“Cultivation Sucks!” The young man snorts in frustration. He had spent the entire night outside the cave, going through the jade slip and his info dumped memories. He was certain he was doing it right and to be fair, he had never heard of or considered cultivation before this whole thing started. According to this info he should be able to cultivate up to 2 realms before he needed to find his first companion. These realms were further divided into 10 levels. Currently he was at 0 realm and level. He had tried to follow the instructions. Watched his memories play through examples provided for by the jade slip. The problem was, he had no base starting position. There were concepts and things named he was sure was common knowledge in this world that he had no clue about. Take the Dantian thing. It was this mythical place in your body around or below you belly button. This was where you were to store the energy of the word or QI as the technique said. Then you could use this energy to… do things? “Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people, how do they come up with this crap?” He shook his head in disgruntlement. “Who even comes up with this stuff? How in the name of all that’s holy, could this even work?”
He sighs and leans back against the wall. He didn’t even want to think about this anymore. He’s smart enough to know that its most likely a cultural thing. People grow up learning things without even realizing it. The people here were exposed to concepts and ideas since birth. They grew up with what would seem to be intuitive knowledge of the world around them. In fact, it was the combined knowledge and experience of a culture and society. He had remembered going overseas and seeing this happen both to him and to the people he interacted with. Some things he had taken for granted from home, were in fact foreign concepts to other people based on their own cultural and personal beliefs and concepts. While he was exposed to their own sets of societal references and accepted ways of life.
Shaking his head, and with a grunt he stands from his seated position. The sun has been up for a little bit now and he was getting both thirsty and hungry. He felt rested at least. Giving him some hope that this Cultivation thing was actually something. He figured it had at least put him into some sort of restorative state. Eyeing the cave, he slowly made his way over to it. There had been no sounds from the cave during the night. There were also no animal smells so he figured it was safe enough to take a look. The entrance was roughly 6 feet across and about the same in height. After a short walk down a rough stone corridor, the pathway opened up into a chamber that was a bit over 30 feet in diameter. Roughly circular and surprisingly free of debris, the stone floor was flat, with several small stone platforms scattered in a rough attempt some sort of order. Other than that, the place was empty. After walking around the platforms for a bit he noticed another path leading further into the mountain. Deciding to keep going for a bit more he made his way down.
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It took him a few seconds to realize he could still see. It was then that he noticed that a few stones stuck into the ceiling were emitting a soft yellow glow. “Well at least they have lighting here. Is this magic?” He didn’t see any wiring or fixture housing, so it was either some sort of magic or power. “Unless its natural somehow?” he muttered. After walking for about 15 minutes the long corridor opened up into another smaller chamber. This chamber was not like the first. Debris and broken furniture were scattered everywhere. It looked like someone had set up camp here and then slowly expanded it into a living space. The layer of dust spoke to it being quite a while since it had last been used. Possibly years had gone by, if the several corpses he spotted in the back of the chamber were to be believed. They were old and dry, stains from decomp long since dried. There was a person and two wolf like beast bodies stuck in the same position the must have died in. Forever fighting to survive even in death.
The young man was siting back up in the platform room. He had spent several hours going through the broken pieces of detritus in the room with the dead. He had found several things that while old would still serve him. There had been a remarkably preserved pack with clothes and personal items. There were also a handful of small silver coins he thought was the money of this world. The clothes were made of some soft hide and cloth he thought might be cotton, but than again what did he know. While not all of it would fit him and none of it were in really good shape, he was finally clad in hide pants that ended just below the knees. With boots made of the same material. There were two cloaks made of the cloth material and while tattered, he managed to cut a hole in one and use it like a poncho, so at least he had some top covering. The last cloak was the worst and when all was said and done, he had a strip of fabric he wound about his head like he had done in the middle east, to protect himself from the sun. The pack itself was still in good condition so now he had a way to carry things. He had stuck the 3 bird feathers into his hair earlier and after debating with himself as to put them in the pack, he decided to keep them in his hair and wrap them under his improvised Shemagh. He would not be winning any fashion contests but it was better then nothing.
The best thing he had gotten were two 8-inch claws off the two beast corpses. While examining the body’s he saw several deep groves in the stone floor of the cave. The claws were apparently strong enough to cut stone. It was no wonder the poor bastard died. It was a bit of effort to get one paw close enough to the other to use the claws on it to cut through the other. Once he had freed the first claw, he had carefully used it to remove the others. So now he had several of them in his pack. The largest 2 he kept, and made a crude wrapped handle for each with the pieces of hide and fabric scraps. While not optimal, it would do for now. Braiding the last of the rags together he made a crude rope, to tie the poncho around his waist. He also hung the 2 claw daggers from this rope.
“Time to head back to the pond for water and maybe some food if I can figure out a way to fish.” He said to himself. With that, he stood up and made his way out of the cave.