They hired a coach to take them out of the city and past the farmlands. At the end of their ride, they found themselves staring up at very tall wall that extended out from the gateway as far as the eye could see. There was a slight curve to it, so Joram supposed the wall closed off a smaller area than a straight one would have.
During the ride, Jae-Eun had mostly kept quiet, only speaking to other young women. She seemed uncomfortable as she kept glancing at their attire while also fidgeting with her own fancy armour. Though, her guard Aya, hadn’t said anything else since her introduction and subsequent attempt to squeeze his hand to paste. He had been glad to have already refined himself sufficiently to have avoided that fate.
Given her strength and what he’d felt through the physical contact, he was impressed that someone so young had already reached the 6th Tier, putting her in the same weight class as Grammy. From the callouses on the woman’s hand, he suspected that she specialized in using a melee weapon; though he was nowhere near good enough to even guess at which one.
“So, let’s head out,” he said with a smile, waving for the group to follow him to the gate.
“Business?” The guard asked, looking bored until he spotted the beautiful women following him.
“Quest,” Joram replied, handing over his student card along with the two pages that gave the details of said quests.
After a moment of looking them over, he nodded them through.
“Just be careful out there,” the guard warned as he walked with them through the gate. “It’s mating season, so the local wildlife are a more aggressive than usual.”
Joram nodded to the man, giving him a word of thanks, who then stopped to watch as they continued down the road.
He didn’t fail to notice Jae-Eun shooting a glance at Aya to see what her reaction was to the news. Either the news didn’t bother her, or she’d expected as much, because she only gave a slight shrug of a shoulder.
“According to the request, the requested medicinal herbs shouldn’t be more than a few miles north and east of the gate,” Joram said as he referenced the map provided by the client. He was down right impressed with how useful the student card was. He’d have called it a “Multi-Pass”, pronounced with the accent of a divine language speaker, but Avi was the only one who might have laughed at that.
That said, the map function of the card was especially useful out here where GPS didn’t exist. He was sure that the Academy had mapped out their island long ago and had created an island-wide array to allow for such a function.
As he led them off the road on a direct line to their target, Joram began wondering how hard it would be to get a world-wide satellite net up and running. With the staggering size of their world, it would take tens of thousands of them to get something functional going, possibly hundreds of thousands of them.
Then the question of how much power they’d need to function came up, throwing him for another loop. The satellites back home didn’t need too much power to function at the distances they did. But here, where the distances were multiplied manyfold, they’d need much more power to get the job done.
Ah, Star Wars tech should do the trick, he thought, remembering the insane distances they could communicate at with relative ease.
Even as caught up in thought as he was, Joram was sure to keep an eye on their surroundings.
They’d entered a relatively sparse forest, the trees spaced dozens of metres apart, though standing at least eighty metres tall. He retried his AR glasses then slipped them on as he walked, getting curious looks from Jae-Eun when she noticed. With the glasses paired to his implanted omni-tool, he was able to deactivate the holographic emitters on the omni-tool. He didn’t quite trust Jae-Eun and Matsui Aya yet, so revealing anything more than necessary wasn’t something he was comfortable with.
Joram wasn’t sure how proficient they were with Mental Strength, so he was a bit unwilling to [Delve] anything he came across that looked interesting while they watched. He still wanted to study those things, though, hence the AR glasses.
A few miles in, he noticed Jae-Eun approaching him, so he slowed slightly so that she could catch up.
“So,” she said, her chin up, looking very much the princess. “It occurred to me that you never shared what your specialty is,” she said, phrasing the question in the form of a statement.
Is she bad at asking questions?
“Hmm,” he said, pretending to think back about it. “Seems I hadn’t,” he said finally, leaving it at that.
Through his perception, he caught Aya’s face going even colder when she heard his response; if that was possible. Jae-Eun seemed to take that in stride though.
“It also occurs to be that I hadn’t share my specialty either,” she said conversationally, then proved her maturity with the next part. “I would be considered a supporter, as I specialize in strategy, tactics, and barriers.”
“Thank you for sharing,” he said, a slight smile accompanying the words. “I’m a bit of an all-rounder. I’m not bad in melee, but can also act at short to long range with my Mental Strength. I can also act in a support roll when needed.”
Jae-Eun stared at him in surprise for a little while before continuing.
“It seems that you’ve built a rather well-balanced team for yourself,” she said neutrally, not quite brave enough to call him out on being a jack-of-all-trades.
He knew full well that the prevalent attitude of the world was that a person should focus on one thing, then get better at that thing, getting stronger in the process.
He seemed to be a generalist in the eyes of others who’d just met him, like Jae-Eun, and probably Aya. And, really, he kind of was. But given that his cultivation of mana and psionics were neck and neck in their progress, it didn’t really matter. What was really proving to be a bit of a bottleneck at the moment was his Psijic Star.
If he were to grade it like mana was graded, then he’d say that it was only a Tier 1 Star. He was behind the curve, as it were, because he hadn’t quite figured out how to incorporate Tier 2 mana into it, let alone the Tier 3 mana he’d just finally gotten access to for breaking into Tier 5 as a mage.
“Well, I learned a long time ago that being one of the rare and vaunted Mentalists, someone respected and valued the world over, doesn’t amount to much if someone can just walk up to you and punch your head off,” he said with a wry grin and a mental curse for that Old Fart.
Jae-Eun gave him an odd look at the same time that Aya’s expression marginally shifted to one of approval for a fraction of a second before returning to her RBF. Alicia just nodded along as though that all made perfect sense, while he noticed that the Trio had also taken an interest in the conversation.
“Is that why you chose to learn martial arts?” Jae-Eun asked, now interested enough in the conversation to start asking questions directly.
“Well, it’s certainly why I started on the path of body cultivation,” he said with a grin. “It also help keep my body strong enough to keep up with the demands of artifact refining.”
“Ah, I’d heard that you were a Trades student,” she said, nodding to herself. “But I also heard that you’re studying alchemy as well. Isn’t it difficult to split your studies like that?”
* * * * *
Jae-Eun was a more than a little bit sceptical of Joram’s claims. It was hard enough to focus on one path in cultivation, but adding body tempering into the mix made things hard enough for most.
“Nah, that stuff comes naturally to me,” Joram said, waving off her concern as though she’d only been concerned about what he’d chosen to eat for breakfast.
Her incredulity must have shown on her face, because he continued spouting outlandish things as though they were common sense.
“I can already refine Peak Grade pills and artifacts,” he said, making it sound like it was nothing. “I might be a bit unusual in how I see things, but for me, alchemy and artifact refining aren’t that different.”
Jae-Eun glanced at Aya and saw that her guardian didn’t look as disbelieving as she, herself, felt.
“For the sake of argument; how so?” She asked, choosing to go along with it.
Joram shrugged.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said, lacing his fingers behind his head and looking up at the sky before asking his own question. “You study musical theory, right?”
“Yes,” she answered, not sure why he was suddenly asking.
“Well, think of it like that,” he said, then gathered his thoughts a bit more before continuing. “Take, say, a flute. You can use it to make music, play almost any note you want. Then, if you were to pick up another kind of flute you could, with a bit of adjustment, play that same piece of music. It would sound a bit different, but the same basic principles apply.”
She nodded along with that, for anyone who knew anything about music would already know that.
“Then let’s take it a step further,” he said, still looking up. “Take a guzheng and play that same piece of music. Again, the sound changes, but the notes needed to make it the same piece stay the same. Sure, it’ll sound completely different than a flute, but anyone who isn’t tone deaf can hear that it’s the same piece.
“Taking it further again, you can do the same with even percussion instruments, though that gets slightly harder,” he said with a grin. “The point is that all music follows the same basic principles, no matter the instrument used.”
Jae-Eun nodded, getting an inkling where he was headed with his analogy.
“The same applied to the principles of refinement,” he said as though it wasn’t a ridiculous statement. “For a long time now, I’ve been able to… feel, the structure of the things I work on with my Mental Strength. Whether its refining medicinal herbs to remove the unwanted parts, the impurities as they call them, or working on combining various reagents needed to construct an artifact, the same principles apply.
“You take what you need, discard what you don’t, then combine what you have to create the final product.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Jae-Eun’s jaw started to hurt as she stared at Joram, then realized that her mouth was open so wide that someone could have slid a whole egg into her mouth, with room to spare.
She turned to see what Aya thought about Joram’s claims and found that even Aya looked stunned as she stood there staring at Joram. In fact, the only one who didn’t look as though their world had been flipped like a table was Alicia, who just looked thoughtful. Then she remembered that Alicia was also a Mentalist which explained her reaction.
When she turned back to Joram, she found him several feet ahead, torso twisted so that he could look at them, his hands still laced behind his head. It was then that she realized that everyone, including her, had stopped when they’d heard is revolutionary statement.
“Anyway,” he said, still twisted and leaning back slightly so that he could see them with his left eye. “That’s why I don’t find it too hard.”
“This!” She blustered, not able to keep calm anymore. “This could change everything! If what you’re saying is true, then it’ll create a revolution in the way crafters think! Of how they’ll make things!”
“Ah,” Joram said, now looking… annoyed? “Maybe just keep that between us, eh?”
Jae-Eun couldn’t believe her ears. He wanted to keep this knowledge to himself?!
“Before you start, think about this,” he said as he turned to regard her, dropping his arms so that he could hold up a hand to stop her from talking. “How many techniques, spells, cultivation methods, alchemical recipes, or anything else like that, are out there but being hoarded by one person or group?
“Wouldn’t the knowledge they so jealously guard help the world? Would bandits be able to raze entire villages if the people of that village had been able to cultivate an appropriate cultivation method?
“What about all the mortals, as they’re called where you’re from, who die every day because they don’t even know how to treat a simple illness with commonly found herbs? Or even knowing how to cultivate to the end of the Body Tempering Realm so that most diseases would no longer be an issue for them?
“Tell me. How is my asking you to not share my unique insights any different than an empire not sharing their wealth of knowledge with those they consider to be commoners?
“Tell me. How is it any different than a chef, or a perfume maker, or a dye maker, or any number of trades people-, how is it different than them zealously guarding their recipes so that they’ll keep their livelihood?”
Jae-Eun bit off the reply that first came to mind, knowing that it would have been a lie. As a princess, she knew full-well what those at the top of society enjoyed compared to those at its base did.
Arguments flew through her mind as she considered them one after another, discarding them just as fast because she knew that they’d all make her sound like a hypocrite. Not only was she a princess but she, too, kept what she’d learned to herself instead of sharing it with others who might benefit from it.
She was even in the process of doing exactly what Joram described by attending the Academy; gaining something that would allow her to rise above others who didn’t have what she had. Her reasons varied from his, but ultimately boiled down to wanting to get an edge over the competition.
It didn’t help that Aya nodded at her when she turned to see what her guardian had to say about Joram’s argument. Judging their expressions, Joram’s team also seemed to agree with what he’d said. Even Alicia nodded to her, a sympathetic look on her face, as if knowing exactly what she was going through.
She turned around and walked over to Joram, so close that she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye.
“I don’t like you right now,” she said, then stomped off.
* * * * *
Wentian watched as Sun Jae-Eun stalked away, pouting. Her guardian, Matsui Aya, followed close behind before giving Joram a look that he couldn’t read.
“Alicia” and Mo Yu exchanged looks before Mo Yu nodded and went after the princess.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been as naïve as the princess appeared to be, but he could understand wanting to help others. Heck, he’d been known back in the Diamond Jade Lotus Sect for being someone who took others under his wing when they first arrived at the Sect.
As much as he thought that improving the world by educating everyone to a higher standard would improve the quality of life for everyone, he wasn’t so naïve to think that all knowledge should be shared indiscriminately. The wrong knowledge in the wrong person’s hands was a terrible thing, as had been shown throughout history.
He also respected the need for trade secrets, as it were. Competition and variety were important for an economy after all.
The thing that had stunned him wasn’t Joram’s desire to keep his insights to himself, or as small a group as he could manage. No, it had been how he’d described how he saw the world.
He felt that he’d gained a significant insight into how the world worked. And not just that, but in how he viewed his own cultivation.
He’d hit a bottleneck in the form of… feeling surpassed by Bai Lian. She was his junior, originally in the Earth Realm before… the incident. But not only had she risen to regain her cultivation, but she’d also shot past him and into the Heaven Realm while he was still struggling to reach the peak of the Earth Realm, stuck at the 9th Rank.
Not only that, but he felt… lacking when he looked at Joram. He knew that he shouldn’t, especially because Joram was a Reincarnator, but feelings weren’t entirely rational. Added on to the fact that he’d been approached by certain… individuals who claimed to know his “pain”, and it was no wonder that his martial heart was in a tangled mess.
Those people claimed to be from a group of like-minded individuals who knew the pain of not being acknowledged by the person in their heart. Of having to live every day knowing that their heart’s true desire would never be fulfilled. It had taken Wentian more than a few minutes to realize that they were talking about love interests.
The conversation had let to talk of their idols, thus leading to the revelation that those guys were followers of the Goddess Ranking. Not just that, but they were the founders of the “Free the Goddesses” organization that had formed shortly after the students had seen how “close” two of their goddesses were with Joram, especially when they learned that Mo Yu, or “Moyra”, was Joram’s servant.
They thought that his daily sparring sessions were to blow off the frustration that accumulated in his heart by not only having his feelings go un-acknowledged by his love, but also because he had to watch as they “canoodled” with Joram.
What had pained Wentian the most about the encounter, and then the subsequent ones as they tried to get any information out of him they could because he worked for Joram, was that they genuinely thought that he was like them.
That, more than anything else he had been going through, had contributed to his bottleneck.
But now, after hearing Joram speak, he felt that he could push through his bottleneck and progress again. Not only that, but the feeling kept getting stronger in his chest, urging him to start cultivating right away.
Joram seemed to feel something from him, for he turned to regard him with a questioning look.
‘I feel as though I need to cultivate, immediately,’ he sent to Joram through his Network.
‘I’ll send you to the Realm,’ he sent back, and before he could reply, he found himself in a secluded garden in Joram’s small world.
He looked around in wonder, still amazed that Joram could access the small world he’d claimed so easily and from anywhere.
Then his eyes fell on a small stack of Earth Cards topped by a few Low-Grade Heaven Crystals. The casual display of wealth nearly derailed his growing epiphany before he firmed his resolve, sat down, and began to cultivate.
* * * * *
Ah, that hurt my wallet, Joram thought after depositing the cultivation resources, along with Wentian, into a secluded garden.
‘Is he going to break through?’ Bai Lian asked curiously.
‘Yes. He needed a safe place, so I sent him to the Realm.’
Bai Lian nodded, seeming confident that Wentian would succeed. Which, really, was normal considering that he’d originally been in the 5th Tier before being brought back to life.
For her part, Alicia slid on her own pair of glasses then turned to look into the middle-distance, seemingly lost in thought, but probably just checking up on things in the Realm.
So, while he waited, Joram scanned for the herbs on his list, with both his omni-tool and his perception. It didn’t take him long to find two of them in the direction they’d been headed before they’d become distracted.
He wandered over and examined them up close. Meaning he [Delve]d each one, memorizing its characteristics and molecular structure, then examined them with his mana sense. They were decent medicinal herbs, probably in the 3rd Tier if he had to guess, not having learned about these ones yet in his studies.
He quickly checked his surroundings before shifting each plant into his Realm so that they could be cultivated later.
Even after all that, the three women still hadn’t returned. He wasn’t concerned that they’d gotten into trouble because Mo Yu would have let him know if anything dangerous approached. Heck, with Aya there, he was confident that anything stupid enough to approach them would be dealt with in a brutally efficient manner.
‘So, when’re you thinking of breaking through to the 2nd Tier?’ He asked Avi to not only kill time, but because he was genuinely interested.
‘I was thinking after this term,’ she sent back. ‘I know Sulia really wants to progress as well, but I think that it would be best for both of us to try at the same time while you try to guide us through the Network.’
Joram nodded at that, accepting her reasoning, and even agreeing to it. He still had things to do in the Realm as well. Namely, bringing back the rest of his family.
He hadn’t exactly been idle these past two months, nor had he really been putting it off so much as working up to it.
Every night, after the Trio went to sleep, he would cultivate for a few hours, then spend a few hours condensing Psijic Crystals. Much like how he could make Dust Crystals which helped incredibly with enchanting, he could also crystalize his psijic energy into physical crystals.
The idea had come to him after raising his father and grandparents and being struck by an exhaustion so profound that he’d had a hard time staying awake. He’d kept awake by distracting himself with the whole guitar project, but the exhaustion had also worn away at his mental resilience. Resulting in emo week.
Not his finest moment.
What he hadn’t been able to do was crystalize his innate… magic that was required to be the guiding force for the psijic energy when he used it to boost [True Resurrection]. So, he’d been experimenting with making a wondrous item he remembered from his tabletop gaming days. He would call it a “Sphere of Power”, though, as he wasn’t using actual pearls to make the things. No, he was using Tetra-IV instead, as that alloy was much more resilient than pearls were.
That said, he was having a difficult time making them. Altaea hadn’t done much more than give a vague overview of how to make magic items that used divine power. So, for once, he was truly experimenting with enchanting; not just varying or adapting what he already knew. But if he could get the Spheres of Power made, and to the level he needed them to be, then they would prove to be a great boon. And if he got those working, he was confident that he could eventually make a ritual, or an array, that could enhance and multiply his use of [True Resurrection] manyfold.
‘Oh, hey. Asura just reported that your training room is ready,’ Alicia suddenly sent, snapping him out of his reflections.
‘Oh, perfect!’ He sent back, then sighed as the draw on his limited time increased.
‘Yeah, I’m glad you suggested it,’ Alicia happily sent. ‘I think it’ll prove useful to how I’m planning on going about body tempering.’
‘Oh? You haven’t really shared what you’ve been planning for that,’ his curiosity evident in the message.
‘Riiiiiiight,’ Alicia replied, obviously hedging. ‘If it works, I’ll let you know. If it doesn’t, I’ll also let you know because I’ll need help reviving.’
‘That’s not at all ominous,’ he sent back dryly.
‘Ah, it should be fine,’ she sent, obviously now trying to play off how serious the situation might get. ‘But if it works, I’ll be giving you a run for your money 😉.’
Joram almost fell over in shock when the emoticon came through.
‘Since when have you been able to do that?!’ He demanded excitedly.
‘It was just a whim. Glad it worked 😊.’
Joram facepalmed. This was going to be a thing.
Fortunately for his sanity, he noticed the princess finally returning, followed by her guard and Mo Yu. Jae-Eun still looked a bit put out from their conversation, but had managed to put on a reasonably convincing game face. She looked like she wanted to say something, but, coming to another decision, Joram spoke first.
“I’m sorry that what I said caused you undue stress,” he said, bowing slightly. “I would consider it a great favour if you would keep what we discussed between us,” he finished, giving both Jae-Eun and Aya a serious look.
Jae-Eun looked like she’d swallowed a sour plum when she heard that, but quickly composed herself before she spoke.
“Honestly,” she started, ignoring a subtle poke from Aya, “after Moyra spoke with me about some things, I was going to agree with your request anyway. It is very tempting to hold you to your word, but I feel it would be dishonest of me to do so,” she finished, once again proving her character to those who listened. “It is hard to learn that what one believes in their heart to be true… is just naïveté. Beliefs born of imagining the world to be something that it is not. I thank you for your words of wisdom,” she finished with a bow to him, shocking him more than a bit.
Not just the bow, but at her words. He stepped forward so that he was right in front of her bowing form, getting a look of warning from Aya. He just shook his head at her before speaking.
“Princess,” he said, reached his hands out, placed them on her shoulders, then lifted her from her bow so that he could look her in the eyes. “What I said may have been true, but do not give up on your desires to help those around you, as that will kill a spark in you that not only makes you who you are, but also inspire those around you. But do so with wisdom.
“As the saying goes: ‘You can feed a man for a day by giving him a fish, or you can feed a man for a lifetime by teaching him how to fish’. At the same time, know what you’ll be giving to whom. Know their temperament, know their goals and desires before helping raise them up by gifting them knowledge.
“Know how to use knowledge wisely, is what I’m saying. If you can do that, I’m sure that you’ll be a fantastic Empress one day,” he finished, still holding both her shoulders and her gaze.
He stepped back after Jae-Eun finally nodded, letting his hands fall back to his sides.
Then, because no one wanted to break the moment, the silence stretched out, becoming slightly uncomfortable.
“So, who’s ready to find those medicinal herbs?!” Alicia called out, scaring everyone to one degree or another.
He was about to say something when an urgent message came through.
M3: I’ve succeeded.