Chapter 41: Chapter 41 – Overcultivation

Carl spat out air gasping in pain.

From his temple, crimson blood suddenly shot out like a faucet releasing a mixture of blood and mana.

"Heeek!"

Sitting on the cold cave floor, Carl suddenly lost strength. He slowly saw his sight fall down and he felt his body fall to the ground.

He blinked his eyes but his sight became pixelated before turning back to normal. He also heard screeching noises in his mental sphere, which thrived with the throbbing pain in his temples.

"What is happening!" he was heard groaning in pain and anger.

With his eyes bloodshot, Carl was now crawling across the ground, apparently almost immobile. With each centimeter, he dug his nails on the ground but they started to resemble more like claws. But he was too much in pain to notice. It actually felt like he was hallucinating.

His body was roaring and panting hard.

Currently it's like half of his back had just shattered. Blood also was pouring out of his nose, mouth, and even his eyes and ears. His crimson blood glowed with shining hue of the moonlight.

"Fuck it, why is this happening?"

Carl honestly did not know why he ended up this way.

But as time went on, he was able to get calmer and view the situation more rationally. And only then did he realize where he was. His pained face changed for the first time.

"Huh?"

It was strange, but for some reason, it felt like he had almost forgotten why he was inside somewhere this dark. Only when he seen the hints of burned wood, he remembered everything.

'That's right. I entered a state of cultivation, but that…it's not like, it's not normal?"

Carl gathered some of his strength and leaned against the wall as a support. He wiped the beads of sweat running down his forehead, and forced his eyelids open that kept trying to close.

Carl focused and tried to answer his thoughts.

His hands were still trembling. His eyes were itchy and bloodshot. His temples were throbbing in pain, and the taste of iron on his mouth felt fresh.

Carl had a deep frown on his face.

'Was I attacked while I was cultivating? But I don't see any hints, and only low-level monsters incapable of magic are here.'

Ignoring that, Carl closed his eyes for a moment to check his Centers of Power, and he felt stunned. His eyes were shaking. His heart was racing, and he did not know if it's because of the pain or joy?

'My centers of power… had advanced?'

Carl was looking incredibly tired. His face was ashen, half-closed and completely red as if he had woken up from the most horrible nightmare of his life.

But despite this, his Centers of power had expanded and grown tempered with new coating. They had all been drained like an empty dam of water, but there were no doubt they had all improved.

'Rank 1 mana pool, rank 1 mental sphere, and rank 1 body, higher tier. How could it be this fast?'

Without moving, Carl could only hear his breathing. He stayed still for a long while.

He had also spotted the entrance of the cave and saw there was sunlight coming in. It seemed like he cultivated the entire night.

Carl only looked at this, and tried to remember something from the past. Something he read in his former world.

The image of the dusty shelves filled with books and antiques in an old castle study popped onto his mind. That was the study he met a female elder that led him to the secret of transmigration.

But before that, he was scavenging through the old books, and had encountered a certain book written by the same author who wrote the other books in the study.

"I think it was Gerard Luz."

Gerard Luz - In his former world, he was the owner of the castle Carl last explored into, the author of the books in the study. But what made Carl remember him so much was the disturbing human experimentation he did as a mage. Apparently he was also the partner of the female elder.

Carl tried remembering more details of the pages of the books he read, and soon found the pages he was looking for.

The pages detailed the results of a certain human experimentation called the theory of overcultivation.

'Overcultivation… is that what just happened?' Carl gulped.

For some reason, it felt like he was right.

One of the general rules of the state of cultivation was that:

One's state of cultivation varies from man to man and from rank to rank. The rules of the world were simple. If you were not capavle, one could never dive too deep onto the ocean to the point of no return otherwise they would drown.

It was due to this that the one's instincts although not ordered would always send an alarm to the mind and unconsciously move the body in an attempt to get out of the dangerous situation immediately as possible.

The state of drowning reacts similarly to how one should approach cultivating their Centers of Power.

One could never dive too deep. This was basic knowledge.

But most cultivators never had to think about this. It was natural.

The body and mind was always in tune with each other, and in the face of danger, even if the minds haven't processed anything yet, the body would always react swiftly and save the day.

Since humans discovered the trance of cultivation, cultivators cultivated their Centers of Powers, absorbing world mana, until their instincts told them to just stop.

But for some reason, that didn't happen today. According to the book pages read on the past, that was called overcultivation.

Gerard Luz termed it Overcultivation, an anomaly that goes beyond the limitations set by the world.

During a state of cultivation, the cultivator becomes too detached of himself and merges with the world they temporarily become immune to the actions of their instincts.

The cultivator lets a certain desire in them take over their systen in order to cultivate at a higher realm than they should be capable of.

If the cultivator survived the process, they will see valuable results than their peers. But if they dove too deep, they could end up destroying themselves in the process.

Gerard Luz experimented on the effects of cultivation and he found out that most subjects usually end up dead at the first time. For those that did not, they would be more powerful than before.

Calming down, Carl knew he just experienced the latter.