Max floated back to the center of his spiritual space, at least what he thought was the center. Looking around, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were still a few strands of smoke that were left behind by the Hawk. But His spiritual body felt full, like after eating a big meal.

“That shouldn’t be an issue; if anything absorbing the smoke would have been the real issue… Damn should have thought twice before doing that.”

The sky had started to brighten up again, and the clouds also looked more stable. His fingers on his left hand had all grown back and his face didn’t hurt anymore. Touching it, everything seemed to be attached including the part of his ear that he lost.

Sigh… “Finally over.”

Closing his eyes, he left the invisible force to pull his consciousness back to his body.

Max found himself lying facedown on the ground with a puddle of drool around his mouth. Ying Hou’s body was still where he had last seen it. The only difference was it no longer stared at him, instead, its head had drooped down. The scent of blood was still strong in the air.

“Gotta take care of that soon.”

But before that, Max could feel that quite a few notifications were waiting for him.

-25 HP

-error HP

Spiritual Body damaged. -5 to all stats.

-error HP

Spiritual Body damaged. -3 to all stats.

Enemy killed. For killing an enemy above your cultivation, you gained additional experience.

+780 experience points

Level Up.

For leveling up, you gained the following:

+2 free stat points

Level Up.

For leveling up, you gained the following:

+2 free stat points

Level Up.

For leveling up, you gained the following:

+2 free stat points

Spiritual Body healed.

‘Woah… I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many notifications at once. And THREE levels?’

‘That first notification must have been when I got hit with the soul attack. Damn, even though she held back, it still did 25 damage. She was definitely on a different level.’

‘Hm, those error messages… Could they be from when the Hawk injured my spiritual body? That would make sense considering the notifications that came after them.’

‘Alright, let’s take a look at the old character sheet.’

Name:

Max Oxford

Level:

9

Cultivation:

Body Tempering 4th Stage

Age:

23

Progress:

240/318

Progress:

9/200

Status:

Greater Enhance Regeneration

Titles:

System Pioneer

Realm Walker

Cultivator

Traits:

Quick Learner

Cultivation Body

Skills:

Analyze

Common Tongue

HP:

51/76

SP:

81/81

CHI:

NA

HP Regen:

115/hr

SP Regen:

130/hr

CHI Regen:

NA

Stats (Multiplier:1.3x)

Strength:

15+1

Perception:

18

Constitution:

26+4

Agility:

16

Dexterity:

16

Intelligence:

22

Endurance

18+3

Spirit:

1

Vitality:

14+2

Free Stat Points:

9

After reviewing his character sheet, Max had to admit that three-level ups were not as impressive as he had initially thought. He had gained six Free Stat Points, putting him at a total of nine. That sounded a lot, but he could have gotten seven points, one for each of his physical attributes when his cultivation increased. That was also not taking into account the risk of fighting these spirit beasts. If this last one wasn’t already heavily injured, there’s no way Max could have killed it.

Instead of fighting for his life for every experience point, he rather stayed put and farmed the Midnight Dew to increase his cultivation with minimal risk to him.

“I guess the benefit is that I can put the Free Stats anywhere. Well except for Spirit, at least for now… Plus, it’s not like I was looking for trouble.”

Aside from the recent events, Max had also gotten some additional information about cultivating from Ying Hou’s memories. Most of it were vague impressions and needed to be confirmed with another cultivator, but it was still better than nothing.

Like what the Ye couple and Ma Erk had said, everyone has the potential to reach the 10th Stage of Body Tempering, the only things needed were a catalyst and hard work. For some, the catalyst would be the hard part like for Ma Erk.

Body Tempering was just the beginning and some didn’t even consider it true cultivation. It was merely the stage to strengthen the body to a minimum threshold so that cultivation is possible. Once someone has broken past the 10th stage, there is a stage between Body Tempering and Chi Condensation where their spiritual space is transformed. This is the stage where most people are stuck especially if there is no outside help.

During this in-between stage, the spiritual space gets morphed into a world of its own. The floor of the space is filled with soil. Many cultivators had questioned where the soil was coming from, but even Ying Hou didn’t know. Once that is done, the clouds in the spiritual space would be condensed at the center of the ground. This is also where the name Chi Condensation came from.

Portions of the cloud, also known as spiritual energy, are transformed into a seed. The rest is used up as fuel and nutrients for the seed’s growth. This is the part where most people get stuck. Some wouldn’t have enough spiritual energy for the seed to be formed, others might not have enough to grow the seed to any meaningful size. This is where outside help could be used. There supposedly were natural treasures that could boost the amount of spiritual energy there was in a person when consumed.

‘I wonder if that last bit of spiritual energy left by the Hawk would help me.”

For those who have enough energy, the seed would be transformed into a spiritual root and spread itself throughout the ground. An individual's cultivation speed is determined by the size of their spiritual root. The larger it is, the faster Chi will be absorbed and refined. The rough size of the root would stay mostly the same throughout a person's lifetime and so it becomes the limiting factor in how fast a person could cultivate and break through the stages.

As their stages progressed, the seedling also grew into a spiritual plant. This would be everything above the ground. The plant provides the cultivator with usable Chi for attacks, defenses, and everything in between that requires Chi.

‘Hmm, is it possible that because I am not in the Chi Condensation realm yet, I don’t have a Spirit root or plant for my free stat points to increase?’

Max made a mental note to try adding his points to Spirit once he reached the next realm.

After he had collected his thoughts, he made sure his physical body was okay. The fight had been fierce but everything happened in his spiritual space so he didn’t have any visible wounds. His body felt fine except there was still some phantom pain coming from his left hand and the part of his face that got sliced up.

…

…

…

The pair spent the next two hours cleaning the cliff. There was so much blood around the Hawk’s body. They were still puzzled at how one Hawk could have so much blood. They had to get rid of it as soon as possible or it might attract other beasts to this location. Max knew this was unlikely since most of the stronger beasts in the forest had been injured and needed time to recuperate, but as always it was better to be safe than sorry.

The water he had stored in the spatial bottle the day before had come in handy. He was able to wash away a lot of the blood. While removing the blood from the cliff, he had wondered if it could be used for anything. At the end of the day, it still came from a Chi Condensation beast. It was too bad that most of it were mixed into the ground and dirt. Even if it was useful for something, it wouldn’t be in this condition.

The spatial bottle had refilled the water tub three more times. Based on his previous estimates, the tub could hold around ten gallons. Since he was able to fill the tub four times over, the spatial bottle likely held roughly 40 gallons in total. That meant each “Hu” was around 13 gallons, give or take.

Most of the water from the tub and the spatial bottle was used up for the cleaning process, he made sure to leave some for drinking. After the blood was cleaned off the cliff, they had also cleaned the bird’s corpse and moved it inside the cave. The cave was starting to feel cramped with all the bodies. Max had also been feeling weird about sleeping with so many bodies.

“This has to be bad juju.”

The duo had worked all morning and didn’t get a chance to eat. By the time they were done, it was already mid-day.

A fire was started to reheat the leftover meat from the first wolf they had killed. Ma Erk had already finished his share and now they are working on Max’s portion. There wasn’t much left, with Ma Erk’s appetite, it would probably be done in the next two days.

He had also skewered some of the ripe berries. By the time the meat was ready, the skewered berries were also done roasting. The berries would get squashed and coated onto the meat. Just eating the meat had gotten old quickly for Max and so he had come up with this new “recipe”. But eating the same thing day in and day out had started to get on his nerves. On the other side of the fire, Ma Erk was clearly still enjoying himself as if it was the best thing he ate.

“I guess I am just way too picky about my food.”

After the meal, Max asked, “Hey little guy, do you want to go to the human village?”

“Eat humans?”

“Umm, no. Not to eat humans. Well, I mean maybe? If they try to hurt us?”

Max wasn’t sure how he felt about Ma Erk eating humans. It’s probably a normal thing for a beast to do. They had been eating wolves, so why weren't wolves also eating humans okay too? The thought of eating humans gave him goosebumps.

‘Brrr, let’s not think about that.’

“Ma Erk like forest.”

“Ma Erk only forest all life.”

Max had always thought he would be bringing his little friend along if he were to leave the forest, but he had never stopped to think about what Ma Erk wanted. This was the first time he had asked him and was a bit caught off guard. He shouldn’t have assumed that the little guy would just follow him anywhere he went even if he was the pack leader.

“What If I go to the human village, what will you do?”

There was a long hesitation before Ma Erk answered.

“Boss want Ma Erk come?”

He didn’t know how he should answer. The answer was obviously “Yes”. The little guy had been his first friend in this new world and had been a good companion. Even if the wolf only slept and ate all day. But just like how he wouldn’t fault himself for wanting to explore this world and find a way back to his own world, he wasn’t going to fault Ma Erk for following his nature. Besides, the little wolf wasn’t even two years old yet.

“Ma Erk, it’s not about what I want you to do. It’s what you want to do. If you want to stay, you should stay. Don’t change your mind just because of me.”

There was another long silence before Ma Erk gave his answer.

“Ma Erk stay. Get strong, boss, come visit. Ma Erk forest king. Ma Erk pack leader. Protect boss.”

Max laughed at the thought of one-day needing protection from this little rascal.

“Hahahaha. Okay, okay. That settles it. You will stay and get strong and I’ll come to visit. Speaking of which, how strong are you now?”

Puffing up his chest, Ma Erk proudly declared he was now at the Second Stage of Body Tempering.

“Good good, but you are going to have to be a lot stronger to protect yourself let alone me.”

After hearing that the little wolf visibly deflated a bit.

“Don’t worry, we have so much good meat here! I am sure you will be strong enough to protect yourself. But you will have to work hard to become the king of this forest.”

…

…

…

Over the next couple of days, Max went on a diet of fish and berries. It was a welcome change, but more importantly, he wanted the beast meat to go to Ma Erk for his growth. He already had the Midnight Dew to fuel his cultivation so the meat wasn’t as important to him. He also wasn’t getting the same benefit from them as his little friend was.

Max made sure to spend a few hours each day practicing the Martial Arts that Ye Zhong had given him. There was actually a small section in the manual on fighting with hammers that he didn’t realize the first time he had gone through it. He had initially missed it because the hammers were giant and he hadn’t known what they were, but now they made more sense.

‘Mhm, why is this section so short? This is clearly Ye Zhong’s weapon of choice. Could it be that the old man was being stingy with these techniques?’

The other reason he thought of was imparting knowledge through these orbs was taxing on the spirit and Ye Zhong didn’t have enough spiritual energy left, especially since he had to also create the hammer.

Each night before going to sleep, Max would delve back into his spiritual space. There, he trained in his spiritual body. His first goal was to get acclimatized to the weightlessness and be able to stop whenever or wherever he wanted. That first night, he crashed into the glass-like dome so many times that he was surprised there wasn’t any soul damage.

On the third day after the fight with Ying Hou, the duo both broke through to the next stage of cultivation. The little wolf was now in the 3rd stage of Body Tempering, the same as Rik-re's lackeys. And for Max, through a combination of training and consuming the Midnight Dew, he had reached the 5th stage, and as expected all his physical stats had increased by one. Upon reaching the 5th stage, he also received 110 experience from the system which pushed him over the threshold and into level 10.

Max was hoping something new would happen after reaching level 10. But it was the same as all the previous levels. There weren’t any additional titles or skills. Leveling was going to get harder and if the incentive was always just two free stat points then it wasn’t going to help him much in the long run.

‘This System feels extremely nerfed. It hadn’t really done anything. And also what’s with not being able to use Analyze in my spiritual space?’

…

…

…

The forest had been mostly quiet, Max had thought that Ying Hou’s children would come and avenge their mother or at least investigate her disappearance. But after so many days, he didn’t hear anything. Not even howls from the wolves. It felt like the entire forest had retreated. Max preferred things this way. There was no life-or-death struggle, just slow and steady cultivation through hard work and with some help from the Midnight Dew.

Like that, another two weeks had passed by. During this time, they had encountered a bear that was in the 3rd level of Body Tempering. They had met it at the stream. The bear was going to attack, but after feeling the presence of the duo, it wisely decided against it.

From the bear, the pair had learned that there had been a lot of internal strife among the wolf and bear population. The strongest had traveled away from their territories to go fight each other. Those fighters that were left all wanted to claim the forest. But they feared that even if they won the fight another challenger would rise and take advantage of their weakened or injured state. So the fights happened away from other members of the species to prevent sabotage. This way, the winner also wouldn’t need to share their spoils.

Once they had learned that, the pair let the bear go. There was no point in killing it, it wasn’t like Max was crazed for experience points. They were also far from the cave and didn’t think the bears would be able to track them.

Shortly after the encounter with the bear, Ma Erk reached the 4th stage of Body Tempering. The little guy had just about finished all the wolf meat and was now moving on to the Hawk meat soon.

Max on the other hand was now squarely in the 7th stage of Body Tempering. With the boost from the Bracers, all his stats had reached the 20 point mark except for his Spirit stat. That was still sitting at one. During this time, his Strength stat had increased by two, and his Endurance and Agility each increased by one. These increases were on top of the points that he got when his cultivation progressed.

‘Hmm, these increases didn’t seem to be cultivation-related improvements. This means that in this world even without cultivation, people could naturally get stronger by working out.’

After considering it for a while longer, Max also concluded that even if two individuals were at the same stage, they could be wildly different in strengths. If someone specifically trained their body in one area, then they would obviously have an advantage when it comes to whatever that body part is associated with.

When Max had first started cultivating, he had guessed that his stats had a linear correlation with his abilities. His current Strength attribute was 22 without the bracers, meaning that he can carry twice as much compared to when his strength was 11. From what he had observed so far, this had seemed to be the case.

However, that was not all. There was a multiplicative effect across his stats. The most obvious one he noticed was his Strength and Agility. If only one of these stats doubled, then in theory he could punch twice as hard. But if they were to both double, he guessed that the resulting punch would possibly quadruple in power.

‘Hmm. It's kinda similar to the Force is equal to mass times acceleration equation I learned in physics.”

After reaching the 7th stage, the Midnight Dew no longer had any cultivation benefits for him. It only increased his regenerative abilities, but even that had started to drop. He was reminded of that description of the Midnight Dew, how it only helped cultivators at very low stages. There went his plan of farming it until he reached Chi Condensation.

During these two weeks, he continued practicing in his soul space. He could now stop at will no matter how fast his speed was. To some extent, he was even more adept at fighting using his soul body compared to his actual body. Max had thrown his hammer a few times, improving his aim. The more he practiced with it, the more it felt like it was part of him.

After the first week, there was a subtle connection between him and the hammer. By the end of the second week, he could move the weapon without having to use his Spiritual Body. However, this was extremely limited for now. It didn’t go really fast nor really far. His control over it started to slip after it was more than three feet away from him. But he saw this range increase bit by bit.

The one time he really threw the hammer with all his strength, it had broken the dome and flew outside. Quickly retrieving it, he decided that he would only use it as a last resort. He still wasn’t sure what the consequences were for continuously poking holes in the dome.

A few days after he had reached the 7th stage of Body Tempering, he called out to Ma Erk.

“Hey, little guy, come over.” Even though Max was still calling him “little”, Ma Erk had grown a lot since they first met almost a month ago. Back then, the little wolf had been the size of a Chihuahua. But now he was about the same size as one of the lackeys, maybe even a bit bigger. When Ma Erk was standing on his four paws, he came just above Max’s knee. Ma Erk was in his customary sleeping spot when he heard his pack leader.

Padding over, he asked ‘What’s up, Boss?’

This was another thing. In the last three weeks, the little guy had become more articulate with his barks, yelps, and growls.

Max told him his plans of leaving and that he would be heading to the town the next day. It was about time he left this forest. For the last few days, Max had looked in the direction of the smoke and wondered what would await him there.

Max’s Character sheet at the end of Arc 1.

Name:

Max Oxford

Level:

10

Cultivation:

Body Tempering 7th Stage

Age:

23

Progress:

311/414

Progress:

28/350

Status:

Greater Enhance Regeneration

Titles:

System Pioneer

Realm Walker

Cultivator

Traits:

Quick Learner

Cultivation Body

Skills:

Analyze

Common Tongue

HP:

79/86

SP:

81/92

CHI:

NA

HP Regen:

140/hr

SP Regen:

160/hr

CHI Regen:

NA

Stats (Multiplier:1.3x)

Strength:

22+1

Perception:

22

Constitution:

29+4

Agility:

22

Dexterity:

20

Intelligence:

22

Endurance

23+3

Spirit:

1

Vitality:

18+2

Free Stat Points:

11