Health Regen | 2.1→ 3.1/h

Stamina Regen | 0.7 → 1.7/min

The improvement was impressive, and much faster than Shen had expected. In fact, he guessed his body wanted to improve. The system had changed the placement of some of his arteries and veins, and even created others, which should already have improved his regens. Likely, only some strange rules had prevented that.

While cultivating, he had gotten a good feeling of his body and could tell his limits had increased. Before, his health and stamina regen would’ve gotten up to around 3 and 1.6 respectively, but he felt he should be able to reach at least double that now.

All that together made him realize the system hadn’t lied, but it also hadn’t told him the whole truth. His cultivation method might not add its strength to system-given strength, but their synergy was certainly greater than it had implied. The number of cultivators upset for missing on it helped explain why he had gotten the warning.

That made even more sense when one considered the importance of the Foundation Establishment realm. It had three major goals and one very important consequence.

The first goal was to improve a martial artist’s recovery, the second was to strengthen the body to withstand qi better, and the third was to push the cultivator’s strength to the utmost limit. The consequence was that the best the foundation was, the stronger the cultivator would be in the following realms. Though that lost its important in later realms, he guessed it would give him an edge at least throughout the entire F rank at least.

He wondered how much the next stat improvements cost.

“Stat Store,” he said.

Stat Store

Your AP: 3,301

-

Rank: F → E | 10,000 AP

-

Max Health Points: 100 → 101 | 101 AP

Health Regen: 3.1 → 3.2/h | 320 AP

-

Max Stamina Points: 100 → 101 | 101 AP

Stamina Regen: 1.7 → 1.8/min | 180 AP

-

Strength: F- → F | N/A

Agility: F- → F | N/A

Resistance: F- → F | N/A

He could at most reach E rank, but he had no reason to if he couldn’t improve his stats too. He wondered why it wasn’t available, but he had no way to find out, so he just took it out of his mind.

That was enough time spent on empty curiosity. Now he should acclimate his body to his new power.

He stood up, got down to the courtyard, and started training his movements.

Alicia was hating the system. Truly, truly hating it. She had entered to the second stage with 881 AP, but she needed 3,000 to rank up and unlock the magic she so wanted. So she was forced to look around for monsters to kill using her sword and shield.

She had started in a forest because she figured it would be filled with monsters, and unfortunately, she had been right. It took her less than five minutes to find the first enemy, a horned bunny that was only at the G rank and gave her a measly 1AP. Then it took him a mere minute to get stuck in an invisible spider web.

When the spider the size of a truck appeared...

She was glad she had fainted at once rather than staying conscious to feel however it had killed her.

The system had revived her in a safe place as promised, a cozy cabin in the woods with a bed—very weird since she didn’t need sleep anymore—a fireplace, and even a cupboard filled with food.

So she did the only reasonable thing she could: she ate her anxiety away.

Right now, she was done with all the sweets—chocolate mostly—and considering whether she should go through the sour chips when light flashed in the room. When she opened her eyes, she saw a redhead boy with brown eyes, wielding sword and shield like hers—well, the sword looked better, maybe it as the F- version—looking absolutely mortified.

“Noooooo!” he fell to his knees, raised his arms with fists closed, lowered his head, and yelled. “I had it! I almost had it! Shit! Shit! I should’ve backed down! Now I’ll have to take the entire stage slowly!” A moment later, he rose his head, opened his eyes, and looked at her. His anger immediately turned into a bright smile. “But I was right! I knew it! The losers are given a chance to fight together! This is a boot camp!” He stood up. “Inspect.” He frowned. “Well, I gotta rank you up. You should also buy the magic stuff; I have to check it out before I consider taking it myself. Let’s go.”

Without waiting for an answer, he just walked to the door and left the cabin.

Alicia stood frozen for a while, wondering if she should follow. In the end, it was his sweet promise of ranking her up and giving her magic that made her follow him. But she would definitely pay him back for using her as a guinea pig once she was strong enough.

She had had her fill of people using her for their own means.

When the sun rose on the skies, Shen was sitting with his legs crossed on top of the walls. He was done with his physical training and was now harmonizing with his body through meditation.

With a last deep breath, he was done.

He opened his eyes, jumped down to the courtyard, then walked toward the closed doors of the fortress. They were double doors like the ones in the outer walls, but much smaller, only about twice his height.

Shen tried pushing them, but they didn’t budge, so he thrust his spear repeatedly to create a new rectangular frame on the doors. Two slams later, he was inside the fortress.

The main hall was two stories high and as wide as the entire fortress, had an enormous staircase up on the back, and over three hundred enemies waiting for him.

They were divided into ten groups of thirty-one. Each group had thirty militiamen and one new enemy, a minotaur clad in plate armor from head to toe, wielding a metal mace. Their curved horns went through openings in their helmets. He inspected them.

Minotaur Soldier (F) — 250 / 250

Shen wondered if his spear was strong enough to go through plate armor.

The ten groups were further divided into two files of five groups each, one file standing midway to the stairs, the other waiting right in front of it. At the far end of the room, a group of about fifty workers and fellers waited, looking with dull eyes at nothing.

The first file approached Shen as soon as he entered the hall. All hundred and fifty militiamen held crossbows and shot him at once, while the five soldiers approached.

Shen rushed at them. He positively flowed through the floor, running so fast the rain of bolts missed him completely. Soon, he was in front of the first soldier, and his spear was moving straight toward its head. It dodged, but he turned his thrust into a swing, and the spearhead did penetrate the soldier’s armor a couple of inches.

He swiftly pulled it out rather than leave it stuck and dodged the mace that came his way. Then he filled his arms with qi and swung his spear again at the soldier’s neck.

His spearhead went from one side to the other.

The minotaur’s head was already turning into motes of light as it fell to the ground.

Minotaur Soldier (F) | 3,381 -> 3,391 AP

Shen smiled widely at his newfound power, and the distraction was enough for a bolt to hit his shoulder.

Health: 93 / 100 | -7

The bolt penetrated his skin, but it lost a lot of power while pushing through. Both his higher resistance and his extra compressed muscles made the damage he received from the bolt lower from 20 to 7. The resistance alone must be halving the damage.

He woke up from his stupidity and moved toward the next soldier.

Shen’s enemies had similar strength and speed to his, but his superior techniques and qi usage gave him too much of an advantage over them. If it wasn’t for their defensive equipment, even without qi, he would’ve been able to crush them. So the next soldier fared no better than the first, and three others followed swiftly.

Then came the crossbowmen.

Shen went through them like the god of death himself. He reaped lives left and right, even faster and more brutally than in the courtyard. Soon, all hundred fifty-five enemies were gone.

Minotaur Soldier (F) | 4,921 -> 4,931 AP

By now, he was getting used to the tutorial rules, and as expected, the next file of enemies didn’t approach at once. He sat, rested to recover his stamina, then moved forth.

The five soldiers attacked in formation this time, but he moved like the wind. He was confident he was almost reaching Minor Accomplishment—the first of three levels—in the ground-based part of the Gale Footwork. His spear arts were a still only about a third to Minor Accomplishment by his estimates.

That was enough.

Soon enough, he had 6,481 AP. Only the absentminded workers remained in the absolutely silent room.

Shen concluded it would be hypocritical of him not to kill them for any moral reason. They were only Shadows to begin with, mere puppets created to train potential Guardians in the tutorial, not true living beings. Of course, he had only Uk’Gaar’s words on that, though their lack of speech and uniform mighty when in groups suggested he hadn’t been lying. Even if Shen was killing innocent beings, the fifty-three extra lives would be but a drop in a river of blood. He might as well go all the way.

While his spear sung a tale of blood and death, he prayed to the heavens that he wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

Minotaur Feller (F) | 7,001 -> 7,011 AP

Done with the first floor, he climbed the stairs at the back. They led to an archway that was the entry to the fortress’ last floor. The first room, at the back of the fortress, was wide and had twenty-five soldiers.

Shen made short work of them.

He even trained for a bit with the last one, using no qi to dance around it, dodge all its attacks, and cut its armor little by little until there was enough of an opening for him to deliver the last strike with relative ease. It took him less than 5 stamina to accomplish it. It meant that as long as twenty or fewer soldiers showed again, he might not need to use qi again.

Minotaur Soldier (F) | 7,251 -> 7,261 AP

The room had a single door, which led to another large room with fifty soldiers. He used qi and killed them quickly.

Minotaur Soldier (F) | 7,751 -> 7,761 AP

After that, he fought a hundred soldiers, and they were a little tricky.

Using qi only in his arms, as opposed to his entire body, didn’t stress them so much. His body was also much stronger now that he had F- stats. Yet, keeping qi running through his arms to kill a hundred enemies took almost five minutes between dodging and positioning himself. At the end, when there were only ten remaining, he was forced to stop using qi to deal with them, else his muscles burst open.

He had found his new limit for continuous qi usage: five minutes.

Minotaur Soldier (F) | 8,751 -> 8,761 AP

Forced to rest yet again, he considered how pathetically easy everything was—which was a proof that he had chosen his strategy well, but still.

He estimated his enemies had F- stats like him, though they were getting on the upper range of it by now. Not that he was too distant; continuous battle was also pushing him to the higher end of his stats. Stats were like potential, what he could achieve, but he had to get used to them and learn how to push his body to use that potential.

There was still a difference between his enemies and him though, and they had superior defensive equipment and greater numbers. When he thought about the martial artists of his clan, which he had watched training or battling so many times, he was forced to admit only the ones at the Earth’s Chosen List—or the superior Heaven’s Chosen List, of course—would’ve been able to kill his enemies as easily as him. And they all had superior cultivation and greater experience than him.

His progress was way too fast. He credited it to the improved learning ability given by the system, and it only cemented in his heart the desire to get the F-rank upgrade. Some of the later realms, like his father’s Ethereal Harmonization, required understanding the Laws of the world, and the improved learning ability should help a lot with that.

Since he had to wait for his arms to heal from the stress, just in case he met another hard situation, he decided to also wait until he could cultivate again.

It was only on the next day that he opened his eyes after a cultivation session.

Health Regen | 3.1→ 4.1/h

Stamina Regen | 1.7 → 2.7/min

Two more sessions, and he would’ve reached his limit. That would leave him only a single, simple step away from the next realm.

For now though, he had more enemies to kill.

He stood up and went to the next room.