Chapter 72 - The Real Deal

Adam had spent five days now away from Binyon and the children. Was that enough time for the faction guys to get bored and return to Weihou – he didn’t like playing a game of cat and mouse, but what else could he do?

He stood in the great cavern that held the tower and just sat down to think for a while – chastising himself for all the mistakes he had made. It was lucky he hadn’t had anyone to fight – let alone the high-tier cultivator who had turned out to be fake. Without his Shadow abilities, he had no real fighting capabilities at all. Would it affect their abilities as well? He didn’t know.

What he did know was that he had been tricked by an old cultivator of some sort, who should have, by all rights, been dead thousands of years ago. Adam knew he had more lives than a cat – having almost died eleven times taking some fake pills. He supposed he would just chalk it up to experience adding those lives to the five hundred and something lives already used up when the Galtans were experimenting on him.

Sitting, he started to doze off, at least that’s what it felt like - he heard the whistling of wind far off somewhere and then imagined he could hear some insect also far off. He shook himself awake – weird dream.

“Do you think any of that stuff was real? I mean mentalism. Is there a possibility we could learn something from that?” said Adam, talking out loud.

“I do not think you were supposed to survive – so yes, I think it could be for real. But the only one who can find that out is you,” said Libby, already long ago thinking along those lines and was currently scanning the barrier again, trying to figure out what she could as they still had the problem of it failing in now under three weeks.

“Ok. Let’s give it a try again, then. Have you checked out the spiritual herbs?” asked Adam, already knowing the answer but wanting to see what Libby had found out.

“The majority of the herbs are really high-tier and not really of any use right now except maybe to sell. Although I think that might raise a lot of suspicion.” She stated.

“However, we have been able to extract a lot of useful elixirs from the pill bottles and other ingredients. Some has degraded, but that just makes more of it useable by you at your low stage of cultivation.” Said Libby, trying to put a positive spin on their situation as she could sense Adam was on a downer, despite having had his life saved numerous times. She was also happy that Echo’s plans had worked out so well.

“Let’s have another go then,” said Adam, ready for another guided session of cultivation.

This fitted in perfectly with Libby’s plans as she could continue her research on the barrier at the same time.

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Sinking into his now familiar cultivation practice, Adam tried to follow the flow of Qi around his meridians – circulating and cleansing. Though Libby actually had to do a lot of work to start with setting up a filter as the environmental energies were negative to this and would just kill Adam.

She converted them instead into pure mana streams for him to circulate as he visualized the process set up by Huba.

***

Thawain had had almost a week to spend panicking in the mountains but had not needed that long as, after day one; the elite faction members had searched the area and come across something that had discouraged them from going any further. So he just planned their next steps or slept; actually, mostly he slept – the kids being fine in their training space, practicing the things they had already been taught, and doing some weapons training.

He had asked Ash to come out once a day so that Thawain could advise him if there had been any change in the situation – really, it was so Thawain could check if they were ok and hadn’t got too carried away with the weapons training. He knew the older ones, particularly Sela and Ash, were proficient with their weapons, Sela showing expertise for her age already with the spear but as to the rest, they were all unknown. After the third day without an incident, Thawain felt better and decided to do a little training of his own, especially as it helped to keep him warm high up in the mountains.

***

Echo had informed Libby that not all had been fake in the illusion cast by the great Sage in the mountains as Adam’s body had changed – this was shown instantly by his increased stats having remained but also more of interest to Echo; his internal structures had changed.

Libby, despite distracting herself with the puzzle that was the barrier, had noticed this also – as they had not needed to start from scratch with Adam’s cultivation. It seemed that the process and pills had all been the real deal.

Echo also noted that although Adam should have died when consuming the crimson pill, at such a low level of the tempered body by Echo continually regenerating his body – the meridians and other parts associated were healed, allowing him to try again.

But it was not for him to try again as the residual energies from the last pill taken and absorbed still remained within Adam’s dantian, thereby increasing his chances though slim, of success the next time around. It was this continuous process that finally resulted in success – Echo held this to be a great secret to Adam’s further accelerated progress.

Adam just needed to almost die some more.

Libby thought the adage “Grasp life and death” was very fitting for Adam. Although it was a description of the next cultivation stage – the Earthly Yuan stage – she felt he already had the ethos at heart.

Adam’s eyes flew open he felt he was very near to breaking through to something, but it kind of freaked him out – he had spent so much time over the last few days in virtual training and illusion that his mind felt it needed a bit of alone time.

He sat back and just breathed in the cool air of the cavern – real cool air and steadied his mind and body.

Again that dam fly! He could sense the movements of a fly within the confines of the giant cave – What the hell!?

Libby alerted him to the fact that, no, it was not yet another illusion. He was actually at the tempered body 9th stage and should expect plenty more of that.

Adam decided a bit of practice in the real world was required to acclimatize himself to his new level of perception – and so he sat back and did just that, listening to the air circulating through the chamber and the minute lifeforms that inhabited there.