"Haaaah"

It was a rough day, yet it is only my first day here. The mental fatigue is different from battling wild beasts and cultivating non-stop. In the modern world, you need to strictly follow the laws and norms of society, which can be a bother sometimes. Whereas in the cultivation world, you don't need to follow anything as long as you're strong; the downside is, your time will always be used cultivating. The two worlds have a different kind of fatigue, but both are still exhausting and taxing to the body.

After I ordered Eliza to clean herself, I directly went inside one of the two bedrooms in this apartment. The bedroom was designed to be simple; only having a bed, desk, chair, and a cabinet in it. It lacks furniture but I can slowly fill that up.

I directly lied down to the soft bed, and slowly closed my eyes. I was really exhausted. My weak body still can't handle battles. If I have more time, then I can cultivate more and unlock my genes, officially entering the Pre-ancient stage.

Cultivating has three major stages: the Pre-ancient stage, the Ancient stage, and the Post-ancient stage. Each of the major stages contains 3 mini-levels.

The Pre-ancient stage is focused on cultivating the body; namely, cultivating the Muscles, cultivating the Bones, and cultivating the Blood Vessels. Each mini-level focuses on cultivating a particular part of the body, enhancing and evolving it.

The Ancient stage, on the other hand, cultivates the soul. Its three mini-levels are cultivating the Heart, the Mind, and the Spirit. Cultivating the Heart not only enhances the blood circulation but also gives a strong determination to face the problems. Meanwhile, cultivating the Mind enhances the capacity to think and the speed at which our minds work, giving the ability to think logically and make correct decisions at any given time. And cultivating the Spirit gives the tenacity and will to the soul. It will develop protection towards evil spirits.

The early and middle-stages are also known as the foundation building or readying the body for the next stage; which is the Post-ancient stage.

Going from the Ancient stage to Post-ancient stage is the most critical point in the life of a cultivator. One wrong step in transitioning will cause the Essences in the body of the cultivator to go haywire, crippling the cultivator.

The Post-ancient stage is what's also known as the stage where you'll enhance the Essences in your body. Post-ancient stage is where you will learn how to control the Essence more fluidly. Its three mini-levels are cultivating the Internal Essence, cultivating the External Essence, and cultivating the World Essence. Cultivating the Internal Essence is learning how to utilize the Essence inside your body, and cultivating the External Essence will make you able to use the Essences outside your body. That's why I said that acquiring a regenerative ability will only be possible in the late stage of cultivation.

Cultivating the World Essence, on the other hand, is different from the two mini-levels. The difference lies in the fact that the two mini-levels make use of a normal Essence, while the last mini-level cultivates using the World Essence, a higher form of the Essence. The practitioners of the cultivation world discovered the existence of the World Essence after someone reached the peak of the Post-ancient stage. The use of the World Essence is a bit difficult to explain. One difference between the World Essence and the normal Essence is its fluidness in entering the body; it is better than the normal Essence. Another one is its usage, in this case, the conversion of elements. The World Essence is on another league compared to the normal Essence when converting it into the elements, especially the special elements. All in all, it is a better version of the normal Essence, especially when executing a technique.

Regarding the techniques, I've cultivated many of them and stored them inside my storage ring, but my most prioritized techniques were the ones that came from the Ancient manual I discovered.

The movement technique; Nine-step Flow.

The breathing technique; Flow Synchronization.

The body technique; Discerning Flow Eyes.

The movement technique, Nine-step Flow, consists of 9 stages. The One-step stage, Two-step stage, up until the Nine-step stage, which is also called Soaring Sky stage. Cultivating every stage can make you utilize an additional of one 'enhanced step'.

Enhanced steps are steps that can accelerate your speed, boost your jumps, make sharp turns which are impossible to human standards, or even double-jump in the air. Enhanced steps have many applications. The last stage of this movement technique will give you the ability to soar the skies, which is impossible for an ordinary movement technique. It is because even the highest tier movement technique ever recorded only has 4 stages, meaning it only has four enhanced steps available.

The breathing technique, on the other hand, is learning how to utilize the Essence better. The Flow Synchronization consists of only 4 stages; namely, Becoming One with the Flow, Imitating the Flow, Fusing the Flow, and Sublimating the Flow. Each stage teaches a different style of handling the Essence. This Essence training technique starts with learning how to become one with the flow, to imitating the flow, then fusing the flow and lastly, sublimating or enhancing the flow. The final stage of this technique is a little similar to the World Essence, for the fact that it can enhance the Essence, but only a little inferior.

Meanwhile, the body technique, Discerning Flow Eyes, does not only makes use of the eyes as the name suggests. Instead, it makes use of all of the six senses. The technique has four stages; Discerning the Body, Discerning the Essence, Discerning the World Essence, and Discerning the Future.

The first stage will enable a cultivator to sense any implications in a body, and also measure a body's specifications; like strength, endurance, mental capacity and etc. etc. It is like Superman's X-ray vision, using the six senses.

The second stage will help you interact with Essence better. It enables you to sense the Essence better, thus speeding up the cultivation speed. It also has many uses, like examining the opponents' Essence easier, or easily identifying the movements of the Essence in your surroundings.

The third stage can help you in discerning the World Essence.

And lastly, the fourth stage will enable the cultivator to predict the future, by reading and analyzing the movement, the nature and the behavior of the Essence, whether it has a good or evil intent.

In those three techniques, I've only reached until the Seven-step stage, Becoming one with the Flow stage and Discerning the Essence stage. My cultivation on the breathing technique is especially low. It is not that I am a slow cultivator, or I prioritized the other techniques; it is because the practitioners constantly chasing me to acquire the Ancient manual. I can't relax even a little bit to cultivate the breathing technique, but on the contrary, I've cultivated the Nine-step Flow faster because of all the running. My highest cultivation level, on the other hand, is just below Cultivating of World Essence stage, the final mini-level of the Post-ancient stage.

The main evidence of that is because even though I haven't unlocked my genes yet, I can expertly handle the Essences inside and outside of my body. Even though I still can't convert Essences without the help of runic patterns, or makes use of Essences in executing a combat technique, I can still do the basic manipulations like coating a body part with the Essence to enhance it or using the Essence to enhance one of my six senses.

In my speculation, I will need at least a week to open my gene lock and to finally enter the first stage of cultivation.

I was thinking of such thing when I slowly felt my consciousness drift away.

------------------------

My name is Elizabeth. Just Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was still a baby when she was dumped in a dark alley by her parents, so she didn't know her name. The ones who raised Elizabeth were the thugs. When Elizabeth was six years old, an age where she should be going to school and making some friends, she was taught how to snatch wallets.

Elizabeth grew up in the streets of New York, always looking for a wealthy target.

There is only one rule ingrained on Elizabeth: 'You earn, you eat. You come home with nothing, you eat nothing'.

Elizabeth turned 17 years old this year but she is still growing. The others of my age always teased at how small I was. They said I look like a child and will never grow up.

My mutation first appeared when she was 12 years old.

It was snowing back then. Elizabeth was tailing another target. He was a middle-aged man, wearing a winter coat and a fedora hat. He walks steadily, all the while smoking tobacco. When he turned in a corner devoid of people, Elizabeth took that chance as a signal and ran towards him.

Elizabeth pretended to bump into him while secretly reaching for his pocket. But what Elizabeth didn't expect was for him to snatch my hand. He gripped it tightly and dragged Elizabeth away towards a deserted alley. In a dark corner, he beat Elizabeth up senseless until she was half-dead.

Elizabeth received so much pain that it turned Elizabeth numbed, the only thing she's feeling is the cold. Then, the man kicked Elizabeth one last time and left her. Elizabeth doesn't even have the energy to cry.

Lying there alone, Elizabeth slowly noticed a white light envelops her hands. Then, the bruises and scratches in her hands healed at a visible rate. Elizabeth slowly regained the feelings on her hands.

Then, she tried to move her hands to the parts of her body. Everywhere the white light touches, it healed instantly.

It was only after Elizabeth healed her whole body that she felt dizzy. Elizabeth looked for a clean corner without snow and leaned there quietly. Then, Elizabeth fell unconscious.

When Elizabeth woke up, she immediately remembered the strange thing that happened to her wounds. Elizabeth tried to conjure the white light, and it did. It appeared on her hands again, coating it brightly. That's when Elizabeth realized that she is no longer normal. In addition, Elizabeth's hair and eye color turned white, no longer the color of black.

Ever since then, Elizabeth hasn't shown her powers to anyone, afraid that she will get experimented on like in the movies.

Until yesterday, Elizabeth thought that she will die alone in a dark corner, shivering.

But, because of the three thugs who've been forcing Elizabeth all the time to give them her earnings, Elizabeth met her Master.

Master was cold at first. He did not help Elizabeth the first time he saw her and even tried to ignore Elizabeth. Even when Elizabeth cried in front of him, he still treated Elizabeth coldly and even took Elizabeth's bag.

But Elizabeth knows that behind of that cold face is a warm heart. Elizabeth was sure of it. She knows because Master accepted Elizabeth when Elizabeth desperately begged him.

He accepted Elizabeth.

Her, who was wearing rug-like clothes. Her, who smells because she hasn't taken a single bath in weeks. Master accepted all of Elizabeth, even her weird hair and eyes.

Master even bought Elizabeth some clothes, food, and a bed to sleep. Furthermore, Master didn't ask anything for return. Elizabeth was glad to meet Master. Because even though Master's cold outside, Master still took care of Elizabeth.

Master is too good for Elizabeth.

That's why; Elizabeth will do all her best in order to be of use to Master.

Elizabeth will repay Master's kindness with her service.

Eliza hummed as she poured the warm water on her skin. Then, she picked up the soap and cleaned her petite body with it.

Making sure that she cleaned every nook and cranny of her body, she smiled in satisfaction. But then, she frowned on disappointment when she saw her still growing chest.

Her chest was only starting to grow, just like a little bump. Eliza's chest looks like two cute rabbit heads, her cute pink nipples still hidden. Eliza rubbed her chests lubricated with soap. Someone told her that her chests will get bigger if she rubbed them daily. At first, she did not think anything of it. But now that she has someone to serve, she became concerned about it.

"Nnn… ahhn.. unnh" (Eliza)

The little Eliza moaned while rubbing her chest.

Then, she felt a tingle in her womb.

She reached out her other hand downwards and started to rub the lips of her slit.

"AAHHhhh… Masterr… uNNnnN" (Eliza)

She started moaning. She felt a weird sensation in her womb and started to rub her chest and slit faster.

"KUuu.. somethi-something's coming! UUuuU.. AhHhhhh… M-masterrrrr.. something's… coming.. it's comiiiiinnng-!" (Eliza)

Eliza finished releasing and just lied down on the bathroom floor. Her spring juices squirted out of her slit.

"Haa… haaa…haaaa… Master…" (Eliza)

The bathroom was momentarily filled with panting and a woman's scent.

The 17 years old girl started to fall