Shiga stepped out of the room, several eyes fell on him. He still looked composed, and did not seem to have had difficulties in the test. The proctors directed him back to the main square. A few hours later, and everyone had finished the test. Many people were still pale or shaking, but most people had recovered from the test. The proctors eventually began to call out people's results.
“Shiga Wateya! Excellent written results! Excellent practical results!” Shiga had started the tests off about average, and he finished only a small amount above everyone else. The test proctors finished announcing everyone’s results. He followed the crowd out of the plaza. He met his parents near the exit.
“You did great Shiga!” (Mom)
“You always were cautious and prepared a lot, but it looks like your preparations paid of this time!” (Dad)
“Don’t tease him! Here, have some money and go enjoy the festival. We will meet you at home. Make sure to enjoy yourself and make some new friends. Remember though, you never know who is a powerful expert or will become one.” (Mom)
“I’ll be careful.” Shiga promised while taking the money from his mom. There were a total 500 peros, a decent sum of money to him. Shiga waved to his parents as he walked into the festival. The exams he took attracted a lot of attention from school and sects, and after doing well on tests many people wanted to celebrate, so many sects, schools, and merchants would set up stalls after the tests, which eventually turned into a festival.
Shiga wandered the stalls looking at the different schools and items. He was enjoying himself, but he also was thinking about his discipline. In this world, someone's discipline was what they refined to gain power. There were the traditional Qi refiners, but anything was refinable. There were plant refiners who specialized in farming and book refiners who worked as scholars. Depending on what someone refined, they would have a unique method of refinement and different specialties. A book refiner, might refine their book by absorbing knowledge from other books, and a power that they could develop from this might be being able to perform rapid calculations or be able to analyze or identify items.
While deep in thought, Shiga saw an interesting stall. The merchant was selling bottles, with figures inside. Unlike a ship in a bottle, these bottles contained many different things. One was a grand castle, and another was a set of ruins. There were nature scenes and battles, there seemed to be nothing that the merchant hadn’t shoved into a bottle.
Looking at the large variety, Shiga was amazed when he even saw a planet. The planet was mostly green with several oceans, and if he looked close enough there seemed to even be tiny rivers crossing the lands. Shiga picked the item up and asked the merchant how much it would cost. The bottle cost an astonishing 250 peros, but Shiga decided that the bottle was worth it. Shiga went and took a seat while he looked over the planet. A planet would work well with his elements. Earth qi for the ground, wind qi for the air, and life qi for the life on the planet. Shiga thought for a little while, but he decided to become a world refiner.
*ding*
Your discipline has been set to World Refiner
Shiga got up and went to look at the rest of the stalls. At one stall that was selling Art and Skill books, shiga found a Skill book labeled [Inner Space Meditation], which creates an inner space where it is possible to train and work. Shiga bought the skill book for 150 peros, leaving him with only 100.
As Shiga explored the stalls, he heard a commotion nearby and went to investigate. At the stall were three men and a merchant. The leader was yelling at the merchant.
“What do you mean I have to pay for this! You should be glad I broke this garbage before someone actually bought it!” (Thug Leader)
“You know, maybe you should pay us for the favor of breaking your stuff.” (Thug #2)
“You’re right! In fact, to show how helpful we are, let's break everything else too!” (Thug #3)
“Nonono! Please don't break anything else!” (Merchant)
“Excuse me, is something wrong over here?” (Shiga)
“Nothing you need to concern yourself over.” (Thug Leader)
“But what if I want to buy something? If you break everything, what am I supposed to buy?” (Shiga)
“How about we break you as well then?” (Thug Leader)
After hearing that, Shiga didn’t even hesitate when he kicked the man in his abdomen. The man folded over, and Shiga kicked him on the side of his head too. The thug leader collapsed to the ground unconscious, and Thug #2 just stared. Thug #3 shouted in anger, and rushed at Shiga. Shiga kicked out at the man, but he dodged to the side. Before he could react though, Shiga hooked the kick back and hit him on the side of his head as well. He didn’t fall unconscious, but he was barely standing.
“You guys should just leave before things get any worse” (Shiga)
“S-s-sorry to u-upset you s-sir” (Thug #2)
Thug #2 picked up the unconscious leader, and while supporting thug #3, slowly walked away.
“Thank you so much for taking care of that! Those thugs were trying to completely ruin my stall.” (Merchant)
The merchant was a young woman who was a little over a meter and a half tall. She had a calm appearance, and despite what had just happened she was had a smile on her face.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m Shiga Wateya.” (Shiga)
“My name is Noya Sanoshi! I really can’t thank you enough for saving my stall. This is currently everything I have to sell.” (Noya)
“If you ever need help, please contact me.” (Shiga)
“It should be me who is saying that! Here, take this sound talisman. Now you can contact me if you need help.” (Noya)
“Thnaks. I hope we can meet again soon.” (Shiga)
After saying goodbye to each other, Shiga walked back to the festival. Shiga wandered around, buying some snacks and looking at the stalls. Shiga bought a journal and a magic quill before he left for home.
*Narration Break*
The Wateya family was a noble family of cultivators who hereditarily had the Life Attribute. The family was still considered a small one, but they could compete with larger ones because the Life Attribute allowing them to grow many alchemical herbs that sold for large amounts of money. The Wateya family had a decent reputation and always had alchemists buying their supplies.
*Narration Return*
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When Shiga arrived home, his father ran out to meet him.
“Shiga! Are you alright? I heard about the fight you got into! Those thugs need to be punished! What did they look like? Did you catch their names?” (Dad)
“Dear! As you can see he is fine! You don’t need to go catch those thugs. If you had finished listening to the story the guard YOU hired told you, then you would know that Shiga handled it himself!” (Mom)
Shiga’s dad was Tiko Wateya, a tall man with disorderly green hair. He was extremely protective of Shiga and Mepa, Shiga’s mom, usually had to step in to stop him from arranging a manhunt. Mepa was a slightly short woman with light blue hair. Shiga went inside to his room while his mom tried to calm down his dad.
The next morning Shiga told his dad that he wanted to go into secluded cultivation for a while.
“Secluded cultivation, huh? You head to your cultivation room. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you. (Or they will face the price…)” (Tiko)
Ignoring the mumbled threat, Shiga went into his cultivation room. The room was slightly small. There was a meditation mat next to one wall, and adjacent to it was a desk that Shiga placed his journal and magic quill on. In the middle of the room was a large practice mat. On the other walls were some bookcases with reference books, a rack of practice weapons, and a few dummies. The meditation mat was inscribed with a Qi gathering inscription, which caused the whole room to also have large amounts of ambient Qi.
Shiga sat down and began to meditate.
*Meditation POV*
How to do this. First I am going to need to create a planet. I could create a large cloud of qi and slowly condense it into a planet. That wouldn’t work well, it wouldn’t fit into my dantian. Perhaps, I could create an outline and slowly fill it in instead? That would be too fragile at the beginning. Instead, how about I start with a small planet and grow it into a full size one. That would work, but it would definitely slow down a lot as the planet grew. It is better to have a solid foundation though. It’ll have to do for know.
*End Meditation POV*
Shiga began to condense a ball of Earth Qi in his dantian. After two hours of hard work, Shiga had reached a meter in diameter. Looking closely though, he could see the Earth Qi slowly dispersing into his body. Shiga quickly began to wrap his tiny planet in a large blanket of Wind Qi. After another two hours, Shiga had managed to form a large covering of Wind Qi for the planet. Shiga spent the next six hours expanding the planet again until it reached a meter and a half in diameter. He would have been faster, but he needed to very carefully match the rate at which he added Earth and Wind Qi. With too much Earth the Wind couldn’t protect it and Earth would dissipate, while with too much Wind the Earth couldn’t hold it all close to the planet and the Wind Qi would dissipate as well. Satisfied with his current progress, Shiga stopped to eat before taking a rest. When he woke up, Shiga recorded everything he knew about world refinement into his journal. Shiga decided that he needed a good Art to pair with his world refinement. Looking through the library that was on one of the walls, Shiga found [Sky and Earth Art]. The art was tailored to people with Wind and Earth Affinities, but it was also a pretty simple art.
[Sky and Earth Art] was divided into two forms. The first form was {Sky Grinds Down the Mountain}. It focused on dodging the opponent's attacks and and slowly wearing them down with lots of fast, but light strikes. After several hours, he had managed to understand the basics of {Sky Grinds Down the Mountain}. Shiga decided to end his closed door cultivation and headed outside again.
“Young master Shiga! Your father told me to tell you that all of the School offers have been sent to your room for you to look over.” (Servant)
“Thank you. I will head there now.” (Shiga)
Shiga grabbed a snack, and went back to his room. There were several letters on top of his desk, and when he looked closer, Shiga saw that they were all from different schools, offering him a place to study. Shiga ignored most of the small schools, and was left with:
* Dao Temple Sect
* Moon Tower School
* Jade Pavillion School
* Red Forest Sect
* Lone Mountain Sect
Shiga looked at all of the sects very carefully. He eliminated the Dao Temple Sect because it wouldn’t be very helpful to his discipline. The Moon Tower School was also not very attractive, despite being one of the larger schools that made an offer. Instead Shiga was interested in the Red Forest Sect and the Lone Mountain Sect. The Red Forest Sect appealed to his Life attribute, and it would be easier to survive there if something went wrong, but the Lone Mountain Sect was better for his Earth Attribute and would have better effects for training his body. Shiga Decided to go with the Red Forest Sect because it actually had all of his Attributes in decent quantities, while the Lone Mountain Sect was definitely lacking in Life Attribute and mountains are some of the hardest places to survive in. Having made his decision, Shiga began to prepare for the long journey to the school.
Shiga Wateya2World RefinerNo SchoolNo TitleBody12Mind15Soul18ARTS
[Sky and Earth Art] - 1
+{Sky Grinds Down the Mountain} - 1
SKILLS
[Storm Horse's Kick] - 1
[Inner Space Meditation] - 1
~~Author Notes~~
Well, here is your chapter for the weekend. I made it a double chapter to make up for the unannounced break and so that when someone reads 8 chapters, there are actually 8 chapters to read. If you have any questions, please ask them. Comments are welcome!