At first, Max was surprised at how easy it was to cultivate and gain levels. In all the novels that he had read, it was always a slow and arduous grind. But now it made more sense, he had been sitting on this massive Chi Stone and had been slowly draining the Chi from it in the last couple of hours.

Curious, he tried cultivating again and restarting his breathing technique.

In

1,2,3,4,5

Hold

1,2,3,4,5

Out

1,2,3,4,5

After long minutes, he didn’t feel a thing. There was no more purple haze surrounding him, not even a trickle.

‘Well, I guess that’s it for the easy gains.’

Putting cultivating to the back of his mind, Max took stock of his surroundings. He could just faintly make out some light coming from over the hole. But before trying to get out of the hole, he excitedly checked his gains. This time, instead of saying “status” out loud, he just thought about it.

‘Status’

Without fail, his status window appeared.

Name:

Max Oxford

Level:

3

Cultivation:

Body Tempering 3rd Stage

Age:

23

Progress:

30/66

Progress:

5/150

Status:

Weakened Body

Titles:

System Pioneer

Realm Walker

Cultivator

Traits:

Quick Learner

Cultivation Body

Skills:

Analyze

Common Tongue

HP:

29/29

SP:

33/33

CHI:

NA

Stats (Multiplier:1.3x)

Strength:

9

Perception

13

Constitution:

10

Intelligence:

22

Dexterity:

11

Spirit:

1

Endurance

13

Vitality:

9

Free Stat Points:

6

Looking at his stats, a small smile crept onto his face with him knowing.

Pleasantly surprised to see that all his physical stat points have gone up. But he was a little puzzled as to why they went up by 4. When he entered the 1st stage of Body Tempering, he had gained 1 point across all his physical stats. He assumed that for each stage, his stats would increase by an increment of 1.

Since he had gone from the 1st stage to the 3rd stage of Body Tempering, at most his stats should have gone up by 3 with the 30% bonus from his title and trait. Max re-examined his status sheet. Max was also slightly astonished that he could clearly remember his stat values from before. His short-term memory was never this good back on Earth. He was already enjoying some of the benefits of higher Intelligence.

Scanning down his status sheet, the culprit was quickly caught.

Weakened Body - Your body is in a weakened state. All physical stats -3.

Max clearly remembered that before his last cultivation session, it was “-4” to all stats. It looks like the time that he had spent bedridden had really done a number on him. He was glad to see that the cultivation had also helped his weakened state. This also lends further weight to his hunch that he would only get 1 stat per stage.

‘Well, I guess I’ll just have to see.’ Without a source of Chi stones, Max was also lost on how to cultivate.

Reassuring himself, ‘One step at a time’

Standing up, Max stretched. He felt his joints crack and let out a soft contented sigh. This was the first time in subjective weeks where he was able to stand and move about with his own strength and it felt great. While he could feel that his body has not totally recovered from his long-term hospital stay, he did feel very clear-headed. His thoughts came easily and his mind was already coming up with ways to get out of the hole left by the massive Chi Stone.

Kneeling back down, Max felt around the ground. When he had initially fallen, he had felt a hard impact on his behind, which he promptly rolled off of. Before long, he found a smooth palm-sized rock. As he ran his hands over it, he noticed that the rock was split diagonally to make two roughly equal wedges.

‘The weight of the Chi stone must have cracked it.’

Picking up the two rocks, they felt heavier than Max had initially guessed. Really squinting at them, he also noticed the faintest purple glow to them.

Analyzing…

Item: Chi-Infused Rock

A rock that had absorbed some ambient Chi from a high-grade Chi Stone. Space-attributed.

‘A good find. Space-attributed, that means the massive Chi Stone was likely also Space-attributed. Whatever transported me here might have used the Space-attributed chi in that massive stone’

Holding the rocks in his hands, Max felt a weak pull to it, it wasn’t a physical pull. It was familiar, like finding a long-lost trinket. It was a very subtle connection and was easily ignored. He kept his eyes peeled, not that it helped much, felt around the hole to see if he could find anything else. He made sure to cover every inch of the floor and also started feeling around the walls. After minutes of fruitless searching, he moved to the next step of his plan.

Using the slightly larger rock, Max walked to one wall of the hole. The wall of the hole ran evenly up and down. Taking the sharp side of the rock, he started to carve into the wall about knee height. The wall was fairly sturdy, but the rock easily cut into the wall. By the time Max had made it deep and wide enough for a foothold, his hand and forearms were starting to get sore. Even with the Chi-infused rock, his weakened body was still an issue for him. Putting the rock back down, he tested the foothold. Slowly putting weight into the foothold, it held firm.

Alternating between rest and carving, Max made two more divots. The three divots were evenly spaced horizontally. Before the climb, he picked up both pieces of rock and placed them at the edge of the hole. Far enough out so that it wouldn't fall in and close enough that he could easily grab it if he needed to. After a few trials and errors, Max was able to climb out of the hole and get back to ground level. He could feel that he was still out of shape; that felt a lot harder than it should have been.

Now standing on ground level, Max looked around and saw where the light was coming from. Picking up the rocks and holding one in each hand, he made sure that the sharp end was pointing forward. Step by step, Max started walking towards the source of the light.