As the sun rose, Kara knocked on Aria’s door, “Wake up loser. I know you’re going to spend the next 10 days cultivating, let me in.”

“Uhg,” moaned Aria as he woke up, stumbling to open the door. “Kara… I was planning on sleeping in. So much as happened recently I wanted to sleep in before trying cultivation.”

“What? Who cares man, I have an idea I want to try! So, remember, my rate of cultivation increases when in physical contact with what caused my enlightenment. So, although I might not have a cultivation technique, I wonder if placing my hand on your shoulder as you cultivate will let me cultivate. An increase from 0 has to be above 0 right?”

“Fine Kara, but let’s at least go buy some tasty food first for breakfast and our spatial pouches since I’m not sure how long cultivating takes.”

“Okaaay. Follow me! I saw a ton of delicious food while talking to people about cultivation.” As if remembering something she said, “Actually, let’s go to the tea shop and steal the backroom to cultivate. Neither of us have any experience cultivating but that old guy seems to. That way we can get his help if something goes wrong.”

Thus was the beginning of an odd looking pair. A stunning blond female strolling around the city while shopping for food with a pasty pale, slightly fat, male with glasses. The female looked pretty happy, laughing as they walked which made the crowd jealous of the man. Eventually the pair headed towards the port and into a dilapidated tea shop.

“Old Jia!” Called Kara. “We want to use your backroom for Aria to cultivate in so you can help if something goes wrong since neither of us have ever cultivated before.”

“What the fuck?” Old Jia was really confused, “Did you say Aria hasn’t cultivated before? How is he in the early bone realm if he didn’t cultivate? Do you all really think I’m stupid?”

“Old Jia, it’s not a lie. I truly haven’t cultivated before. Actually, I have a cultivation technique but I haven’t even looked at it yet… Could we use the backroom if we buy some tea?”

“Fine but if you damage anything you’re paying for it,” replied Old Jia. This reply left Aria and Kara feeling a bit awkward as Kara only had one mid jade and 25 low jade while Aria had three mid jade and five low jade. They spent a lot of money on delicious food and other necessities for the trip.

As they sat with their backs against a wall, neither of them noticed Old Jia watching them with sparkling eyes. “Damn youngsters, abusing my kindness. I don’t believe your technique is anything special but I might as well watch, at the very least my eyes can enjoy the hotty,” mumbled Old Jia with a lascivious gleam in his eyes.

_________

Aria opened his stats tablet while Kara watched him with sparkling eyes. Aria wasn’t exactly sure how to cultivate so, similar to how he imagines the gun in his hand, he imagined the Tempered Body World Seed Technique having an app. As that thought crossed his mind, the tablet swiped to the second page of apps and started glowing as a new app formed, the image of a black plant growing out of a black seed with the name ‘TB World Seed’. Once he tapped on the app, a new screen appeared with some text on it.

Choice: Although you’re the inheritor of the Creation Path, you don’t have to follow it. The previous Creation Path follows that of the explosion, one in which the world seed’s space is expanded to a point, then contracted to a small point with immense pressure to initiate a large explosion, creating an entire universe. The flaw the creator discovered is that this method creates a world with practically zero worldly or spirit qi. Due to that it has a high chance of destroying the cultivator’s body and soul to replace the spirit qi needed during the explosion to create life. However, the creator had a flash of insight during his last moments. He thought that if you cultivate void energy to grow the seed, it will become a pure void. Also known as a detached space. Something not associated with the current realms. And, if you flood the void with a form of the five elements as you cultivate, it may produce it’s own laws of time and space allowing the creation of a true world that can support life without destroying the cultivator.

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to complete the second method before his death. So, cultivator, it’s time to decide. The first path of explosion or the partial path of the void. The first path has a completed method to follow, although there’s a risk of death, while the second path is unknown exactly how it will end up.

Sweating buckets, Aria had a decision to make. Perhaps the most important decision he has made to date. However, at the end of the day, it wasn’t really a hard choice, just a worrisome one. Of course he chose the second option because the first one likely led to death. One he was sure that he wanted the void path, the screen flashed and he felt a change to his body where the world seed was connected to his meridians in his head. He could feel that as the void energy went through his meridians it would pass through the seed and, although slightly less void energy came out of the seed, it was quite a bit more pure which seemed to make up for the lacking quantity.

When the light died down on the tablet, an diagram of his body popped up, moving as his body moved in the real world, but there was an interesting thing about the diagram. There seemed to be two overlapping sets of meridians, one that was grayed out like the previously unlocked tablet settings and another that was a deep black color with a flowing energy in it. He noticed that the deep black colored meridian set was linked to the world seed and that’s when it hit him, the black meridians are for void energy and the grayed out ones are for qi but haven’t been opened yet.

Along with the body diagram, he also saw a couple of buttons, Passive Cultivation, Active Cultivation, Read Manual, and Edit Cultivation Path. He was a little afraid to touch Edit Cultivation Path since he doesn’t really understand cultivation yet and might screw it up so, instead, he tapped Passive Cultivation. The moment he pressed it, he could see strands of dark green energy flowing into his body before disappearing into his bones and strands of light brown, silver, blue, red, light green, and a couple more strands of black flowing through his acupoints into the black meridians. As the energy strands flowed through the world seed, only purified void energy came out. Interestingly enough, a small amount of the qi and blue strands left his shoulder and disappeared. So, he looked to his left and saw Kara’s hand which led him to the realization that the dark green qi and the other six strands are the five elements plus void energy. However, that wasn’t the biggest shock. The biggest shock is when the diagram of a new figure appeared with her right hand on the left shoulder of his diagram. He noticed that the blue energy strands became whitish-blue and started to form a new set of whitish-blue meridians in her body. Once the meridians finished forming, her body released a smelly black sludge and the energy began to flow through the meridians, collecting into the dantian in her gut.

However, the diagram of Kara disappeared as she screamed, “Eeeeeee! What the hell Aria! You were supposed to help me cultivate, not make me smell like the toilet. This is so nasty, what is this sludge? Old Jia, help! You must have a bath somewhere here, right?”

Not knowing whether he should laugh or cry, Old Jia spoke, “I don’t even know where to start. Somehow you just developed a secondary set of meridians for elemental energy… The sludge is from a cultivation breakthrough where your body is partially purified. Forming elemental meridians can definitely be considered a cultivation breakthrough. Whatever, I give up thinking about it. Lisa, show her the bath in the residence area.”

Shortly after she left, Aria went back to exploring the cultivation app. He left Passive Cultivation on and clicked Read Manual which caused the screen to change. The entire manual was grayed out, he could vaguely see the outline of sentences through the gray but it seems his cultivation wasn’t high enough to see any martial skills in the manual. Next he tapped Active Cultivation which automatically unselected Passive Cultivation. The moment he selected Active Cultivation, he felt a splitting headache, the energy flowing in his body freeze up, and caused him to throw up blood.. It seems that Active Cultivation draws nearly twenty times more energy into his body but his lack of experience controlling this world’s energy makes controlling it impossible for the time being. So, he went back to the passive option and stood up.

As he stood up, Old Jia flashed in front of him and supported his shoulders. “Hey, young man, are you alright? I saw a massive increase in the energy flow and then you lost control and spit out blood.”

Aria flashed him a smile and said, “Oh I’m fine Old Jia. Can’t you sense that I’m still cultivating? I tried to take in too much energy but I know my limit now. This whole cultivation thing is quite easier than I thought it’d be.”

“Dammit! What kind of monster are you? Do you realize that in order to cultivate people have to find a quiet and secure place to sit, ensure a calm mindset, and even take pills and special plants? No one cultivates the way you do, by just walking around and talking… Hell, I still don’t understand how you helped that young lady form a special set of meridians and cultivate without a cultivation technique…”

“Haha, it’s a special technique. Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible for someone else to do it. Anyways, can I get some of that qi infused green tea? The tea here is great and so is the view. I might as well enjoy it while I cultivate.”

While laughing on the outside and crying on the inside, Old Jia brought a kettle of tea and a cup to one of the tables by the window for Aria. As he was enjoying the tea he asked, “Old Jia, can you ask Kara to meet me here when she’s done in the bath?” Rather than responding, Old Jia just walked away. It seems he still isn’t over Aria’s passive cultivation ability.

About an hour later, Aria, Lisa, and Liam walked over to the table. Kara, seemingly able to sense him cultivating without really trying, asked, “Aria, can I try cultivating like you do?”

“I don’t know if it’ll work but I can try. Put your hand on my shoulder again.” Said Aria. So, Kara walked over and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Hmm… I don’t feel any energy this time without concentrating and standing still,” sighed Kara disappointed.

“Keep your hand there, I have an idea.” As Aria spoke, he opened up the cultivation app so the diagram appeared on the screen again and, when he did that, a diagram of Kara appeared causing her to grunt in shock from the energy influx. “Hey Kara, stay here for a moment. It takes a lot for me to maintain this with you, let me figure out a way to fix that.”

Aria remembered that when the thought about an app to control the cultivation technique one appeared. So, he tried imagining the setting of a phone or tablet where you can press the back button, home button, or the one that shows all of the open apps in the background. Basically allowing you to run programs in the background. He wanted to be able to passively cultivate while summoning his deagle which he can’t do because at the moment he can’t have more than one app open yet when he imagines the gun in his hand the gun app opens. As he was imagining it, the tablet lit up, his head began to pound, and he passed out.

Half a day later, he woke up. Finding himself in a bed with Kara asleep in a chair facing the bed, her head on the bed by his elbow. Lightly pushing her shoulder, he said, “Hey Kara. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Upon waking up she noticed the award position she was in, that of a concerned girlfriend fretting over her injured boyfriend, and jumped in fright while stuttering, “You idiot! I don’t have to cultivate while we walk or whatever. It’s fine if It’s only when we are sitting down....”

“Come one Kara, you’ve helped me a bunch. Figuring this out is the least I can do and I think I might have gotten it, let me check. Oh yeah, how long was I out for?”

“Aria, you were out for half a day and the energy in your body was out of control. Not even Old Jia knew what was going on.”

Aria was surprised to hear that he was unconscious for half a day but excited to see if his idea worked. So, he opened the stats tablet to check and was instantly satisfied. On the bottom of the tablet was a home button, a button to view apps running in the background (From now on referred to as the ‘Background Button’), and a back button. So, he opened the cultivation app, pressed the home button, opened the deagle app, and pressed the background button. For the most part it looked just like it would on a normal tablet, the two opened apps appeared in a smaller version on the screen and he could tap one to open it fullscreen. However, there was one difference. The top right of the screen had some numbers listed: 20/50 Mind Stat. Interested, he opened an app he hasn’t used yet, the map app, and the numbers changed to 25/50 Mind Stat.

Realizing he can passively cultivate with Kara, get his gun with a thought without interfering with his cultivation, and constantly have a map recording in front of him, he was excited and said, “Hey Kara, I want to test out the passive cultivation. Let’s go for a walk and find some food to eat.” He stood up as he outstretched his hand.

Blushing, she held his hand and said, “Alright, but let’s take Lisa and Liam with us. Might as well get to know each other for the next nine days.”

“Sure, we can buy some things to enjoy on our eight month trip and see if Lisa and Liam want anything or specific kind of food. They’re the whole reason we won’t get lost so might as well buy some stuff for them to enjoy.”

For the next nine days Aria and Kara would head to the tea shop before exploring the city with Liam and Lisa. Kara continued to hold Aria’s hand to cultivate and managed to reach the beginning of the bone level of the Body Tempering realm. On the other hand, Aria reached the peak of the bone stage of the Body Tempering realm. The changes in their stats are shown below.

Name: Aria White

Level: 0

Stats:

Strength: 13

Agility: 18

Vitality: 18

Endurance: 13

Qi: 25

Will: 17

Mind: 55

_________

Name: Kara (Last Name Deleted)

Level: 0

Stats:

Strength: 12

Agility: 16

Vitality: 13

Endurance: 13

Qi: 15