The first step to becoming a cultivator was gaining a concept. The concept would then connect you to a source of power, be it stamina, mana, or soul energy. You could then kill monsters, gather the energy in a collector like the adventurers guild badge, and absorb it at your leisure. You could then use the energy to strengthen your attributes by creating patterns of flow throughout your body, spirit, or soul. Will could see those patterns in his own body, created and managed automatically by the system. Regular cultivators would have to do all of that manually.

Of course, there were better patterns and worse patterns. Patterns that were contained within only the body were far less potent than ones that flowed through body and spirit. It meant that someone with a body concept and a spirit concept were significantly more powerful than someone with one or the other. The same could be said for someone with a body, spirit, and soul concept. But more than that, some patterns were more efficient than others. The system constantly tweaked the patterns in Will’s body, making it so they fit perfectly, and imparting nuance that gave much greater efficiency.

For normal cultivators, they would have to discover those patterns by themselves. If they were lucky they could get ahold of diagrams that detailed out someone else’s patterns. These were usually exorbitantly expensive, but there were a few places, like the University at Aetherglow, where these could be found for far lower cost. It meant that all the cultivators in Will’s party had decent patterns, as the few who had gone to Aetherglow had imparted that knowledge to the others.

But those were future issues. For now, Will needed the refugees to gain concepts. That was a tall enough order on its own. For the most part, the reason most people were not cultivators was due to something called Concept Affinity. They weren’t being held down or anything, in fact people desperately needed more cultivators for a variety of reasons. The problem was that most people had such low affinity that even a poor quality concept was far beyond their reach. Will was lucky in this regard, as he had a concept affinity that was incredibly high by all accounts. He thought that maybe he could use his concept affinity to awaken theirs long enough to gain a concept.

And so that led to him sitting cross legged on the floor back to back with Arnold, the man who had been leading the refugees. For this, Will was pretty sure he needed to be close to the other person. Intimately close, and this was the only way he could think of doing it without things getting awkward. When he had inadvertently helped Koma, he had been cradling the pup against his chest. He wasn’t going to do that to a grown man, so back to back would have to do.

Will closed his eyes and examined his spirit map as he let his aura surround the other man. Soon, the other man’s spirit map came into focus next to Will’s and he was stunned. The other man’s spirit map consisted of three nodes. Just three. Will had nearly two hundred. He could tell that the nodes were located in some very specific places. One was in the brain near the frontal lobe. One was right in the man’s heart, and the other was in his navel. It meant that this man could at most gain three concepts, one body, one mind, and one soul concept.

Will already had multiple body and mind concepts, and a soul concept, though he had still to fully unlock that one. Moreover, he had enough room for so many more. The area around his heart where soul concepts would go had some fifty nodes all clustered together. His brain had even more, with the rest scattered across his entire body.

Will examined Arnold’s spirit map closer. His three nodes were all dim, the same way Will’s were when they didn’t have a concept seated in the node. But Will was more curious about the connections between them. The connections didn’t connect one directly to another. The connections branched out from each node to terminate in the middle of nowhere. Except they didn’t terminate in nothing. Will supposed that it would be more accurate to say that they terminated in Nothing, with a capital N. There was a void there that seemed to draw on the miniscule amounts of power emanating from the nodes. Will surmised that even if the man was able to get a concept, he would be unable to circulate any power, as it would be swallowed up by that void.

As a quick experiment, Will called Koma over and had him return to puppy size. At which point he examined Koma’s spirit map. It was full and complete just like Will’s. Will tried pouring a bit of energy into the other man, but it just got sucked up by that void. Or voids. There was one at the end of each spidering connection. Will had a theory that these voids were where his other nodes should be, but he had no way to know for sure as everyone’s nodes were placed slightly differently.

He checked several of the other villagers, finding similar issues. One villager was lucky enough to have four nodes, allowing for a connection between the heart node and the navel node. But it still wasn’t enough. Will did try to resonate a concept into Arnold, but his nodes felt unresponsive. It got to the point where Will tried with one of the followers. The follower in question had a full soul map like Will and Koma, and Will felt a strong resonance and was able to grant the man a weak wind concept. The man was ecstatic, and Will realized that the problem was not what he had thought it was.

Will combed through his books, and interrogated Amalise, but found no solutions despite working in it for a week. The refugees were starting to hurt for supplies, which meant he had little time to figure this out.

Will had one other source of information he had neglected for a long time. Last time he had used the soul crystal, he had nearly died as it sucked him dry of soul energy. The soul inside, Dr Lynvera, had warned him soon enough, but it had left him drained for days. She had told him to get a soul concept before trying again, but he needed help. The thing was that last time he had less than a minute of time. He needed to boost that, and he had just the thing.

Alchemist Savil, the man who had captured him in the Bramble, apparently had a similar problem. No soul concept, but requiring more soul energy than he could naturally generate. Alchemist Savil had created several potions that would force him to generate far more soul energy than normal. On top of that, he had a device that would allow him to amplify his soul energy. For a short time, approximately a few hours, he could generate as much soul energy as if he had a soul concept. He wouldn’t be able to do it again. Alchemist Savil’s notes said the potions were hard and expensive to make. The next time he would be able to use the soul crystal again would likely be when he got a soul concept.

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Will took the soul energy amplifier from the alchemy room and went up to his suite on the top floor. He set it on a table and ast on a chair next to it. The device had a plate with a cord that was designed to strap around the chest. The cord attached it to the main unit, which was a large box studded with quartz like gems and covered in fine inscriptions. Will put the chest plate on and immediately could feel that deep pull like when he had used the soul crystal before.

Before it got bad, he felt the energy return stronger, and for a moment reveled in the feeling. It felt like his soul was full, like everything was okay, and all his hardships were small and meaningless. That is, until it started to hurt. Will realized that he could take a little extra soul energy, but not much. He quickly downed the three potions and summoned the soul crystal to his hand.

“Hello Dr Lynvera.”

“Hi!” The voice on the other side was excited. “You are the same guy as before, right? You got a soul concept?”

“My name is Will, and not exactly. I mean, I am the same person, but I don’t have a soul concept.”

“Then you need to put me in your inventory, now! I don’t want to accidentally kill the first person I have spoken to in ages.”

“It’s all right. I took some soul energy enhancing potions, and I have a soul energy amplifier. We have a couple hours before we have to stop.” There was silence for a few seconds before Will felt a mental sigh coming from Dr Lynvera.

“I suppose that will work, you don’t know how long I have been waiting to talk to somebody.”

“Do you mean that you are aware of the time while you are not talking to people?” Will asked.

“Only sort of. But after thousands of years, you get a sense that it has been a long time.” Dr Lynvera paused. “How long has it been?”

“Around ten thousand years. I asked about, and that seems to be the consensus.” Will felt a sensation of forlorn shock coming from the soul trapped in the crystal.

“That long huh.” She went silent for a pause before coming back as if there were no problem at all. “Did you need help with something? I am happy to help with anything you need!”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I have a half a dozen villagers whom I need to have concepts. I found a way to give cultivators concepts, though they end up being pretty bad. The problem with the villagers is that they only have three or four nodes on their spirit map.” Will said.

“That one is pretty easy, but before I answer I have a request to make.” Dr Lynvera said.

“Sure, I suppose. Ask away.”

“Now I realize I will need to help a lot, and I am perfectly willing to help in any way you need both now and after my request is fulfilled.”

“Okay, what is the request?” Will asked.

“I need my body back, and I want you to help me get it.” Will supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was.

“Look, it has been ten thousand years, I doubt your body even exists anymore. On that note, I am not helping you possess anyone either.” Will said.

“Not what I meant, not at all.” Dr Lynvera said. “I want you to help me make a new one. And don’t worry, it won’t take any specialized skills from you, at least nothing biomancy related. There is a pod in a secret lab beneath my old home in the Terralux Corporation. You only need to gather the materials, and deliver them and this crystal to the pod. Of course, I don’t expect this to happen immediately, or even in a few years. I just want a promise that you will do it at some point.”

Will considered. It was a big ask, going half a continent away into foreign land he knew nothing about. On top of that he had no doubt the materials would be expensive and rare. But she could offer a lot, and was giving him a lot of time to get it done.

“Sure, I can do that. It will take a while, but I will get it done.” he felt gratitude flow through the connection.

“Okay then! All you need to do to help them out is to channel the energy from your Ethergate into them. The voids are just that, voids. They need to be filled, and with each one that is filled a new node will appear. Simple as that.” Dr Lynvera seemed quite satisfied, but Will was confused.

“You mean my mana gate?” he asked.

“Oh damn it.” Dr Lynvera said. “Not a problem, the gate has a tendency to attune itself to what you bring from it. Just link your system interface to me and I can fix it.”

“So it is supposed to be able to do more than what it already does?” Will asked.

“I mean, yeah, it is the key to crossing the tier four to five barrier. It is meant to do a hell of a lot.” Dr Lynvera said. Will could sense the pride coming across the line. He opened his interface and willed it into the crystal.

“Well, a new class, congratulations! And did you realize that you have 25 unspent attribute points? But that Script Lord class, that wasn’t one that existed when I was around. Wow, you have been inscribing your spirit? I suppose that shouldn’t be that big a leap after soul engraving, but apparently no-one else has done it. I wonder why.”

“Apparently Aetherglow has been keeping people from using new kinds of magic.”

“Aetherglow, I have heard that name somewhere before. Ahh, they were that cultish magic group who had been banished out to that rock. How did they get so powerful?” Will proceeded to tell her the story as best he knew it about the mages war.

“And so Aetherglow is apparently the only major magic organization in the world now.”

“Wow, that is really stupid. Let’s start a magic school after you get me a body. Now about the Ethergate.” There was a pause, and Dr Lynvera had a question. “How long has it been since we last talked?”

“Only about four months.” Will replied.

“How did you manage to trigger the failsafe after only four months?” It took Will a moment to realize that she was talking about the stabilization array around the gate. He then proceeded to tell her the story of getting two opposite concepts, and being poisoned in martel.

“Well, this will make it harder, but not too bad. The hardest part will be finding the monster cores you will need. You will need to upgrade the stabilization array in a specific manner to remove the unwanted attunement. Fortunately, you will regain a lot of the capacity the gate used to have, so it will be a big win. After this the gate will restore your mana, stamina, and soul energy as soon as you have a soul concept.” A new notification popped up.

Materials list for Stabilization Array Mk 2 has been updated.