Samantha drank in each line of her status page greedily. She could hardly believe that she’d really done it—that she had risked it all and managed to come out on top! Sure, she was only low Copper right now, but even being the lowest stage of the lowest cultivation level was nothing to scoff at. Afterall, even the weakest cultivators could cause mortal Lords to bow before them.

There were five levels of cultivation that she knew of, and each level possessed four stages of advancement within it. After low Copper, Samantha would need to attain mid, high, and peak Copper before she could ascend to the low Bronze level. After Bronze came Silver, Gold, and Jade, each also possessing low, mid, high, and peak ranks. Each of the stages and levels were more difficult to achieve than the previous, but the power difference between also skyrocketed. Since each person was unique and spent their time differently, it was nearly impossible to pin down exactly how long it would take to advance, but she did have a vague idea. Samantha’s cousin Thomas had unlocked his core quest when he was 16, and it had taken him a month to return as a low Copper. From there it took him eight months to reach the mid Copper stage, and then another 2 years to reach the high Copper stage. Granted, he wasn’t the most diligent or consistent with training (and often was more focused on using his cultivation to pick up women), but it was a starting point at least.

She reflected on the rarity of cultivation in her hometown of Yivesh, and how while even though around 80 percent of people would receive the quest to unlock their cultivation in their lifetime, only half of them would dare attempt it, and only a quarter of that would return intact. The others either died in the wilderness, or if they were ‘lucky’ would return to town with a warped mind—suffering from various degrees of insanity. Samantha shuddered at recalling her own experience when her third eye opened for the first time, and how close she felt to being counted among their number. Perhaps in other towns these statistics were different, but with only around 10 percent of Yivesh’s population having access to cultivation, she knew she would be quite the powerhouse when she got home.

She smiled a little ruefully at the thought of returning triumphant and proving everyone wrong about this 'foolish venture'. Initially, she had been heavily discouraged by those around her from pursuing the questline. She was given any number of reasons to reject the quest like so many others had before her. She was too young, the risks were too high, the lack of credible information would be her death--some even arguing that she didn’t need strength of her own if she married into a good house. These were all valid points, she could admit, even if she didn’t necessarily agree with the last one. In fact, if she were being honest, she knew that the risks so greatly outweighed the benefits that there was no way that her decision could be considered logical.

When pressed for a good reason by her friends and family to gamble her life, she told them that she wanted to gain the strength to protect herself and her loved ones. This was similar to the reason that Thomas gave when he left the city at 16, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Certainly, wanting to feel safe in a world that constantly spawned dangerous beasts was a priority, but at the heart of it, Samantha just feared mediocrity more than she feared death.

There was nothing ‘wrong’ with her prospects in Yivesh. She was the only child of the third son of the minor House of Cray, a crafting house that made its name turning spirit beast materials into reliable equipment for the middle class. Given time, she could become a renowned crafter in one of the stores, could be trained to manage one of the branches, or could even marry someone powerful to climb the social ladder and become proper nobility. No matter what she picked, she would likely never be a pauper or have a hard life. It would be a life filled with comfort, safety, and was everything that many young women dreamed of… and Samantha couldn’t help but feel a pit of dread form in her gut whenever she thought of it. A life without any notable challenges, her potential snuffed out from fear of failure, and bowing and scraping forevermore to those cultivators whose crazy gambles did succeed while she hid away from danger. Even with whatever semblance of power she could gather together as a mortal, against the potency of a cultivator, she would always need to tread carefully or else risk their ire.

She rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen the tension she was feeling build up as she thought about what her future could have been. Against all odds, her crazy gamble had succeeded too. She didn’t need to let her thoughts linger on that way of life any longer.

Refocusing on her original goal of examining her profile, she looked upon the rest of her stats with satisfaction. Her qi pool and regeneration rate were rather average, but that was to be expected since she was utilizing a common cultivation pattern. Depending on the pattern a cultivator used, they could get a bigger pool or higher regeneration rate, and the one she had learned before this trip had been focused on balance between the two. She felt confident that she could find, create, or buy a better pattern in time to improve her qi flow.

As for her four base stats, she could only laugh in delight. Everyone in the World Spire had a status page as far as she knew, but only those with cultivation could access it. If someone wanted to know their stats but didn’t have cultivation, they could seek out a family member to look at their status page or perhaps pay for the service—though it was often prohibitively expensive. Samantha had been sure to have Thomas check her stats before she left Yivesh and there had been huge changes already.

Mortal values for Strength, Agility, Endurance, and Resilience ranged from 1 to 5 typically. Someone with values of 1 were sickly, weak, clumsy, and fragile, while those with values of 5 were people in peak physical condition--people like couriers who ran all day without stopping, smiths that forged heavy equipment in constant scalding heat, or others with such professions that would raise their attributes beyond the norm. When Samantha left around a month ago, her Strength had been 2, Agility 4, Endurance 3, and Resilience 2. In other words, relatively average across the board. Now, every attribute had been at least doubled! She found herself briefly daydreaming about her small, 5’4” self, winning arm-wrestling competitions against burly men with arms as big around as her legs, or outrunning someone delivering messages on horseback.

After she had her fun imagining greater and more fantastical feats and scenarios, she stretched and rose from her sitting position on the ground. She’d had enough of simply thinking about her strength and wanted to test out her new capabilities in reality. She'd just closed her profile when another notification popped up in her vision:

*Ding* Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential – Part 3

Cultivating at a qi nexus is not the only way to increase your power. At the rank of low Copper, you now have abilities equal to or greater than the most prodigious mortals. It’s time to make use of them. Defeat a Spirit Beast and claim its beast core. Accept? Y/N

Samantha smiled, accepting the quest quickly. “Exactly the type of thing I was looking for,” she said to herself, and prepared to train like never before.

Contrary to what her enthusiasm demanded she did not immediately go off in search of prey, rather she spent the next several days testing her new limits. It would be incredibly foolish, after all, to have come so far only to let youthful arrogance be her end.

She struck her limbs against the tough trunks of the trees beyond the meadow, feeling only minor discomfort as she blasted bark apart with punches or kicks. She marveled at the feeling of her qi enhanced body, knowing that if she had wielded this force mere days ago, she would have shattered her bones with each hit. With each palm strike and heel kick her confidence soared, but she was quickly humbled after deciding that trees were not sturdy enough opponents and challenged a boulder instead. One solid front kick made her entire leg vibrate with agony, and the rock had the gall to not even budge an inch. After that embarrassing incident she hobbled her way back to the fount to lay down for a while, torn between crying from pain and laughing hysterically at her own stupidity.

When the pain faded and she confirmed that nothing was broken, she moved on to spear forms. Every resident in Yivesh was experienced with at least one type of weapon. This was a matter of security as well as practicality—you could not always depend on the Enforcers or Hunters to save you if a pack of Spirit Beasts broke through the walls and attacked. There were four main weapons favored by her town: the straight sword, the curved saber, the spear, and the staff. Each had their own benefits and drawbacks, but Samantha had always gravitated towards the spear.

When she was wholly mortal, she knew that she would generally be weaker than a man of similar build. As such, she would be unable to wield the chopping force of the saber as effectively, nor bring out the true slashing or stabbing power of the straight sword, nor did she feel that she could strike with the staff hard enough to cause deadly injury. The spear with its extended reach, however, played to her one advantage: speed. She could use it to build distance and allow herself more time to react, or if left without an escape route she could plant the butt of the spear in the earth to severely gore a charging beast.

She lifted the spear from the ground with shocking ease, the 9-foot-long weapon barely requiring any effort to maneuver compared to before. She checked the leaf-shaped blade for any nicks that needed repair and ensured that the tassel below it was solidly attached. Then, with a flourish, she whipped the spear over her head in circles and spun it around her body, beginning her forms. One of the drawbacks of such a long weapon was that it was difficult to ever overcome that feeling of it being unwieldy. Now though, with her increased strength and agility, it felt as natural as moving a part of her own body.

The wind whistled and whined as it was cut by the speed of her rapid jabs and slashes, the wood of the shaft flexing to a concerning degree but holding together as well as could be expected. She frowned at the mortal quality wood and steel, wondering if it could continue to withstand the punishing speed and strength of her blows in real combat. It had been a trusted companion for many years, but she had finally outgrown it. Mortal quality was well and good for, well... mortals, but cultivators needed qi forged weaponry to be able to fight freely. Masters of their chosen weapon could even channel qi through the weapon to use special combat arts, but if anyone tried that with a mortal grade weapon it would almost certainly explode from the spiritual pressure flowing through it. “I’ll need to replace you when I get back to town,” Samantha sighed in dismay, “but where am I going to get the money for that?”. She put the thought aside for the moment and continued to practice. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it.

When she felt that she had explored her new limits as best as she could, she sat down at the nexus to do a cultivation session before sleeping. It was the first time that she had attempted to cultivate since her awakening, a part of her afraid of her third eye opening again and being overwhelmed. However, she knew that she would have to overcome such concerns if she wanted to advance further, so she pushed the fear down and meditated.

As her thoughts cleared and she found that familiar feeling of inner tranquility, her third eye remained closed, but there was something noticeably different from before. It took her a while to put her finger on exactly what it was, but it clicked when she felt a small animal race across the grass 15 feet to her left. At first she was startled by the foreign presence within her nexus, but she figured that it was bound to happen eventually. The obscurement perk she received was not a guaranteed deterrent, and it was only active while she was inside the fount. It must have either maneuvered past the protections or found its way here during one of her outings foraging for food and water. In any case, it didn't seem to be hostile as she observed it through her awareness, and she found herself wondering about her new ability.

Her eyes were shut but she was seeing more than she ever had before. It was like a sphere had come into existence around her body where she just knew where things were inside of it. Samantha was unable to determine any distinguishing features of the animal at first, but was astounded by this new spiritual sense all the same. She enjoyed following its progress for a while, watching it munch on the stems of flowers or dig up worms in the mud, and she discovered that the more she focused on it, the clearer it became to her in her mind’s eye. In an attempt to see how far she could take things, she blocked everything else out, honing her senses on this creature alone when suddenly…

*Ding* Combat Art Discovered: Inspect

Cost: 1 qi point

Description: By focusing your spiritual senses on a target, you can get basic information about it. This art will have a higher rate of success the closer the target is to your cultivation level and stage. On failure, has a chance to notify the target of your attempt. Extra qi can be expended to learn more details, but the cost will always be a minimum of 1 (i.e. non-cultivators, inanimate objects, etc).

Samantha thought it was a bit rude that whatever system wrote these messages lumped mortals together with something like a table, but still found herself smiling as she dismissed the notification. Her first art, and she had discovered it on her own!

Then, she looked at the information she had just received from the skill:

Lunar Hare

These nocturnal spirit beasts are at the bottom of the food chain, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy prey. Their quick, agile movements make them difficult to catch, and their love for feasting on the best alchemical ingredients has gifted them with resistances to various poisons and toxins. With senses specialized for detecting danger and fur well-camouflaged for their environments, you’ll rarely see one outside the jaws of a well-placed trap.

Samantha burned another qi point to see what else the ability would tell her, but the only new data she gained was that its highest stat was Agility--something that she could have easily deduced on her own from the initial description. Holding off on spending more qi at the moment, she opened her eyes and exited her meditative state. Immediately, she felt her heightened awareness fade significantly. She found that if she stopped and concentrated that she could increase her perceptive abilities again a bit, but it was much less effective than what she could do when cultivating.

Slowly, she turned her head towards where she last felt the Lunar Hare to see if she could catch a glimpse of it, but no matter how much she squinted she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The breeze was hiding any movement the hare made in the swaying patches of wildflowers, and she couldn’t see any fur peeking out from between the stems. It seemed her fleeting curiosity would not be completely satisfied this day. “Huh,” she thought, “their camouflage is pretty good!”.

Deciding to put off her planned sleep for a bit longer to try out her new art, Samantha moved around the clearing inspecting various plants but found nothing terribly surprising. Some of the flowers apparently had mild medicinal qualities if made into tea, but since she didn’t have a stomachache or have need of any aphrodisiacs out here, she left the plants alone.

She made her way back to her sleeping area and lay down, getting comfortable and looking up into the starry night sky. She thought over how far she had come in the last month and how much everything would change now that she was a cultivator. She remembered her family and allowed herself to miss them a bit, picturing how suprised and happy they'd be once she came home. Her mind wandered from topic to topic without direction, but the tiredness slowly made her thoughts less coherent as sleep began to overtake her. The last thing through her mind before she slumbered was that when she awoke tomorrow, the hunt would begin.