Chapter 4: The path of cultivation

Dexterity has reached G+ Grade

Al couldn’t help but smile at the blue screen that appeared in front of him, an indicator of his work over the past weeks. 'Well, if running and jumping around counts as work that is.'

His almost daily ‘duels’ against Koro had also helped. Since the first one, dodging and weaving in between his predictable charges and punches has become increasingly easy, meaning Al hadn’t lost a single one.

Jiao had also requested Al to give him some pointers, but he was so pathetically slow Al didn’t even know where to start, and ended up recommending him to build up some more muscle first. He then worked himself to exhaustion and had to stay in bed for several days. ‘Seriously, that boy’s way too eager’

He also got to know Yulia a bit better, though she still hadn’t really opened up to him. He pumped himself up as he approached the corner she was always sitting at.

“Hey Yulia,” He said while eyeing the piece of paper between her hands.

She looked up from some sort of roll of paper she seemed to be reading. “...Hi”

“Whatcha reading?” Al asked. He didn’t really know how to read and write yet, but he knew that if he applied himself he would be able to learn pretty quickly.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before she said “..It’s nothing”

Of course, Al wouldn’t take that for an answer, and he got on the offensive. “Hmm... well, if you don’t tell me I’ll just start calling you Yuly.”

She flinched a bit, and then said in a hushed tone “I-It’s about Ki flow, and forming your Dantian,"

Al was surprised. “Wow. Yuly, are you aiming to become a cultivator?”

She shook her head. Meanwhile, Al was laughing inside at how she hadn’t realised he had called her with the newly invented pet name.

“Well, I wanna be one. When I learn how to read, can you lend it to me?”

Yuly looked at Al suspiciously and said “Learning to read isn’t easy. It took me a whole year to be able to read this manual.”

Al decided to tease Yuly a tad and said “Well, Yuly, let’s make a bet. If I learn to read in a month, you have to lend that to me. What do you say?”

“...And if you don’t? Do I win anything?” She said, narrowing her eyes.

After hearing that, Al chuckled internally. ‘She’s sharp for a toddler’ “If I can’t read it in a month, I’ll do anything you tell me.”

And so, Al hired Khan-Wan to help him learn to read in exchange of permission to cuddle. It was a lot harder than Al thought it would be, since there was a character for each syllable, instead of for each letter, and many of them were pronounced differently in certain situations, or when next to certain other characters. It was a lot like eastern languages. Go figure.

Anyhow, Al kept at it for a couple of hours a day with Khan-Wan, and then he crammed it on his own for another six hours. After three weeks of this painstaking schedule, he could more or less read normal texts. It would take a while to actually be proficient, but he was happy with his progress.

From then on, he decided to try to get [Mana Manipulation] up to High proficiency, since he wanted to see what his element would be. Having an element didn’t mean you could simply use spells, since you had to learn them from somewhere, but since Al already knew the proper way to Imbue his body with mana, he would also be able to do it with elemental mana.

If his element was earth or water, it would prove good defense, and if it was fire or air, it would make him nimbler. If it was a special element, then...well, he would have to try it to see.

He wasn’t about to give up his sword skills for some flimsy magic though. The moment he was old enough, he was gonna start training his physical stats like crazy. Specially Dexterity. It still annoyed him to hell and back not being able to run up walls or jump from tree to tree. Yeah, his standards had gotten a bit high over the years.

Anyway, one week of training hadn’t been nearly enough to get anywhere close to getting his element, but now he knew his path going forward.

When he arrived in front of Yuly, she wordlessly gave him the manual and he recited it. There were several words he didn’t know, but since he knew the grammatical rules, he knew how to read them. When he finished, Yuly was slack-jawed, muttering things like “You...H-how..?” Al shrugged and turned away manual in hand. As he did so, he told her, “I’ll give it back in about a week.”

When Al got to his room, he sat down and looked at the roll of paper in front of him. It wasn’t very big, maybe a bit more than an A4, but it was still almost half as high as him.

He read it again, and found that it said some very interesting things. People of this world don’t have skills, but they could still learn spells, martial arts, sword arts and the like. Apparently they all required mana, and so they created a Dantian (‘I knew it!’) Out of highly compressed mana, to basically substitute the Intelligence and Will stats, since it increased your mana capacity and regeneration. It didn’t help your decision-making or drive like the stats did, though. The manual said that the core has many realms, and three stages per realm, each one stronger than the last.

Cultivators are the ones who can absorb ambient mana into their bodies, a process that is much more efficient when there are no external stimuli. It also described the process to described the process to see if you have potential for cultivation, which is to sit down with no distractions and try to sense the energies around you. The faster you managed it, the higher your potential was apparently. Of course, since with Al’s [Mana Manipulation] already allowed him to vaguely sense the mana around him, he jumped straight into the second step.

It was to pull as much mana as possible into the navel area, and concentrate it to a point until it crystallised. Al started by first pulling most of the mana in his body into that zone, and it already felt pretty saturated. He kept at it though, and slowly but surely kept adding mana from his surroundings. After an hour or so, he couldn’t contain anymore, so he used all his mental strength to push it into one spot. He was prepared to fail, but it was easier than expected, since after a certain point he didn’t have to push anymore, and the mana started attracting each other.

Finally it conglomerated into a marble-sized sphere just behind his belly button, and Al decided to check his status

Alberto Peñas

Age: 11 months

Level 1

Strength

G+

Dexterity

G+

Toughness

G+

Will

E-

Intelligence

E-

Assignable

0

Skills:

[Mana Manipulation] (Mid)

[F Grade Core] (Low)

‘Wait, it’s a skill!?’