The food Lizzy brought was divine, some cold meats and a bowl of Spaghetti, Ryan hadn’t realised how hungry he had become. John was still engrossed within his Interface, occasionally scribbling furiously on his notepad. Eventually, one after another the others filtered back into the lounge, William being the last to arrive. He made as if to move to Ryan, but then apparently decided to settle next to Lizzy, comfortably hugging her and reclining on the couch. Ryan hadn’t been idle during his wait for the patch to go live, deciding to allocate his stat points for the level, evenly split between Constitution, Energy and Agility, electing to keep one point in reserve as a good luck charm and investigating his Interface in more detail, once more trying to find more information relevant to his new life.

Conversation, which had resumed as people started moving back into the lounge, petered out with less than a minute left before the Patch would go live. People looked either apprehensive or excited at the change they expected to come. Ryan remained ambivalent, what worried him more was how the implementation of the change would affect everyone, would they pass out as they did when the System was initially initiated. That thought continued to plague him until a short blip of blackness occurred:

…installing Patch 1.01…

…Patch 1.01 successfully installed…

…Please review Patch notes for further information…

Ryan reviewed his log and determined that he had lost consciousness for approximately thirty seconds while the patch was installed, a bit more than the Administration had budgeted. Then, similarly to everyone else, he dove into his Interface once again. His initial perusal of his Character Sheet showed no apparent changes, his stats, achievements and traits not reflecting any difference. His Skills also showed the same ridiculous numbers, so he expanded the list and was pleasantly surprised.

The Profession list showed two bolded Professions with a short list of various Skills marked with Asterisks below:

Scavenging with Scan, Survey, Analyse and Awareness and Smithing with Smelting, Casting, Smithing, Designing and Metallurgy. He was instinctively aware of the ranking the System assigned each of the Skills and selecting one of them further expanded the list, the various subskills once again marked by an Asterisk, selecting one once again further expanded the list. And once again. Selecting a Skill that showed no Asterisk gave a short summary of what it entailed. It was a massive improvement over the previous mess the Skill System was, clearly delineating which Skills were consolidated into the various professions. His Scavenging profession was rated at Novice (15) and Smithing at Journeyman (29) but Ryan had no idea what that signified precisely. The various sub-skills were rated differently as well, but a quick calculation showed that their average level had no relationship to the Professions level. He took note of the discrepancy and resolved to forward the information to John later, the analyst might be able to make sense from the numbers.

Speaking of John, the man was clearing his throat and spoke to the group at large “Everyone, I suggest we leave further investigation for later and continue with the meeting at this stage. For now, I suggest we discuss our way forward for the immediate future and formalise leadership of our group. I also strongly suggest everyone read up on the tooltip the System now provides with respect to the cultivation system after the meeting concludes and provide me with their insight during the course of the evening.”

The meeting proceeded fairly quickly after that. In the end, it was decided that they would make an effort to have everyone reach Level 10 within the next few days, hunting for experience as a group. Everyone should also compile a list of the Professions they had been offered or had already chosen and indicate which professions they would prefer to choose. Further, everyone should indicate to what extent they would generally be willing to engage in combat. Lastly, William and Lizzy were formally elected as the overall leaders of their group, with a council made of John, Alexis and Miguel assisting them with various decisions. Election for the various posts would be held every three months, for the time being.

With the meeting concluded, everyone once again left the lounge, each attending on their own interests, with William promising that they would work out a proper schedule and inform everyone of it by tomorrow. Once again left to his own devices after Lizzy confirmed once again that he needed anything for the moment, Ryan decided to follow up on John’s advice and read the information the Interface provided on Cultivation.

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In short, the information provided was riveting. Cultivation was the primary means of improving oneself within the Quantum System, the utilisation of the ability to absorb and cultivate quantum energy to improve oneself paramount. The Interface informed him that pre Initiation it was generally considered a mystic concept by most pre-system cultures but that the System’s modification of the Mytochondria of living species, apparently a communality existing across near all living entities across the universe, allowed any modified entity to collect and utilise Quantum Energy to power the body. Sapient species, once they managed to consciously direct the process, could massively improve themselves by directing the improvements.

Actively cultivating the energy greatly sped up the rate of absorption and the process of improvement. Apparently, the System’s allocation of experience to a Player was an artificial cultivation method coded in an attempt to mimic the improvements possible through cultivation and a substandard one at that. It allowed the Interface to make limited changes to the Player and improve them by utilising the bursts of Quantum Energy released when an entity died.

Non-sapient species could not direct their improvement but passively improved by utilising such energy and instinctively improving themselves, sufficiently strong non-sapient beings also developed a core and could actively cultivate Quantum Energy, still only instinctively directing the improvements. Any living entity, whether or not they were sapient, also passively absorbed environmental Quantum Energy through various means. Entities that hadn’t formed their core couldn’t direct, consciously or instinctively, any energy and could only improve through rigorous training which automatically utilised the energy to improve various bodily systems. In the overall picture the gains of passive cultivation and the artificial cultivation of the Interface would pale in comparison to consciously directed cultivation.

Once Ryan was done with the introductory information he moved on to meat of the matter, hoping that the information he had been provided with would address his questions. This was where things got vague however. The Interface explained that newly initiated sapient species and new-born sapients were implanted with an artificial core which enabled them to level up and passively utilise quantum energy to jumpstart their personal growth. The provided core could be considered equivalent to a mid-mortal naturally obtained core and was fuelling the entire Levelling and Class System. This replaced the natural way in which cultivators historically progressed through the initial stages and only allowed a being to increase their available Energy Pool through cultivation, at least until such stage that their natural core’s development surpassed the Mortal Realm, at which stage it would become the dominant driver of improvement. The artificial core would still run the Interface and provide meagre improvements as before, but solely relying on it would greatly hamper the beings development.

While informative, this did not address Ryan’s question as to how he was supposed to actually cultivate quantum energy so he just continued reading. Going through the rest of the information didn’t prove significantly more helpful either. While a massive list of various methods of meditation and exercises designed to assist a Cultivator in finding his core and feeling quantum energy was provided, it laconically concluded that each Cultivator’s journey was individually their own and unique and that they would need to find their unique path in person.

Ryan nearly missed the asterisk at the end of the last paragraph in his mounting frustration before he intuitively selected it just to be informed that the Interface had recorded that he had managed to find his core while mediating through physical exercise and that it suggested he find a Cultivator of the Sky Realm or higher who could provide information and guidance on the physical path.

An unearthly scream of pure rage issued from his throat, echoing through the fortress. A few seconds later a worried Alexis popped into the lounge, rushing to his side and immediately checking on his wound. Calming down a bit, Ryan informed her that he wasn’t hurt, at least not any more than previously, before he sheepishly admitted that he was venting his frustration. “I just really detest the Interface and the System as a whole, every time I think I am getting a handle on this new reality it just throws another curveball, neglecting to properly explain how things are supposed to work, just providing the bare bones and hints at information that should be available or that it assumes we are aware of.”

Her answer, quietly mumbled, clarified that he wasn’t the only one that felt that way. “I just feel lost. I suspect most of us are feeling the same way. I just deal with it by dumping all the information I receive on John, hoping he can figure things out and explain them to me.” She then added, “So far, he’s dealing with it very well and has managed to figure out a lot of things. I’m just worried that we’ll reach a point where he’ll be unable to figure things out. Or, god forbid, crack under the pressure we’re piling on him. In any event, I suggest that you two have a private discussion later. He’s a good listener and your unique experiences might prove valuable to him as well.” After a short pause she once again added a few words. “I’ll send him to you after you’ve cooled down some more. And please try to assist him as best as you can while you recover from your injury.”