《Cultivator in a World of Levels》 Prologue Pushing qi to his legs, Lo Guan ran faster than he ever had in his 12 years of life. ¡°Stop!¡± Shouted the keeper of the stall Lo Guan just stole from. ¡°Give that back!¡± Lo Guan checked his dantian, where his qi was stored, and found that he had less than a minute of running left, if he kept wasting this much qi on reinforcing his legs. Wooden shacks that could barely be considered houses passed by in a blur of brown smudges. The path in front of him was made of large stones and dirt. ¡°Please ¡­ give it back ¡­ I beg ¡­¡± coughed the old man, ¡°We¡­ we¡¯re going to starve¡­ we barely sold any bread today¡­¡± Lo Guan turned his head around to appraise the man behind him. He was¡­ fat, at the very least. The stall keeper looked as if a pig was transmuted into a human through some kind of illegal technique. Huh. Now that I''m looking at him, I wouldn¡¯t be too surprised if he started oinking. He¡¯s clearly talking out of his a- Lo Guan was interrupted by a wall of a man, one of the elder''s children. ¡°Watch where you¡¯re going, street trash,¡± he sneered at Lo Guan. ¡°We don¡¯t need garbage like you walking around.¡± ¡°Sorry, elder brother, this trash only wanted to reach the cultivation room,¡± Lo Guan said as he bowed to the man as quickly as possible, keeping his head down. After realizing the man probably wouldn¡¯t keep talking to him, he rushed past the broad-shouldered man and kept running, this time to the cultivation room. After he got away from the oddly spherical man, Lo Guan decided to reflect. During the brief interaction, Lo Guan realized he actually did need to go to the cultivation room. He nearly missed the core condensation ceremony where all the youths in the sect were taught how to compress the liquid qi in their dantians into a core, which allowed them to draw on qi with a higher efficiency than before. ¡°Sorry elder Ko,¡± breathed Lo Guan as he kowtowed on the floor, ¡°this lowly outer disciple only wished to keep himself fed.¡± Elder Ko only sighed and gestured for Lo Guan to sit down. ¡°Today, disciples, you have all turned 12 years old. This means you are now ready to pledge yourself to the sect by creating your core, which means you have taken your first steps on the path of the river flowing sky wind lightning tribulation. Your first steps towards immortality.¡± Yes! Finally! I get to begin treading the steps towards immortality. Soon, I¡¯ll get to be like those heroes Ma always read about! Nobody shall oppose me! I will become the strongest cultivator our world has seen, and finally those elder''s children will stop beating me! Lo Guan turned his attention back to the elder, Lo Ko, who was still giving his speech on why this sect was the best one. Lo Guan always knew that the best path was never the easiest option, never the one just given to you. Luckily, condensing a core was the same for all paths. The scrolls in the library said so, at least. ¡°At last, we can begin the process of condensation. First, imagine your dantian as a puddle, not of water but as liquid qi.¡± Elder Ko looked at the children sitting around him. ¡°Now, picture yourself pulling the edges together into a ball in the middle.¡± Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Elder¡­ it¡¯s falling apart¡­ how do I move water into a ball?¡± One of the children asked. Elder Ko sighed. ¡°It¡¯s not water, it¡¯s qi. Liquid qi behaves as what you believe it to be. If you believe it to be water, it will move like water. Try picturing your liquid qi as qi. Move it together fast enough, and it will stay as a ball once it is one. In fact, if you establish the qi as your own, as if it is in your domain, you shouldn¡¯t even have to visualize touching it, it will move into a sphere on its own.¡± Lo Guan tried to take control of his qi. After all, what could be more interesting than manipulating the qi without even grasping it? After what felt like hours, he finally managed to move his liquid puddle of qi and shape it into a core without touching it. Unfortunately for him, hours had passed in the outside world, not what was supposed to be a minute. All the other disciples left, and now he was alone with elder Ko. ¡°Finally, brat. You took almost three hours longer than the second slowest disciple. Care to explain why?¡± Elder Ko raised an eyebrow. A grin appeared on Lo Guan¡¯s face. ¡°I managed to condense my core without touching it!¡± The elder let out a grunt. ¡°Congratulations on forming your core, outer disciple. Collect your token at the front desk of sect rooms,¡± He said without emotion. Lo Ko immediately left afterwards. Wow. At least it kind of sounded like he approved of my qi manipulation. Qi manipulation, eh? Let¡¯s see if I can¡¯t name my path after that, maybe ¡°Path of Qi Control?¡± No, too basic. ¡°Pure Qi Manipulation Path?¡± Why not? With his monologue complete, he took a left turn which led him to the sect room building. As he was about to reach the sect¡¯s front desk, he was approached by three of the elder¡¯s children. ¡°Hey, street trash, we heard you stole from our friend Lo Mo. Theft from your betters isn¡¯t allowed in the sect, you know. At least we didn¡¯t tell our parents to kick you out.¡± Lo Guan felt his stomach drop to the soles of his shoes. His head slowly turned and then his body followed. He tried to smile as much as possible, making no quick movements to avoid being attacked by them, although his mind was quickly decreasing his odds at succeeding. ¡°This lowly street trash apologizes for any transgressions against the honor of your friend. It would be willing to atone peacefully for any malicious acts it committed against the venerable Lo Mo.¡± That didn¡¯t seem to be enough, since the brutes just kept advancing toward him. It seems he wouldn¡¯t be able to get out of this peacefully, and with his newly formed semi-solid core he didn¡¯t stand a chance against sect disciples already at the solid core stage of the River Flowing Sky Wind Lightning Tribulation Fighting Sect. With that in his mind, he started running as fast as he could towards the front desk, and although there was nobody there, there was a slim chance he could find something to defend himself. He saw that he wasn¡¯t moving, and looked down. He saw that his legs were dangling in a running motion above the ground. He tried turning his head, but the massive hand holding him by the neck did not approve of that. ¡°This should teach him to leave our friends alone,¡± shouted one of the arrogant bastards, and squeezed. All thoughts left Lo Guan¡¯s brain as his whole body started trembling. Quiet cracking sounds resounded from the poor boy¡¯s neck. One moment, he was lounging in quiet and dark bliss, the next, Lo Guan was falling, his bones broken. He landed on the ground with a thump and just lied there, unthinking. As if taking offense to that, the heavens themselves decided he hadn¡¯t had enough suffering and summoned a thundercloud above him. Lo Guan¡¯s world went white for just a moment, and then he smelled burning as a strong itching pain assaulted him from within his chest, or rather where his chest had been. There was now a gaping hole in his abdomen, and he couldn¡¯t do anything about it. Just like that, Lo Guan died, or at least he thought he did. The last thing Lo Guan heard before falling into the peaceful darkness once more was a beeping, and a small screen appeared in his vision for a second. Although he never learned to read, Lo Guan could instinctively understand that it said, ¡°Please press the ¡®Start Tutorial¡¯ button to begin.¡± Chapter 1: Migration Lo Guan woke up coated in grass. The two moons illuminating the ocean of green coated the field in a majestic glow. He could only describe the view as serene. That day, the system would discover that one thing that a strike of lightning couldn¡¯t cure was arrogance. The first thing he noticed was that the mind technique affecting him did not seem to have left his mind. The incessant beeping of the small screen in the corner of his vision wanted something from him, for him to press a so-called button, labeled ¡®Start Tutorial.¡¯ Hello? Whoever used this technique, can you hear me? No response from the weird beeping screen. If you can hear me, please explain how this rectangle is a button! Can it even hold two pieces of cloth together? It¡¯s clearly a¡­ qi rectangle. This time, another screen flashed in his vision. ¡°Please press the ¡®Start Tutorial¡¯ button to begin. Questions can be asked once the tutorial begins.¡± Interesting. So the user of the technique can hear me, though they won¡¯t tell me who they are¡­ wait! I can just ask it once I press this¡­ button. Lo Guan reached up and tried to reach the so-called button with his finger, and somehow unsurprisingly, the screen changed. Welcome to the system, user Lo Guan! Error¡­ Unnatural Name detected¡­ Updating name¡­ Welcome to the system, user Logan! Hey! Who¡¯s Logan? What kind of name is that? Can I ask you questions now? User Logan may ask questions once the first part of the tutorial is over. Damn rat! Lo Guan would certainly come back to defeat the user of this technique, this system later on, when he was stronger. I am punching you in the face as soon as I find whoever used this technique! Welcome to the first part of the system tutorial, user Logan. Today You will- Error¡­ Unnatural system detected¡­ Overriding system¡­ Error¡­ System too powerful¡­ Error¡­ Error¡­ Er- User Logan has requested a style change¡­ Approved. Would you like to update to the Level System from the Cultivation System? Yes / No What? Who do you think I am? Fuck no! Processing¡­ Accepted. Injecting knowledge into user Logan¡¯s brain. Complete. You have 1 new notification. Lo Guan¡¯s vision went dark, and he fainted. For some reason, he decided he was called Logan now. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! *** When Logan woke up, realized that the qi rectangles were indeed called buttons. That turned out to be such profound wisdom to him that he passed out again. *** Logan woke up again with a groan. He looked up to the sky and yelled, ¡°FUCK YOU SYSTEM!¡± He received knowledge about all of cultivation. While the system would normally show new users how to use each feature of the system, which in Logan¡¯s case was how to advance through each stage of cultivation, and the perfect use of qi. Why did I have to be cursed with this knowledge¡­ to think, all we thought cultivation was¡­ no. System! Erase those memories. Leave terminology, I don¡¯t want my epic story to end this quickly. You are responsible for this. Fix. Now. Request acknowledged. Processing¡­ Accepted. Prepare for memory deletion in 10 seconds. *** So. The system allowed Logan to view people¡¯s levels and names, but not if they were too powerful. Makes sense. It also allowed him to view information about himself as numbers, such as strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, charisma, vitality, and his current ¡®hit points¡¯ which is the same as his health. System. Why is my charisma score a three? The rest of them are all fives! Are you telling me I¡¯m ugly? Request acknowledged. Processing¡­ Denied. Message: Statistics, or Stats, represent you, and normally people would level up to increase these by getting classes and leveling, but you decided to avoid that and instead use the Cultivation System. WHAT? Are you kidding me? Okay. From now on, I will ignore the system. System, silence all notifications until I request for you to pull them up. Request acknowledged. Processing¡­ Accepted. With that last remark, all screens except stats vanished from Logan¡¯s view. Much better. Maybe now I can start making sense of this dumb world Mr. System decided to transport me to. *** Logan had decided to spin around in a circle for a minute and walk in the direction he ended up facing, since the field reached farther than he could see. That turned out to be a mistake as Logan stumbled through the field like a disoriented air dancer. An hour later, Logan decided to sit down and cultivate, since the field wasn¡¯t going anywhere anyway. There was a significantly higher amount of qi in the air than there was back in the River Flowing Sky Wind Lightning Tribulation Fighting Sect¡¯s cultivation room. Logan pictured himself reaching into the air around him and plucking bits of qi and dragging them into his core. Some time later, Logan switched to simply using his qi manipulation technique to guide the qi streams into his core instead. It was harder and took longer to direct the streams of qi without touching than manually plucking the qi, but it was definitely worth the effort. Logan¡¯s core expanded rapidly as the dense qi streamed into his core. Slowly, he redirected it back out of the way, as the qi could give him qi poisoning due to the high density. When Logan finished absorbing the qi from the surroundings and started cycling half throughout his body to replenish his hunger and half to his core. He relaxed at the feeling of being finally fully fed. As a proper cultivator, he no longer had to eat and drink like a mortal. His health replenished to full in less than a minute. He was never at full health before, since he was barely surviving on the streets. Wow. Why has nobody told me I could just form a core? I would have tried shaping one so much earlier! Deciding there was no use in thinking of the past, Logan continued walking forward at a pace he had never thought possible for himself. Now that I¡¯ve started on my path of pure qi manipulation, I¡¯ll be unstoppable once I grow strong! Everyone knows the first steps on the path to strength are to completely eliminate the need for sleep and nourishment. With the knowledge given to me by that sewer rat of a system I can probably do that when I manage to condense a solid core. Haha. Sewer rat. The system gave me so many unnecessary terms yet they¡¯re so useful at the same time! The next month flew by with Logan following the same schedule most days, with the exception of the day the system called ¡°Sunday.¡± It was a relatively simple schedule, overall. Sprint until you collapse from exhaustion, pull yourself with your arms until those don¡¯t work anymore, and then cultivate the rest of the time. If anyone from this world saw him, they would think him a madman, though this was simply the daily routine of his favorite hero of the stories he was read when he was younger. Logan¡¯s logic was, ¡°If I can¡¯t even follow the training routine of the Great Ei Garou, what chance do I have of reaching heights such as his?¡± With that crazy thought, Logan continued to follow his training for the next two years. Chapter 2: Stats ¡°Status,¡± whispered Logan. He was now at 14 years of age, after training for two years straight. Status for user Logan: Approximate Level: 20 HP: 790 / 980 STR: 91 DEX: 86 INT: 72 WIS: 154 CHA: 48 VIT: 98 Naturally, wisdom was his highest stat because it was used to power his qi. His charisma was lower than his other stats since it was difficult to raise without a hairbrush or access to clean water. Around sixteen months into his training he realized that he could raise his intelligence by reflecting on choices, and through that he managed to increase the efficiency of his routine by ten percent. Ahhhhh¡­ It feels so nice to just be able to lie down, relax, and let the wind brush against my skin. This is bliss. Now that I¡¯m done with the hard part of training, it¡¯s finally time to compress my core into the solid stage. Unbeknownst to Logan, he was the first person to ever attempt to condense their core to the solid stage with only pure qi, and with such a vast amount of qi. By chance or through fate, condensing a core to the solid stage with pure qi required vastly more qi than with an affinity-attuned path¡¯s qi. *** Alone, in an unnaturally dense field, sat a child. The child didn¡¯t like being called that, but only time could change someone¡¯s age. The 14 year old boy, Logan, sat with his eyes closed and legs crossed in a lotus position. He was compressing a solid core of pure qi, without touching it. He sat there, unmoving, for a few seconds. Seconds turn to minutes. Minutes turn to hours. Hours turn to months. Just like that, the boy sat for months, unmoving, eyes closed. A cultivator with a sharp eye would see a core of unnaturally large size in the boy¡¯s dantian shrinking, condensing, and compressing into a smaller but more dense version of itself. More real, in a way. *** Logan opened his eyes slowly, with newfound patience. He pushed his fingers forward, interlocked. A series of cracking noises filled the little magical clearing. He swung his head around on his neck, summoning another volley of crackling sounds. He repeated the process for most of his joints, lying down on his back when he was done. Logan decided to finally check his notifications. System, pull up my notifications. Logan''s eyes bulged out of their sockets. Request Acknowledged. You have 2839 new notifications. WHAT did you just say to me?! 2.8 thousand?! What did I do to get so many notifications? Using the last of his willpower, Logan clicked ¡®open.¡¯ Congratulations! You completed part 1 of the tutorial! Please click ¡®Next¡¯. Congratulations! You have achieved a wisdom score of over 10 while being level 1. Congratulations! You have achieved a wisdom score of over 20 while being level 1. HIDDEN ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Congratulations! Level Up! Congratulations! Level Up! ¡­ Congratulations! Level Up! [Level 1 -> 10] Congratulations! You have achieved a wisdom score of over 100 while being level 10! If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. HIDDEN ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Congratulations! Level Up! Congratulations! Level Up! ¡­ Congratulations! Level Up! [Level 10 -> 20] Congratulations! You have reached level 10! Choose a reward: [expand] Congratulations! You have achieved a strength score of [expand] before reaching level 10! You have cultivated in a qi-dense environment for 1 hour¡­ +10 xp! You have cultivated in a qi-dense environment for 1 hour¡­ +10 xp! You have cultivated in a qi-dense environment for 1 hour¡­ +10 xp! ¡­ You have cultivated in a qi-dense environment for 1 hour¡­ +10 xp! ENOUGH! WHY?! What have I ever done to you, system?! Logan had to harness willpower he didn¡¯t even know he had in order to suppress his anger. System! Show me only the rewards! Request acknowledged. Processing¡­ Accepted. Choose a reward [x24] Combining rewards for better user experience¡­ completed. Choose a reward: [cultivator¡¯s toolkit] [pure qi cultivation guide] [meet an immortal who uses pure qi] Choose a reward: [qi density increased] [qi usage efficiency increased] [qi absorption increased] Choose a reward: [ERROR] [ERROR] [ERROR] Choose a reward: [Pure Qi Affinity] [Void Qi Affinity] [Heavenly Qi Affinity] Choose a reward: [System Upgrade] [Difficulty Increases] [Difficulty Increases II] Choose a reward: [Move to stage 2 in tutorial] [move to stage 3 in tutorial] [move to the final stage in tutorial] Logan wanted to curl up into a ball and be left alone. *** In the end, logan ended up picking the following: [Meet an immortal] - Who wouldn¡¯t pick this? [Qi Density Increased] - Sounded like the most useful option. [ERROR] - Not like he had much choice. [Pure Qi Affinity] - Other options weren¡¯t suited for his path. [Difficulty increases II] - More difficulty = more qi! [Move to stage 2 in tutorial] - Need to take all the rewards from each stage. *** Logan woke up with a slight headache and a dense yet still massive core of qi in his dantian. It seemed like the system granted his wishes, since he felt that qi got twice as dense the moment it touched his channels, expelling and moving pure qi was much easier, It seemed like there was some rustling in the bushes, which meant creatures, which meant difficulty, which meant more qi in the air! And of course, he hid his notifications again. After a year or two in here as well, he would move on to the next stage of the tutorial. Logan turned, trying to keep as quiet as possible while crouching and moving towards the source of rustling he heard behind him. He ended up just floating on the pure qi in the air, since it was dense enough to hold his weight now. As Logan flew closer to the source of commotion, he could make the shape of it out more easily. Now that he was a few meters away, It looked like a monkey but it had fangs and massive wings. It appeared to be looking through the grass, trying to find something. It bent over, picking up a large stick in the shape of a sword. It took a few swings at an invisible foe, dancing around it with an unnatural grace. Slowly, the monkey turned to look Logan straight in the eyes and pointed its sword at him. Logan snorted. What happened next was an explosion of movement, elegant enough to put a ballet dancer to shame and loaded with enough power to impress an army¡¯s general. The monkey was deceptively fast as it pounced at Logan. The only way he was able to react was with his high dexterity stat. As the monkey moved towards Logan, it shifted its sword into multiple positions midair before deciding on attempting to stab Logan through the stomach. He let out his qi and tried to move the monkey away from himself by controlling the qi in the air around the monkey. Since the monkey¡¯s body was its own domain, he was unable to control the small bits of pure qi inside the fuzzy creature. Once he reached the Gold Core stage, his targets would have to contest his qi with their own willpower or qi. Logan silently thanked the heavens for granting him free entry to the library back in the sect. He shivered at the thought of being cursed with limited knowledge. The monkey was growing increasingly frustrated with every missed attack. It was as if the pesky being was slippery enough to slip its sword off with only its skin. Soon enough, the monkey got tired. Logan grunted as a streak of burning red invaded his thigh, the vile monkey¡¯s sword barely touching it. He had been able to dodge before, but he was growing tired. Two years of brutal training weren¡¯t enough to help his stamina in a real fight, it seemed. Are you kidding me? This monkey, no, this feral imp is much faster than it should be! Isn¡¯t this a tutorial?! What do I learn from this? I read a scroll in the library once, on the usefulness of techniques. Seems I will need to make my own, or suffer defeat by damn monkeys. Logan cycled his qi with as much energy as he could muster, trying to end the fight quickly. The tired monkey didn¡¯t last long against his qi-empowered strikes. It seemed that he would need to create his own technique, since there weren''t any sects. The Great Ei Garou used suction techniques, stealing his opponents'' qi. Logan idolized him, so of course he would try to copy him. But absorption techniques were just like The Great Ei Garou, fictional. But were they impossible? Chapter 3: Technique Logan sat with his legs crossed in a lotus position, meditating and dragging qi from his surroundings into his core. As he pulled more and more qi into himself, he slowly shaped it to resemble a vortex, slowly yet inevitably spinning and pulling more qi into itself. To him, time was nothing. Hours passed like minutes, days like hours. Any monkeys nearby would see a pillar of rapidly revolving qi, Logan as its anchor. One of the furry creatures decided to investigate the source of immense power it was feeling. As it got closer, Monkey 23 found its fur being pulled towards the now opaque pillar. Once it was one meter away, it hesitantly reached out to touch the pillar, in hopes of getting a weapon, as it had seen its brethren do. Monkey 23¡¯s arm got ripped off the moment it was ten centimeters away from the pillar. When it tried to turn around and run away as its instincts told it, the danger ape found itself unable to do so. The pulling force of the pillar increased, and soon the agile being was just powdered bones and a cloud of blood, tinting the pillar red. This happened much more than once. The pillar vanished. Logan opened his eyes at last, after half a year of sitting alone. It took him a full 3 months of trial and error, every single second, just to figure out the basics of creating a technique. The rest of the time was spent perfecting the use of qi. With the system¡¯s gifts, Logan was the first cultivator in existence to have created an absorption technique. I will call it¡­ Qi Void. It sucks qi toward itself as if there was an empty space that the world needed to fill and all the surrounding qi rushed towards it, only fueling the technique further. *** Monkey 24 was having a nice day, strolling through the endless field of swaying grass. Occasionally it would find a flower in the deep ocean of green. Adorned with three different colors of flowers, Monkey 24 felt like it could do anything. The green one allowed it to manipulate plants, an astoundingly powerful ability for an environment like this. The blue flower allowed it to summon water to keep itself hydrated, and the red flower allowed it to summon and shoot fire blades which cooked monkeys and allowed it to have a meal every day. How anyone would survive without these wonderful abilities left the creature stumped. Although the monkey wished for nothing less than a life of luxury and power, it still had to do some work by itself, while its monkey servants were gone. Monkey 24, self-proclaimed best monkey heard a rustling in the grass ahead. It crept forward, stopping any movement from the grass using its green flower. Slowly, it started summoning a silent fire blade in its left hand. The heavenly messenger blinked in the corner of its vision. New Quest: Defeat User Logan! Rewards: [+10,000 xp], [Rainbow Flower] The monkey instinctively understood the words in its vision, and felt a tingling feeling crawl up its spine. A rainbow flower? What could it do with that? Monkey 24 abandoned all thoughts of stealth as it saw the Logan sitting in the air. A white flower perhaps? One that allowed control of air? Or could this be the power of the rainbow flower, control of the power of the world itself? Monkey 24 pounced at Logan. *** Logan felt a disturbance in the qi around him. A shuffling noise to his left alerted him of a creature, and for the first time since arriving in these infinite plains, he detected a foreign type of qi. Back home, in the sect, disciples were taught how to detect traces of others¡¯ qi just like they were taught to absorb qi from their surroundings. Even the disciples inducted by selfless sect elders. Stolen story; please report. The source of the foreign qi, three types actually, was rapidly accelerating, giving up on its plan of stealth. Could it have discovered that it was detected by Logan? Logan shook his head. If something powerful enough to be able to sense discovery would have killed him already. Only the sect leader could do something like that. The monkey pounced. Logan uncrossed his legs and stood up. A projectile of fire, in the shape of a wide curve, flew at him from the monkey¡¯s palm. Logan jumped to the side, as he would have if he was back in his small sect¡¯s town, chased by angry shopkeepers. The sect robes covering his legs started blackening and sizzling, but didn¡¯t catch on fire. Logan was surprised as the heat from the fire blade did nothing but provide a little warmth. His training paid off, even if done mostly out of boredom. The monkey, surprised, looked up at him, and Logan saw that it had three flowers on its forehead. One red, one green, and one blue. They emanated intense qi of fire, plant, and water affinities respectively. The monkey realized that he was looking at its flowers and that seemed to enrage the monkey even further. The imp-like creature tried to pool together its elements, and Logan saw the beginning of a technique building up inside the cupped hands of the monkey, but he wasn¡¯t in the mood to let it unleash it. Logan decided that his current situation was the perfect time to test out his Qi Void technique. He stretched out a single hand, fingers spread and palm facing the slowly growing technique in the monkey¡¯s hands. He flexed his fingers and curled his outstretched hand into a fist. *** Monkey 24 saw that its usual sure-fire technique didn¡¯t seem to do any damage, and decided it needed to try something new. Subquest: Tri-Elemental Blast Skill Kill User Logan using the Tri-Elemental Blast skill. Reward: [Tri-Elemental Blast Skill] Monkey 24 felt information rush into its brain. It cupped its hands and summoned all three flowers¡¯ magic into the small hollow sphere it created. The coalition of power told it that this Logan would be seriously injured if hit with the powerful skill. With this, Monkey 24 would become the strongest monkey! It coul- Monkey 24¡¯s eyes widened as the hand that the large, hairless, ape had stretched out tightened and the mana from around it was sucked towards him. The ¡®ultimate¡¯ skill in its hands turned into thin lines of color, soon losing all saturation and turning pure white. Monkey 24 felt itself being pulled towards the growing white ball. It tried to back away, but its legs wouldn¡¯t move, instead opting to bend the wrong way to be sucked into the white ball. Soon after, the rest of the monkey followed. *** Logan looked at the display with fire in his eyes. The creation of the technique had worked, far better than he had ever hoped. It was like there was a small area with an absolute lack of qi, which pulled everything that contained qi. He looked down, and to his surprise about a hundred cubic meters worth of grass and earth was sucked into the white technique, now gone. After sucking in enough qi, the Qi Void technique expanded slightly, then collapsed in on itself, leaving the surrounding qi to rush to fill the void. Wow. I really need to make more techniques! First, I¡¯ll collect the flower artifacts from the monkey. Logan walked over to where the hole was before, and realized that he had no way of retrieving things he sucked into the technique. He shrugged, and lied down on his back, staring at the ever-present night sky. Overriding permissions¡­ Accepted. System will now display prompt notifications regardless of the user¡¯s preferences. Message from system: You¡¯re never leaving the tutorial if you keep going like this¡­ Choose a reward: [move to stage 3 of tutorial] [move to final stage of tutorial] [move to stage 3 of tutorial with difficulty increased to III] Chapter 4: Difficulty Increase Logan read through the options on the screen in front of him. The choice was obviously between moving to the final stage and moving to stage 3 with increased difficulty. Standard difficulty was for normies. Heh. Normies. Such strange vocabulary given to me by the system. Logan decided to follow his gut and selected moving to the third stage with yet another difficulty increase. The previous difficulty increase seemed to introduce enemies, and it buffed them as well. He doubted that the system would throw those at people who had stats in the 30s at most, which was the average for stage 2 of the tutorial. Before moving on to the next stage, Logan decided to check his status. ¡°Status,¡± he said to the stars in the night sky. Status for user Logan: Approximate Level: 50 [LEVEL CAP REACHED FOR STAGE] HP: 1500 / 1500 STR: 200 DEX: 120 INT: 90 WIS: 350 CHA: 80 VIT: 150 Why is my charisma still so low! System! I literally took a month just to perfect how my body looks! Choose a reward for achievement ¡°Wise:¡± [Qi Upgraded] [Mind Upgraded] [Body Upgraded] Logan seriously pondered about the system¡¯s intelligence. Why was this even a choice? He pushed the [Qi Upgraded] button. Whatever thoughts Logan had at the time, they fled his head like daylight fled from the moon. He blinked once, and found himself falling backwards, unable to open his eyes again. *** Logan woke up due to a rapid pinging sound and a pounding in the back of his head. -10 hp -10 hp ¡­ -10 hp Logan checked his health, revealing it at a less-than-comfortable 137 / 1500. He tried cycling qi towards his leg, to heal it, and found it much easier than it had been earlier. His leg started knitting itself together at a faster rate than ever before. Logan watched as the number ticked up for a few minutes, until it reached 1000 / 1500. After confirming that his health was at a normal amount, he took some time to look around for anything that may have caused his injuries while he was unconscious. He sat in silence, cycling qi to his ears, hoping not to alert any beasts that he was awake. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. While hoping for his attacker to show themselves, Logan looked around. He was sitting in a small clearing of dirt in the middle of a moist jungle. The jungle produced a loud chirping in the distance that sounded¡­ off, somehow. A shuffling of the bush nearby alerted Logan of a lifeform tumbling towards him at a deceptive speed, and it was accelerating. The blur of a glowing orange tiger rushed towards Logan, and it was moving at a faster pace than he had ever seen before. The drumming of paws against the ground woke him up from his trance, alerting Logan of the danger he was in. Before he could react, a set of claws left scratch marks on his left leg, targeting the spot he was injured while unconscious. A beep alerted him of his loss of health and the infliction of some sort of status condition. For some reason the wound didn¡¯t heal or stop bleeding for a second before finally beginning the process of knitting back together using hair-thin strands of pure qi. Logan extended his hand as he had to the monkey that had attacked him in stage 2, and screamed at the tiger, ¡°Qi Void!¡± Once his hand clenched into a fist, the tiger slowly slid back, flailing wildly at Logan. He had already turned around, getting ready to check what other things the system had to say to him, before his back was hit with a burning pain. He turned around with eyes wide as saucers to see that his ultimate technique had abandoned him, only taking one of the tiger¡¯s legs and its tail. The tiger tried swiping at Logan again, but to no avail since he had rolled out of the way a split second before the claws would have hit. Limping, the tiger pounced with less than half the force it had before, and didn¡¯t even reach its target before being sucked into a whirling mass of pure qi. *** Logan checked on his core, visualizing his dantian. It seemed the past few days had taken a toll on his qi, because the white ball was mostly transparent, barely a quarter of it filled with the white liquid. Although pure qi was everywhere, the techniques that utilized it usually needed twice the amount. At least with the system and its gifts, Logan actually had a small chance at succeeding as a cultivator, to, if not beyond the level of a Gold Core. Warning! Unclaimed reward [Meet an immortal who uses pure qi] will no longer be available to claim in: [3 days and 7 hours] Are you kidding me?! You should remind me of those things when I¡¯m SAFE! Not in danger of being mauled by a tiger at any moment!! Logan had come to terms with the system not being some malicious mind technique. He decided to claim the reward of meeting an immortal that could utilize pure qi as soon as he could confirm that he was in no danger of being interrupted. It wasn¡¯t every day that you met an immortal that happened to use the difficult-to-master pure qi. *** 10 hours later *** Logan opened his eyes and uncrossed his legs. He floated himself down to the ground. Levitating on pure qi took practically no qi, but pushing yourself vertically with it was much harder. That was why he had never seen anyone flying over the sect, but so many sitting on air, or in the River Flowing Sky Wind Lightning Tribulation Fighting Sect¡¯s case, liquid lightning. Taking a single deep breath, Logan prepared for the worst and pushed the [Meet an immortal who uses pure qi] button. Chapter 5: Immortal Logan pushed the [Meet an immortal who uses pure qi] button. With a flash, a man who looked like he could lift boulders without qi appeared in front of Logan. He had pure white hair, which was flowing to all sides, like the rivers of qi that Logan had seen when replenishing and collecting qi. The immortal didn¡¯t wear a shirt, but he had baggy pants the color of pearls wrapped around his legs. He wore a loose jacket which was split down the middle to reveal the man¡¯s perfect muscles. The immortal looked down at Logan and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Go on, kid. I don¡¯t have all day, ask your questions and I''ll try to answer them,¡± said the immortal cultivator. ¡°Hello senior brother, this one calls himself Logan,¡± Logan said. ¡°I know. I am an illusion created by this system, as you call it, to answer your questions. You are protected while I am here, and nothing in this forest can or will attack you. You have ten minutes to ask me questions, starting now.¡± A timer appeared in the top right corner of Logan¡¯s vision. [9:59] [9:58] [9:57] I get it, I get it! I can see you! No need to make a beep every second you tick down, I¡¯m trying to think here, system! ¡°You do know I can hear your thoughts, right?¡± Asked the immortal man. ¡°Oops,¡± replied Logan. ¡°Okay, first question: What is the best way for me to get stronger right now? I can¡¯t condense my core like I did in the liquid qi and semi-solid core stages.¡± ¡°To form a quivering core, You will need to imbue your qi with your will. Simply condensing your core won¡¯t do anything besides make your qi more dense. Quivering Cores allow cultivators to disrupt qi by sending tiny movements called vibrations. After forming a quivering core however, the next few stages are eliminating impurities in your qi. For example, the Steel Core stage will reforge your body to be the ideal body your soul desires, which is done by manually using your qi to expel any impurities in your body. The Gold Core stage is similar, except it expels impurities in your qi instead, which allows you to intrude upon other¡¯s domains.¡± [7:43] Logan pulled the collar of his shirt forward to let the air cool his chest. That was a lot to take in at once, but he needed to get the most out of his meeting with the immortal now, and process information later. ¡°What do stats do, and how do I increase them? While we¡¯re on the topic, what does the ¡®approximate level¡¯ part of my status mean, and what is the average level for the current stage in the tutorial, assuming everyone takes it?¡± It was unreasonable to assume that there weren¡¯t any people in this world, or to assume there wasn¡¯t a world after the tutorial. After all, that''s all it was, an introduction to the system. Logan checked the timer. [6:39] His question had taken over a minute to think of and ask, and he was now getting close to the middle of his conversation, having only asked two things. ¡°Okay. The answer to your first question is relatively simple. You already figured it out, in fact. Stats represent you and your ability to do things within certain domains of actions. For example, strength represents your ability to do things related to physical labor, such as punching something. Dexterity represents how agile you are, Intelligence your ability to think critically, Wisdom your core and qi, Charisma your ability to interact with people, and Vitality represents your ability to survive and your overall maximum health, which is why it¡¯s called vitality,¡± said the immortal illusion. ¡°To increase stats,¡± He continued, ¡°all you have to do is train. Your two year training routine, along with your difficulty increases, allow you to increase your stats much faster than those in the outside world and lower difficulties. Don¡¯t get used to the fast pace.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. [5:00] ¡°The answer to your second question regarding levels, your approximate level displays what level you would be if you were to gain xp through cultivating. The xp messages earlier all went to your approximate level. The density of qi in the tutorial is much higher than most places in the outside world, so again, don¡¯t get used to the explosive growth you¡¯re experiencing now. The average level for people in the standard difficulty, third stage of the tutorial is level 20. Their experience is far safer than yours though, and you would either have to be a power-addicted maniac or a hidden genius to get to the third difficulty tier. I¡¯m starting to think you may be a little on the former side.¡± [2:47] The immortal looked up and frowned. ¡°I have to go, kid. Sorry we couldn¡¯t finish talking, something important came up for the real me, and I have to go alert them. One last thing I will teach you though: If you ever wish to know more about someone, send a thread of pure qi at them, try to make it as hard to notice as possible, and simply wish to Inspect them. On success, it should at least tell you their name and level. Investigating someone like this may return question marks, as they might be too powerful for your current power level.¡± Error¡­ Immortal [Error] has decided to end the conversation early¡­ The system apologizes for any inconveniences caused by this glitch. [0:00] Are you serious? What kind of broken system did I get given? Who lets their own ILLUSION cause errors, and at this point I¡¯ve probably seen the word ¡®Error¡¯ from this piece of shit than any other! Frustrated, Logan lay down on his back as he usually did when he needed to reflect or think about something, and he closed his eyes. So¡­ first things first: I need to start imbuing my qi with my will, since I will need to advance to the quivering core stage sooner or later. However, I will also need to train against these monsters, one of them probably holds the secret to moving on to the final stage of the tutorial. For now, Logan decided to just sleep for a while. Qi could replace the need to eat, drink, and sleep, but after all, nothing was a perfect substitute for sleep. Qi would erase the fatigue that comes with lack of sleep, but it will do nothing about your current mental state. With that final thought, Logan¡¯s eyes shut for the night. *** Logan woke up feeling much better than the night before, in a brand new state of mind. He began the morning by willing his qi to change into something that reflected him as a person. With the immortal¡¯s advice in mind, Logan began cycling his qi through his entire body. He moved it from his dantian, in the center of his stomach, down his left inner thigh to the sole of his foot, back up the other side, along his hips, through his chest, up and down his left arm, through his head, and repeated for the other side of his body. Right thigh, sole of his foot, back up the leg, to the shoulder, through the right arm, through his head, and back to his dantian. While cycling, Logan kept only a single thought in his mind. He thought about himself, who he was as a person. All of his past experiences, and soon enough he forgot about cycling and sunk deep into his dreams. *** Lioness 1 enjoyed being the queen of her group. The lions and lionesses followed her lead without questioning her, since she was the most powerful out of all of them. Among the lions, she was known as Steelclaw. Her claws could cut through anything, even steel. Yet when one of her stronger minions, a personal bodyguard, went on a mission to investigate a commotion that had occurred in the western side of the jungle and didn¡¯t come back, she started to worry. What if he had died? His claws and teeth were approaching a strength similar to her¡¯s and she didn''t want to be anywhere near the danger that was capable of killing someone of his strength. Even after those thoughts, she simply couldn¡¯t resist when she saw a column of powerful and pure mana erupting from the west of the forest. Although the source would most likely be dangerous for her, it would almost certainly be worth the rewards. *** Logan opened his eyes and looked around, finding himself back in the River Flowing Sky Wind Lightning Tribulation Fighting Sect. Nearby, there was a stall that sold bread. He looked down and saw that his chest was little more than bones. He was faced with a choice: steal some bread from the stall keeper again, or resist the urge to satiate his stomach and use his little legs, more bone than muscle, to get to the cultivation room and form his core through that grueling process again. For the young Lo Guan, a full stomach sounded like heaven at that moment. Yet he trudged forward, focusing on nothing but putting one shriveled foot before the other. He saw an elder¡¯s child stepping up to be in his way, but Lo Guan was too tired to do anything about it. The only thing he could do was run towards the cultivation room and hope he had enough life in him to create a core. *** Logan¡¯s eyes opened, back in the jungle, and he smiled. He looked inside his dantian, to find his core had reduced in size, but was now much more solid than before, and slightly shaking. His spiritual body reached out to touch it, and he found that his imaginary spirit had begun shaking once his hand came into contact with the core. He had reached the Quivering Core stage. Chapter 6: Bossfight The jungle shuddered under her gaze. Lioness 1, Steelpaw, looked around at her miniature army, preparing to plan an attack on the pillar of mana, when it suddenly disappeared. Steelpaw looked at where the pillar was just now, the western part of the jungle, and could only breathe angrily in response. With no plan in mind, she let her anger take over her mind and ran towards where the pillar was, as fast as she could, while generating a wind blade above herself using her [Wind Blade] skill. *** Knuckles cracked as Logan stretched his hands with interlocked fingers out, palms facing away from his chest. He had always found the motion relaxing, the way the satisfying pops resounded throughout the small spot of land he had to himself in the jungle. He had been passively cultivating the entire time since he was transported to the green field of grass after being struck by lightning. That qi had stacked so much that he had, unknowingly, become the first cultivator that had amassed such an astounding amount of qi before the Steel Core stage. The familiar sound of a disturbance in the underbrush to his right and a fluctuation of qi, mana as the system called it, alerted Logan of a being rapidly approaching him. It also seemed to be initiating the use of a wind qi technique, seemingly in the shape of a stilled slash, like the monkey from the previous stage. Logan¡¯s chest rose and fell in a sigh. Over the past week, he hadn¡¯t been able to rest for a single twenty-four hour period (since it was constantly night) without being disturbed by some kind of creature. Logan had determined that he was on the edge of the jungle, since the beasts only came from one direction. He made a temporary home in his little clearing, but that didn¡¯t mean he couldn¡¯t explore the jungle. Almost a year had passed since he arrived in the third stage of the tutorial, and he hadn¡¯t been able to find the condition that needed to be fulfilled before moving on to the final stage. Logan really wanted to leave. He had gone on multiple expeditions, leaving behind small puddles of pure qi where he left footsteps in order to find his way back. The intelligence stat had been doing wonders for Logan¡¯s brain. The little boy back in the sect would never have thought of something like that. The approaching creature stopped moving as quickly, crawling forward while developing its wind blade technique. It must have thought it went unnoticed. Logan decided that now was a great time to find out the capabilities of the investigation technique the immortal imparted to him. He willed as thin a strand of qi as he could, and was amazed to sense bits of information flowing towards him from it. The system decided it wanted to interrupt his excitement by pulling up a new screen with a beep. Name: [Lioness 1] Titles: [Steelpaw, Boss] Level: [80] Logan checked his own ¡®approximate level.¡¯ ¡°System, pull up my level,¡± he whispered. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Approximate Level: 70 Logan looked in the direction of the approaching lion beast. It released its wind blade. It passed so quickly that Logan thought that it was a fluke, but then looked down to see the upper half of his already torn robe had been reduced to little more than shreds, limply blowing in the wind around him. The wind blade had not only torn his robes, made to be slightly resistant to qi, but also created a shallow cut across his chest. Blood sprayed freely from the cut as Logan grunted. Logan began charging his Qi Void technique. The female lion¡¯s eyes seemed to widen as it began charging its own technique, what looked like a much more powerful blade, made of sword qi instead of wind this time. Logan thrust his clenched fist, and by extension his technique, as he had learned to do recently, at the lion. The miniature void of qi sucked the lion¡¯s front jaw toward where he suspected its dantian was. To the lioness¡¯ credit, it managed to avoid being pulled by the technique, unlike the ground, for the first few seconds it was active. The same could not be said for the technique that the queen of the desert was building above its body. Only moments after the fight started, Logan had already destroyed half of the feminine feline¡¯s body. Soon after, the rest of it simply fell over, and Logan¡¯s power-hungry body acted on instinct, erasing the vacuum before the rest of the stage boss¡¯ body was devoured. He leisurely walked up to it, and put it in what the system called a ¡®Qi Inventory.¡¯ The technique allowed him to imitate spatial rings, something only the elders and their families had back in the sect, and convert items to qi and store them in his dantian. So far, he had stored the following items, according to the system¡¯s interface. The system was actually helpful for once: [Rare Items] 52x [Rare Mana Stone] 4x [T3 Boss Claws] 10x [T3 Boss Fang] [Uncommon Items] 130x [Uncommon Mana Stone] 1629x [T7 Mana-Enhanced Grass Blade] 1x [T3 Ancient Oak Broadsword] 1x [T3 Boss Hide (30% integrity)] 23x [T1 Enchanted Pebble] [Common Items] 1044x [Common Mana Stone] 10x [T8 Ancient Oak Bark] The system had told Logan that everything system-related was split into rarities and tiers. Any item of a rarity was almost always better than an item of the rarity below it, even if the latter item¡¯s tier was higher. Tiers were used to sort Items within rarities, with tier one being the lowest and tier ten being the highest. Another thing the system had informed Logan about was the conversion of qi to mana stones. When something was killed by his Qi Void technique, the system counted it as a kill using a skill (the system¡¯s name for techniques). When killing something of a higher level than him, or approximate level in Logan¡¯s case, he received condensed mana in the form of mana stones. As the unnatural sounds of the jungle quieted down, Logan cracked open a common mana stone, just to see what would happen. A trickle of mana filled Logan, slightly filling his core. His intelligence stat told him to keep the mana stones instead of breaking them, since there was a chance that it could be used as a currency later on. Congratulations! You completed stage 3 of the tutorial by defeating the boss! Teleporting you to the final stage in 1 hour¡­ [59:59] [59:58] [59:57] ¡­ Chapter 7: Carnage pt. 1 Consciousness returned to Logan as quickly as it had left. He rolled his head around, stretching his neck¡¯s muscles and analyzing the moist stone which surrounded him in a cubic prison. Logan instinctively understood the task ahead of him, probably due to the system¡¯s interference. He needed to kill one thousand of the creatures the system called ¡°vile beasts.¡± A slight issue that he discovered with this task was that they were all upgraded to the rare rarity, since the tutorial was on the third difficulty setting. Logan assumed that was the highest it went, since that wind blade would probably have killed him if the power behind it was increased by even thirty percent. Before taking any action, Logan whispered ¡°Status.¡± Status for user Logan: Approximate Level: 80 HP: 2230 / 2230 STR: 281 DEX: 192 INT: 120 WIS: 435 CHA: 131 VIT: 223 The system chimed, signaling that it wasn¡¯t finished with him yet. Achievement! Jack of all Trades: Achieve a score of at least 100 in each stat. Rewa- Error¡­ Wrong system¡­ Aborted. It seemed the pesky system had changed its plans, since the old ones of offering gifts didn¡¯t work. Now it dangled something in front of his eyes, and then took it away and promised it if he joined its clutches. His system didn¡¯t force him to abandon qi, which made it the better system, even if it didn¡¯t offer as many rewards as the other system. The other system still tried to invade his mind daily anyway for some reason. Another thing he disliked about it. It was too pushy. It didn¡¯t listen. He had asked his cultivation system to silence the other one, yet it seemed like it still had enough power left for him to attempt to sneak past the better system¡¯s defenses. At least it didn¡¯t try any methods as underhanded as filling his mind with its heretical terminology again. Logan thought his rate of gaining stats would massively slow down when he left the tutorial, if the immortal and bad system were to be believed. His mind was already working on forgetting the details of his two-year training session. Logan shuddered. He would never do that again. As if on cue to end his temporary trance, the wall in front of him shattered into sand, and then disappeared. A long hallway revealed itself in front of Logan. The end of the hallway was shrouded in shadow as if beckoning him to see what the tunnel held. Quiet and unintelligible noises could be heard near the end covered in a harsh shadow. The rapid clicks down the hall signified that the source of the noises was likely insects or something similar. Logan squinted, being able to barely make out long, wriggling appendages that bent slightly. They reminded him of the dust bugs he saw sometimes out on the streets in the sect. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Logan approached the obscured part of the tunnel, his qi-honed senses endeavoring to find the source of the commotion, and hopefully, a thousand easy targets. The heavens seemed to take that personally, removing the barrier of shadow, which Logan realized wasn¡¯t to protect the centipede-looking demons from him, but him from them. The giant skittering mess of insectoid legs and antennae rushed at him like a muddy flood of insects. Shuddering and slowly turning, Logan clenched his fist, pulling the qi behind him into a swirling vacuum of pure white qi. He found that compressing a small bit of qi until it was smaller more times than he could count, the vortex began pulling things without qi as well. When he tried it for the first time, the bad system said something about a god of gravity, whatever that meant, warning Logan about encroaching on his domain. Whatever. Who cares if a god is mad at me. If the system is to be believed, and it hasn¡¯t lied, gods can¡¯t directly harm mortals. And I¡¯m mortal, according to the system. He had always hated bugs. They just disgusted Logan for some reason. Logan didn¡¯t exactly find their appearance revolting, but something about how they moved, how they acted triggered a hate he had reserved just for those things. Logan¡¯s mind snapped back to reality as the Qi Void dissipated. The insects seemed to be smart enough to be afraid, but they were clearly still stupid since anyone would have recognized that as a technique requiring a lot of qi. Logan would know, since his Quivering Core was only around four fifths full of qi. An entire fifth of his qi stores had gone into that attack. Logan decided on attempting to create another technique, one that took less qi, as soon as he got close to leaving the tutorial. Not any time soon, he thought. [81/1000 creatures killed] Logan began laying out the process of how he wanted his new technique to work. Before that, he needed some ideas. Most qi-cheap techniques, according to the sect library, created some kind of small projectile out of qi, usually a sphere of some sort, and added their will to change how it worked. Nobody had used much will when they created their path¡¯s techniques, since their path already tinted the projectiles with the desired qi type. In Logan¡¯s case, he could change his projectile to be anything he wanted to be. The Great Ei Garou used a wave-like prismatic projectile that could warp through space to appear inside of the target. That only worked once cultivators reached the Quivering Core stage, of course. Logan tried experimenting with some projectiles in his head, but decided against it after they all worked. It was his head, his thoughts, of course any projectile would work! He needed something that worked in the real world. Then, Logan had an epiphany. A realization. An enlightenment. It didn¡¯t matter if the shape of the projectile would work in the real world, it was qi! The building block, the foundation of the world itself. Pure qi was the closest to governing the world out of all qi types from what he heard in the library. He merely needed to imprint it with his will. A spiraling column of qi slammed down from the heavens around Logan, who embraced the opportunity from the tutorial. He contributed his will to the vertical vortex as it provided him with more than double the qi he would normally need. An idea for a projectile appeared in the back of his head, and it slowly developed further. It morphed into diagrams which showed how the mini vortex of qi would pull the qi in front of it and pull itself forward through that. Then, his diagrams evolved into a fully colored scene of the vortex flying and embedding itself in a humanoid. The qi inside the humanoid was highlighted in blue as it rushed into the vortex and expelled from the humanoid¡¯s body, leaving behind nothing but a shriveled husk without any muscle or qi. Once the little demo finished playing out in an imaginary plain, the qi pillar surrounding Logan crashed into his dantian, completing the technique creation. He didn¡¯t expect to create the technique so soon, but if anyone was complaining it certainly wasn¡¯t him. A small scuttling erupted behind him, and his smirk turned into a feral grin. Chapter 8: Carnage pt. 2 [382/1000] [383/1000] [384/1000] Logan grimaced as his Heaven¡¯s Descent slammed into yet another horned centipede. A small hole was drilled into where the whirlpool of qi entered the being, and everything the hardened skin contained spilled out onto the floor. After so much murder, Logan had begun questioning his sanity. ¡°The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,¡± wrote one of the authors whose works Logan enjoyed reading, Gilbert Zweistein. That brought up the question, was he going insane? After all, he was killing insects over and over and expecting something at the end. The system had sort of lied to him before. What if it was doing it again, as an attempt to get him to switch? Request acknowledged. The system is not doing anything of the sort. You are not going insane. Logan stared at the blinking rectangle invading his vision. For the first time in months the system had responded to one of his queries. He just looked at it in disbelief. It thought I would believe this? Really? Does it think I¡¯m stupid? It might be some kind of evil mind technique in the end¡­ He had little choice at the moment so Logan decided to keep hunting down the insects. It was more time consuming than difficult, if anything. Now that he thought about it, he might actually be going insane. He let out a laugh. The little Lo Guan from the sect was nowhere to be seen. Logan had gone from being a stick to a psycho who hunted innocent creatures because¡­ some hallucination told him to? Because he found them disgusting? Or maybe it was to satisfy his insatiable urge to kill. One that he had developed recently. Was it the system¡¯s doing? Logan shook his head. Too many questions, not enough answers. He surrounded himself in a barrier of pure qi, as he had learned to do recently. *** The qi vortex of Logan¡¯s technique, Heaven¡¯s Descent, mercilessly slaughtered three more centipede-like creatures. The system¡¯s beep said there were around three hundred more centipedes to kill, then he could leave this hellhole. Logan¡¯s mind had been scattered the entire time he was in the final stage of the tutorial. His inner philosopher had awakened and reflected on his entire life in the past month. Eight hundred killed; two hundred left. Logan mindlessly killed centipedes, to the point of having stopped thinking. He hoped to leave this endless tunnel soon. Logan¡¯s brain restarted. It was a tunnel. He realized just now that he didn¡¯t have to kill the centipedes, there was a chance to get out without murder. The cultivator¡¯s mind pounced at the idea. Legs moved on their own and there was a boom as the sound barrier was broken. He kept accelerating, accidentally ramming into a few of the insectoid creatures, splattering his qi-infused grass robes with their green blood. Logan jumped, becoming a missile and tearing through the moist air of the cave. He learned from his techniques and began removing the air in front of him from existence. Anyone watching would have seen him teleport tens of kilometers at a time. His feet touched the ground at last and Logan looked ahead. There was indeed a light at the end of the tunnel. At last being cursed with the knowledge that he could have just done that instead of losing his mind knocked the light out of his eyes and Logan collapsed on the floor. When he woke up, Logan¡¯s eyes didn¡¯t open. His spiritual self stood, gazing upon the shaking white sun that was his quivering core. It was slowly filling with more white qi, . The system had cursed him by bringing him to this world. Of course, he probably would have died in the sect but that was an arguably better fate than this torture. He was mentally, physically, and spiritually tired. In the end, he survived. That made him stronger. ¡°Status.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Status for user Logan: Approximate Level: 100 HP: 5000 / 5000 STR: 450 DEX: 420 INT: 300 WIS: 850 CHA: 200 VIT: 500 Logan felt that checking his inventory was useless, as all he had done was take 600 qi-infused grass blades out of there and crafted robes out of them. Now that he thought about it, nobody had ever taught him how to weave grass. Matter of fact, nobody had really taught him to do anything but cultivation. It seemed that the sect wanted mindless warriors to send on missions so they could ¡°die an honorable death.¡± Logan could hardly believe that his younger self believed those lies. Death was death, no matter how honorable. *** At last Logan¡¯s eyes took in the dim light surrounding him, and the infinitely brighter spot of sunlight at the end of the labyrinthine tunnel. There were green splatters of blood on his grassy robes. They were woven but they held up well because of the anomalously high amount of qi in them. The adrenaline rush from the long jump was already long gone but Logan was admittedly a little scared to go out into the light. His mind was imagining all sorts of things that could happen if he went through. What if it was a trap and he got swarmed by more powerful bugs? What if he turned into a bug? What if his counter reset and he had to kill more? What if it drained his qi? What if he died instantly? What if he had to fight himself? Logan shook his head. It didn¡¯t matter, he thought. He already felt like he was at his lowest point. Nobody around to comfort him, nothing to do but kill, no motivation for anything. The point of life was to die, wasn¡¯t it? He just stretched his legs, and walked toward the light at the end of the tunnel. As the light overtook him, Logan saw his life flashing before his eyes. Then, he understood. The feeling couldn¡¯t be explained in words. The muscular husk of a man fell over in a heap. He had seen the entirety of his life flash before his eyes. He wouldn¡¯t give up. His mother, his childhood friend, his younger self. He wouldn¡¯t abandon them. Logan felt rejuvenated as he realized how stupid he was. The point of life was to survive. Not throw it away. His dantian screamed at him. Logan¡¯s core had turned to steel. The path to the body went through the mind. For the first time in a year, he smiled, and as if on cue, Logan fell again. This time with a grin plastered on his face. *** A man lay on the ground, near the end. Unconscious. Bug 910 watched in fear as the man¡¯s body moved unnaturally. His limbs bent in all directions as if his bones were made of rubber. His skin turned a pure white as if he were made of light itself. Eyes and hair made of pure black, he looked like he was glowing. No, Bug 910 realized. This was mana. His body was made of pure mana. The man¡¯s mana grass robes also turned a pure white, and began moving. They weren¡¯t really moving, but the texture looked like it was flowing along invisible streams of mana. Bug 910¡¯s brother, Bug 911, sent through the antennae-phone that his hair, robes, and skin all looked like they were flowing along the mana streams that he could sometimes channel. Bug 910¡¯s short life flashed before its eyes. A vortex of the white substance that it now identified as mana exploded out of the man and smashed into bug 911. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Bug 910 felt no real attachment to his family. They were all spawned from the broodmother. Another small whirlpool appeared and where Bug 910 stood, the next moment there was nothing. *** Logan stretched his arms and legs. At last, he got ready to kill the last few bugs. He determined it was to kill or be killed, and these things couldn¡¯t think anyway. That¡¯s what he wanted to believe. The Qi Void killed a hundred of the bugs and dissipated after a minute. [999/1000] One more. I can do this. Logan looked with his eyes and spiritual sense. Nothing. The entire tunnel was empty. There was nobody left. *** Broodmother 1 opened its eyes and flared its mana. It felt a presence looking for it. It revealed itself and got ready to feast on yet another target. New Quest! Kill user Logan. Reward: Evolution Chapter 9: Escape Logan sensed a powerful being, presumably a spider by the way the qi bounced off of it. If there was a specific type of bug that he hated the most, it was spiders. Logan evaluated it as a being of the Quivering Core stage. A stage above him, but this thing was using the system. Remembering the immortal¡¯s advice, Logan sent a thread of mana at it. Name: [Broodmother 1] Titles: [Titan, Boss] Level: [120] It had a higher level than him, but it had a lower cultivation level than him. Ha. Bad system. Logan walked into the room his senses told him it was in without a single worry. Anyone knew that steel cores were much better than quivering cores. Although quivering cores allowed disruptions of techniques, Logan believed his qi to be too dense for a fresh quivering core to actually affect his techniques, which also were resistant to qi as they devoured it. The gigantic spider turned its eight eyes to look at him. They looked oddly human-like. They had irises, pupils, sclera, and eyelids. The irises had a slight red glow to them, which made the towering 2 meter spider look even more menacing. Each eye blinked, one at a time, from left to right. The crimson marks on the back of the spider¡¯s abdomen highlighted its dangerous nature even more. With the speed of a dandelion drifting in the breeze, the Broodmother pounced. Logan was shocked at how slowly it moved. He cycled qi into his legs and sidestepped the pounce and subsequently pushed a vortex at it. The vortex merely dissipated when it touched the spider, which caused Logan to shudder. The technique he had seen slaughter nearly a thousand bug demons drain some of the qi in the area before dying out. And doing nothing to harm the ¡®titan.¡¯ I guess that¡¯s where the Titan title comes from. I see. The bad system probably allows people to allocate stat points when they ¡®level¡¯ and that lets them grow stronger. They get gifted techniques under the heretical guise of skills, without being taught how to use them. How do people survive with this kind of system?! That doesn¡¯t sound like an enticing offer, that sounds like hell! And to get the Titan title, what, you spend all your points from leveling to some kind of defense stat? Logan grew irritated with the other system. He only had two options for attacking now, technically three if he counted the claws from the boss. Unarmed strikes and his Qi Void technique. Logan really didn¡¯t want to leave the tutorial into a potentially dangerous situation with no qi, so he concluded it was time to see what a strength stat of 500 really meant. *** The mana elemental, a name Broodmother 1 had assigned to the creature which had invaded its home, didn¡¯t let up after seeing what was definitely his strongest skill fail. Broodmother 1 really wanted to go to sleep again, so it released a horde of its spawn at the mana elemental, who seemingly had enough mana for yet another of those devastating void attacks. A million of the Broodmother¡¯s spawn was disintegrated as mana flooded towards the mana elemental, who seemed to ignore it¡­ no, the mana bounced off his skin. As if he didn¡¯t want to touch anything less than the purest of mana. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. She took offense to that. Broodmother 1 considered herself untouchable by the impure, or anything really. Putting all her stats in DEF really paid off. Nothing had been able to harm her yet but the mana elemental looked at her like he was going to change that. He wouldn¡¯t. Nothing ever had. Really, all Broodmother 1 wanted to do was return back to her family. The system had provided a quest to her. At the time, the spider hungered for power, and only power. The quest gave her a lot of power. Levels, skills, even a class. With a class, she gained sentience. Quest Updated! Kill user Logan! Gifts: [Sentience], [Class: Boss], [100 Levels] Rewards: [100 Levels], [Class Upgrade], [Evolution] The mana elemental tried something new. He finished the last of her minions and turned to her, his arm growing more muscular with each second that passed. Almost like he was somehow manipulating his mana to go to his arm¡­ *** Logan raised his head to look at the spider, which stood a head taller than him. He had developed a hate for this spider over the past ten minutes. He had to kill little spiderlings, which didn¡¯t count as creatures killed for some reason. The spider had sent its own children at him as sacrificial material! He understood that everything wanted to kill him for some reason, but not to the extent of killing off its own children! He didn¡¯t care much, since they didn¡¯t seem capable of thought but the unnatural amount of blood coming from them nauseated Logan to some small extent. Dashing at the spider, Logan pulled his fist back. He had been cycling qi to his limbs the entire time he had been ruthlessly blasting the Broodmother¡¯s minions. A side effect of cycling qi to your body was that the target body part grew in size, depending on the amount of qi channeled. This of course had a steep decline. It would be really inconvenient to walk around with an arm five times the size of your torso. He surrounded it with pure qi on the outside as well, just in case it inflicted something on touch, as he had read about spiders in books. Logan thanked the heavens again for being born into a sect with a free library. Logan¡¯s fist connected with the spider¡¯s furry abdomen. A shockwave rippled through the spider¡¯s back and flattened what Logan estimated to be around half of its body. The dungeon¡¯s boss let out a shriek which reminded him of nails scraping the wooden walls of one of the houses back in the sect. Logan shivered and frowned at his reaction to the gruesome sound. Cultivators should be immune to¡­ just negative feelings in general, right? It seemed the awful sound transcended the near invincibility of cultivators, to non-qi infused attacks. Logan moved his hand to facepalm, this was a qi-empowered attack from the spider. The gesture was interrupted by a sharp and fuzzy leg reaching towards Logan and stabbing him through his qi-empowered shoulder. It seemed levels weren¡¯t just for show. Logan retaliated by punching it again, with his qi empowered fist. The massive spider didn¡¯t move nearly as quickly as Logan thought it would. It attempted dodging, but failed miserably when Logan¡¯s fist collided with the remaining half of its body. Another ripple pulsed through the disgusting beast. The hole in Logan¡¯s chest was stitching itself back together. The wave coursed through the entire physical existence of the spider and demolished everywhere it met with the creature, until it was nothing but a pulp on the ground. The system chimed. Sending user Logan to the reward room¡­ Complete. Chapter 10: Rewards Drearily shaking his head, Logan came to. He woke up in a pitch black room. To his left and right were long rows of screens and something floating and spinning behind them. Logan¡¯s hand flew to his chest, where a large, albeit shrinking, hole existed a few seconds ago. His magical leaf armor had a hole, but his skin was as good as new. No scars or anything of the sort. Logan wanted to unclutter his notifications by reading all of them, and he was in the best place to start. A safe room in the middle of nowhere, where he assumed nothing short of an immortal could touch him. Logan¡¯s finger slid over to a little bell with the number 218 written in the top right of the icon. He pushed down on it. You have 218 pending notifications. They have been sorted by importance in descending order. [Display all] [X] [Display top 10] Not in the mood for reading 218 sentences, Logan clicked [display top 10] and requested for the system to clear the others. [You have ranked first in tutorial completions this year, and third of all time.] [Three factions are watching you.] [Immortal [Error] has given you a reward: Choose 1 thing from the reward room.] [You have angered 2 gods.] [You have been transferred to the tutorial reward room.] [Error: Wrong system] [Error: Wrong system] [Error: Wrong system] [Error: Wrong system] [Error: Wrong system] Logan facepalmed again. System 2, as he called it, wasn¡¯t happy with him, huh? He guessed the errors were rewards from the tutorial, but they would have said something about switching systems if the immortal, the pure qi one if Logan¡¯s hunch was right, had not muted it. That intelligence stat seemed to be actually doing something. Standing up, Logan walked towards the first screen he saw. Time to pick out a reward. *** After looking through so many screens that Logan lost count, several rewards offered by the bad system had caught his eye. [Mana Elemental Minion] [Pure Mana Converter] [Eidetic Memory] [Qi Density Upgrade] [A Picture of the Cutest Cat You Have Ever Seen] [Double Max Mana] [System Upgrade (not to the ¡®bad¡¯ system, Logan)] [Random Summon] Logan had been interested in a few, since they stood out from the usual ¡°Legendary Sword¡± or ¡°Magic Armor.¡± Selecting one would give him a quick description of the selected reward. After reading the descriptions for the items, he managed to trim the amount of options down to three. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. [Pure Mana Converter] [A tier 9 legendary item that will allow you to convert any type of mana into pure mana. Conversion of mana will slightly decrease in density by removing impurities. This item will not work on mana of a higher tier/density than yours.] This one seems good, since I can¡¯t be sure if I can actually cultivate the pure qi from other qi types. I am fairly certain that I can cultivate that pure qi though, but it can¡¯t hurt to be safe. No idea why the bad system keeps calling qi ¡°mana¡± though. [Double Max Mana] [Double the amount of mana that can be stored in your core. This will not affect the difficulty of condensing your core, its size, or the density of your mana] More mana = good. Simple. [Random Summon] [Summon a creature that is loyal to you. The summoned being will bond with you as soon as it is summoned. The summoned being can be anything from a god to a mouse and everything in between.] Logan was intrigued by this because of the random aspect. He had always loved the unexpected and this could even give him a god! But there was always a chance he got a sentient speck of dust. That would be a lost opportunity to get an increase in maximum mana and the ability to convert qi to pure qi¡­ An hour passed. Two hours passed. Logan couldn¡¯t decide just what he would pick as his reward. All of the options were really good and he simply didn¡¯t know which one to pick. ¡°System, do you have a 3-sided die?¡± A ball with 3 faces carved into it was dropped into his hand. Each of the faces had a number engraved on the opposite side of them: one, two, and three. He cupped his hands and shook them for a bit before letting the die roll on the floor. When it stopped, the die had a 3 facing the sky. Shutting his eyes, Logan pushed the [Random Summon] button. *** Consciousness came slowly to Logan, whose eyes fluttered open and closed in a rapid series of blinks. [Mindworm: Logan Jr. III would like to bond with you.] [yes] [yes] Too tired to think of anything, Logan just clicked the [yes] button on the left. Immediately, all of the fog he didn¡¯t even know existed vanished from Logan¡¯s brain. ¡°Hiiii¡±, Logan heard in his brain. ¡°I¡¯m Logan Jr. III! I am going to be your mental assistant for the rest of your miserable, short life! :D!¡± ¡°What,¡± thought Logan to himself. He felt a presence in his brain make itself known. It was located in the back of his skull. ¡°Can you umm¡­¡± Logan thought for a second. ¡°Display yourself?¡± ¡°Sure!!¡± A pearlescent sphere appeared in front of him. A moment later it materialized eyes and a mouth. ¡°What''s your name? Haha just kidding! The system already told me, Logan! Tell me all about yourself. The system even said you are using a different system! How does it work? Tell me everything!¡± Logan felt a bit of squirming in the back of his skull and then the annoying voice of the mindworm could be heard again. ¡°Wow! You are delusional! I can¡¯t believe you managed to turn something from a fictional story into actual¡­ not skills, techniques! I think we will get along just fine!¡± Logan did not share the cruel creature¡¯s thoughts at all. It was way too creepy. ¡°Hey friendo! Check your notifications! Oh wait, I can do that for you!¡± The childish worm yelled into his mind. ¡°Mind quieting down in here? I¡¯m trying to process what happened,¡± Logan replied. Suddenly Logan knew what was in his notifications. The most recent one told him he was about to get transferred into the ¡®real¡¯ world. The system¡¯s count seemed slower than usual, though. ¡°That¡¯s me speeding up your brain speed! Thanks, I know I''m cool!¡± The world went black. At least, it tried to. ¡°Wow! Your system is great! I can even resist the other system¡¯s consciousness removal effect! Oops, remind me not to do that anym-¡± Transferring user Logan to planet Novis¡­ The world spun and collapsed on itself. Transfer complete. Chapter 11: The Real World ¡°The summoning of the demon was a success?¡± A gruff male voice filled the dark chamber. ¡°Weren¡¯t we trying to summon a spider demon?¡± Another male voice responded. Logan slowly widened his eyes and squinted, trying to get a better look of the room. They spoke in some language that wasn¡¯t from his world, but he instinctively understood it. They thought he was the broodmother he fought in the tutorial¡­ ¡°Hello,¡± Logan greeted them. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be summoning a broodmother, right?¡± ¡°Okay so do we¡­ attack it? It clearly isn¡¯t what we were trying to summon, I think,¡± Cultist 1 hesitantly said. ¡°Sure, but wouldn¡¯t this be a very powerful entity if it was able to hijack our summoning?¡± Cultist 2 responded. ¡°Nah, what am I talking about? This must be what happens when a ritual fails, an eighty percent success rate and whatnot.¡± ¡°Hey, Logan, my comrade pal buddy mate chum companion friendo, I don¡¯t think these guys think very highly of you! Want me to¡­ deal with them!?¡± Logan¡¯s friendly mindworm asked. ¡°Sure, why not,¡± he responded. Logan heard his own voice scream, ¡°BEHOLD MY GREATEST TECHNIQUE, THE TWIST OF FATE!!!¡± Both of the cultists collapsed, groaning. ¡°What did you do to them? I didn¡¯t see any qi used¡­ Also please don¡¯t call that my greatest technique,¡± Inquired Logan. A voice from the back of his skull replied in its usual cheery voice, ¡°I twisted their jewels, if you know what i mean, exactly two hundred thirty one degrees counterclockwise with my mind! Since they aren¡¯t worth your beautiful techniques! Great job on those by the way! Your memories are very boring though, you could have had a more eventful life for me!¡± The way too cheerful mindworm freaked Logan out. He chose to ignore it most of the time, but now it was just unnecessarily evil. Now that he thought about it, the mindworm never specified if it was good o- I¡¯m good! Those guys were evil, I swear! It even interrupted him sometimes. Truly the makings of a villain. ¡°I¡¯m going to kill you, you lucky bitch!¡± One of the cultists screamed. Lucky? Logan didn¡¯t remember being especially ¡®lucky,¡¯ and he honestly would rather take his chances at a new life in a different sect instead of being transported into the tutorial when he died. The cultist that shouted at him got up on shaky legs and pointed at him. According to the knowledge the system imparted at the beginning of the tutorial, cultists were people trying to end the world or some other kind of evil goal. Logan sent a heaven¡¯s descent at both of them, the little vortexes of qi sucking their innards out and spilling them on the floor in a gorey display of blood, screams, and qi. Logan felt a small presence on his ankle, and slowly looked down. The sight horrified him. A small spider was sitting on the bottom of his leg. Screaming, Logan created a qi void centered on it. *** Exiting the collapsed building, Logan looked around to see a small yet empty village. There were many houses with qi-enforced walls, mostly earth and wood qi. His spiritual sense told him that there were people in around one in four houses. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Logan went into one of the empty houses, and to his surprise there were three corpses on the floor. Logan¡¯s mindworm picked that moment to start screaming at him in his own voice. ¡°Hey Logan! Logan! LOGAN! There are footsteps leading to the window over there, and you can very faintly smell the direction in which the guy left! Kill him!¡± Deciding to avenge the dead people, the sight of whom Logan strangely didn¡¯t feel repulsed by, Logan pushed off the qi in the air with surprising ease, even though he needed to add some from his core to correct the density. Following the glowing trail in his vision, surely the mindworm¡¯s doing, Logan eventually found a man dressed entirely in black imitating a statue. He stood so still that Logan thought he saw the edges of the man¡¯s body fading into the world. Logan raised a hand and sent a few heaven¡¯s descents at him. For some reason, the man dressed in purple barely dodged at the last second, eyes bulged. ¡°Wha- how did you see me?¡± The murderer asked, ¡°I was using the invisibility skill! Nobody below level 200 should be able to sense me!¡± The man received a response in the form of a vortex of qi. He dodged again, only to be met with ten more coming towards him. He temporarily sped up his thought process to three hundred times his usual in order to look around and figure out a way to get away from this man. *** Master will surely kill me if I don¡¯t finish burning this village to the ground¡­ but at the same time, this¡­ this monster will get me first if I try to stay here. He might even be over level 200 if he saw me, and the way he used that powerful skill without a cooldown¡­ I¡¯ll have to use my teleport scroll. [300x thought speed has worn off] Felix tore the enchanted paper and the world collapsed on itself. [1x Teleportation Scroll has been consumed] Looking around, Felix noticed something strange. He had thought of his secret base as the location for the teleport, and this clearly wasn¡¯t it. He heard the system¡¯s usual chime in the back of his head. [:D] What? [Error¡­ Stronger syste- :D] An oddly cheerful voice read out the system¡¯s notification. Felix tried to open his inventory. [Inventory] Legendary [:D] Rare [T7 Su- Error: :D] [T5 La- Error: :D] Unco- :D [:D] [:D] C- :D :D :D Error¡­ System shutting down; source of error: [:D] WHAT THE FUCK!!! Felix kept screaming in his mind as he found that he couldn¡¯t open his mouth. Or do anything for that matter. He saw the world in gray and he realized this is what the world looked like when his thought process was sped up. The assassin reflected on his recent decisions. Then the less recent ones. After months of non stop thinking, Felix simply ran out of thoughts. And so, what seemed like years later, he emerged out of his trance with white hair and drool on his face. He screamed for a moment and collapsed on the ground, his brain dead. Plastered on his face was a smile resembling a capital letter D. *** Logan followed his unwanted yet helpful companion¡¯s instructions, following the bright green arrows hovering above his targets. One by one, they were all eliminated. He hovered down to the ground and began meditating. Qi was drawn into his core, now with higher efficiency even with the lesser density in the surroundings. The mindworm eliminated distractions, which Logan was thankful for. What Logan wasn¡¯t thankful for, on the other hand, was what the mindworm counted as distractions. Once his core was full, Logan opened his eyes. His cheek muscles were slightly sore from unknowingly holding up a wide smile. Crowded around him was a small group of people, all on their knees. ¡°O great mana god, please spare us!¡± What the fu- :D! No profanity! For the first time¡­ ever, really, Logan was at a loss for words.