System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Please name your technique.
I collapsed to the ground in joy. It had taken me over a year, and my friends had all already advanced to Martial Master, but I had done it.
More than that, as I had hoped, having the technique cultivate two different types of essence had been enough for it to be considered ‘novel.’ I didn’t have to try and add any bells or whistles to push it over the top.
For a name, I had decided to play with the idea that it was an earth technique but only helped with affinities for different elements.
“Writ of Wandering Earth.”
Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 1 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?
Only being Peak-Earth was a disappointment, but it was what I had expected. To make everything work properly, I had needed to simplify things, so I stripped out a few of the extra features from the Writ of True Earth. That one used interference patterns during cultivation to increase qi density and make it more powerful.
By cultivating this technique, the strength of my qi would be less than half of what it was in my last life. This would be a bit of a handicap, but with Rank 6 pills, Rank 6 formations, LiTing’s Rank 6 weapons and armor, and the vast amount of experience I had, this small handicap to my qi wouldn’t be much of a hindrance.
That said, should I submit the technique to the Dao? Considering that neither type of essence matched with the technique’s qi type, I was pretty confident I was the only person in the universe who would find much value in my creation. Still, it was exactly what I had wanted, and I didn’t think ‘the Dao’ would care about its limited usefulness.
“Yes.”
Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 100,000 credits.
Note: Earth Rank 1 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.
It wasn’t much of a discount, but I already had a plan for these credits, and I had already checked the prices.
Just as I was about to make my purchase, my mind suddenly felt like it had been struck by lightning. A significant amount of information about my new technique and how to improve it poured into my mind, but right before it would have addressed how this cultivation technique helped me permanently improve my affinities, the flow of information abruptly cut off.
“System, that doesn’t seem correct. Why didn’t I get all the information I was supposed to? There is no way that was all of it.”
Insufficient energy.
I grumbled at that. “How much would it cost to complete the information transfer?”
Cost of information on essence is not possible to calculate at this time.
I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I refocused and made my intended purchase.
“System, purchase a mastery of Rank 1 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 1 talisman artist from this continent.”
Purchase confirmed. Cost 100,000 credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 50,000 credits. 640,049,100,650 credits remaining.
Information didn’t flood into me like I had expected. Instead, a new ball of memories formed in my soul. When I tapped into it, I knew everything I needed to know to make Rank 1 talismans. When I let my focus on those memories fade, the knowledge of talisman artistry disappeared.
Even when tapping into this ball of memories, I had no concept of how to improve my skills to Rank 2 or beyond. I also had no understanding of what might have been edited out by asking for only knowledge from this continent. Without dedicating myself to practicing talismans, I wouldn’t be able to make this knowledge my own. Thinking about this, I realized it might be similar to what Meng LuYao was going through with LiTing’s memories. She had the knowledge, but it wasn’t really hers.
This situation was fine with me.
Before entering the sect, I just needed to learn to make talismans. My only other option had been to boost my talisman comprehension by a few billion points and learn everything on my own, but I didn’t want to spend so much precious time learning a brand-new skill. While the total time I had was unlimited, my time in this life wasn’t.
Even so, learning a new craft was fun, and purchasing the information about one directly was spoiling future entertainment. In other circumstances, I might have looked at just taking a different path so that I could enjoy learning talisman artistry on my own, but I didn’t have much of an attachment to talismans, and I didn’t feel much heartbreak over losing the chance to learn the skill independently.
The only reason I cared about learning to make them was because I needed to know how to do so to enter the sect through the Lightning Peak and gain access to the Lightning Peak Trial. This knowledge provided me with everything I needed to know to succeed.
With a trove of new information in hand, I returned to working on my cultivation technique.
While I hadn’t learned everything I had wanted from the enlightenment of creating a novel technique, I did learn something important. Experimenting with and practicing this technique in the sect’s territory had been the right call. If free essence had been available in the environment, I could have seriously damaged my existing affinities by randomly cultivating it with a poorly designed technique.
Before I was ready to cultivate for real, I needed to fix a series of fatal flaws with the technique.
Thankfully, with the help of the enlightenment, this wouldn’t take too much time.
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After dispersing my cultivation completely, I used my new information to perfect the Rank 1 technique and then cultivated all the way to Martial Disciple Peak. Then, I started working on the Rank 2 technique.
The Rank 2 manual for the Writ of True Earth was far more complicated than the Rank 1 manual, but with the knowledge I had gained, it was far easier to modify.
What set an essence cultivation technique apart from a qi cultivation technique were small spur meridians that connected with the essence filters. I wasn’t sure of their exact purpose, but I knew they had something to do with what made the technique unique.
To make things work, I started with the Writ of True Earth, stripped out the spurs for Earth Essence, removed a couple of the techniques complicating features that made it several times more difficult to cultivate than normal, and added in the spurs for both lightning and metal essence.
This took time, but with a solid understanding of the Rank 1 technique, it wasn’t an impossible task.
System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 2 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?
“Yes.”
Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 10 million credits.
Note: Earth Rank 2 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.
Once the knowledge transfer process was complete, I made my purchase.
“System, I want a mastery of Rank 2 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 2 talisman artist from this continent.”
Purchase confirmed. Cost 10 million credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 5 million credits. 640,044,100,650 credits remaining.
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After cultivating to Martial Master Peak, I started working on the Rank 3 technique, but thankfully, the Rank 3 version of the techniques only needed minor modifications. The dantians for the three techniques were nearly identical. The only changes I had to make were to small spurs, similar to the Rank 2 technique, but I didn’t need to remove any features of the design.
System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. Writ of Wandering Earth. Rating Peak-Earth Rank 3 Earth Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?
“Yes.”
Submission successful. Contribution confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 1 billion credits.
Note: Earth Rank 3 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.
My head filled with everything I needed to know about the technique, and I bought my final discounted bit of information.
“System, purchase a mastery of Rank 3 talisman artistry. I want the complete knowledge and skills of a Rank 3 talisman artist from this continent.”
Purchase confirmed. Cost 1 billion credits. Discount applied. Discounted cost 500 million credits. 639,544,100,650 credits remaining.
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Developing all three techniques and cultivating to Martial Grandmaster 1 took me a total of eight years. This was slower than I would have wanted, but I could satisfy myself with the reminder that it was faster than it would have been if we had just gone to the Academy again.
While I was only a Grandmaster 1, LiTing, JiaQi, and Yan were all at least Grandmaster 7. Meng LuYao had fallen behind and was only a Grandmaster 3 since while she had LiTing’s memories, she still had to work to incorporate the lessons into herself.
Over these years of cultivation, I didn’t drop back into my habit of putting everything aside to cultivate. I mostly spent all my time cultivating, but every single week, I went out with the group for a meal. Even if I wasn’t the most talkative one at the table, I was there.
One thing that worried me, though, was that Meng LuYao was starting to adopt a lot of LiTing’s mannerisms and speech patterns. This wasn’t helped by LiTing treating the girl as a little sister. It might not be much of a problem now, but it couldn’t be healthy, and it wouldn’t be good for future lives where I didn’t give LiTing’s memories to Meng LuYao.
But… maybe this was a connection they both needed? LiTing seemed happier than ever, and Meng LuYao was learning faster the more she embraced this identity. If it only lasted this one life, maybe it would be fine?
When I entered our private room in the restaurant for the first time after advancing to Grandmaster, JiaQi’s eyes shot toward me.
“You did it? Does that mean we’re finally getting out of here and entering the sect?”
I gave her a thumbs up. “Yup. The next exam is in eight months. Everyone needs to be ready before then.”
Everyone smiled at this, happy to start our adventure in the sect, but JiaQi seemed exceptionally excited. I didn’t want to ruin her mood, but I had to address the elephant in the room.
“How are you going to deal with LuLu? If you walk into the sect as a Grandmaster with a Rank 6 demon beast by your side, people are going to have a fit.”
She waved my concern aside. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll send her up north to the empires. She’ll have to run there, but that won’t take her too long. Then, we can accept missions in the same area she hides out in. She won’t be able to help us directly, but having a Rank 6 guardian hiding out in the woods to protect us from high-level threats will be nice.”
“That… alright… that could work. Will not having her around hurt you with the Water Peak?”
JiaQi just shrugged. “Maybe? Doesn’t matter too much. I have a high five-star water affinity. I won’t need to worry about trying to raise my affinity too much until I reach Martial King, and it’s plausible for a high-level king to bond a Rank 6 demon beast, even if it’s unlikely. Either way, it’s fine. I don’t like the idea of bonding with a new companion in our current situation. Maybe… Maybe when we all know more about what the future has in store for us.”
Our dinner concluded peacefully enough, but when we got back to the manor, Yan stopped everyone from going to their rooms.
“Since Fang is a Grandmaster now and we’re planning our return to the sect, there’s something we need to discuss.” As he talked, he seemed uncharacteristically nervous. “As you know, I am from the Zhuge Clan. By entering the Academy and the sect, I was going against my clan’s rules, and they weren’t happy about that.”
I noticed his hand start twitching. “Well, here’s the thing. I didn’t enter the Academy this time, so I haven’t broken any rules yet. They might not be happy that I haven’t returned home, but they can’t be too angry. In fact, once they learn I’ve risen to Grandmaster without having gone to the Academy, they might be ecstatic. They might see it as me having abandoned any notion of rising to Sovereign outside of their purview.”
I nodded slowly at him, but I didn’t understand where this was going.
Yan let out a soft laugh.
“If I were to return home, I might be able to negotiate access to… restricted items.” He looked at me. “I’ve checked carefully. The only known copies of the light and dark essence cultivation techniques are in the Zhuge Clan’s vaults. So, what I want to know is, how do you all feel about staging a robbery of a Sovereign clan?”
My mouth dropped open slightly while everyone stared at him in shock.
After only a moment, I regained my composure and spoke with emphasis.
“No. This isn’t the time. I know you’re eager to settle things with your clan, but let’s wait, okay? Take time. Study the situation. They aren’t going anywhere. They can’t go anywhere.”
I tried to exhale the negative emotions that boiled up at the thought of changing all our plans like this. Adding people to the loop was one thing. My ideas on how to deal with choosing who to add and why were ephemeral at best, so adding Meng LuYao or even Ning ChenKun was only a matter of having a plausible reason to do so.
This would be different. This would almost certainly mean throwing away everything I wanted to achieve in this life. I wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“Yan, you’re too focused on the idea of being able to do anything you want without consequence. That isn’t… That isn’t how I see things. Our biggest advantage is time. We have time to slowly decide what to do and learn how to do it.”
I felt a twinge of frustration from Yan, but outwardly he just smirked playfully at me.
“Says the man rushing to advance his cultivation.”
I smiled in response and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I’m a hypocrite sometimes. But my point is, this is a big deal. Don’t rush it. Spend time feeling it out first.”
He was a bit unwilling, but he finally nodded, accepting my decision.