After a massive breakfast the next morning, and Adam was checking his right arm.
The massive amount of (Cultivator refined) Flame energy had been a great meal the previous day. It allowed his Pulse Cultivation Technique to really feed his Cultivation Cells, nearly doubling his mass over the night while Adam had been distracted.
Of course, doubling his mass brought him up from skeletal thin to 'Needs a few more meals' looks wise.
Clenching his fist, he grinned as he watched muscles actually bulge in his arms. Thin, swimmer like muscles... but it wasn't just formless wimp arms!
Adam could probably walk ALL OVER the place now! This was tons of progress!
Unfortunately, his excitement at having something like a semi-normal body had him using up all the stored attack energy in his Shard with Blue energy in an attempt to push his improvement forward.
So uh. Yeah, the free energy refined by four separate cultivators was all used up now. Whoops.
Meh, could be worse. Plus, he learned a few interesting things after a night of review.
First of all, while it should be obvious, it is easier to absorb energy when it covers the body.
Instead of just relying on the Shard to inject Blue energy directly into his meridian route, Adam split half the power and had it coat his skin like a gas blanket. It allowed his heavily wounded skin to get direct access to the purified power, Binding energy allowing it to soak directly into his scars, hairs, and surface cells.
At this point his meridian routes were just barely at 96% saturated, the 'open aired rivers' filling with power and overflowing nine times now, every 10% overwhelming his spiritual network and escaping to nourish his system. He wasn't sure how that lined up with normal Cultivators and their 'Initial', 'Mid', and 'Peak' levels when they were improving, but it was probably related somehow.
This massive jump in progress was DIRECTLY related to his new cultivation practice method: By soaking his external system in power, this 'Overflow' process was massively sped up, as power was being soaked internally and externally simultaneously.
There uh. There were however more side effects due to the 'Soak my skin with power' attempt though.
His skin, never sun tanned to begin with and certainly not improved by spending so much time inside recovering, had grown even more pale. And his scars...
Adam glanced at his left arm. The scars were technically gone, as Blue energy encouraged his Cultivation Cells to slowly fill in the various pits and grind down ridges.
Now he had a network of slightly glowing, dark (near black) blue tattoos everywhere.
...Real subtle.
Since he couldn't direct the Cells manually (yet), they gravitated towards areas that had both energy and healing (Surface of the skin at this point) and areas of high use (Muscles counting as both as improving them involved damage).
So until his muscles reached some unknown level or he gained the ability to prioritize healing locations, no hand, no vocal cords.
With a sigh, he stopped checking his muscles out and gathered the cleaned dishes into a pile.
Last night's 'Research' had gone... strangely.
Oh, he had all kinds of things to test, his ability to scan and detect things through his Shard had reached high levels, and his ability to read the local script was near or at mastery levels.
But most of it was useless until he reached higher cultivation levels. MUCH higher, like Seventh Order Warrior.
The fact that he had made such leaps in improvement so far was through multitasking and stupid levels of energy control through his Shard, but from what he could tell after reading so much material?
Cultivation Levels were more than just a power indicator or a 'threat level' determination.
Each Order was, as far as 'Research' could determine, a separate spiritual network. Once someone hit the next level, the previous one shifts from an 'open river bed' to a 'closed spiritual tunnel' formation. This not only allows the gas like Battle Qi to be stored without risk of 'overflowing the banks' but was used as structural support for the NEW meridian route, or 'river bed'.
Each 'major bottle neck' (First one for Adam was between Third and Fourth Order), though Adam couldn't prove this yet, was the establishment of a NEW spiritual network. It was why people felt 'walls' or 'barriers' when ascending, as they were tearing new paths using existing meridian nodes as reference points to construct the next cultivation routes. Possibly by tearing through their own Soul. Which seemed nostalgic.
It was why each batch of cultivation levels hit different body parts as well, because the new spiritual networks were metaphysically connected to different points of the system.
So... he had to wait.
Oh 'Research' would keep running, no issue there. And he had lots of non-cultivation related stuff like Battle Skills and stuff to research, but there was no real point in making theories or working with advanced stuff until he was able to do some real research on these lower levels.
Because documentation and data sharing abilities sucked here. Bad.
Hell, investigation, research, and experimentation was horrible as well!
Battle Skills for example were so risky to mess with, that making new ones was a near legendary feat! ALL of them were inherited from a distant past, when species and cultivators of a stupid advanced level shared their glorious works with the weaker people stuck on this Plane. These Battle Skills had various power ranges: Human, Earth, Heaven, Saint... and more. But on this sad Plane? Heaven was the best one could hope for, don't waste time looking for Saint or higher skills.
And yeah, this Plane of Existence was considered backwater and pathetic.
There where whole realms where background energy levels were almost solid, and the terrible cultivation environment HERE had kept the strong entities that existed from wandering around and taking over. Being a crappy area was almost a defensive technique of this Plane according to the historical documents, and allowed people like the Burning Sword Sect time to grow strong enough to somewhat defend themselves. Barely.
None of that really mattered right NOW though.
With a sigh, Adam opened his door... and paused.
A dude was bowing deeply.
Huh. Oh, wait, he knew this guy!
Brother Zhanfei was a bit hard to understand due to his genuflection. "I offer sincere and complete apologies, Brother Adam. My people were defeated through devious means, unable to protect you in your time of need."
Adam reached into his new sling, got his slate out and started marking on it.
Yeah... and... there!
Turning the slate towards the man, Adam gave a reassuring smile.
...
...
This was getting awkward.
His smile turned into wry grin as he tapped the slate.
Brother Zhanfei jerked slightly and looked up... ah, there we go. Yes, Adam can't talk, glad you remember now.
Professionally the man took it in stride. Reading the text... "No, I can not let this go without some form of compensation. What would be more helpful at the moment? I know you have access to the Repository and contribution points, is there anything you could use at the experimentation location we are constructing in the reserved cultivation cave?"
Adams instinctive 'don`t worry about it' scribble paused... and he erased the text.
Another slightly awkward pause continued as he carefully wrote a series of strange symbols. Because while Adam KNEW the language well enough to write near anything at this point, his body was not trained to WRITE that scribble mess. One wrong scribble didn't make text hard to read easily, it turned all of it into unreadable garbage.
With satisfaction, he flipped the finished slate for the Brother to read.
Zhanfei hummed. Then raised an eyebrow. "Research subjects?" The look Adam got was... not warm. "Oh really?"
Adam rolled his eyes and wiped the text, his scratches taking longer. Damn it, he missed being able to talk.
Brother Zhanfei carefully read the new text... and his expression shifted to confusion, then shock. "You... you think you can share your recovery method with others!? What... I thought your recovery ability was something passed down from an Elder, you created your OWN technique!?"
Nod.
He was... stunned. "That... that is astonishing!" Still, he forced himself to focus. "But if my people are going to be involved with this, I will require full oversight. No hidden surgeries, no secret methods, I will NOT allow my people to be abused."
Nod. Easy enough.
Negotiations took so long that eventually Sister Quan showed up... and when Brother Zhanfei got Adam's permission (A nod), she was equally shocked at Adam's request.
She began tapping her chin. "Actually... I think my Department Leader may be of help here. If you are willing to include him, not only can he provide witness to the procedures involved and verify that they follow Sect guidelines, but he should be able to detect issues that may occur to the subjects before they become critical. Or even suggest improvements!"
Sister Quan began pacing. "Healer Jin is respectable and reliable, so he won't abuse your trust. Plus as the Head of the Medical Center and the Healing Branch of the Burning Sect, his word has heavy weight among the higher members of the Sect. If he agrees with your methods and findings, you will find many roadblocks fall away."
Brother Zhanfei nodded. "I would certainly have no concerns about you mistreating my people if Healer Jin was invited. Though I would still appreciate being allowed to verify myself... my people are important to me."
Adam nodded. Witnesses didn't matter, this was just going to be an attempt to document the 'Essential First Order' cultivation technique that 'Research' had designed and some experimentation to get 'Gentle Rebirth' (Version 0.4380, Beta release) usable by people WITHOUT absolute energy control.
He attempted to hum as he tried to keep up with the conversation, his notes messy as he tried to scribble faster.
His progress was messed up when Sister Quan grabbed his left limb. "WHY ARE YOUR SCARS GLOWING!?"
Oh. Right.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Eventually he... well, no, he didn't explain it all. Adam basically convinced her it was a side effect of healing... which was easy enough to prove, his skin was now smooth and almost painfully white at this point, the 'scars' were just glowing blue... freak marks. Or whatever.
Point was, they had gotten her calm enough to go out and head back to the Repository (This time with no interruptions or assaults) and Adam was now being forced into making a painful decision.
As a near initial Second Order Warrior, buying ANY of these documents were not worth it.
Adam either needed a LOT of these cultivation methods and weak Human ranked Battle Skills for comparison, or none of them. Without the other documents for comparison, 'Research' would end up doing raw experimentation to get what was needed... and waste tons of time in the process.
No, it was better to finish gathering the free stuff downstairs, finish development of the new Cultivation Technique and 'Gentle Rebirth' body refinement technique, and once wealthy start using the royalties from selling those to the Sect to build up enough funds to splurge buying data.
Right, interesting trivia: after giving a rough description of his new ability to Sister Quan, she confirmed that such heavy body modification would certainly count as a Body Cultivation Technique, since most of the existing ones involve body nurturing and improving defense and power through a similar (If worse) process.
It did also explain why all the body refinement techniques on the first floor of the Sect Repository Pagoda were such shit. Aside from bad writing and straight up misinformation, those documents were only the introduction steps to a much more complicated process. One that may require UNDOING previous steps in the attempt, as early steps may be needed to build a foundation but might get in the way of later ones.
For example, using information from one of the near abandoned body cultivation methods shared on the first floor in hopes of finding followers (Blood Bone Body, a pretty epic name at least), Adam found that this one process was split up into 12 completion stages (Ranging from initial to mastered).
Other body cultivation methods might need even MORE stages, the final ones granting absurd benefits like having skin like leather, early immunity to poison, higher defense compared to those at the same cultivation level, bones like metal, and more.
Adam's technique was both easier and harder. It (so far) was a single process (No multiple stages or sub-steps), and the results had little to do with your talent or comprehension... but more the type and purity level of the energy one was able to supply to it.
Right, the energy types. Turns out those were important.
Adam sighed as his body automatically ignored the random energy pulses and continued to read the free texts outside the Repository.
Right, so your cultivation technique, aside from controlling how much heaven and earth spiritual energy you can attract and how it changes your body to process more, had another purpose: To help filter (and later transform) the energy types to specific variants.
Why did this matter? He got a bit lucky asking one of his security people (He and Sister Quan had four at the moment) about the issue.
Apparently, when one reached the Xiantian Forth Order (A whole Realm above poor weak First Order Houtian Adam), one's Battle Qi would take shape into something called 'Mandates', figures or creatures or objects that represent a specific energy type.
These 'Mandates' would live in your Spiritual Qi Sea (Don't have THAT yet either) and by their very existence drastically increase the quantity of a specific energy type and the rate of absorption for the Cultivator.
So Buddhism Qi could from a golden Buddha, or Demonic Qi could make a hungry Demon, etc. No idea what his enhanced blue flames would form into, but that was a concern for much, MUCH later.
...Considering how odd Binding energy was, could that stuff even FORM a Mandate? No clue. It wasn't documented in anything he read so far either, but then again considering the documentation style that wasn't saying much.
Anyway, this unmentioned goal of reaching a 'Mandate' was why most of these body cultivation techniques were so quirky. Each stage was attempting to mold the body towards a specific form of energy, some even requiring Spiritual Beast blood, liquid magma, or evil stuff like human souls to be cultivated correctly.
In comparison, Adam's skill didn't care. The special effects would change based on what energy you normally worked with.
On one hand, this was a huge negative. The outcome was unpredictable, and thus designing special techniques or attacks to go with the Body Cultivation Technique was pretty much impossible. It also made promising certain outcomes much less reliable, as there was a difference even between 'Heat energy' and 'Flame energy', for example.
But on the other hand, this was a huge positive... No reason to waste cultivation time learning how to gather a new energy type or search for expensive supplements, just use the stuff your existing Cultivation Technique generates and gathers as the preferred energy source! Problem solved!
It would slow your cultivation progress initially as you redirect the energy away from standard use, but would make your whole body more compatible with your own personal method. That was surely enough of a benefit for most people to find it valuable, right?
Probably.
Adam blinked as he suddenly felt a dozen energy pulses pass through his body like it was crystal. Whomever was doing that was being a bit of a dick, seriously. Oh! The last five shelves!
He couldn't wait to finish this mess and head towards the Sect Store, set up so close to this massive square so conveniently.
Because while he didn't have enough contribution points to buy or rent copies of the Second Floor material, he did have enough to buy something needed for his future plans!
Adam grinned as he absently stepped to the side, a massive blade of Sword Qi digging deep into the street.
He was going to buy his very own Jade Slip!
Leaching power from the next ranged attack as it got within three feet, he felt the stolen energy fill his Shard even as it swerved off target. And away from the delicious data, of course. Sword Qi was odd stuff, he COULD control it but it had a certain amount of existence inertia due to being previously fused with a weapon, it was easier and safer to just... redirect it.
Adam blinked as an unrelated attack almost damaged a bookshelf.
And frowned.
This... this was unacceptable.
He lifted his left arm stump around chest height. With a thought, his Shard faded into existence over his missing hand...
And his Domain expanded.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Xiao Quan was pulled away by her Guard even as another three circled Adam... who seemed to ignore everything.
Even as she called her Three Eyed Crow and prepared her Fire Lance, her Guard had already taken four of the masked attackers down.
Unlike last time, THESE attackers were far stronger, easily Seventh and Eighth Order mercenaries. Any stronger and they would have attracted attention from the elders... and how had they NOT!?
She fused with her Crow, increasing her flame control, even as she flung the spike of flames at one of the masked people... But it was slashed away with ease!
The man had already soul transformed with his Burning Tiger Martial Spirit, his body covered with muscles and dark red fur. She was only peak late Fifth Order Houtian, she wasn't meant for this kind of danger!
A glance at Adam showed that his three guards were actually being overwhelmed... apparently the mass of attackers had focused the strongest on the child alone, showing a fanaticism that was unreasonable to any degree.
Before she could do more than focus her energy into another Fire Lance, the smaller and more controlled form of this technique used for medical procedures, she saw Adam dodge two attacks... and then look furious.
Still distracted, but enraged.
Even as she tried to do... something. Anything...
The wounded boy raised his left limb, a glittering metallic glass shard appearing... his Martial Spirit?
---PULSE---
...dry.
Dry.
It was... so dry.
Her flames vanished, and she could feel her subconscious energy detection methods vanishing into the void.
Even as the screaming crowds grew confused, even as the fights became more and more odd... it all seemed dull. Dry. Too quiet, too dim, too weary.
The Guards were... put off. Because while their attacks worked like normal in this odd environment, the masked figures seemed to struggle to force any attack at all, with blades of energy and waves of fire going off course, spiraling, then vanishing into the dry, dry void.
With no way to defend themselves, the attackers were subdued completely in moments.
And the blue haired boy with (now bright blue) scars continued to read documents, one hand floating that strange glass shard, the other struggling to hold a book's pages open, his frustration clear.
Sister Quan moved her wary protective detail aside and moved cautiously to the reader. "Adam?"
She blinked at how quiet it sounded even as the boy turned in confusion.
Her hand waved in the air. "Can... Can you stop that please? The bad guys are all in custody now."
Adam's confusion cleared, and he nodded.
The metallic gray glass vanished... And a wave of energy flooded the area, noises picking up and the wind blowing again.
Ignoring the mess caused, Adam tugged her sleeve towards the next bookshelf, his focus untroubled and his goal still clear.
She sighed, motioning the boy's freaked out guards aside and preparing to answer what questions she could. This was going to cause some commotion.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Hmm? Oh, right, whatever that was seemed to be over now.
Able to use his stump to support his reading choices again, Adam felt much more relaxed. It hadn't been hard gathering all the random energies being flung around the square, the massive area much smaller than his normal domain that stretched skyward when cultivating, but it had been frustrating trying to continue reading. At least his Shard had gathered the most pure energies and stored it within for later processing, it should help in cultivation later.
The rest of that energetic mess he just hurled upwards. Easier than trying to gather it or what not, and he was busy getting stuff done.
More importantly, let the guards do the fighting and get all the credit and Adam can focus on the important stuff, Books! They could have the credit or whatever, the important part was Adam hadn't lost any information due to some moron flinging fire the wrong direction.
Finally finishing the last book on the last shelf (He was getting better at this!) He gave a huge grin and absently grabbed his slate, making some notes and turning to get Sister Quan's attention.
...Why was she so ruffled!? Her outfit was way too dusty. He glanced at his own outfit... huh. Maybe he had zoned out a bit too much if he had missed such heavy wind and stuff. Whatever.
He tapped the board, Sister Quan blinking as she glanced at it. "Huh?" She took the slate to read it better. "Why do you need a Jade Slip now? You haven't even begun research, right?"
Adam took back the slate and scribbled some more.
Reading it quickly, she nodded, thankfully not looking at his stump. "Right, it would make sharing notes and ideas easier. Maybe you should buy two, one for the final product and one for personal use? Only Cultivators could interact with them, but it would still be much faster than the chalk board when working."
With his 1000 contribution points, he was already planning on getting a few of them honestly. Couldn't afford more than five, and he wanted points for unexpected material needs, so Adam planned on going with four for now.
One for 'Houtian Realm First Order Essential Cultivation Method', the second for 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique', the third slip for the as yet undesigned 'Gentle Regrowth Technique' (Wouldn't be a Body Cultivation method, attempting to use it everywhere would cause all kinds of disgusting growths), the last one for his own notes and stuff.
His path was blocked though. Oh, good day Brother Zhanfei!
The man was clearly furious. "I am glad you are unharmed, Brother."
...What?
