- Location
- UK
That second one is terrible terrible copy of the first. Just another generic poorly written xianxia.
Broken Adventure
- Thread starter theaceoffire
- Start date
- Crossover
- Status
That second one is terrible terrible copy of the first. Just another generic poorly written xianxia.
- Location
- Canada
I remember reading that but slowed down one the dude attacks a guy who was just gathering info for his enemy, don't remember if he was threatened or paid, then blackmailed the guy who he asked to find said info guy with his crime. Like WTF it came out of nowhere. The there's the foreign character who worships China's culture. It got weird
Edit: just remembered there was a scene where one of the cultivator had a British English teachers dog attack him. And the British man has his dog killed and eats him. I know there are cultural differences but it was played off as oh at least he was delicious.
Last edited:
BobtjeNORMALguy
Color From Beyond
- Location
- Lost in time and space
Clearly what the genre needs is a female with a cheat item/style/cultivation method who's coming after her evil older sister for revenge.
Honestly though the whole thing is so stale the idea might actually be considered innovative at this point..
RageMage
Sir "Shitshow in the making"
- Location
- Vienna
Why not use " The Dao of Magic " as refference". It´s basically a deconstruction of Wuxia. With an acctual smart person decunstucting Qui cultivations and other stuff from such Novel.(Yes I mean Beasts weapon refinment and Conceputial Bullshit galore). I suck at summerizing that and sadly I can´t find a TV Tropes page.
Adam said that he is searching for a slice of life one, which in my opinion can only mean a comedy one, like The Silly alchemist, Once Upon a Spirit Sword Mountain, Library of Heaven's Path, A Will Eternal or The Daily Life of the Immortal King. All of which coud be interesting in their own way.
- Location
- Texas
Considering his power set, Warlock in the Magus World would be a decent world to visit. It's a fairly stable realm. Research would give him many of the same advantages that the MC has with his AI chip. Growth and Purification mean he might even be able to get strength from external bloodline sources like a Warlock without actually becoming one. And even if he did, he has the anti-master effect it his soul.
Another one he could imitate the MC's OP power is Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality. That one has a mysterious artifact that grows plants quickly. The MC also takes techniques from a bunch of different sources and philosophies, so there's a good survey of what's available in the Realm.
Another one he could imitate the MC's OP power is Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality. That one has a mysterious artifact that grows plants quickly. The MC also takes techniques from a bunch of different sources and philosophies, so there's a good survey of what's available in the Realm.
Fate!
Magi from Fate
No Fate
The Triumvirate is definitely affected by the System, I remember Legend taking the S9 Quest. I would have thought they would have been insulated from the Stranger effect at that time but since it doesn't seem like it, the effects probably only grew stronger since the power now has a direct line to them.
Likely they know of the System but can't connect it to Adam the person directly.
This also suggests they are not aware of what he did to Scion, only what they could conclude from seeing the Garden burn. Poor Cauldron. Someone should tell them and put them out of their misery. And fear of extinction
DualEquinox
Verified Smartass
- Location
- Australia
I'm not sure anything anyone says could do that tbh. I wouldn't put it past them to just declare Adam a third entity and his system the mechanism behind a new cycle and try to gank him instead. Sunk cost fallacy is like Cauldron's bread and butter. They need a bigger evil to justify all their bullshit and rampant card-carrying evil to themselves so that every ill deed so far hasn't been for naught and they can keep themselves from being the bad guy of their own story. Villainizing the dude who ate an entity for no real reason to avoid culpability and keep themselves on the false "greater good" moral high ground sounds about in character for them.
At the very least i hope Mew ends up tagging along to this Cultivation world, would be fun to see Cultivators react to something that just straight up doesn't care about any of them especially if Mew figures out its own way to cultivate, that would lead to shenanigans the next time Adam heads to Pokeworld with Original Mew feeling it's Avatar is now real/solid and stronger than it is.
While 'Slice of Life: Xianxia edition' limitations probably disqualify a lot of things i still hope you have a setting in mind to drop baby Adam in, don't really want to read an arc filled with nothing but OC's in an OC Xianxia world (no slight on your writing at it's very good but that sort of thing just doesn't appeal to me at all) with a brand new MC.
While 'Slice of Life: Xianxia edition' limitations probably disqualify a lot of things i still hope you have a setting in mind to drop baby Adam in, don't really want to read an arc filled with nothing but OC's in an OC Xianxia world (no slight on your writing at it's very good but that sort of thing just doesn't appeal to me at all) with a brand new MC.
More likely it would end up bound as a Cultivator's familiar or taken apart and turned into medicine.
O.k. I've got one suggestion that fits the slice of life trope, but without anyone mega powered. World Seed by karami92 It's more of a future gut going into a time accelerated VR pod and finding out that new game levels up you as well. Sadly, folks weren't careful with species choices and then there are the random monster spawns.
On the positive side, everyone starts out as baseline human level. Those megapowerful folks have already ascended to gods in previous cycles. He can just hang out for a few thousand years and only really need to worry about monster spawns.
On the bad part, monster spawns. Like the moon gets morphed into a raid boss and runs off to do its own thing.
I'd really love to see what Adam could do with their version of a druid. Their grooves basically make a physical plane within the soul. It starts out rather small but could go up to galaxy size with enough effort.
On the positive side, everyone starts out as baseline human level. Those megapowerful folks have already ascended to gods in previous cycles. He can just hang out for a few thousand years and only really need to worry about monster spawns.
On the bad part, monster spawns. Like the moon gets morphed into a raid boss and runs off to do its own thing.
I'd really love to see what Adam could do with their version of a druid. Their grooves basically make a physical plane within the soul. It starts out rather small but could go up to galaxy size with enough effort.
I saw this! Randiddly Ghosthound refrence! Oh, how I would love to see just what headache he would give Doggie.
Arc 2: Rough Start.
- Location
- Here
This was the fourth try. The previous three were all aborted for a high cost and fairly good reasons.
Adam took a slow breath.
The first attempt? He passed out from pain. It had been SO LONG since he had actually suffered, he was completely unprepared.
The method designed by Squishy required... just a tiny bit of soul damage. Nearly invisible, a single grain of glass extracted from his 'Fishbowl', used to channel his powers to the Avatar.
The problem? He had refined his soul using the hunger of the Abyss.
His soul was solid. Beyond stable. In the end, the first attempt managed to get a tiny grain free... but it had NOT been pleasant.
The original two week downtime was judged based on how long it would take for his soul to heal. And... well. It was a bad estimate. Neither he nor Squishy took into account how much longer it took to repair a soul so hardened, so refined.
He got over it eventually.
The second attempt had to be dropped because it involved a magical object, a mystical cube that absorbed souls for refinement. The Main Character (MC) was supposed to get this thing, and it was the driving object of that whole Realm... in other words, he would BECOME the story for that Realm if he had fully committed. It would have invalidated all the damn points he had invested to make the target location safe! Seriously, the Entity that had designed this travel system was an ass.
Third attempt was in progress... when the target Realm destabilized. It was apparently 'safe' to travel to because it was about to END. Not the whole Realm, just the individual planet he was supposed to grow up on. Because in THAT Realm, once you reached a certain level of cultivation you BECAME a world. With an inner planet, where your beliefs and abilities turned into creatures and places... and the guy who you were supposed to be born within got killed in battle. He didn't even get to stay long enough to determine which Realm it was, it ended so quickly.
It was a strange place anyway. It was entirely possible for a guy to have a cosmos inside, where on a planet was a girl with a solar system in her cultivation, where on a plane there was a cat with a planet inside it, and so on and so forth. Russian nesting dolls of reality.
This time, he had invested even more energy so that the universe would have some damn time for him to visit. And that his origin point would exist long enough to grow up to some degree. But it came with a cost... He would have less energy when he arrived, and it would take longer for his powers, abilities, and memories to 'activate' for his Avatar.
Part of this trouble had to do with how the transit ability worked... the more open the request, the more wiggly it got. This time though, after some discussion and a week or two of recovery, everyone was fairly confidant it would succeed!
Adam gave a sharp nod.
"Transfer: Abyss."
Into the dark, a glint of glass vanished.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Warm.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Warm... Colors?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Something... something... worry. Fear?
FEAR!
PAIN! PAIN! PAINPAINPAinpainpain...
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Pain.
Adam's eyes blearily opened. Memories began to slowly recover.
Mom?
...Ah.
With focus, he tried to determine why everything felt so... sore. Not spikes of pain, more a constant, slow burn.
At the edge of his consciousness, he could feel something... other. Not quite here.
It wasn't like his old socket system, and it felt far more rigid... Oh. 'Research'.
Focusing it inwards, he tried to ignore the pain as he assessed his condition.
Low levels of poisoning, low levels of infection, low levels of bleeding. That was bad.
Several bones were broken and healed wrong. Mostly on the left side of his body. His left leg was... twisted a bit. But mostly stabilized, even if it was healed at a bad angle.
He winced, the shifting causing more stings of pain.
He had no left hand.
Adam felt 'Research' continue to catalogue his many, MANY issues as he focused on the uneven stump where his left hand had been. The bones near the end were fragmented, the flesh twisted but at least treated, the bandages felt mostly clean. A slow glance... ah.
And his left eye was not working.
The right eye saw enough to see his body had... many bandages. Clean ones though, so that was... that was good.
Hopefully his left ear was not working due to the heavy cloth wrapped on that side of his head.
Adam tried to activate 'Purification'... and felt 'Research' pause. Crud... one or the other? Probably the same issue with 'Growth', if the three were connected like this. Knowledge was more important right now, though 'Purification' would have to be next or his body could get worse.
With careful movements, he examined what 'Research' found as it began cataloging, sorting, and storing his memories. It was going to take multiple passes, as his body HAD been alive and thinking before his abilites 'woke up', so to speak. And it HAD been making decisions like Adam would have, as far as he could tell.
Observing his body for any critical issues (Well, more critical), he allowed 'Research' to work backwards from now to the past, memories being refined and sorted.
He was currently under medical care in the 'Burning Sword' Sect, one of the last survivors being treated from his village's destruction. Everyone else had either fully recovered or had died already... he had been hanging on basically with willpower alone.
Adam had (as of today) hit puberty at 14 years old, which had apparently activated his powers. Well, fully activated them. He had been held here and given moderate medical care mostly because the 'Burning Sword' Sect was considered a 'Righteous Sect', one that endeavored to push good karma and acts of justice above concerns like money or selfishness.
He felt his body twitch involuntarily as his memories moved backwards. Apparently, his poor village had been targeted by a violent Spirit Beast, a stealth based Three Eyed Panther. It had gone undetected as it consumed the various Warriors left in the village, finding those with the strongest Cultivation Levels until detected.
Adam shivered as the data continued to be collected. His body had survived because of his weakness. Not even reaching the very start of the Houtian Realm, lower than the first cultivation rank, he and many of the children were spared due to how long it took for that damn Spirit Beast to finish off the rest of the warriors.
Only the close relationship with the 'Burning Sword' Sect had caused help to arrive, even if they showed up too late to save most of the townsfolk.
He shifted again, the stings keeping him focused. These injuries weren't even from the Spirit Beast, but was caused by a glancing blow of energy from the Warriors fighting the damn thing. His weak, unreinforced body basically collapsed from the power, and the girl next to him had exploded from getting a full blow.
It... it had been horrific. Memory after memory surfaced of him trying to gather the children to relative safety, unable to do much more than cower as the black beast slowly consumed powerful fighters so close nearby.
His social status didn't help people trust him either, even while trying to bring others to what little safety existed.
In this Realm, on your seventh birthday, everyone in the various towns and villages would undergo a 'Martial Spirit Awakening' ceremony. It would unlock something inside called a martial spirit, which was similar to a soul partner and would display the talents of the child. These martial spirits would be graded into low, average, and high levels... and if the grade was above 10 then the child's creature was considered a superb talent martial spirit, or even a heaven-defying existence.
The higher one's talent, the better it was for their body to absorb the world's spiritual energy and become a strong Warrior. If the grade was higher, like the mythical 12 or beyond, whole clans would fight to supply the cultivator with rare resources, hoping to hook their futures into his or her destiny.
In this culture, your martial spirit could determine your social standing, your class, your future. It was possible to not even have one, or to have a damaged, crippled, or mutated martial spirit as well... and Adam's ceremony went badly.
While others exposed wolves, tigers, bears, snakes, and so forth... Adam's martial spirit was a fragment of what seemed to be glass. It had stumped the others, and after attempts at cultivation failed completely, his village abandoned him as a waste. Not that they had put too much effort at investigation in the first place...
After all, he had no support.
He frowned, ignoring the pull of flesh on the left side of his scarred face.
His dad had been a rapist. Avenged by his mother's family, so a dead rapist.
His mother had died from an illness near his sixth birthday. As a non-cultivator, her life hadn't been that stable to begin with.
So he had gone to his 'Martial Spirit Awakening' ceremony supported by his distant Grandfather... who had abandoned him as a waste when the results came out.
...Well then.
At least he wouldn't have to waste time avenging any of those assholes. He saved what kids he could, gotten a little injured, and as far as he was concerned was free to do as he wished at this point. Hell, even 'Grandfather' had died two years ago, there wasn't even someone to go chase down and get vengeance from.
This 'Burning Sword' Sect seemed nice though. His body had been lingering at the line of life and death for weeks now, and they still cleaned his wounds and tried to get his body to hold down medicine. Though the fragmented memories being recovered by 'Research' seemed to imply that his bastard former villagers had told everyone his name was Cánfèi, a nickname he had 'earned' which translated to 'Maimed'. Because Grandfather cast him out of his former family.
Then again, his former nickname seemed more apt now. The left side of his body was mutilated.
He waited for a while as 'Research' finished an initial pass over his memories, filtered out the useless stuff (Sleeping, eating bad food, the poor treatment, harassment, and mockery), saved the most valuable (Cultivation Techniques for using Battle Qi, martial art techniques and stances, memories of his mom and how pretty she had been), and basically focused on what to do next.
First? His body's terrible condition.
Using 'Growth' right now would be moronic. His body was devastated, his energy wasted keeping each part from failing, and his meridians needed harsh treatment.
In this Realm, cultivation techniques allowed those who wished to train to gather the atmospheric spiritual energies, condense them into strands of controllable power. This energy would then run through the body's meridians, or spiritual pathways, following specific patterns while concentrating on certain themes, concepts, or ideals.
Once the energy correctly followed that path, it would transform the body to be more efficient and aligned with certain concepts while converting the power into 'Battle Qi', used to defend, attack, and recover.
But with his spiritual pathways so damaged? His meridians lacking in flexibility and strength due to not cultivating for so long? His body's fractured state?
Yeah, 'Growth' would act like cancer.
Because without his powers waking up, his martial spirit couldn't absorb or attract ANY world spiritual energy. Reaching the lowest, First Order Warrior level was a dream, and his days had been filled with fruitless attempts and desperate martial arts training, none of which helped him progress. The constant training kept him fit, muscular, and healthy... but that was nothing without cultivation.
No, right now he needed two things: 'Research' and 'Purification'.
Focusing on his body and his memories of how to cultivate the First Order Warriors' meridian route, he pushed 'Research' into adjusting the patterns.
The first cultivation level, the Houtian Realm, was split into 10 stages. If he had an undamaged body, the first through third Order, or Early Houtian, was focusing on tempering the muscles. Fourth through Sixth refined the tendons (Middle Houtian), Seventh to Ninth Order tempered the bones (Late Houtian) and formed a Qi Sea, used for attacks and so forth. The highest Tenth Order was called being a 'Peak Houtian'.
There were harsh bottlenecks at the boundary between 3rd and 4th Order, 6th and 7th Order, and 9th to 10Th Order. And crossing from Houtian to Xiantian Realm (and accessing THOSE new 10 Orders of refinement) was a HUGE deal, a quantum leap in difference. The weakest of Warrior at the Xiantian Realm would curb stomp the strongest, most diligent and talented Houtian Warrior. Unless they had some sort of massive cheat or whatever.
But right now? A huge quantum leap to Adam would be having two damn hands.
Adam felt 'Research' simulate various attempts at recovering, before suggesting a few short (VERY PAINFUL) tests where he would gently push small amounts of energy into the scar tissues and mostly working meridians available. But eventually, his energy was running damn low... and he needed to do something to stabilize his system.
Right now? Most of his power, natural and otherwise, was subconsciously keeping him within the world of the living.
And that was it.
No actual recovery, just... clinging to life with everything he had.
Thankfully, he didn't have to say anything to use his abilities. Because he couldn't talk. Face paralysis aside, the left side of his throat was scared and torn as well. Thankfully, VERY thankfully, while he didn't have an animal Martial Spirit, he ALSO didn't have a glass fragment.
He had a Shard.
The glittering fragment faded into ghost like existence... And with absolute control, the world spiritual energy fell into order.
'Purification.'
This Shard, a part of his original soul, understood the idea of manipulating power. Of controlling energy. With precision, Adam focused on only pulling the power directly above his body... and higher. A cone of space, widening far above the rest of the Sect, fell into his Shard's domain.
Because it would take time to recover. Time to build. Time to train. Doing something stupid like 'Give me all the power' would just paint a target on his back, give him too much attention. Even as the massive free energy was controlled, the rate of attraction was deliberately throttled. Slowed. Ordered.
Outside, unless one flew directly overhead, there was no difference between the heavenly power being directed into the single floor medical recovery building and the random swirls of energy that normally occurred in this Realm.
Within his room however, a stream of energy flowed into his Shard and was directly processed by 'Purification'.
The many various energies were cleansed, the 'dross' returned to the sky as any energies too powerful or of various flavors were carefully removed from the untainted energies that existed everywhere. The strands formed were very wispy, thin hairs of pure white energy that were even further twisted and condensed by Adam.
So... so cautiously, he pulled a strand of energy into his system. Feeling his control wobble, he cut off the rest of the power for now and left it to gather in his Shard, the strand stabilizing as he swapped to 'Research' and examined his own actions carefully.
The pain was actually keeping him focused now, his weary mind able to examine his own system as the strand of energy slowly followed a modified meridian route through his damaged body.
He wasn't actually cultivating right now. His body couldn't handle it.
No, each path followed and meridian passed was slowly dissolving his only strand of energy, the power being absorbed by his body and slowly corroding the remaining venom that Spirit Beast had spewed in the air, dissolving the internal scar tissue, fighting off the low level of persistent infection, and providing nutrients to his incredibly strained organs and veins.
In the end, the strand of power had dissolved into his body before he could even complete one cycle of the modified meridian route. Which was fine, as 'Research' redesigned the whole damn thing half way through anyway, now that it had far more data to work with. And would probably continue to do so through this recovery process.
With tight focus, Adam had 'Purification' provide another wisp of white energy and started again, 'Research' ensuring he didn't accidentally kill himself.
Things could have gone better, honestly.
But he could work with this.
Adam took a slow breath.
The first attempt? He passed out from pain. It had been SO LONG since he had actually suffered, he was completely unprepared.
The method designed by Squishy required... just a tiny bit of soul damage. Nearly invisible, a single grain of glass extracted from his 'Fishbowl', used to channel his powers to the Avatar.
The problem? He had refined his soul using the hunger of the Abyss.
His soul was solid. Beyond stable. In the end, the first attempt managed to get a tiny grain free... but it had NOT been pleasant.
The original two week downtime was judged based on how long it would take for his soul to heal. And... well. It was a bad estimate. Neither he nor Squishy took into account how much longer it took to repair a soul so hardened, so refined.
He got over it eventually.
The second attempt had to be dropped because it involved a magical object, a mystical cube that absorbed souls for refinement. The Main Character (MC) was supposed to get this thing, and it was the driving object of that whole Realm... in other words, he would BECOME the story for that Realm if he had fully committed. It would have invalidated all the damn points he had invested to make the target location safe! Seriously, the Entity that had designed this travel system was an ass.
Third attempt was in progress... when the target Realm destabilized. It was apparently 'safe' to travel to because it was about to END. Not the whole Realm, just the individual planet he was supposed to grow up on. Because in THAT Realm, once you reached a certain level of cultivation you BECAME a world. With an inner planet, where your beliefs and abilities turned into creatures and places... and the guy who you were supposed to be born within got killed in battle. He didn't even get to stay long enough to determine which Realm it was, it ended so quickly.
It was a strange place anyway. It was entirely possible for a guy to have a cosmos inside, where on a planet was a girl with a solar system in her cultivation, where on a plane there was a cat with a planet inside it, and so on and so forth. Russian nesting dolls of reality.
This time, he had invested even more energy so that the universe would have some damn time for him to visit. And that his origin point would exist long enough to grow up to some degree. But it came with a cost... He would have less energy when he arrived, and it would take longer for his powers, abilities, and memories to 'activate' for his Avatar.
Part of this trouble had to do with how the transit ability worked... the more open the request, the more wiggly it got. This time though, after some discussion and a week or two of recovery, everyone was fairly confidant it would succeed!
Adam gave a sharp nod.
"Transfer: Abyss."
Into the dark, a glint of glass vanished.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Warm.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Warm... Colors?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Something... something... worry. Fear?
FEAR!
PAIN! PAIN! PAINPAINPAinpainpain...
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Pain.
Adam's eyes blearily opened. Memories began to slowly recover.
Mom?
...Ah.
With focus, he tried to determine why everything felt so... sore. Not spikes of pain, more a constant, slow burn.
At the edge of his consciousness, he could feel something... other. Not quite here.
It wasn't like his old socket system, and it felt far more rigid... Oh. 'Research'.
Focusing it inwards, he tried to ignore the pain as he assessed his condition.
Low levels of poisoning, low levels of infection, low levels of bleeding. That was bad.
Several bones were broken and healed wrong. Mostly on the left side of his body. His left leg was... twisted a bit. But mostly stabilized, even if it was healed at a bad angle.
He winced, the shifting causing more stings of pain.
He had no left hand.
Adam felt 'Research' continue to catalogue his many, MANY issues as he focused on the uneven stump where his left hand had been. The bones near the end were fragmented, the flesh twisted but at least treated, the bandages felt mostly clean. A slow glance... ah.
And his left eye was not working.
The right eye saw enough to see his body had... many bandages. Clean ones though, so that was... that was good.
Hopefully his left ear was not working due to the heavy cloth wrapped on that side of his head.
Adam tried to activate 'Purification'... and felt 'Research' pause. Crud... one or the other? Probably the same issue with 'Growth', if the three were connected like this. Knowledge was more important right now, though 'Purification' would have to be next or his body could get worse.
With careful movements, he examined what 'Research' found as it began cataloging, sorting, and storing his memories. It was going to take multiple passes, as his body HAD been alive and thinking before his abilites 'woke up', so to speak. And it HAD been making decisions like Adam would have, as far as he could tell.
Observing his body for any critical issues (Well, more critical), he allowed 'Research' to work backwards from now to the past, memories being refined and sorted.
He was currently under medical care in the 'Burning Sword' Sect, one of the last survivors being treated from his village's destruction. Everyone else had either fully recovered or had died already... he had been hanging on basically with willpower alone.
Adam had (as of today) hit puberty at 14 years old, which had apparently activated his powers. Well, fully activated them. He had been held here and given moderate medical care mostly because the 'Burning Sword' Sect was considered a 'Righteous Sect', one that endeavored to push good karma and acts of justice above concerns like money or selfishness.
He felt his body twitch involuntarily as his memories moved backwards. Apparently, his poor village had been targeted by a violent Spirit Beast, a stealth based Three Eyed Panther. It had gone undetected as it consumed the various Warriors left in the village, finding those with the strongest Cultivation Levels until detected.
Adam shivered as the data continued to be collected. His body had survived because of his weakness. Not even reaching the very start of the Houtian Realm, lower than the first cultivation rank, he and many of the children were spared due to how long it took for that damn Spirit Beast to finish off the rest of the warriors.
Only the close relationship with the 'Burning Sword' Sect had caused help to arrive, even if they showed up too late to save most of the townsfolk.
He shifted again, the stings keeping him focused. These injuries weren't even from the Spirit Beast, but was caused by a glancing blow of energy from the Warriors fighting the damn thing. His weak, unreinforced body basically collapsed from the power, and the girl next to him had exploded from getting a full blow.
It... it had been horrific. Memory after memory surfaced of him trying to gather the children to relative safety, unable to do much more than cower as the black beast slowly consumed powerful fighters so close nearby.
His social status didn't help people trust him either, even while trying to bring others to what little safety existed.
In this Realm, on your seventh birthday, everyone in the various towns and villages would undergo a 'Martial Spirit Awakening' ceremony. It would unlock something inside called a martial spirit, which was similar to a soul partner and would display the talents of the child. These martial spirits would be graded into low, average, and high levels... and if the grade was above 10 then the child's creature was considered a superb talent martial spirit, or even a heaven-defying existence.
The higher one's talent, the better it was for their body to absorb the world's spiritual energy and become a strong Warrior. If the grade was higher, like the mythical 12 or beyond, whole clans would fight to supply the cultivator with rare resources, hoping to hook their futures into his or her destiny.
In this culture, your martial spirit could determine your social standing, your class, your future. It was possible to not even have one, or to have a damaged, crippled, or mutated martial spirit as well... and Adam's ceremony went badly.
While others exposed wolves, tigers, bears, snakes, and so forth... Adam's martial spirit was a fragment of what seemed to be glass. It had stumped the others, and after attempts at cultivation failed completely, his village abandoned him as a waste. Not that they had put too much effort at investigation in the first place...
After all, he had no support.
He frowned, ignoring the pull of flesh on the left side of his scarred face.
His dad had been a rapist. Avenged by his mother's family, so a dead rapist.
His mother had died from an illness near his sixth birthday. As a non-cultivator, her life hadn't been that stable to begin with.
So he had gone to his 'Martial Spirit Awakening' ceremony supported by his distant Grandfather... who had abandoned him as a waste when the results came out.
...Well then.
At least he wouldn't have to waste time avenging any of those assholes. He saved what kids he could, gotten a little injured, and as far as he was concerned was free to do as he wished at this point. Hell, even 'Grandfather' had died two years ago, there wasn't even someone to go chase down and get vengeance from.
This 'Burning Sword' Sect seemed nice though. His body had been lingering at the line of life and death for weeks now, and they still cleaned his wounds and tried to get his body to hold down medicine. Though the fragmented memories being recovered by 'Research' seemed to imply that his bastard former villagers had told everyone his name was Cánfèi, a nickname he had 'earned' which translated to 'Maimed'. Because Grandfather cast him out of his former family.
Then again, his former nickname seemed more apt now. The left side of his body was mutilated.
He waited for a while as 'Research' finished an initial pass over his memories, filtered out the useless stuff (Sleeping, eating bad food, the poor treatment, harassment, and mockery), saved the most valuable (Cultivation Techniques for using Battle Qi, martial art techniques and stances, memories of his mom and how pretty she had been), and basically focused on what to do next.
First? His body's terrible condition.
Using 'Growth' right now would be moronic. His body was devastated, his energy wasted keeping each part from failing, and his meridians needed harsh treatment.
In this Realm, cultivation techniques allowed those who wished to train to gather the atmospheric spiritual energies, condense them into strands of controllable power. This energy would then run through the body's meridians, or spiritual pathways, following specific patterns while concentrating on certain themes, concepts, or ideals.
Once the energy correctly followed that path, it would transform the body to be more efficient and aligned with certain concepts while converting the power into 'Battle Qi', used to defend, attack, and recover.
But with his spiritual pathways so damaged? His meridians lacking in flexibility and strength due to not cultivating for so long? His body's fractured state?
Yeah, 'Growth' would act like cancer.
Because without his powers waking up, his martial spirit couldn't absorb or attract ANY world spiritual energy. Reaching the lowest, First Order Warrior level was a dream, and his days had been filled with fruitless attempts and desperate martial arts training, none of which helped him progress. The constant training kept him fit, muscular, and healthy... but that was nothing without cultivation.
No, right now he needed two things: 'Research' and 'Purification'.
Focusing on his body and his memories of how to cultivate the First Order Warriors' meridian route, he pushed 'Research' into adjusting the patterns.
The first cultivation level, the Houtian Realm, was split into 10 stages. If he had an undamaged body, the first through third Order, or Early Houtian, was focusing on tempering the muscles. Fourth through Sixth refined the tendons (Middle Houtian), Seventh to Ninth Order tempered the bones (Late Houtian) and formed a Qi Sea, used for attacks and so forth. The highest Tenth Order was called being a 'Peak Houtian'.
There were harsh bottlenecks at the boundary between 3rd and 4th Order, 6th and 7th Order, and 9th to 10Th Order. And crossing from Houtian to Xiantian Realm (and accessing THOSE new 10 Orders of refinement) was a HUGE deal, a quantum leap in difference. The weakest of Warrior at the Xiantian Realm would curb stomp the strongest, most diligent and talented Houtian Warrior. Unless they had some sort of massive cheat or whatever.
But right now? A huge quantum leap to Adam would be having two damn hands.
Adam felt 'Research' simulate various attempts at recovering, before suggesting a few short (VERY PAINFUL) tests where he would gently push small amounts of energy into the scar tissues and mostly working meridians available. But eventually, his energy was running damn low... and he needed to do something to stabilize his system.
Right now? Most of his power, natural and otherwise, was subconsciously keeping him within the world of the living.
And that was it.
No actual recovery, just... clinging to life with everything he had.
Thankfully, he didn't have to say anything to use his abilities. Because he couldn't talk. Face paralysis aside, the left side of his throat was scared and torn as well. Thankfully, VERY thankfully, while he didn't have an animal Martial Spirit, he ALSO didn't have a glass fragment.
He had a Shard.
The glittering fragment faded into ghost like existence... And with absolute control, the world spiritual energy fell into order.
'Purification.'
This Shard, a part of his original soul, understood the idea of manipulating power. Of controlling energy. With precision, Adam focused on only pulling the power directly above his body... and higher. A cone of space, widening far above the rest of the Sect, fell into his Shard's domain.
Because it would take time to recover. Time to build. Time to train. Doing something stupid like 'Give me all the power' would just paint a target on his back, give him too much attention. Even as the massive free energy was controlled, the rate of attraction was deliberately throttled. Slowed. Ordered.
Outside, unless one flew directly overhead, there was no difference between the heavenly power being directed into the single floor medical recovery building and the random swirls of energy that normally occurred in this Realm.
Within his room however, a stream of energy flowed into his Shard and was directly processed by 'Purification'.
The many various energies were cleansed, the 'dross' returned to the sky as any energies too powerful or of various flavors were carefully removed from the untainted energies that existed everywhere. The strands formed were very wispy, thin hairs of pure white energy that were even further twisted and condensed by Adam.
So... so cautiously, he pulled a strand of energy into his system. Feeling his control wobble, he cut off the rest of the power for now and left it to gather in his Shard, the strand stabilizing as he swapped to 'Research' and examined his own actions carefully.
The pain was actually keeping him focused now, his weary mind able to examine his own system as the strand of energy slowly followed a modified meridian route through his damaged body.
He wasn't actually cultivating right now. His body couldn't handle it.
No, each path followed and meridian passed was slowly dissolving his only strand of energy, the power being absorbed by his body and slowly corroding the remaining venom that Spirit Beast had spewed in the air, dissolving the internal scar tissue, fighting off the low level of persistent infection, and providing nutrients to his incredibly strained organs and veins.
In the end, the strand of power had dissolved into his body before he could even complete one cycle of the modified meridian route. Which was fine, as 'Research' redesigned the whole damn thing half way through anyway, now that it had far more data to work with. And would probably continue to do so through this recovery process.
With tight focus, Adam had 'Purification' provide another wisp of white energy and started again, 'Research' ensuring he didn't accidentally kill himself.
Things could have gone better, honestly.
But he could work with this.
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- Location
- UK
Interesting... Not too many identifiers though as it is pretty generic so far.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
I was expecting it to be much more crackish from the get-go but the story seems very fitting for the setting our mc had found himself in. Just like any cultivation protag that awakens with cheat/past life/reincarnates and changes his before mediocre life. It's also great that there is no family to be pissed off at but somehow I think it would be awesome for Adam to have a normal family...
Yeah, I actually think I would have preferred Adam to wake up to a normal family and see how he reacts and interacts with them, instead of this but it's still interesting as hell and I'm waiting for more. :3 :3 :3
Yeah, I actually think I would have preferred Adam to wake up to a normal family and see how he reacts and interacts with them, instead of this but it's still interesting as hell and I'm waiting for more. :3 :3 :3
- Location
- From the moon
I know exactly which world this is, and I have to say it's an interesting one... I got suckered into the bunny girl romance...
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
You realize there is a link in the middle of the story that tells you what setting he is in??? O_O
- Location
- UK
Martial Spirits are pretty generic.. Quite a few settings with them. Especially the way its implemented here anyways. Definitely not Duoluo either. No Xiantian terms etc in that.
Or is it something else you are referring to?
Edit: Unlike others seem to have, I have no idea on what this could be. But it's not like I've read most Xianxias anyway so I probably missed something.
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- Location
- Center Of The Universe
I meant this part but maybe I'm wrong and instead of this setting, it might be a mix of things.
RageMage
Sir "Shitshow in the making"
- Location
- Vienna
Well yes but its stilla Wuxia Realm in wich you "Refine" your "Martial Spirit" by absorbing "Soulrings" from "Beasts" that can be thousands of years old. To be honest it´s just one of the few that I really read as a kid and it isn´t as cliche as all the others. Still has lots of Tropes but they can be easily avoided relativly to Wuxia Realms.
Edit.: And the people there are not quiet as shitty as in other Wuxia realms. I mean the Main Character has allegedly a shitty Martial Spirit and still gets training wich is already generous in Wuxia terms.
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- Status