"Cultivation," Flynn answered quickly.
As he stood up, grime and filth that had caked into Flynn's clothes and body cracked and slopped off onto the ground. Despite his meager gains in his cultivation, Flynn's body had expelled an unprecedented amount of toxicity from his body. He had felt the impurities of his body slowly grind away as he cycled the universe's breath within his body. It had leaked out of his pores, eyes, mouth, and nose as the energy dug into his cells, revitalizing and cleansing the impurities left behind by his life as a mortal.
Despite the almost euphoric feeling of lightness, Flynn couldn't help but grimace at his smell as he looked down at his black-stained clothing. Luckily he had been aware enough to store his jacket within his spacial storage before starting. Otherwise, The delinquent would have had to clean the thick leather on top of his t-shirt and pants. Flynn had been expecting many impurities to expel from his body the first time cultivating as it seemed to be a universal experience between races. Yet, as he looked down at the circle of death that had formed around him while purifying his body, Flynn couldn't help but worry.
The amount was out of the ordinary, to say the least, and a circle of toxins formed in a ring a foot around where he had been cultivating. The grass had turned a sickly shade of brown and black, and his clothes had been ruined. He would have gone naked for the process but had thought better of the idea, considering he did have a female sleeping near him. Flynn had his suspicions as to why so much had been ejected from his body, and honestly, he didn't like the answer.
In his first life, Flynn had used a much worse cultivation method upon his first time cultivating. It had done more harm than good and resulted in him relearning and starting over his cultivation upon meeting Selena's grandfather. Even so, it didn't make up for the monstrous amount of impurities released during his cultivation. His second suspicion was far less mundane, and he closed his eyes, retreating into his ki's circulation, searching for something he had noticed while cultivating.
The energy of the world, Flynn's ki, flowed around within his body in a complex tapestry of weaves and threads. It almost resembled dozens of streams flowing through his body, folding and collapsing in on each other. The energy was a cool white and grey that constantly flowed chaotically around his body, but as Flynn slowly formed the rampant ki into his cycle, he saw it. Motes of nothing, of despair flowing and flashing within the white. They would disappear almost as if they were never there, and they had a distinct flavor to the energy, one Flynn knew all too well.
It was a shade of black he'd never forget, the energy between life. It was the void. Each time these sparks of vacuum collided with an impurity within his body, the impurity would fall away, breaking down before it was dispelled with an ease that shocked Flynn to his core. Despite improving his cultivation speed from 10% to 20%, the delinquent found himself hesitating. He knew all too well that nothing good came from that emptiness.
"I think I'm having second thoughts about cultivation." Selena still had her nose plugged with her fingers and kept a significant distance. Flynn simply waved his hand, turning around and heading to a nearby river he had spotted while hunting earlier the day before.
"I'm going to wash off; I'll be back," Flynn spoke loudly as he headed into the woods, and he could swear he left behind a trail of green odor as if he was in a cartoon as he walked away. He had to admit the stench was otherworldly, and he wanted it off of him as soon as possible.
Flynn eventually found the river and was pleased to see the water was calm enough to allow a quick bath. He quickly stripped down using a few rocks to keep his clothes within the water but weighed down enough not to float downstream. Flynn scrubbed and washed, trying to get the gunk and filth from his body as the cold water buffeted against his frame. If Flynn had entered this stream when first arriving within the tutorial, he'd have been swept away by the current, but now after gaining stat points and assimilating some of them within his body with cultivation, he stood firm.
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Flynn's body was lean, and he could see muscles in places only the system and cultivation could provide. That said, he didn't look like some bodybuilder from hell; no, his power was in the grace and fluidity of his form. After all, dexterity was now his highest stat, even if it was only due to the 3% he gained from his title. Even his facial features changed, and he didn't look like a kid fresh out of high school.
He studied his body with marvel as he looked at the changes. Everything felt far too fast. It was supposed to take weeks to see even a difference from pure cultivation, yet after a simple day of cultivating, he was already this affected?
Is this what it's like to cultivate correctly from the start?
In truth, Flynn didn't know if it was due to cultivating a much better method on his first go or if it had to do with the splinters of pure void energy he could feel within his body, and honestly, he didn't care. If it meant he could be more powerful, if it meant he could save those he cared about, save humanity, he'd happily spend every night basking in the void itself.
In essence, cultivation and the formation of mage circles was the process of assimilating the system's stats into your body and soul. If the system was what dulled out power in the form skill points, then cultivation was the process of making that power your own. Stats, although powerful, could only amount to so much. You could have billions of points in strength, but if your body couldn't handle it, you'd simply explode when throwing a punch instead of doing damage.
Cultivators mainly focused on three main attributes: strength, dexterity, and constitution, whereas Mages focused on solidifying their intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. As always with the system, there were endless ways to power, and not all focused on their normalized stats. It all came down to one's cultivation method or magical blueprint.
That being said, humanity's and the other two races of the first trial's understanding of the two main methods of power was limited. Both cultivation methods and magical blueprints had only become available to most people half a year after Flynn had finished the tutorial. Most elites had a year or two head start when it came to cultivation and had hidden the path to power greedily.
Before long, Flynn cleaned his body, scrubbing away the last of the filth before starting on his clothes. If it had been up to Flynn, he'd of abandoned them both, but unfortunately, he only had one pair of pants. He did have a jacket, and he decidedly threw the shirt to be traveled downstream and away from him. The pants were dark in color, so after scrubbing them as best he could, he shimmied into them as best he could. They fit snuggly around his waist and had holes and cuts all over them; luckily, they kept his propriety intact.
"You're taking an awfully lo-" She froze seeing a shirtless Flynn, and he was glad she hadn't arrived a few moments earlier when he was crosslegged scrubbing at a pair of soiled pants in the nude.
"Princess, you know it's not polite to stare." He grinned slyly as he started to pull a jacket out of his storage. He draped it over his shoulder, hoping to let his body dry before putting it on. Selena, after getting her bearings spoke up.
"Sorry, I expected an un-toned twink. Did you get taller or something?" She narrowed her eyes, staring at Flynn's chest before slowly going down to his ill-fitting pants. "No, seriously, what?" Selena couldn't make heads or tails of the situation, and Flynn could see how someone who had never been within the system would be shocked; after all, he had lived through similar situations many times. He had gone from a muscle-less kid to a well-toned young man overnight.
"I'm going to head back; the monsters have been culled around the main camp and were already half a day's walk away." Flynn did not answer the question and acted as if he hadn't noticed anything strange. As she tried to piece together what had happened, her frantic blinks of confusion gave Flynn far more joy than he was willing to admit. "You can come with me if you want or stay out here and grind. I don't care either way." In his first life, she had hunted near the camp for the first day only to leave after the first beast wave. Now he had no idea what her plans were. She was insistent on changing fate, although it seemed most of that was Flynn's own fault.
"I'll follow for now. After all, I still haven't decided whether I'll kill you yet." She responded, seemingly over the fact that Flynn had changed overnight. The two warriors slinked through the woods into the morning light.