantha saved the ‘best’ stores for last, meaning the ones that she would find the most exciting (and expensive) to shop at.
The ‘Art of Combat’, which was aptly named due to selling only combat art manuals, was her next stop. This shop constantly hired cultivators to serve as both guards and salesmen, given the high-value items held within and cultivators being the only clientele. Samantha was primarily looking for arts that would be synergistic with her open meridians, but she was open to anything that could prove useful for survival or traveling through different terrain. Not wanting to give away that she had more meridians open than was standard, she only mentioned one foot, one leg, her heart, and her mind meridian, which kept in line with the golden ratio at Peak Copper. After explaining her needs to one of the salesmen, he began combing through the shelves and expertly picking out arts that matched her criteria.
As his stack of options grew, Samantha did some browsing of her own, but didn’t find anything that suited her current needs and abilities. After several minutes, the salesman finished gathering the relevant manuals and called her over to the counter to look through the options. She began to go through them one by one, starting from the least expensive and going to the most expensive.
A few arts she discarded out of hand because they were too similar or less efficient than abilities she already possessed–such as ones that increased speed but were not nearly as versatile or powerful as [Swift]. Others she discounted because they were too expensive, even for her ample budget of over 48 gold. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford them, but she still had another shop to visit after this one and wanted to have some money to spend there.
After picking through the stack, there were a few she was fairly confident she would purchase.
The first was [Geas], an art that utilized an open mind meridian to impose a contract on another person. [Geas] essentially let the user place a small ‘bomb’ of their own qi into another person’s dantian, which would explode if some condition the user set was broken. If the [Geas] was not mutually agreed upon, the user could attempt to force the contract by overcoming the target’s natural qi defenses. If this attempt failed, the user would receive backlash proportionate to the qi invested into the skill, and the target’s natural qi defenses would reject the bomb. The amount of damage the [Geas] would cause to the target’s cultivation base was also dependent on how much qi was put into the art. The [Geas] remained actively connected to the user through a gossamer thin thread, similar to Samantha’s bond to Silas.
This was apparently a popular choice among cultivator nobles, as it was frequently used to keep tabs on people or ensure business dealings were ‘honest’, though it was admittedly limited in several ways. The [Geas] reserved whatever qi was invested into it, meaning that until the target broke the condition and received damage from the [Geas], or the user chose to harmlessly dissipate the [Geas], the user’s total qi pool was reduced. There could also only be one condition per [Geas], and the condition being ‘broken’ was dependent on the target’s own rationale and intentions. Thus, conditions needed to be carefully worded, or someone could potentially ‘think’ their way around the condition without consequences if they were clever enough.
This art reserved a minimum of five qi per [Geas] to maintain the connection and inject a small amount of qi into the target, making this a rather expensive technique. However, despite the limitations, Samantha now had a larger qi pool than ever and could think of several useful implications of this art. If there were other people alive on the second floor, she would need a reliable way to keep them from betraying or cheating her.
The second useful manual contained a new mindset called [Hyperfocus]. [Hyperfocus] enhanced the effectiveness of her mind meridian by further increasing reaction and mental processing speeds. There were almost no downsides to learning this, save one. Other mindsets, such as [Sage’s Rumination], could not be active at the same time as [Hyperfocus]–at least not with her current level of ability. It was difficult enough keeping her mind partitioned into two sections, let alone three. It would also take time to switch which technique she was practicing, as they required almost opposite mentalities. [Sage’s Rumination] was focused on tranquility and peace, while [Hyperfocus] necessitated a sort of subconscious intensity that [Sage’s Rumination] didn’t allow for. Even if she could partition her mind into three sections, she doubted that the two could ever run smoothly together.
The third art, [Last Wind], was an interesting double edged sword that relied on an open Heart Meridian. For 1 qi point a minute the user would gain +5 Endurance, which would wipe away exhaustion and get them back into the fight if they were on the brink of collapsing. However, when the art stopped the user would take on all of the unnaturally accumulated exhaustion at once. Depending on how long they relied on the art for and what state they were in when they started using it, this could cause anything from being winded to falling unconscious. Samantha could see many situations where this could save her life in the future, such as if there was an extended chase and she needed to flee, or if she just needed a little more time to finish a drawn out battle.
Samantha was thrilled by the three arts, but still disappointed that there were no leg or foot meridian arts that were better than what she already had. Seeing the small pile of discarded options, the salesman asked, “Was there an issue with the leg and foot based arts that I brought you? Perhaps you were seeking out something a bit different?”
“I just felt that these techniques were a bit similar to what I already possess. I was hoping for something more unique or powerful other than speed or kicking arts.” she admitted.
“Well, if that’s what you’re looking for, I do have one thing in mind. However, I must warn you that it’s rather expensive and also requires both feet meridians to be opened, so you wouldn’t be able to use it unless you break the golden ratio now or after you rank up to Low Bronze.”
Samantha schooled her expression, not wanting the man to suspect she already met the requirement, “I’d love to at least take a look, if you’d bring it to me?”
“Of course. One moment.”
Samantha did a quick tally of the cost of the books if she bought all three and calculated that before discounts it would cost her around 18 gold. She estimated that with the store discount and a healthy round of haggling she could get the cost down to around 13 gold.
The salesman came back with a tome priced at an eye watering 30 gold and set it down gingerly in front of her.
“30 gold?!” Samantha couldn’t help but gasp. “Is this tome multiple-use or something?”
The salesman shook his head and laughed, “Multi-use tomes are incredibly difficult to make and maintain, and are generally kept in a collection by the Big Three and out of the reach of the average cultivator. It would be quite a bargain if we were selling one out of this shop for only 30 gold.”
Samantha looked over the combat art description to see why it was priced so high, and her mouth practically began salivating as she read.
[Cloud Step], as the salesman had mentioned earlier, required both foot meridians to be open for it to be used. 1 point of qi invested into the art would create a solid surface of condensed qi directly beneath the chosen foot. Regardless of where the surface is placed or in which orientation the user is facing, it will remain steady and usable as a platform until one second has passed or the user chooses to move their foot to another place. In other words, Samantha could literally run circles through the empty air around her enemies and fight them while she was upside down if she wanted to. She could also use it to climb or descend from great heights, cross wide chasms, walk on water… the applications were numerous.
Samantha had to have it.
Samantha brought the four tomes up to the shopkeeper and began the most intense session of haggling that she’d ever done in her life. Unfortunately, the price for [Cloud Step] was not as flexible as the others were, and she could only get the price down to 26 gold. As a result, it was simply too expensive to get all four items right this instant.
Samantha decided that the most important items for her survival would be [Cloud Step] and [Hyperfocus]. With no knowledge of what the terrain would be like on the next floor, [Cloud Step] would give her the ability to traverse essentially anything except an endless ocean. As for [Hyperfocus], it was a generally useful ability and could possibly help with the active effect of [Prey’s Awareness]. If she could use her sphere of dominion more often, that could be a lifesaving ability she relied on in fast fights.
While [Geas] would be potent in her interactions with other people, that required that she actually met others on the second floor she could use it on. For all she knew, everyone would be more powerful than her and she couldn’t force a [Geas]. Alternatively, she could be the only human present on the next floor–a very lonely but possible future. As for [Last Wind], it was extremely useful in a pinch but not necessary for most situations. She could live without it if she had to, though she would have felt more secure with it in her arsenal.
Samantha made her choice and coughed up 31 gold for the two tomes, leaving her with 17 gold, 32 silver, and 22 copper.
She journeyed to the last shop on her list, “Grandmaster Nutrition and Cultivation”. This alchemy shop specialized in training aids and supplements for cultivators who were working to advance their attributes, much like she was planning on doing over the next couple of weeks.
When she met with a shop worker and explained that she wanted to raise every attribute as much as possible over the next twelve days, the woman got a greedy glint in her eye. Needless to say, Samantha ended up buying 12 doses of the most potent alchemical powders the store crafted for each attribute. She was instructed to mix one spoonful of each powder into water and consume the drink 30 to 60 minutes before she began training for the best effects. The woman claimed that the powders would increase her workout productivity by around three times, making her 12 days of training as effective as 36 days.
When she walked back home and sat down to eat dinner with her family–again more for the experience than for satiating any hunger–she only had 3 gold, 28 silver, and 22 copper remaining not including the money she had set aside. After finishing dinner she decided to head to her room for the night.
Samantha then began the arduous task of trying to learn the techniques from the new combat art manuals she obtained: [Indomitable Body], [Cloud Step], and [Hyperfocus]. She decided to learn [Hyperfocus] first, since it would hopefully improve her learning speed and retention on the next two tomes.
It was going to be another long night, but she was looking forward to how much she would grow by the time the sun rose tomorrow morning.