Broken Adventure
- Thread starter theaceoffire
- Start date
- Crossover
- Status
…Thus making the water further downstream cleaner, on average, due to the elimination of all those messy organic-life suspensions more than making up for the actual impurities being introduced.
- Location
- UK
Oh, I never contested that part. I was just referring to the creation of crystals.
- Location
- That place where I live?
strangely enough in cultivation land the most dangerous places are valleys that a waterfall flows through that, for some inexplicable reason are horrid fetid cesspits of poison, filth and diseases
- Location
- Israel
Yeah, it's basically an illegal industrial waste dumping pit but in the biological version of it. I mean, what are they doing with the stuff they're cleaning out usually? I assume you gotta leave it outside so it evaporates into the air and is recycled into nature otherwise the entire plane would be absolutely filthy. There's probably plants/animals/bacteria that convert that stuff into the useful stuff like how plants take CO2 and break it down for their own use.
Fragnostic
Cheshire
- Location
- Neko City
And there's probably an ecoterrorist sect somewhere protesting bad impurities recycling, but nobody takes them seriously because they fail at cultivation because of that.
Sort of a... Cultivationpeace.
I'm curious is you're going to give some explanation to account for the endless stupidity of cultivators. I just read the first 800-ish chapters of the second one you linked, and it became obvious that as soon as you start cultivating you lose the capacity to control your emotions and also your basic pattern recognition. The number of times that people end up in death feuds for something like drinking the last bottle of wine is just ridiculous. I swear, if someone developed a cultivation art that increased your wisdom instead of making it a dump stat, they'd rule the world very quickly.
- Location
- UK
You know, I've been reading Destiny of Strife by Talos recently. It's a hollow quest and it's quite intriguing the parallels there are between Hollows and Cultivators as well as their societies...
Its exaggerated a bit, but it is a common theme I've been noticing in cultivation stories. Granted, I was thinking less 'wisdom' and more on the old saying "if your pride and self worth is so fragile that a stray piece of grass can shatter them like glass, you never had them in the first place." Personally, I mostly attribute it to the fact that eastern cultures are shame/pride based and culturally collectivist, combined with the fact that cultivators of great talent are spent being told just how great they are and the fact that the setting works like nesting dolls as far as power goes, where each can think of themselves as a bigger fish than they are if they don't travel.
Combine that with how the culture needs their ego to be constantly validated by external sources, their belief that because they have a more powerful patron/family member that others cannot match that will shield them even if only because the collectivist culture means an attack/insult on one of them is an offense against all of them, that 'face' can be broken by someone you do not immediately recognize as being able to grind you dust NOT acting like a servile and spineless lackey.....
Basically, it is less a matter of the cultivators and more a case of the local culture being hypersensitive of their pride to the point where anything and everything that does not instantly submit to them is offensive and combined with a clannish might makes right attitude where the one left standing at the end is the righteous one because they are able to butcher you and your family if you do not submit to them, with the lovely little side note that they view you not rolling over and dying as disgraceful, impudent and disrespectful.
It basically comes down to the fact that the concept of Face is a zero-sum game, where you are either given it which puts you above the one giving it or you are not and may lose face because the person does not seem to respect you and your family. Add to social expectations and how clan/family relations work in a similar manner to mafia families (not entirely accurate, but its a case of close enough to work) in many respects and you get a culture where you must strut and act like an arrogant ass or be seen as weak. If you have the strength to back it up, you are seen as a strong and dignified family. If you meet someone that breaks your bones and beats you black and blue, why, look at those foolish and arrogant people who are not as important/powerful as we thought they were!
I could be wrong, and there could be some wisdom cultivators out there, but I would put my money on them going 'yeah, I'm not dealing with this shit' because they would see that ruling the world is trying to wrangle extremely ornery cats that can grow larger and into tigers before they would return to their meditations and cultivate in peace.
Combine that with how the culture needs their ego to be constantly validated by external sources, their belief that because they have a more powerful patron/family member that others cannot match that will shield them even if only because the collectivist culture means an attack/insult on one of them is an offense against all of them, that 'face' can be broken by someone you do not immediately recognize as being able to grind you dust NOT acting like a servile and spineless lackey.....
Basically, it is less a matter of the cultivators and more a case of the local culture being hypersensitive of their pride to the point where anything and everything that does not instantly submit to them is offensive and combined with a clannish might makes right attitude where the one left standing at the end is the righteous one because they are able to butcher you and your family if you do not submit to them, with the lovely little side note that they view you not rolling over and dying as disgraceful, impudent and disrespectful.
It basically comes down to the fact that the concept of Face is a zero-sum game, where you are either given it which puts you above the one giving it or you are not and may lose face because the person does not seem to respect you and your family. Add to social expectations and how clan/family relations work in a similar manner to mafia families (not entirely accurate, but its a case of close enough to work) in many respects and you get a culture where you must strut and act like an arrogant ass or be seen as weak. If you have the strength to back it up, you are seen as a strong and dignified family. If you meet someone that breaks your bones and beats you black and blue, why, look at those foolish and arrogant people who are not as important/powerful as we thought they were!
I could be wrong, and there could be some wisdom cultivators out there, but I would put my money on them going 'yeah, I'm not dealing with this shit' because they would see that ruling the world is trying to wrangle extremely ornery cats that can grow larger and into tigers before they would return to their meditations and cultivate in peace.
- Location
- UK
But its not just pride though is it? They exemplify each of the seven sins. Maybe not sloth though.
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At the core? I see the main issue being pride, as that fuels all the others. Really, they would be more manageable, if they were not entitled brats.
Arc 2: Cultivation.
- Location
- Here
This was going to suck.
This was going to suck.
Damn damn damn damn...
With an audible pop, Adam felt his neck crack and a WAVE of agony submerge his body. Forget pins and needles, this was sledgehammers and iron spikes! He nearly lost focus on 'Research' as he forced the power in his neck meridians to continue circulating. The scars on the left side of his throat had opened, black ooze flooding out as he struggled to close the various wounds on his body.
Yeah, that sucked.
On the plus side, as each moment passed the pain was subsiding, he could actually FEEL most of his body again, and his spine was finally able to focus on recovering itself rather than having his energy spent on stopping organ failure, repairing brain oxygen deprivation, and lowering blood toxicity.
Seriously, his body was messed up.
As he continued to circulate energy... well, it got boring again. This wasn't a HARD procedure, not with 'Research' watching over his shoulder... it was just lengthy and monotonous, at least as long as he was doing things correctly and not almost killing himself.
So he focused back on the energy pools above his room.
NOW! Things Adam had learned by playing with the worlds spiritual energies, part one!
First, thought it may be obvious... energy doesn't like staying still. Like water or electricity, it was fundamentally easier to guide the power rather than grip it and manhandle the stuff. Providing paths and guidance also reduced energy waste during the process, which was a nice surprise. It was also easier to accomplish than his previous 'Grab everything and force it to be sorted' method.
The basic pattern he used was swirls. It caused the most pure energies to sink towards the middle, while lower classed energy or energy bonded to unrelated powers drifted to the edges. A sort of presort, one that was very difficult to do with pure manipulation via his Shard.
So he started making tons of swirls. Some with a single power, some with a mix of energies, some with only simple types of components, some just massive messes of random spiritual debris. Which is how he discovered a new trick!
When two swirls come in contact, there are two outcomes: If they share the same directional spin, they will eventually combine... If they swirl in opposite directions, they will attempt to extract similar powers from each other, creating two unique filtered swirls.
Pulsing power through his neck, attempting to repair the worst of the scars near his spinal tissues, Adam played with the heavenly swirls.
First thing he did was try and determine the ratios of each type of energy. It delayed his neck repair attempt by a few days... but then again, he KNEW it was going to hurt, so a delay wasn't THAT terrible. Point was, he used the pure power collected with 'Research' and expanded his detection tricks as much as possible... which made energy detection much easier.
Flame related energies were the majority. There was a swirl that had 60% of the local energies in it that was pretty much only fire up on the roof, and the swirl was so heavy that it may even be visible at this point. The next swirl only had 18% of the bulk, and it was momentum related. Sword energies mostly, though there were movement techniques and defensive related powers as well.
After finding the rest of the junk to be fractions of a percent, Adam smushed random junk together into 'trash swirls', spun them counter to his main collection swirls, and surrounded them with the things. The trash swirls would absorb and sometimes disconnect the random junk connected to the flame and momentum swirls, creating a much easier to work with material for his Shard.
Most importantly to Adam though, destroying those weak bonds between various energies released that pure, untainted heavenly spiritual energy that Adam needed! This untainted stuff was acting as a natural bond between incompatible powers in the air, and his new filtration/refinement method could free up minute amounts of it.
Based on this behavior, he decided to call it 'Binding Energy'. By its very nature, it either existed free and pure in the air or bound between two other elements, no other form was possible... so it was relatively easy to gather the stuff.
It also may be why this particular energy was so useful for healing and spiritual node repair... its essential essence was to bind and connect.
As the black pus from his neck slowed and his body stopped tingling, Adam glanced down and... with strain... yes.
He could move his right arm.
Muscles were weak, but that was fixable. He probably wouldn't be able to fix his hand any time soon, all his repair work had taken days at the fastest so far... might even have to wait until he began cultivating.
So for now, he focused on his left eye, and then (eventually) his left ear. Fully working senses would only enhance 'Research', and at least all those damaged parts were still attached to his body, unlike his damn hand.
As his Shard took over the various swirls from his command, Adam focused 'Research' on his eye, determining the spiritual paths most likely to enhance recovery... and paused.
With his spine fully connected (And slowly recovering to peak efficiency), his control over his internal energies had... vastly improved. Almost triple the energy wisps were now controllable at once, 'Research' eagerly suggesting meridian routes that would work well if done simultaneously rather than a single circuit. People or Cultivators would likely be unwilling to risk such a trick, but Adam had much experience multitasking...
Even as five different circuits began cycling, Adam's focus was solid and persistent. 'Research' had all five paths modified during use, shifted in subtle ways, altered to prevent tragedy and harm.
The only down side? His ten minutes of recovery every three hours had dropped to only two minutes.
As his energy wisps vanished into his body, Adam watched the vast improvement of his recovery speed... and the two hours, 58 minutes of waiting he now had to do.
Yeah, this was terrible.
As SOON as his body felt stable enough, he was going to start cultivating. With his own internal, renewable energy source his recovery would have been vastly more simple and effective.
With a sigh, he focused on his Shard and began quadrupling the number of swirls, pushing them into three dimensional shapes while 'Research' tried to detect how to optimize the process. Once he got some testing under his belt, he would swap to 'Purification' and see what effects it had on these energy vortexes.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Xiao Quan pushed the door open with her back, the cleaning supplies a heavy load in her arms. "Good morning!" She carefully shifted the door closed, focused on her unstable load. "Sorry if I am a bit clumsy, we got a supply drop from the resources department and I knew we could use some extra cleaning materials in this... area?"
She blinked as the crippled child... was waving. And sitting up.
Oh he was covered in impurity slime and such as expected, but his neck injury required four hours of surgery. Him moving a leg had been a miracle, one that had her coworkers eagerly discussing between work shifts... "How?"
Her face broke into a smile she just couldn't hold back. "Brilliant!" The supplies were dumped in a chair as she dashed close and carefully began testing his reach, flexibility, and the state of his various stitches and bandages. "Amazing, just... this is marvelous! Stay still, don't stress anything until I can make sure nothing was injured from your movements..."
The few medical detection skills were quick to confirm that the child still wasn't a cultivator, but he WAS vastly improved! "Look left..." Yes, his left eye was slightly shifting. It had been close to dead flesh before, the improvement levels were unbelievable! "And take a deep breath..."
The surgery scars for the neck was gone, the lungs were both clear, the heartbeat was VERY strong... she quickly began the cleaning procedures, using her own Battle Qi to carefully loosen the black tar from his hairs and skin. Said skin was pure and unmarked, scars and welts vanished, even if it did make him look slightly younger now...
Her face almost hurt, she was smiling so much. "What did I say! Just a little time and some medication, I said things would get better! Just you wait, I'm sure after a bit of rehabilitation you will be up and about in no time!"
And it was true. His body was still damaged, but it was clear whatever process his Martial Spirit had accomplished had been focused on internal issues until now, which was probably why it seemed like no progress was occurring for so long... the boy must have been so damaged inside that his Spirit focused on those issues first, and only after reaching a certain level of stability was it able to work on other, more visible issues.
She rinsed her hands with water. "Right, we can't increase the amount or quality of your medications, the amounts you are taking is already a bit dangerous, but I think some non-medicinal options may help a bit. I will give some basic massages, now that your body can handle that level of strain, and hopefully it will assist your muscles in relaxing and recovering."
She tried to hum too loudly as she moved the impurities to the collection bucket. Like other types of human wastes, low amounts of impurities were very useful when making fertilizer... the amount this boy was producing had helped lower the costs for his medical care at this point, as strange as the situation was.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam felt... good.
Clean, of course, was always awesome. And he had twenty eight minutes until able to do a recovery session, aka 'Cover myself with filth' again.
But... how long had it been since someone had even held hands with him? Forget something like a full body massage, with her being careful about his damaged leg and fractured remains of a left arm. Just human contact had felt... way too good. Especially after those years of being mocked and ostracized.
His Shard was slowly twisting inside the flame swirl, 'Purification' active and enhancing the spin. Each rotation of the swirl had purification energies encouraging the edges to decay, returning the burning powers inwards, the junk outwards, and releasing even more Bonding energy for his Shard to collect.
His collection cone still existed, by the way. At various spots along the thin tube, he now had various spinning swirls of power attracting more energy. Some clockwise, some counter, some spinning vertically, and so forth. They tugged along the Binding energy for Adam to snap up, then became stuck in his swirls which would create an absence of energy, sucking even more power inwards.
Lazy eyes watched nothing as he carefully regulated the speed of absorption. He wasn't sure what his maximum processing speed was, but it wasn't worth risking the attention of those far above his (currently nonexistent) power level. Right now he had a steady flow of power and various energies being gathered by purifying the junk power that circled the atmosphere.
Checking that he was alone... he carefully reached into his mouth and pulled out the medical pill provided.
With a clench, Adam crushed the slightly glowing medicine, his Shard forcing the energies within to be sent through the refining swirls, Binding energy being absorbed as the many individual powers were separated.
Now that he could MOVE, he didn't have to put up with the impure medication provided. A normal child couldn't handle too much of these... and honestly, neither could Adam. The impurities included in the pills were far less dangerous than normal, the pill process making them easier to take without issue... but his purification process dropped the danger down to near zero.
He watched the various dangerous elements of the pill get absorb into the trash swirls, the sorted nutrition energies and patterns being absorbed by his Shard and then introduced to his body internally. Brain, then Organs, then Blood... the powers were less effective now that they were no longer in the carefully designed pill structure, but they were far more gentle and safe to consume.
Unlike normal medication, the purification process eliminated the chance of overdose, dependency, backlash, and so forth.
With another glance at the door and a longer, more resigned look at his own left stump... Adam sighed, sat up, and got into a meditative stance.
As annoying as not having a hand would be, that could be fixed later.
As crippling as missing many meridian nodes should be, that too could be handled eventually.
As dangerous as cultivation theoretically must be, Adam had things to accomplish.
Late at night, in a medical center, covered in impurities and still wounded...
Adam's Shard faded into view before his face, his expression determined.
The energies of heaven and the earth were called.
The popular and well known First Order Warrior Cultivation Technique was, again, passed through 'Research'.
His Shard modified the technique, for one as wounded as Adam. Missing meridian nodes like Adam. Missing a limb like Adam.
The simplified route was discarded, as a much more complicated one was drafted and tested. The First Order Warrior of the Houtian Realm was denoted by his or her ability to not only wield their own Battle Qi, but to expel those energies externally and retain control of them. The First through Third Order Cultivation Technique focused on the muscles of the Cultivator.
And Adam had just spent months examining his body, his structure, and his muscles... at levels unheard of.
'Research' saw the safe, generic cultivation technique as beyond flawed. True, it would allow those starting their path a smooth and standardized method of gaining power. A stable foundation with few risks and even fewer rewards. But Adam had resources they did not.
His cultivation technique was... odd. Far too long, it hit many meridian nodes normally ignored except by esoteric abilities and strange cultivating tricks. It also required controlling ten separate energy strands on ten individual paths, allowing some damaged meridian nodes to distribute the strain of so much energy without causing a devastating collapse of the spiritual pathways.
Adam's ten meridian routes needed to be done simultaneously, with various pauses and speed variations applied in the process. Without his detection techniques and the active analysis of 'Research', he would be guaranteed to suffer cultivation deviation and serious energy backlash.
He held back twitches as his body made rapid changes. 'Research' had him making thousands of very minute adjustments, the room for error near non-existent.
Feeling the warmth of Binding energy as it forced his muscles to decay, to regrow, to realign... even his bones cracked slightly, the maladjusted shards dissolving, the badly aligned recovery sections damaged and pulled ever slightly towards a full recovery position.
Cautiously, Adam allowed the most pure Flame energies to leave its swirl and carefully enter his system according to patterns by 'Research'.
His body spasmed.
Yeah, bad idea.
Clenching his teeth, Adam adjusted the Flame energies path as it burned and consumed his pathways. The frantic 'Research' notes had him attempt to shift the lava like power in various directions, touching bits and pieces of his own system... only to feel his flesh burn into ash.
Finally a lucky mistake showed how Binding energy could flow alongside the Flame energy, letting whatever flesh didn't evaporate to grow a closer affinity with heat in general. Oh, he was still on fire... but his new flesh burned slower.
And slower.
Eventually, the Flame energy was able to use Binding energy as a bridge, while Binding energy allowed his devastated flesh to recover and regrow with added heat resistant features. The entire process was a huge boost to 'Research', the data gathered suggesting that this process would not only improve his muscles but also increase his ability to use fire related power (Considering his location, that seemed a wise investment) and reduce the damage that heat could cause his body it battle.
It was a compelling argument, and 'Research' wanted him to apply the process to his whole system after a bit of study. But.
Adam looked at his right arm... and the black ash drifting from the massive scar in his flesh. Touching it made him flinch.
Well.
Glancing at his Shard, and seeing how LITTLE Binding energy was available to work with... sigh.
At least he had worked with fire in the past.
With an unwilling determination and a slightly depressed attitude, Adam focused 'Research' as he began introducing pure Flame energy to Binding power, his eyes glaring at his flesh as it began to visibly glow... and sizzle.
So far, Cultivation sucked.
This was going to suck.
Damn damn damn damn...
With an audible pop, Adam felt his neck crack and a WAVE of agony submerge his body. Forget pins and needles, this was sledgehammers and iron spikes! He nearly lost focus on 'Research' as he forced the power in his neck meridians to continue circulating. The scars on the left side of his throat had opened, black ooze flooding out as he struggled to close the various wounds on his body.
Yeah, that sucked.
On the plus side, as each moment passed the pain was subsiding, he could actually FEEL most of his body again, and his spine was finally able to focus on recovering itself rather than having his energy spent on stopping organ failure, repairing brain oxygen deprivation, and lowering blood toxicity.
Seriously, his body was messed up.
As he continued to circulate energy... well, it got boring again. This wasn't a HARD procedure, not with 'Research' watching over his shoulder... it was just lengthy and monotonous, at least as long as he was doing things correctly and not almost killing himself.
So he focused back on the energy pools above his room.
NOW! Things Adam had learned by playing with the worlds spiritual energies, part one!
First, thought it may be obvious... energy doesn't like staying still. Like water or electricity, it was fundamentally easier to guide the power rather than grip it and manhandle the stuff. Providing paths and guidance also reduced energy waste during the process, which was a nice surprise. It was also easier to accomplish than his previous 'Grab everything and force it to be sorted' method.
The basic pattern he used was swirls. It caused the most pure energies to sink towards the middle, while lower classed energy or energy bonded to unrelated powers drifted to the edges. A sort of presort, one that was very difficult to do with pure manipulation via his Shard.
So he started making tons of swirls. Some with a single power, some with a mix of energies, some with only simple types of components, some just massive messes of random spiritual debris. Which is how he discovered a new trick!
When two swirls come in contact, there are two outcomes: If they share the same directional spin, they will eventually combine... If they swirl in opposite directions, they will attempt to extract similar powers from each other, creating two unique filtered swirls.
Pulsing power through his neck, attempting to repair the worst of the scars near his spinal tissues, Adam played with the heavenly swirls.
First thing he did was try and determine the ratios of each type of energy. It delayed his neck repair attempt by a few days... but then again, he KNEW it was going to hurt, so a delay wasn't THAT terrible. Point was, he used the pure power collected with 'Research' and expanded his detection tricks as much as possible... which made energy detection much easier.
Flame related energies were the majority. There was a swirl that had 60% of the local energies in it that was pretty much only fire up on the roof, and the swirl was so heavy that it may even be visible at this point. The next swirl only had 18% of the bulk, and it was momentum related. Sword energies mostly, though there were movement techniques and defensive related powers as well.
After finding the rest of the junk to be fractions of a percent, Adam smushed random junk together into 'trash swirls', spun them counter to his main collection swirls, and surrounded them with the things. The trash swirls would absorb and sometimes disconnect the random junk connected to the flame and momentum swirls, creating a much easier to work with material for his Shard.
Most importantly to Adam though, destroying those weak bonds between various energies released that pure, untainted heavenly spiritual energy that Adam needed! This untainted stuff was acting as a natural bond between incompatible powers in the air, and his new filtration/refinement method could free up minute amounts of it.
Based on this behavior, he decided to call it 'Binding Energy'. By its very nature, it either existed free and pure in the air or bound between two other elements, no other form was possible... so it was relatively easy to gather the stuff.
It also may be why this particular energy was so useful for healing and spiritual node repair... its essential essence was to bind and connect.
As the black pus from his neck slowed and his body stopped tingling, Adam glanced down and... with strain... yes.
He could move his right arm.
Muscles were weak, but that was fixable. He probably wouldn't be able to fix his hand any time soon, all his repair work had taken days at the fastest so far... might even have to wait until he began cultivating.
So for now, he focused on his left eye, and then (eventually) his left ear. Fully working senses would only enhance 'Research', and at least all those damaged parts were still attached to his body, unlike his damn hand.
As his Shard took over the various swirls from his command, Adam focused 'Research' on his eye, determining the spiritual paths most likely to enhance recovery... and paused.
With his spine fully connected (And slowly recovering to peak efficiency), his control over his internal energies had... vastly improved. Almost triple the energy wisps were now controllable at once, 'Research' eagerly suggesting meridian routes that would work well if done simultaneously rather than a single circuit. People or Cultivators would likely be unwilling to risk such a trick, but Adam had much experience multitasking...
Even as five different circuits began cycling, Adam's focus was solid and persistent. 'Research' had all five paths modified during use, shifted in subtle ways, altered to prevent tragedy and harm.
The only down side? His ten minutes of recovery every three hours had dropped to only two minutes.
As his energy wisps vanished into his body, Adam watched the vast improvement of his recovery speed... and the two hours, 58 minutes of waiting he now had to do.
Yeah, this was terrible.
As SOON as his body felt stable enough, he was going to start cultivating. With his own internal, renewable energy source his recovery would have been vastly more simple and effective.
With a sigh, he focused on his Shard and began quadrupling the number of swirls, pushing them into three dimensional shapes while 'Research' tried to detect how to optimize the process. Once he got some testing under his belt, he would swap to 'Purification' and see what effects it had on these energy vortexes.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Xiao Quan pushed the door open with her back, the cleaning supplies a heavy load in her arms. "Good morning!" She carefully shifted the door closed, focused on her unstable load. "Sorry if I am a bit clumsy, we got a supply drop from the resources department and I knew we could use some extra cleaning materials in this... area?"
She blinked as the crippled child... was waving. And sitting up.
Oh he was covered in impurity slime and such as expected, but his neck injury required four hours of surgery. Him moving a leg had been a miracle, one that had her coworkers eagerly discussing between work shifts... "How?"
Her face broke into a smile she just couldn't hold back. "Brilliant!" The supplies were dumped in a chair as she dashed close and carefully began testing his reach, flexibility, and the state of his various stitches and bandages. "Amazing, just... this is marvelous! Stay still, don't stress anything until I can make sure nothing was injured from your movements..."
The few medical detection skills were quick to confirm that the child still wasn't a cultivator, but he WAS vastly improved! "Look left..." Yes, his left eye was slightly shifting. It had been close to dead flesh before, the improvement levels were unbelievable! "And take a deep breath..."
The surgery scars for the neck was gone, the lungs were both clear, the heartbeat was VERY strong... she quickly began the cleaning procedures, using her own Battle Qi to carefully loosen the black tar from his hairs and skin. Said skin was pure and unmarked, scars and welts vanished, even if it did make him look slightly younger now...
Her face almost hurt, she was smiling so much. "What did I say! Just a little time and some medication, I said things would get better! Just you wait, I'm sure after a bit of rehabilitation you will be up and about in no time!"
And it was true. His body was still damaged, but it was clear whatever process his Martial Spirit had accomplished had been focused on internal issues until now, which was probably why it seemed like no progress was occurring for so long... the boy must have been so damaged inside that his Spirit focused on those issues first, and only after reaching a certain level of stability was it able to work on other, more visible issues.
She rinsed her hands with water. "Right, we can't increase the amount or quality of your medications, the amounts you are taking is already a bit dangerous, but I think some non-medicinal options may help a bit. I will give some basic massages, now that your body can handle that level of strain, and hopefully it will assist your muscles in relaxing and recovering."
She tried to hum too loudly as she moved the impurities to the collection bucket. Like other types of human wastes, low amounts of impurities were very useful when making fertilizer... the amount this boy was producing had helped lower the costs for his medical care at this point, as strange as the situation was.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam felt... good.
Clean, of course, was always awesome. And he had twenty eight minutes until able to do a recovery session, aka 'Cover myself with filth' again.
But... how long had it been since someone had even held hands with him? Forget something like a full body massage, with her being careful about his damaged leg and fractured remains of a left arm. Just human contact had felt... way too good. Especially after those years of being mocked and ostracized.
His Shard was slowly twisting inside the flame swirl, 'Purification' active and enhancing the spin. Each rotation of the swirl had purification energies encouraging the edges to decay, returning the burning powers inwards, the junk outwards, and releasing even more Bonding energy for his Shard to collect.
His collection cone still existed, by the way. At various spots along the thin tube, he now had various spinning swirls of power attracting more energy. Some clockwise, some counter, some spinning vertically, and so forth. They tugged along the Binding energy for Adam to snap up, then became stuck in his swirls which would create an absence of energy, sucking even more power inwards.
Lazy eyes watched nothing as he carefully regulated the speed of absorption. He wasn't sure what his maximum processing speed was, but it wasn't worth risking the attention of those far above his (currently nonexistent) power level. Right now he had a steady flow of power and various energies being gathered by purifying the junk power that circled the atmosphere.
Checking that he was alone... he carefully reached into his mouth and pulled out the medical pill provided.
With a clench, Adam crushed the slightly glowing medicine, his Shard forcing the energies within to be sent through the refining swirls, Binding energy being absorbed as the many individual powers were separated.
Now that he could MOVE, he didn't have to put up with the impure medication provided. A normal child couldn't handle too much of these... and honestly, neither could Adam. The impurities included in the pills were far less dangerous than normal, the pill process making them easier to take without issue... but his purification process dropped the danger down to near zero.
He watched the various dangerous elements of the pill get absorb into the trash swirls, the sorted nutrition energies and patterns being absorbed by his Shard and then introduced to his body internally. Brain, then Organs, then Blood... the powers were less effective now that they were no longer in the carefully designed pill structure, but they were far more gentle and safe to consume.
Unlike normal medication, the purification process eliminated the chance of overdose, dependency, backlash, and so forth.
With another glance at the door and a longer, more resigned look at his own left stump... Adam sighed, sat up, and got into a meditative stance.
As annoying as not having a hand would be, that could be fixed later.
As crippling as missing many meridian nodes should be, that too could be handled eventually.
As dangerous as cultivation theoretically must be, Adam had things to accomplish.
Late at night, in a medical center, covered in impurities and still wounded...
Adam's Shard faded into view before his face, his expression determined.
The energies of heaven and the earth were called.
The popular and well known First Order Warrior Cultivation Technique was, again, passed through 'Research'.
His Shard modified the technique, for one as wounded as Adam. Missing meridian nodes like Adam. Missing a limb like Adam.
The simplified route was discarded, as a much more complicated one was drafted and tested. The First Order Warrior of the Houtian Realm was denoted by his or her ability to not only wield their own Battle Qi, but to expel those energies externally and retain control of them. The First through Third Order Cultivation Technique focused on the muscles of the Cultivator.
And Adam had just spent months examining his body, his structure, and his muscles... at levels unheard of.
'Research' saw the safe, generic cultivation technique as beyond flawed. True, it would allow those starting their path a smooth and standardized method of gaining power. A stable foundation with few risks and even fewer rewards. But Adam had resources they did not.
His cultivation technique was... odd. Far too long, it hit many meridian nodes normally ignored except by esoteric abilities and strange cultivating tricks. It also required controlling ten separate energy strands on ten individual paths, allowing some damaged meridian nodes to distribute the strain of so much energy without causing a devastating collapse of the spiritual pathways.
Adam's ten meridian routes needed to be done simultaneously, with various pauses and speed variations applied in the process. Without his detection techniques and the active analysis of 'Research', he would be guaranteed to suffer cultivation deviation and serious energy backlash.
He held back twitches as his body made rapid changes. 'Research' had him making thousands of very minute adjustments, the room for error near non-existent.
Feeling the warmth of Binding energy as it forced his muscles to decay, to regrow, to realign... even his bones cracked slightly, the maladjusted shards dissolving, the badly aligned recovery sections damaged and pulled ever slightly towards a full recovery position.
Cautiously, Adam allowed the most pure Flame energies to leave its swirl and carefully enter his system according to patterns by 'Research'.
His body spasmed.
Yeah, bad idea.
Clenching his teeth, Adam adjusted the Flame energies path as it burned and consumed his pathways. The frantic 'Research' notes had him attempt to shift the lava like power in various directions, touching bits and pieces of his own system... only to feel his flesh burn into ash.
Finally a lucky mistake showed how Binding energy could flow alongside the Flame energy, letting whatever flesh didn't evaporate to grow a closer affinity with heat in general. Oh, he was still on fire... but his new flesh burned slower.
And slower.
Eventually, the Flame energy was able to use Binding energy as a bridge, while Binding energy allowed his devastated flesh to recover and regrow with added heat resistant features. The entire process was a huge boost to 'Research', the data gathered suggesting that this process would not only improve his muscles but also increase his ability to use fire related power (Considering his location, that seemed a wise investment) and reduce the damage that heat could cause his body it battle.
It was a compelling argument, and 'Research' wanted him to apply the process to his whole system after a bit of study. But.
Adam looked at his right arm... and the black ash drifting from the massive scar in his flesh. Touching it made him flinch.
Well.
Glancing at his Shard, and seeing how LITTLE Binding energy was available to work with... sigh.
At least he had worked with fire in the past.
With an unwilling determination and a slightly depressed attitude, Adam focused 'Research' as he began introducing pure Flame energy to Binding power, his eyes glaring at his flesh as it began to visibly glow... and sizzle.
So far, Cultivation sucked.
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- Location
- Center Of The Universe
That's what he gets for trying to be a unique snowflake, Adam knew a steady and slow road that would most likely suck less but his 'Research' looked it over, went meh, and started to do those ridiculous tests that will most likely spiral out of control in a while. :X
True but we all know it's the snowflakes that are the most interesting to read about, especially when they're goofballs like Adam. Gonna be fun to see Cultivators react to Adam when he gets going, honestly it'll be good for them to deal with someone far less serious than the standard Xianxia protagonist as Cultivator worlds in general need a bit more lightheartedness.
I'm also hoping at some point Adam mixes up his knowledge bases when he hears about Qi/Ki from the Burning sword sect and ends up recreating Dragonball moves.
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- Location
- Center Of The Universe
I think you are right and the mood that Adam will bring to the setting will be a great change but I am also saddened, even if unsurprised, at the unique take of Adam's abilities meshing with cultivation. I, for one, had been looking for a long time for a cultivation story that follows a cultivator who is much more mundane than the usual bright stars that the genre focuses on. I honestly haven't found a single novel that follows a somewhat lucky protagonist that isn't too much of a special CHEAT.
- Location
- Here
Out of curiosity, what about Adam's history led you to believe that he would be mundane? Heck, if he WAS that low level, the next 100 chapters would be "Woke up, cried because of pain, passed out in sludge again."
...Not sure it would be that interesting really.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
Heck, if he WAS that low level, the next 100 chapters would be "Woke up, cried because of pain, passed out in sludge again."
...Not sure it would be that interesting really.
No, no. I'm not surprised of that, I just wanted to vent a little and see if maybe anyone had heard, or read, a story with a more mundane take on cultivation in a subtle way...
I was 100% sure that Adam would take the genre's usual tropes, maximize them in a funny way and then take a sledgehammer to the usual way things go in the said corner of the multiverse. He is a little blunt like that and I like him for it. ^^
- Location
- Ukraine
Try reading "Dao of Magic" on royal road.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
You mean that Dao of Magic that has a cultivator cheat enter a fantasy world, rofl stomps through the whole place before taking in disciples and then the amount of unique cultivations that flourish thanks to his non-standardized teachings makes it a mess of chaos??? O_O
Fragnostic
Cheshire
- Location
- Neko City
THIS IS THE SWIRL THAT SHALL LITERALLY PIERCE THE HEAVENS!
Ah, soon Adam will by flying on his sword like a pro!
Also, Adam "Burns" again...
For a more mundane/Standard MC i'd suggest reading Forge of Destiny, generally stable/simple progression over time rather than being filled with the protagonist getting cheats out the Wazoo.
- Location
- Center Of The Universe
Ohhh, you are right, I remember that quest, somewhat. I remember the quest went into the route with that snake cultivator woman, the quest mechanics allowed for a steadier progression than the novels and stories. Thanks for reminding me of it! I will read it soonish.
Pretty sure the existing updates are being slowly rewritten and turned into a Novel on the site and/or Royalroad.Ohhh, you are right, I remember that quest, somewhat. I remember the quest went into the route with that snake cultivator woman, the quest mechanics allowed for a steadier progression than the novels and stories. Thanks for reminding me of it! I will read it soonish.
That aside do we actually know how Adams nerfed setting knowledge is manifesting here? Because if its harder for him to tell which of his memories apply to this world we could see some very funny mixups happening.
I joked before but Adam could legitimately hear about 'KI' and start thinking that he's gotta get ready for Cell and/or hunt down the dragon balls (confusing other cultivators about why he needs to harvest dragon genitals) due to the restrictions messing up his knowledge base.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
These last few chapters have been making me re-read Core Threads again... definitely the same refinement process going on here as the first few chapters there. (Not that it's a bad refinement process, just worth noting)
RageMage
Sir "Shitshow in the making"
- Location
- Vienna
Honestly I am all for "researching" the s**t out of the basic cultivation method and comparing it with others to get the maximum effect. Btw. you know that there exist diffrent places where you can form your Core. Dantian-core for vannila/boring, Heart-core for body cultivator, Brain-core for Magic cultivator. Yust be aware that Bodycultivator are dumb as shit, Braincore users usually go crazy and Dantiancultivator will never be the best at Magic or Bodystrength. Monsters usually are Bodycultivators I think?!.
Soul Cultivation is a thing in some Novels and in others the "Heaven/Fate" (the Gods/or the Computer one realm up ) don´t want people to fuck with Souls and kill anybody playing with them.
Anway. Wich Dao is Adam looking for. Freedom? Answers? Yust asking because I want to know that stuff.
Soul Cultivation is a thing in some Novels and in others the "Heaven/Fate" (the Gods/or the Computer one realm up ) don´t want people to fuck with Souls and kill anybody playing with them.
Anway. Wich Dao is Adam looking for. Freedom? Answers? Yust asking because I want to know that stuff.
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