Leaving his home, Kael wandered through the village into a small quiet grove on the edge of town. Walking around aimlessly while trying to sort everything out in his mind he felt quite overwhelmed. Considering his body was that of a 5-year-old, he had the majority of memories from an adult on earth, and finally that he was in a world based on an energy his body was not adept at gathering. He felt he was pretty much up shit creek in a rickety boat full of random, but worthless passengers.

Plopping down on the grass and picking clovers, he started to run over what he needs to do, and what he cannot do in his mind. First, he thought, According to what I remember from the samsara handguide, once I start cultivating, my statistics will quickly advance to what they should be. It should take a year instead of 10 for that to happen. Taking into consideration that the village won’t let children cultivate until they are 6 years of age, that means I will be a walking freak at age 7. I’m not sure how strong I’ll get when I start body refining, but having three times an adults strength is going to cause some raised brows.

I also have had an entire change in mentality. Thanks to my rebirth purchases, I was already an intelligent child before my soul regained consciousness. However, having an adults outlook on life will also cause some serious questions. Finally, I will have to find a way to work around whatever qi problems I may have. For the first problem about my strength, I will just try to be low key. For the second problem about my mentality, I will have to continue acting in a play with everyone while trying to limit my social interactions. That won’t work too well with trying to figure out how to start cultivating. Such a pain in the ass. Shit, I also have a years time to kill.

Plucking the leaves off another clover, Kael got a sudden inspiration as he remembered he wanted to work on alchemy. Since he already established the fact he is interested in herbs, then it is only logical to continue that for the next year. Except for this time, it would be more in-depth. Realizing this may even help him with cultivation he excitedly got back up to run back to his house.

Rushing through the door and up the stairs into his tiny room, that barely fit a bed and a nightstand; Kael snatched his book off the nightstand and flopped onto his bed. Flipping through the thick book that was bound in a durable beast hide with the pages made of a fine and thin beast skin he was surprised at how much the child version of him had actually recorded.

Six of the pages, front and back, each had a hand drawn picture of an herb, a description of its feel, smell, and taste. It also listed what they were generally used for. The amazing drawings did not seem to fit well with the childish writing. Finding a quill on his nightstand he became engrossed in fixing the terrible handwriting into something legible.

As he finished correcting the first page in the book a dim golden scroll flew out from his chest and unrolled in front of him, hovering in the air before his eyes. Shocked and confused Kael reached out to grab it, just to find that his hand slipped through it as though it was non-existent. While sitting there like an idiot, staring at a scroll that may not even exist, he realized there were faint words that were gradually growing more and more distinct. Reading the new text on the scroll he understood, it was the character information, no, better said, his information.

As he read further down he saw a giant chart that was slightly glowing. The top of the rectangular chart read, Crafting Talents with a red (19/5) to its side. Under that was a slim long bar that ran across the top of the entire thing with the numbers 0/100 in the center.

As he read further down the chart there were three columns with ten rows in each column. The first and second column was titled Production and Quality, however, the rows under them were completely grayed out and illegible. The third column was titled Perception and in the first row under it were the words Material Nature, Material Identification, and Growth Rate. Beneath that, written in fine print were the words, Cost 0/1, and Level 0/5. Further below that was entirely grayed out as well. On the far left side of the chart, there were words that separated every second row in the column. The first two columns were labeled Mortal, the second set was titled Earth, followed by Sky, Heaven, and Immortal

Staring at the things he could read he seemed to have information transported into his brain as he read each of the words again.

Material Nature - Increases the chance to know and understand the interactions of a material by 10% per level.

Material Identification - Increases the chance to successfully identify materials by 20% per level.

Growth Rate - Increases talent growth rate by 20% per level.

Thinking to himself, The first is like a chemist assisting, the second will make me into an encyclopedia, and the third sounds good but I have no idea how talents grow. Since I am fixing this book up I guess I should increase identification first and nature next. Looking at the words Material Identification and hoping it would go up he was pleasantly surprised when the Cost changed into a 1/1 then quickly swapped into a 0/2. The level also jumped to 1/5 while the blinking red writing at the top changed to an 18/5. A gentle warmth filled his entire mind as he was filled with a hazy knowledge of all sorts of plants, ores, beast cores, and other assorted materials.

Looking at the words and thinking, up, up, up, increase, increase, increase he was slightly surprised to see that where the cost read 0/2, just increasing it once would fill it up. This continued through 0/3, 0/4, and 0/5. Laughing foolishly he felt purchasing talents with his karma maybe was not such a bad idea, even if he did not make the choice for himself.

Each time he increased the level more warmth would spread through his mind and soon he seemed to have a veritable almanac of all sorts of strange things tucked away in there. After increasing the level to 5, the row beneath it suddenly lit up. The words Crossover were in the dead center of the column with nothing else. Staring at it to get more information he received;

Increases the chance of making a breakthrough in cultivation by 1% per talent points earned.

Thinking to himself, Sweet I can start cultivating easily! he attempted to increase his skill in it. After spending 1 point, only half of the Crossover box was lit up, spending a second point the entire thing lit up, and he could feel a warmth spread through his entire body.

Looking back at the chart he saw that the blinking red at the top changed as well, it now read 12/10. Figuring he would go catalog and fix up his notebook with all the local materials before continuing, the scroll started to roll back up before pausing. Looking at the frozen scroll, large bright red letters were now overlayed across the talents section. They read, “Excess talent points, closing the Scroll of Samsara before spending excess points will result in forfeiting them.” Relief flooded Kael over not losing 20 karma points that were spent for him on talents. Placing two points in the Material Nature box, and bringing his points to 10/10 he willed the ethereal scroll to close, which it then flew back into his chest.

As Kael was considering the best way to use his new knowledge a sudden wave of exhaustion hit him, causing him to black out in his room.