Discover your weakness and drive it from your body.

Davies - Head of Climber Academy

Time limit: 14 days

Time remaining: 56 days 21 hours 42 minutes*

*Overtime in effect

“Your Highness, I must say I am firmly against this course of action.” Gregor was a giant fun killing turd.

“I understand your concern Sir Gregor, but now that the traitors plot has been overturned I must once more return to my purpose of coming to the dungeon in the first place: to gain experience and level.”

“I understand, Your Highness. But must you enter this new dungeon? Its risk is unknown and if Your Highest is put in danger unnecessarily the king will become quite displeased.”

I could make a drinking game out of the number of times Gregor said ‘Your Highness’. The man could barely utter a sentence without it when talking with the prince.

“There will be little danger with Sir Miki escorting me.”

I had agreed to take the prince. Now that the floor was complete I did not worry about him dying as much. That is not to say that I would let him die needlessly. I would of course protect him, but rule number one of climbing the Tower was to prioritize my life and safety.

“Your Highness I am well aware of how talented Sir Hero is, but I am still concerned about you venturing into an unknown dungeon with him and no other guards.”

“So come with us,” I said, interrupting their polite argument. “In fact, why don’t you bring all of your knights as well. I see that all of you made it here. Surely the 14 of you can keep him safe while we complete the dungeon.”

“You would let all of us come to protect His Highness?” asked Gregor confused.

Clearly he thought I would argue the point further. The truth was that I was more than happy to have all of the knights and prince join me on exploring the six-star dungeon. Clearly the prince had missed an important detail in the dungeon prompt that I was willing to fully exploit.

“Of course I want you to come. I am more than happy to have all of you accompany me. The more the merrier. However before we move on to challenge the dungeon I have some preparations to complete. I would recommend you set up camp at the entrance to the main dungeon. I will be in meditation for a prolonged period of time, perhaps days. Once I have completed my meditation we will be able to enter the dungeon.”

I had finally reached the cultivation bottleneck by defeating all of the attackers. Level 60. While I had the level required to complete my breakthrough, I did not know if I had the time. This next breakthrough would take me to Heaven grade cultivation and each breakthrough to the next grade greatly increased the time and effort required.

I helped Gregor set up the camp and took him aside to let him know that I would need to be undisturbed as I started my cultivation breakthrough. I made it clear to him that I was including the prince in the people who were to be kept away from me and recommended that he take the prince through the standard part of the dungeon to gain more experience before we moved on to the newer challenge dungeon. He agreed as the prince was overjoyed to once more be able to explore the full beginner dungeon.

I moved away from the camp and found a quiet spot to cultivate in peace. Before I used the mana gem, I opened “Body and Mana Cultivation for Dummies” and reread the passage on using cultivation aids. Apparently there were countless cultivation aids and each had an optimal way to use them. Unfortunately I had no idea what was the best way to use the mana gems. Reading through the cultivation manual, I found it was generally best to start cultivating and wait for mana to be properly circulating before using the cultivation aid. I could only guess that the best way to use the mana gem was to follow the description and place it in my mouth when I needed to use it.

I closed my eyes and began to circulate my mana. Mana was always lazily moving through my body but with my attention it began to flow smoothly along the pathways. I felt all of the nodes in my body gather the mana before letting it move on to the next area. It was like a pond had appeared in the middle of a stream and the input of mana equaled the output. The larger nodes that held pools of mana were similar except it took longer to get the mana circulating into them and increased the output.

I knew the next step in my cultivation was to optimize the flow of mana through these nodes and mana pools. The cultivation manuals always described mana movement in similar ways to water. As such optimizing the flow had something to do with allowing it to flow more naturally while not getting blocked by backflow. I tried looking at the pictures and descriptions but it did not make much sense to me. In the end the best way for me would be through experimentation and trusting my instincts.

Once I felt my mana circulating without any slowing at the nodes or mana pools, I popped the mana stone in my mouth. At first I didn’t feel anything. Slowly I noticed that the mana returning from my head was moving faster and in larger amounts. Over time all of the mana in my body was moving faster as a result. This speed of mana circulation far exceeded my natural ability to circulate mana and I soon realized a problem. The speed and quantity of mana only kept increasing but my mana channels were not able to keep up with the increase. It quickly went from being uncomfortable to painful. I was concerned but did not attempt to change anything until I felt one of the nodes in my neck start to tear. I did not know what breaking open a mana node would do to my physical body but it couldn’t be good.

Focusing on the area of the mana node, I found that while it was perfectly spherical the mana circulating into it was creating turbulence and stopping it from easily flowing. I quickly changed the shape to more closely resemble half a teardrop. This was one of the shapes the cultivation manual had depicted. Almost instantly the turbulence decreased. I subtly changed the shape, perfecting it to where none of the increased pressure was slowed. I quickly had to move on to the next node as it started experiencing the same problem. After the first dozen nodes I discovered offsetting the nodes on alternating sides of the mana channel further optimized the movement and returned to the first nodes to correct their positions. I am not certain how long I spent working on the smaller nodes but by the time I had finished the final one my mana was once more circulating at my normal cultivation speed without any effort.

Trusting that a second mana stone would do the same as the first, I put another medium grade mana stone into my mouth.

I was wrong.

The first mana stone had increased the quantity and speed of my mana circulating through my system. While the speed had decreased with my changes, the extra mana had remained. If I had been a little bit patient I could have practiced my mana circulating techniques and gradually increased the speed to where I could further identify areas of blockage and poor flow. Instead in my haste, I doubled the mana I received and increased the speed of the flow once more. This time the mana from the second stone rushed out instead of slowly increasing what I already had.

The good news was that my smaller nodes worked perfectly. In fact they seemed to create little vortexes that helped maintain the speed of the mana circulating in my body. The bad news was the mana now crashed into the larger mana pools and quickly started to tear them apart.

I tried my best to form the half tear drop shape used before but there was simply too much mana moving too quickly. I instead altered it to a sort of heart shape. Altering the shape further I noticed twin spirals form and I quickly moved on to the next mana pool replicating the shape.

By the time I finished the final mana pool I noticed that the pressure was stabilizing. I once more looked over all of my small nodes and the mana pools for imperfections. I found several small tweaks that improved the flow and increased the speed that the vortices rotated. Each change was minor but when multiplied over 600 times it had a significant impact on the flow of mana in my body. Judging as best I could, I was now moving three to four times the amount of mana as before this cultivation session. Better yet, the natural movement speed of my mana was greater than what I was able to achieve with cultivation in the past. According to the cultivation manual this was the best possible outcome.

Congratulations! You have reached early stage heaven cultivation. +40 to all stats.

Joy. Bliss. Satisfaction. I was whole. I was complete. I could sing the praises of cultivation. In fact I started to sing in my ecstasy. Minutes passed and the feeling only continued to build. I was a mountain. No, I was the sun staring down on an unworthy planet. I was benevolent in my overwhelming power. Nothing would bring me down. Nothing could stop me.

Something in me cracked and I was plunged into darkness as every pore of my body started excreting a familiar foul substance. Unlike in the past, it did not stop with a light coating of my skin but quickly poured more and more. Where before it was like a film of sweat from being out on a hot day; now it is the drenching sweat of a hard workout.

Looking down, I realized that I had forgotten to take off my clothes before my breakthrough. I had hoped to recognize when the breakthrough was going to happen and be able to strip. At this rate I was going to need to buy more outfits as I was quickly destroying the ones I bought in Windgate. Luckily it was only my regular clothes that were fouled as I had removed my armor and boots to get comfortable before I began cultivating.

I stripped down and began to dig a hole for a bath. I was certain there would be a tub among the prince’s wagons now parked outside of the dungeon but I would not force them to smell or see me in my current state.

Name: Miki Meadows

Age: 29

Race: Human - Earth

Cultivation: Heaven - Early Stage

Level: 60

Exp: 0/37,400 to next level

HP: 1010/1010 HP Regen 8.42/min

Stamina 1028/1028: Stamina Regen 8.56/min

MP: 980/980 MP Regen 8.17/min

Strength: 192

Agility: 195

Endurance: 196

Intelligence: 196

Wisdom: 186

Luck: 208

Skills:

Let Your Sword Do the Translating

Superior Scan

Enhanced Interactive Map

Enhanced Senses - Vision

Hidden Item Detector

Languages:

Orcish - Tamerish

Marcosian

Treant