Chapter 3: Chapter 3 - Forest training
I cultivated for hours. When I reached the stage three of soldier, I was drenched in sweat but outside of that I felt amazing. My body felt quick, light and very strong.
I remembered that I needed to get a weapon to complete my goal.
"System can I use second shop thing to obtain a polearm?"
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Sure, you can.
Do you want system to find an optimal choice for you?
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"Yes please, I would like something that I can use right away but will last indefinitely if possible. And please make it so it is not going to try eat me, devour my soul or something like that. I want a safe weapon that will last!"
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System suggests: 'Dragon soul'
Dragon soul – A pitch black naginata with a silver eastern dragon running from the back of the hilt to the tip of the blade.
Enhances cultivation speed
Kill monster or people to unlock more features
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"Hmm ok give it to me!"
A naginata appeared in my lap.
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Weapon 'dragon soul is trying to forge a contract with you!
Do you accept?
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"Yes!"
After a moment I could feel a strong connection in my soul. I could feel the weapon via the connection. I smiled and spoke.
"Dismiss!" Weapon disappeared in a puff of black smoke.
"Come!" I could see the small cloud of black smoke forming close to my hand, I grabbed it and I could feel the handle of my weapon I instinctively gabbed it with my second hand and moved it. As I was moving it the weapon started appearing from the black smoke.
As I was trying this I noticed a tattoo of naginata on my inner forearm.
"Is this some kind of mark of my contract with the weapon system?"
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Yes, it is a mark that signifies that you have contract with a soul weapon.
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I nodded my head. "Ok, thanks. Now onto next thing, I completed my goal by getting this weapon, didn't I? And I received some shop points, didn't I?"
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Yes, indeed you completed your goal and you have 500 SP now
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"Ok can you get me a clothing that is not in shambles please?"
A simple gray Hanfu appeared in front of me together with matching boots. I quickly changed and smiled. To my surprise it did not remove any SP.
"Why it didn't cost any SP?"
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I didn't want to charge for something so trivial so I gave you a little one-time discount!
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"Thank you, that's very nice of you. Ok, now tell me what techniques I can use those vouchers on? And is it safe to use them now or should I save them for later?"
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It's pretty safe to use one but I would save the second one!
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I nodded. "Exactly what I thought. Show me what skills I can choose from please!"
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Inspection
Sky step
…
Invisibility
….
Danger sense
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I perused the skills and their description and the spoke. "Invisibility please!"
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Invisibility Grade V acquired.
Invisibility – Cloaks host and prevents him from being seen, heard or smelled and covers your presence. Drains stamina continuously while active. Ineffective on cultivators that are more than two full ranks above you.
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Simple but very effective. I can think of many uses for this, it is not even funny. Ok now let's check our next goal and go from there.
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Goals:
Perform polearm routine 10000 times (preview) 0/10000
Perform hand to hand combat routine 10000 times (preview) 0/10000
Hunt an animal 0/1
Rewards:
Shop points 1000
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I shook my head and took a deep breath. I will start tomorrow I need to get some sleep today. I lied down in my little burrow and slept. It was pretty rough to sleep just on the bunch of leaves but I managed and it was better than nothing. Next day I started the day with by eating berries and herbs all around me and drinking some water. After that I watched preview for my polearm routine. It looked like dance filled with stabs and slashes, it was very showy and beautiful but also very deadly.
I started to do the routine, at first, I was doing it with the preview running just repeating what I saw but over time I was doing it by heart just with muscle memory without the preview.
I started to worry when I saw that first the routine took more than 20 seconds but as I was getting better at it the time it took to perform also went down. I ended up at comfy 5 seconds per routine. It took something over two days to complete all 10 000 routines. But my martial art Takaokami's wrath went from Initiate all the way to Beginner Rank 3. I was pretty happy with my progress so I decided to check out the second routine.
I checked the routine and this one had entirely different vibe. This one was very efficient, to the point, without any big showy moves. It felt dangerous and straight to the point. Again, I needed the running preview for first few hundred repeats but after I could do that that on my own.
Two and a half day later I completed the second routine. After I was done and I reached Beginner rank 3 I got a surprise. I received a technique. It was called 'dragon claws' . It manifested two daggers made out of pure ice Qi in my hands. Special think about them was that whenever I stopped providing Qi they turned into little puddle of water in second.
I played with them for a moment and after that I tried to perform the second routine with them, and if before I felt dangerous and deadly while doing that. Now it felt like I was trying to be an assassin. I don't know why but it felt like the only point of those moves was to ambush and kill somebody before they notice you.
The first felt noble, showy and strong. I felt like a paladin protecting the weak performing it. They really were an exact opposite of each other. The most interesting part was that I started to notice places where I can seamlessly transition one into the other without missing a beat.
'Truly scary manuals.'
I thought with a smile. But after that I realized that there is still one thing, I need to do to complete my goal. I needed to hunt an animal.
I had some quick food in form of berries, roots and herbs. All of them either tasted like shit to begin with or were starting to taste bad sine I eaten them so often, so I was also pretty happy to go hunting. It is going to be welcome change to have meat instead of shitty herbs and berries.
After that I drank some water and went on my first hunting expedition. I tested my invisibility and I could maintain it for 10 minutes before getting absolutely exhausted so I was not willing to use it before I saw my target.
It took me a while to find my target and not scare it before I could activate invisibility. It was a doe that was feeding on the undergrowth I quickly activated my invisibility and started to close in on it. Once I stood right next to it, she raised her head as if feeling danger but that was a signal for me to act. I used my naginata to strike her neck and before it could do anything I was carrying it towards my burrow.
"System I will need something to make fire and a knife! Can you give me something from shop?"
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1SP deducted
1x hunting knife provided
1x firestarter provided
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"What the fuck is firestart... Thanks for giving me guide on how to use is directly. So, it's a tool into which I just have to channel my Qi and then it works like a lighter. Cool."
I nodded satisfied and strapped a knife and Firestarter tool to my belt as I walked towards my burrow with doe on my back.
When I arrived next to my burrow, I started fire with my tool and dried of branches I gathered around the burrow. After that I started to butcher the doe. It was not going very well but I was able to have a meat for dinner that day, and that was what counted.
After this I received the quest to reach rank one corporal with my cultivation and this was when I realized that cultivating is not that easy. Even with my system helping it started to go slow, very slow, I asked the system how I was able to jump to soldier three in one sitting and corporal goes so slowly. Answer was that it was thanks to my constitution, it prevented me from cultivating until I was adult but it gave a huge initial boost to cultivating speed until Soldier 3, and a rather decent one after that. And also, every rank needs more and more Qi in order to complete so cultivating in the middle of forest with no resources is not going to cut it after reaching corporal.
Weekly Power Status
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