Chapter 9 : Tall people get picked on too._The appliance repair Cultivator

The next step was choosing the skill he wanted. It needed to be a Tier 4 Chi skill, which was good because that was the highest Tier he met the prerequisites for at the moment. Not that this really narrowed down his options. Far from it. After he filtered out all the chi skills he didn't meet the prerequisites for, the list became far more manageable.

Tier 3 Skills

Aura manipulation :

Intrinsic control over the connection between ones soul and the physical plain.

Tier 4 Skills

Chi mastery :

Expanded understanding as to the underlining nature of Chi and how it effects the world.

Chi body infusion :

Boost one or more of ones stats with Chi energy.

Mind body connection :

Actively infuse the body with Chi to expand and improve its fundamental capabilities.

The next hurdles was examining the skill trees to sift through all the different skills he could unlock moving forward. The problem was that he needed another tier 4 chi skill to get the class but the tier 3 skill, Aura manipulation was the one that would open the most promising doors for him.

Aura manipulation is a must if I want to start doing magic but I need to be practical. Chi mastery though. On closer inspection it states that it help reduce the the XP penalties that come from taking my skills to higher ranks. That hasn't been an issue yet.... but I don't want my progress to start dragging to a crawl. Mind body connection is another strong contender. Actively improving myself, though the fine print states that I will need to spend chi on the upgrades, just not how much.

With a deep sigh Maik finally made his decision and chose Chi mastery. I'm going to be putting most, if not all of my Chi towards the open save the world quest for the next month anyway, So if I'm not taking Aura manipulation....

Maik's consciousness shifted and he was dunked, head first, into a vision. Suddenly Maik found himself adrift before a truly massive structure of some kind. It emitted.... lights, for they were not colors, not as human eyes would conceive. There was no human name for the kaleidoscope of light which formed the most beautiful thing Maik had ever seen save for one thing. It was inert, utterly devoid of any activity and somehow even more lifeless then a door nail. It was strange how the light itself looked as though it were paused

There was something else there, made obvious by the fact that it was the soul thing which moved in this place. It worked on the great structure. No, not on the structure. This.... Ethereal intelligence was working on the underlining structure of reality, weaving patterns that Maik's mortal mind could no more understand than a squirrel might understand how the unreal 4 engine works. But the effect was profound.

This... energy that was created out of the complex patterns which the intelligence wove... It was chi and it effected the inert matter of the structure by giving it animation. Each of the tiniest aspects of the great work started trying to spin and even to form what Maik recognized as an electron field from his studies in chemistry. Only it was... wrong. The entire structure. The whole thing was, he realized, a single atom. Or at least it had been built that way, just without the fundamental laws of the greater and lesser forces to tell it that an atom that size wasn't possible.

This single great atom, which must have been the size of a large city in scope, began to tear itself apart. The energy that the intelligence was putting into the space that housed the great atom was... larger than words. It almost looked like a technician trying to get a stubborn tension spring to seat into its slot despite having put the machine back together wrong. Either that Intelligence's will and strength or the city sized atom would give out. The atom gave, resulting in a fission reaction that birthed a universe from its shear intensity.

Maik came back to himself with a great feeling of apprehension. "What. The. Fuck."

I get it. Chi is a fundamental energy of the universe but did the vision have to go all biblical on me and shit ? Damn.

He looked to see that the Class was now available and picked it, feeling like he needed sleep despite still being unconscious. Strangely it was the same feeling he got after a all night gaming binge.

Name : Maik Alphonse Daley

Race : Celtic / Germanic

Species : Human / H grade / Tier 2

Entity level : 6

Class : Empower craftsman / Mechanical : Level 0 : 0 / 300

Age : 32

Gender : Male

Height : 190 centimeters

Weight : 78 Kilograms

Unused stat points : 0

Strength : 191

Flexibility : 99

Dexterity : 130

Endurance : 108 = [1080 / 1080]

Durability : 122

Intelligence : 134

Smarts : 157

Wisdom : 113

Perception : 43

Charisma : 106

Chi : 148 = [1480 / 1,332]

aura : 135

Tier 1 skills

...................

Tier 2 skills

Fundamental Chi control : Intermediate : level 8 : 7,090 / 10,253

...................

Tier 3 skills

Engineering : Advanced : Level 6 : 18,437 / 20,503

Electromagnetic theory : Experienced : Level 4 : 6,354 / 7,593

physics : Effective : Level 8 : 27,428 / 30,754

Chemistry : Intermediate : Level 5 : 4,872 / 6,834

Chi manipulation : Capable : level 8 : 6,999 / 10,253

Tier 4 skills

Chi cultivation - Beginner : Level 5 : 1,696 / 2,025

Chi projection - Beginner : level 8 : 5,608 / 6,834

Chi Mastery - beginner : level 1 : 0 / 400

With that Maik was finally able to let go and slip back into a dreamless slumber that left him feeling just a little groggy when his phone alarm woke him. He had experienced rougher mornings and the elation from having gained new power quickly swept away the grogginess to leave not but the energized excitement akin to it being his birthday.

As usual the puppy dogs came down to greet him and thankfully everyone wasn't crowding around Maik first thing this morning, so he was able to do his morning routine, more or less, in peace. His body proportion were more normal as well, Less body builder and more power lifter, but still somewhere inbetween the two.

Strange. Where is everybody ?

Derek, of course, was there, having slept in the same room and was now settling into his own meditation practice to cultivate. However Maik would have expected the others with Chi use backgrounds, like Neil, Becky and Terra to have shown up by now to request some more guidance on how to advance their own skills, like they had been doing for the past few days.

Their absence was but a shot term concern and Maik quickly put it out of mind so that he could focus on his own cultivation. First he went to dump the energy from his chi pool, only to find that it wasn't full. Does my body use chi to help fuel the upgrades ?.... Makes sense, now that I think about it. Note to self. Be careful about taking to long when choosing upgrades in the future.

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During the later parts of his meditation Maik was faintly aware of other people entering the house and coming down stairs. In fact is was not that Maik had ended his meditation because he had reached his limit, but because he had run out of time.

Maik discovered a good bit of commotion when he came out of his meditation. It seemed that Mitch raised the rank of one of his skills, Chi manipulation.

"It was just like the first tutorial. I had a vision where the system showed me how to take my Chi manipulation skill to the next level, but only after I gained access to the 1st tier rewards."

Neil interjected for clarification. "Are you sure that access to the system is required for these visions ? I mean you 4 got those tutorial visions without access."

Mitch just shook his head. "That looks like a special case. Like something thrown out just to tease us. No this was clearly part of my new access. Once we all have access I think were going to get regular guidance on how to advance our skills.."

Neil was rubbing his face. ".... nnnnNNNNNAHhhh. Just how can this system account for everything though ? What ? It already knows everything we could ever do with chi and already has prepackaged molds for us to just fill ?" He starts shaking his head. "I don't buy it."

Maik felt this an excellent time to insert himself into the conversation. "Your probably right. Its just that what we are working with is elementary school stuff. The system took the data from all those quests I had yesterday to determine what class I qualified for and...."

Neil started waving his hands to interrupt while half of the others peeked their interest. "Wait, wait, wait. Class ? Like rouge or fighter or wizard type class ? Are you a wizard now Maik ?"

Maik let out a little laugh. "Hahh, no. Not that I didn't look for that class. I just don't meet the prerequisites. In fact most all the classes I qualified for were quite mundane and I barely met the requirements for an empowered class. Empowered craftsman, mechanical. As for wizard. Even a basic wizard would have required me to have a mana pool of at least 1,000."

Michael, who had been stoically quiet this whole time, had to ask. "What's mana ?"

Maik just shrugged. "Super chi ?"

Michael rolled his eyes. More speculation and debate followed, the conversation lasting even after breakfast. It seamed that Neil, Becky and Terra all had managed to gain the Chi cultivation skill last night and had all practiced that morning. But it was still a work day and they had customers to attend to. And so long as they, and other essential service workers like them, continued to take care of their customers, society would continue. Society would, Maik firmly believed, a good thing.

Active Quests : Personal

Type : Private / New

Duration : Until 1:00 PM today

Objective : Repair Gibson, Nancy's Stack unit

Penalties : Loss of company reputation / Loss of personal reputation