Time progressed. Supposedly.
Right, should mention that. The sun was conceptual.
Adam glanced at the pulsing circle of power in the room... unstable a bit, but not ready to 'pop', so to speak.
Anyway, the reason why there were no clocks in the room was two fold. First, this wasn't an Earth. Or even a planet.
That was VERY important.
Basic rules of physics and geography didn't really work correctly here. Which was a bit odd, as one of the requirements to reach the revered Saint Realm through cultivation was the ability to comprehend the domain of Space and Time. To both understand it, AND manipulate both directly. It was part of how the internal 'Saints Space' used for defense and attack was created within the Cultivators, supposedly.
Anyway, Adam's knowledge of planets and orbits, yadda yadda? Useless.
This plane of existence was a god damn PLANE. It went on literally without end in every direction, including up and down. Gravity shouldn't work right, as there was too much mass. The Sun itself only rose and set because the mass of humanity (and sentient beasts and planets) ASSUMED it would. Same with the moon. Stars... not sure what they were. Hell, they may literally be the souls of powerful Ancestors looking down on their descendants, logic didn't seem to matter here.
There were no time zones, as impossible as that was. The sun always rose and set at the SAME TIME, at some place that (if you could travel there) that otherwise was normal solid land. Or ocean, or whatever. And if you got there without pause through teleportation or whatnot, you would notice the sun setting... somewhere else.
A strong enough Cultivator could and WOULD modify the actual sky, sun, moon, and stars in a local area during strong enough attacks. It wasn't just a visual hallucination or whatever, because technically that was the NORMAL state of the skies: An illusion. Similar changes could occur during major breakthroughs in Cultivation, or when Treasures were born, or if a powerful creature sneezed. It was crazy.
No, if someone with a powerful enough level of cultivation desired, their beliefs or attack methods would subconsciously convince everyone else that whatever effect was desired actually happened. So it would.
And if there were no witnesses? The plane itself seemed to be convinced. It wasn't as aware as the planet of Remnant, but something existed that set certain rules and paths to advancement.
Probably whatever that thing is was exactly what Adam needed to examine for his own System. Meh, long term goals for later.
He glared at the circle until it settled a bit, blue fire glowing within. Almost exploded that time.
Where was he? Right, time. And how little it mattered here.
Aside from the issues with the sun, and the lack of interest in engineering and precision gear-work, this Realm was dominated by Cultivation. And once in a lifetime breakthroughs, revelations, or whatever... they could easily get interrupted. If one was so unlucky, you may lose your one chance to ever advance again! So even if time devices were cheap and easy, no alarms, or schedules, or tight time schedules existed. Too risky.
In consideration about respecting the advancements of others, it was beyond acceptable to miss something important because you made progress in your cultivation. Or were attempting a breakthrough.
So when you boil it down, there were really only a few 'times' of day in this society: Dawn, Mid-Morning, Noon, Mid-Afternoon, Sunset, Late Night, Midnight, and Early Morning.
'Research' wasn't sure that all added up to Adam's expected 24 hour day, and even if it did or whatever it was fully possible that hidden Realms, other planets or planes, or even small areas affected by abilities or techniques would have faster or slower time manipulation. Somehow. Without the whole mess tearing reality apart.
His frown sharpened as the circle nearly collapsed. More energy over here? No, made things worse.
Shit.
Sister Quan seemed a bit hesitant. "Brother Adam, is everything alright?"
Seeing the other Sect members in the room also looked interested, he sighed and passed over his communication slip. And waved at the others.
She blinked, and fell into the now practiced communication mode. "Ahem. My experiment has hit an issue: I am unable to properly fill this formation with the amount of personal Battle Qi desired without causing it to explode."
...Everyone else backed away from the circle as she continued. "My original goal was to attempt some tests on my initial 'Regrowth Technique', which eventually will be studied to form a slower and less painful 'Gentle Regrowth Technique' like the others. Theoretically less painful: It may require partial body destruction to ensure the new growth connects correctly."
She blinked and handed over the white jade slip. "What was the issue?"
Sister Quan accepted his response and sent her Qi inside the message. "Attempting to use spiritual energy to power the ability is massively more difficult because the non-attuned energy just gets absorbed into my system, requiring that I run my 'Seven Pulse Cultivation Method' or let the energy rampage around my body."
Several others in the room nodded, ambient spirit energy needed processing after all. She continued. "To address this, I wanted to empty an energy restraining formation and fill it with my Battle Qi, giving me a massive amount of energy my body ignores to fuel the new technique without fighting my own body in the process. This stored energy would also allow me to temporarily act as if I had the energy reserves of a higher cultivation level, thanks to the control from my Shard."
They glance at the pulsing pattern on the floor. "My formation design skills are apparently not qualified to accomplish this. While I very much desire the regrowth of my limb, this low density of energy would not even be enough to fully repair my throat." She blinked. "Well... can't you just try more than once?"
He sighed but nodded.
Without a word and ignoring the alarm of the others, he thrust his left stump into the boundary of the formation. Hopefully limiting the area touching the gathered power would help direct and focus the process.
Unlikely to be heard by anyone, he still attempted to talk.
'Regrowth Technique.'
It sounded like a wheeze at best to the concerned observers, if anyone heard it at all. Right, this was dense enough personal 'Battle Qi' to be visible slightly, if ghost-like... lacking the structure of an attack or technique made it much harder to see.
Activating this new ability wasn't like his old powers, or 'Growth', 'Research', or 'Purification'. Abilities in this world required complicated patterns and methods of applying energy, sometimes even physical movement to be associated with individual parts of the trick. And Adam didn't have time for that.
Right now, he had associated the entire pattern and all steps required with a carefully stored memory of the phrase 'Regrowth Technique', creating a mnemonic trigger to activate the entire process with less difficulty and with no variation so that 'Research' could gain more data with fewer variables. Because everything would be easier with more hands.
His left eye flamed blue light as his focus and 'Research' deeply examined his shifting arm.
Target cell: if needed convert to Cultivation Cell (Luckily he could skip this step). Force rapid cell duplication: attempt to force new cells to stay in the target area instead of regressing to 'travel mode' and exploring his body. Simple enough in concept, at least for a starting process. However, even with the massive amount of control his Shard add to his natural ability to control his own Battle Qi, even with his stored power NOT vanishing into his body constantly, it was a struggle.
Simultaneously, he targeted the scar tissue and healed end of his stump. These cells needed to be regressed into 'storage mode', the form where his Cultivation Cells could go dormant and be stable for long periods of time till needed. AND they needed to be restrained into the designated healing area, to be used by his technique during his regrowth attempt.
Unlike his more polished techniques and tricks, this was... difficult. Adam was basically trying to nail down four abilities: Cultivation Cell Duplication, Cultivation Cell Regression, Cultivation Cell Restraint, and Cultivation Cell Direction.
Duplication was no problem, it had been figured out a long time ago as part of the 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique'. Regression was tricky, but a natural process of his body... 'Research' had a lot of gathered data and general progress on that front.
No, the focus and effort was dedicated to Restraint and Direction.
Restraint actively fought his body's natural distribution process, where excess material got sent off to find other areas needing healing or enhancement. In a way, forcing too many health cells in one spot was similar to forcing a cancerous growth, something his body actively fought! What little success he experienced (Less than 8% of the cells actually moved in accordance to his will during this attempt so far) fell apart as the compressed cells instantly converted into 'storage mode', assuming that they were excess material and not needed.
Once they went dormant, his grip on that small fraction of material fell apart and they vanished into the rest of his body, to activate and heal something else when needed.
Direction should theoretically stop cells from going into 'storage mode', directing them instead to follow the internal genetic instructions and regrow the area under focus (His stump). Eventually, if Adam's control grew powerful enough, he could modify his body as desired rather than just encourage the natural process. In actual practice? It nearly ignored his efforts entirely!
With a glare, his stump began to glow blue... and regrow a fraction or so.
Yeah, this ability needed work.
With a sigh, he pulled his slightly improved stump from the now energy drained circle. The formation would need to be wiped and redrawn, the process of filling it so much had also damaged the containment functions. Damn it.
His attention was pulled as Sister Quan grabbed his left limb. "It... you did it! Let me verify nothing went wrong, this is so amazing!"
Adam nearly fell over when he realized how CLOSE everyone was! Department Lead Healer Jin was nearly touching his shoulder he was so close. "I couldn't follow everything because of the interference of the formation, but however small this IS progress! I assumed designing the new ability would only take a decade or two considering young Brother Adam's talents, but this is astonishing!"
He ended up throwing a jade slip full of notes and details documented by 'Research' like chum to the sharks, dashing out of the excited room as the mass of researchers and assistants began frantic discussions.
Attempting to straighten his... eww. How long had it been since he cleaned up, had a real meal instead of snacks, and took a nap?
With a nod, he headed back to his room for a break. And tried to ignore the thirty-six guards that formed a strange defensive pattern as he left the cave.
Glancing at the overly protective armored Sect members, he shook his head. Honestly, this was just getting silly.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Tianshi tried to stay focus on her cultivation... but her smile just couldn't stop.
Compared to before, the dry, weak wisps of power being fought for and lost over so much effort...
It was a deep dive into a cool oasis. A pond of pure, crisp, unseen energy... this 'Binding energy' was everything she wanted in life. Everything she desired!
Honestly, the last few days she had developed a habit of just summoning her Martial Spirit and meditating within the Binding circle. Oh, she still followed the 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' religiously, but had been told by her new Master and Teacher that until she completed that technique entirely she could take her time trying to follow the 'Houtian Realm First Order Essential Cultivation Method'. That the more effort she put into converting her body NOW, the less time she would waste cultivating LATER.
Her Betel Nut now had a bright blue flame dancing on the surface, easily a few inches tall. It had achieved some sort of internal change, no longer requiring her assistance to help that blue light thrive... and relaxing within the Binding circle only improved things further!
Even outside the circle, it was easier now to summon and manipulate energy wisps... and after so much exposure, she was even able to detect that she WAS trying to call forth Binding energy by default.
A few times she almost saw it directly, while bathing in the stuff in the circle... a translucent fog that danced over her body.
Nothing compared to it, her seven years of existence hadn't prepared her for such a thing.
So... she just relaxed in the energy mist. It caused her skin to slowly release some disgusting sludge, which she was thankfully ready to handle. Master Adam had warned her a long time ago, and had provided some buckets and cleaning supplies: Until this process was completed, it genuinely caused a Rebirth of her flesh, and this waste was a byproduct of it. The concept of this filth being valuable had caught her off guard though... The idea of earning contribution points by handing off her sludge... so strange.
Her thoughts were distracted by a patterned knock... Master!
A frantic few wipes to remove the most recent goo, and she dashed to the door, bowing. "Disciple greets Master!"
Adam looked bemused like always, even as he gave her a wave and entered the room.
She winced at the mess... more focused on trying to improve than to organize her recent acquisitions. "Sorry about the mess..."
He waved her off, and pulled a strange colored chalk from his robes with his right hand, rapidly making a new circle on the ground next to hers. Was he making some sort of upgrade to her design?
The new pattern completed far too soon, his hands... uh hand... having made no flaw in his quick work, and he tapped his foot.
Her old Binding circle vanished, the faint energy patterns she could detect surging forth and then swirling in the air. Within moments, a black smog seemed to form from nothing... and as Adam's strange Crystal was summoned, the black smog twisted and flew out the window even as a wind filled the air.
The Crystal Martial Spirit suddenly shifted from metallic gray to glowing white! And for the first time, Tianshi saw a faint fog form that called out to her, Binding Energy forced into visible patterns!
Her awe was strengthened as Adam nodded, seemed to toss the new energy into the redesigned Binding Circle, and then shoved his Crystal into the formation as well... and it glowed Blue, just like her flames and the fire in his eye! The fog within the formation almost seemed to pulse, like a heartbeat, as it grew thicker.
She was drawn closer, missing Adam nod in satisfaction and then leave the room, his Martial Spirit vanishing on his way out. It... this refined power was so clear. So easy to hear, to feel!
As she almost fell into the formation, her Blazing Betel Nut was called forth without thought, blue flames raging with joy and supporting her amazement.
'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' automatically activated, thick strands of power cooling the stings of the process even as a slow whirlpool formed, cleansing her body and settling her mind.
Truly, as the waterfall of purified and grown energy flowed through her spiritual system and reinforced her expanding Cultivation Cell clusters, she was experiencing a Rebirth.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam squinted. And pulled out his slate. Writing with one hand still sucked, but he had to know.
Weren't there only thirty-six guards earlier? Where did these others come from!?
Despite reading his question, he got no answer from the silent watchers. Creepy.
Whatever, he still needed to go take a bath and a nap.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Elder Cho frowned. "I may save time if I just commissioned some custom stamps for the boy. His paperwork levels are reaching annoying levels of density."
MOST Sect members who earned royalties for Sect contribution did so rarely. Not just... spewing fifty or more advancements and works of progress within days. The system wasn't built to handle outliers like this, the paperwork expected one to fill it out maybe once a month at MOST, not dozens in a day about ONE PERSON.
She already had a template formed that her people were duplicating to speed the process up, but even with the new methods the child was just too productive. And that was only concerning his random, valuable observations about energy, training, and low level cultivation.
Him designing and successfully TESTING a healing method, no matter how slow, was a whole new issue of contention. Even the Patriarch sat up and took notice, and was astounded when little Adam easily tossed full, detailed, and comprehensive notes about what he was doing, why, and what the end goals were.
She wasn't technically a Healer herself, but Elder Cho had been very amused at the frantic joy shown by what few Healers were allowed to view the provided jade slip of data. If fully developed, it would allow Healers to convert dangerous growths or unhealthy materials into raw supplies for other injuries or weaknesses. The final product would even allow fat or extra material to regrow lost organs or more! It might even allow those who were heavily injured to begin cultivating again, a treasure to any Sect.
The Patriarch was wise though.
For now, any advancements were being carefully regulated. Even supporting Adam and his work, it would take years to train enough Healers and Sect Members to properly test, verify, and teach the new methods being developed here. After Adam made enough progress with his new abilities, a second round of testing would need to be done without the boy being involved to verify that the Burning Sword Sect could apply the changes without forcing Adam into a life of dull, repeated chores.
He was far more valuable exploring his own ideas after all, so a delay in deployment for these new advancements would ensure the Patriarch could rely on these new improvements, even if Adam suffered some unfortunate situation. Hinging the Sect's future on one man, no matter how talented, was too large a risk to take.
Elder Cho waved her people over. "Problems?" All shook their heads no... good. "Protect the boy, his student, and the people around him. If he seems to need supplies or resources, submit a list for approval and we will do what we can." She paused. "Any attempts on him so far?"
Her face fell as she read the hand-signs. "Two!? Related?" Again, no. Good. "Tear the information out of the idiots, things were supposed to be more calm after all this mess... but SOMEONE clearly needs some reminders."
Grumbling she waved the people off. Take a damn hint, she would NOT regret killing a village if they were THIS insistent on killing children. The previous attackers were already dead, and yet they still wasted her time like this?
Morons.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Clean clothing, a long, long nap... and a pile of food provided by Sister Rong's people, one of the best ways to wake in the morning!
With a satisfied sigh, he fell back into his chair, dishes piled on his table.
Right, progress.
Growing his stump however little had provided 'Research' all kinds of useful information. Communicating WITH those individual Cells however, stressed Adam's spiritual senses. Heavily. A few at a time? No problem. Millions or Billions of Cells? Good luck! His first attempts were clearly not the way forward.
In the end, 'Research' had suggested something unorthodox: The spiral.
Just like with his energy manipulation, Adam would force the newly created Cultivation Cells into something similar to the mutant baby of his energy swirls and a meridian cultivation route. Using his blood veins instead of a spiritual network, he would create a short circular path that would ensure the massive growing number of 'storage mode' Cells would stay local and available for future steps. Enforcing a path was far more sustainable than attempting to control all those cells directly... at least while a lowly Second Order Warrior.
This new method would cause body damage however, as existing pathways in the body did NOT approve of old blood traveling without passing through the rest of the system. But that damage was very mild and easy to repair, especially on a body that had been attuned using the 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' already.
In HIS body, the new pathways didn't tear his flesh open, but just convinced the Cultivation Cells to get out of the way temporarily. It didn't really even require additional energy for the wounds to close.
An odd method indeed, but it theoretically would work.
With some more tests, hopefully allowing Adam to directly shove Cells into and out of 'storage mode' as needed, he may finally have a stable path to fix the few remaining flaws of his body, gain the ability to talk, and move ON with his research. Maybe even directly improve his muscles and so forth without all that annoying training and such. It should work great!
Or make his stump explode into a mess of hibernating body cells.
...Maybe he should test this one alone first, Sister Quan would NOT be happy if he exploded.
Again.
