Jade woke up in the early hours of the morning. She was lying on an inflatable mattress covered in a blanket. Righting herself she looked around the room. It was still the circular rune covered cultivation room from last night. Mara was leaning against the wall in meditation.

Jade felt like she just had the best sleep of her life. Her whole body felt energized and ready to go; she could still feel the mana around and inside her. There was still the tiny mana core inside her dantian.

They exchanged some pleasantries and had a quick breakfast from the provisions they brought with them. Soon they were sitting opposite each other continuing where they left off last night.

“Next step in establishing your cultivation is to create the circulation path. But before that you should check on your notification and your status with the system. It will give you some insight in your current condition.”

Jade focused on the ever-present system that waited within her mana and called up her system messages.

Congratulations you have successfully created your mana core. You have officially taken your first step on the road of cultivation.

New Title: Mana cultivation I

Mana cultivation I

+2 to all Stats

Total mana increased by 10%

Congratulations you have successfully created an origin core. Due to being the first in your world to create an origin core you will gain additional rewards.

New Title: Origin cultivation I (first)

Origin cultivation I (first)

+5 (+10) to soul

Soul defense increased by 50% (100%)

Name: Jade

Tier: 1

Level: 1

Age: 18

Titles:

[First of your kind] [Mana cultivation I] [Origin cultivation I]

Hit points: 100/100

Stamina: 95/95

Mana: 264/264

Genesis Energy: 220/220

(Hidden)

Attributes:

[Body]

[Speed]

[Mind]

[Soul]

5 unspent points

10

9

14

22

Concept:

[Genesis] (Hidden); Displayed: [Growth]

Skills:

Genesis

You create Genesis Energy based on your [Soul] x 10.

Infusion

Infuse Genesis Energy (GE) into anything you touch, accelerating natural development.

Extraction

Extract Genesis Energy from anything you touch adding it to your genesis pool. This cannot increase your GE pool above its maximum. Extracting GE from a living organism causes damage based on your [Mind].

Origin Core

The origin core contains your mana. Through cultivation more mana can be accumulated to grow your maximum mana pool.

Current stage: Tier 1 – beginning.

Accumulated mana: 100

Mana stat bonus: [Mind] x 10

Title Bonus: 10%

Mana compression level: 3.7:1

She got awarded two titles for her efforts. Mana cultivation seems like a title everyone who creates a mana core gets. Because of those titles both her mana and GE had more than doubled in value. Jade could now read a direct connection between her [Soul] stat and her GE; it seemed to be ten times her [Soul].

This brought up the question what connection the soul and Genesis Energy have. She also got a new skill called origin core. This one seemed a little more unique, but only by its title. She knew of the mana core skill; mainly a skill meant to track your cultivation progress. To her knowledge the description of both skills seem similar if not identical.

The title she got for creating her origin core seemed to imply that the core she created was linked with her soul in some manner, protecting it. What ever she did when she declared her Concept to her mana, it must have been something special. After explaining the titles and core to Mara Jade was ready to continue with her cultivation.

“Good, the title and skill aside. I can see no defects with your core. But there are some things you should keep in mind. Your core is much smaller than that of a normal cultivator. Which would normally mean that you have less mana; in your case the smaller size is offset by the increased density of mana in your core. The mana in your core is as dense as the mana in a Tier 4 cultivator.”

Jade looked at her mother with a disbelieving face. Having such dense mana was incredible, it would mean the mana entering her system would be much purer than any other Tier 1 cultivators.

“As you know this will increase your mana purity but it will also slow down your progress. Usually when your mana is this dense you have much more mana to work with. This creates a greater mana pull when cultivating, the greater the pull the faster you cultivate. The denser your mana the more pull you will need to drag mana into your core. Which means less of your mana pull can work on bringing in new mana.

“Do I get any benefits from that purified mana in my tier?”

“You will use less mana for the same effect as someone who has a lesser purity. This will also give you a much greater foundation for the future. Every breakthrough into a higher tier requires a certain mana density in your core.”

“So, it will take me more time to pass through the tiers but it will take me less effort to pass between tiers. Seems like a sweet deal to me. Almost makes me feel like some young mistress” Jade smirked at her mother.

“Not to far off the mark. With this density you will most likely overshadow most of your peers in purity. But most ‘young mistresses’ possess cultivation methods passed down generations that make up for the decreased speed higher density brings.”

“Ouch. Okay what do we have? Because I would rather not be stuck at tier 1 for the next ten years.”

“This is our biggest problem. There are two paths we can go. One, stop now and wait until you get accepted into a sect. They have cultivation pathways that would increase your speed. The risk with this is that they will want to check your core and concept much more thoroughly to give you the best path possible. Two would be to go all in - choose the hard way and make your own path. This will come at the risk of creating a path that will later hinder you because of the mistakes you made in its creation. The benefit would be that there might not be any conventional path for you anyway and this would be your best shot at creating something that fits you.”

Jade contemplated her choices and decided to sense her core and mana again to get a better feel for what she had to work with.

Her core was still in her dantian right behind her navel. It wasn’t physical really, more the center of her being on another level of existence. But still there where small clouds of gaseous mana exuding from her core into her real body.

She tried imagining fancy pathways snaking themselves through her body. But no configuration felt right. Frustrated she looked up at her mother.

“I tried imagining some pathways. But none felt right or fit in to my body.”

Mara raised an eyebrow.

“You decided to make your own?”

“I don’t know I just wanted to see if anything felt right, but nothing did. Maybe I should wait for the sects help.”

“Did you try to listen to your Concept and your core? Or did you just try to force something on to it? Try again this time listen to what the mana tries to tell you.”

Jade sighed and closed her eyes again. She looked at the tiny crystal core in her dantian again. ‘What do you want?’ she thought at it. The core just kept slowly pulsing and exuding small amounts of nebula.

Nothing. How do you even listen to mana? Is there a number you call? Jade tried concentrating again. She looked over every detail of her core again and again. Until she got stuck on the pulses and the gases exuded.

They are coming in regular intervals. Maybe she could use that. She narrowed her thoughts on the pulse of her core. Suddenly she got the feeling of a living heart. The center of the universe was alive and its heart was beating. She willed her core to increase the intensity of its pulse.

A wave of mana extended from her dantian from her core like an explosion. The gaseous mana trailed through her muscles, blood, bones, and organs. Small clusters of the mana gas gathered at different points of her body but dissipated quickly again until another pulse went through her. Once the wave went past her body it seemed to be reflected by the outside mana. In doing so it took small pieces of the mana with it bringing it back to her core.

This happened again and again until five small nebulae of mana were gathered in her organs. This felt right, this felt like it should. Satisfied, Jade came out of her trance. She was rewarded by a message from the system.

Congratulations you created your very own cultivation pathways.

Title awarded: Mana Pioneer I

Mana Pioneer I

Mana gathers 5% quicker

Jade looked at her mother with a big smile on her face.

“I did it, I made my own pathways.”

Mara returned a gentle smile.

“Well done. May I check the pathways myself?”

Jade nodded and held her hands. A wave of Mara’s mana swept through Jade passing over all her nebulae and the constant waves of mana that pulsed from her core. Mara looked at Jade with astonishment.

“That is truly unique. There are no permanent channels that lead from your core through your body. You just blast it out to all corners equally.”

Mara contemplated this particular method of mana distribution.

“There might be problems later with more focused distribution. You probably need to learn to direct those pulses to where you need them most. I have no idea what these nebulae might do yet. Most cultivators create small pools of mana in their meridians rather than their organs. Maybe this will strengthen your organs increasing your physical stats. It is not unheard of in a cultivation technique.”

Jade and Mara continued to discuss some of the more abstract concepts of cultivation while Jade continued to try and accumulate the mana from around her. It was very slow going, but it turned out that the nebulae in her organs pulled in mana as well. It was very small amount but it helped nonetheless.

When they finally left the cultivation chamber Jade checked her stats one last time to see the gains she made in her first cultivation session. She also decided to finally spend her stat points. She chose to put one point into speed to bring it to a round ten. The other four she put equally into [Mind] and [Soul]

Name: Jade

Tier: 1

Level: 1

Age: 18

Titles:

[First of your kind] [Mana cultivation I] [Origin cultivation I] [Mana Pioneer I]

Hit points: 100/100

Stamina:

100/100

Mana: 288.2/288.2

Genesis Energy: (Hidden)

240/240

Attributes:

[Body]

[Speed]

[Mind]

[Soul]

10

10

16

24

Concept:

[Genesis] (Hidden); Displayed: [Growth]

Skills:

Genesis

You create Genesis Energy based on your [Soul] x 10.

Infusion

Infuse Genesis Energy (GE) into anything you touch, accelerating their natural development.

Extraction

Extract Genesis Energy from anything you touch adding it to your genesis pool. This cannot increase your GE pool above its maximum. Extracting GE from a living organism causes damage based on your [Mind].

Origin Core

The origin core contains your mana. Through cultivation more mana can be accumulated to grow your maximum mana pool.

Current stage: Tier 1 – beginning.

Accumulated mana: 102

Mana stat bonus: [Mind] x 10

Title Bonus: 10%

Origin Pathways

Your Mana pathways mirror the pulse of the universe.

Current stage: Nebulae

Current number of Nebulae: 5

4% increased mana gathering speed per nebula: 20%