Chapter 3: Traveling Cultivators
As William looked through the cultivation manuals, he heard the system speaking in his head.
"Cultivation techniques detected. Set [Nine Revolution Absorption] as the primary cultivation technique?"
William heard the system's voice and was surprised. He could do that too? Then, he thought of something and immediately replied.
"Yes."
"Your primary cultivation technique has been set to [Nine Revolution Absorption]"
He peeked into the status panel and confirmed his guess.
______________________________________
[William Reynolds]
[SP: 4]
[Cultivation Technique: Nine Revolution Absorption]
[Cultivation Level: None] [+]
[Spiritual Force: 0/0]
[Strength: 11] [+]
[Speed: 8] [+]
[Agility: 11] [+]
[Spirit 10:] [+]
[Will: 8] [+]
[Techniques Learned:]
[Farming (Novice)] [Cooking (Novice)] [Beast Taming (Initiation)]
_______________________________________
"System, how much will it cost to increase my cultivation level?"
"You'll need 10 SP to increase your cultivation to the first stage of the spirit foundation realm."
"...of course."
William looked at his miniscule 4 SP and sighed. Why was it so hard to get more SP? From his initial 55, it has now dwindled down to this tiny amount. Maybe he shouldn't have used all that SP on his attributes.
Just as he was contemplating how to get more money, he heard the voice of the system.
"Once the system is upgraded to level three, you won't have these kinds of problems."
William was skeptical.
"What do you mean by that?" He asked.
"Figure it out yourself."
William rolled his eyes. How would 4 SP be enough for an upgrade? Since the system was so unreliable, he might as well try to cultivate by himself. If that didn't work, he could always complete the gold coin quest and upgrade the system later.
He looked through the cultivation manual again, paying more attention. After he was sure he knew what to do, William sat down on his bed in a cross legged position, closing his eyes.
Focusing, William controlled his breathing in a certain way and stayed still. As he did so, he could feel a faint energy flowing into his body. It was a strange feeling, as he could feel parts of his body heating up as the energy passed.
As he tried to remember the feeling, he felt the energy suddenly disperse, and he opened his eyes.
"What happened?"
"You need to pay close attention to your breathing, or the cultivation technique won't work." William heard the voice of the system once more.
William looked into the air.
"You can help me with my cultivation too?"
"I have scanned all the books you brought back, so my knowledge is at least sufficient to guide you through the first three stages."
Knowing that the system knew more than him, William followed its instructions and paid more attention this time. Finding that the energy didn't disappear this time, William focused on the second part of the cultivation technique.
In the second part, he had to create a stream of energy and revolve this energy in a specific pattern around his whole body nine times in a row. Only after he did that would his cultivation rise.
He continued the breathing pattern, and this time, instead of letting the energy flow into his body, he tried to control it to gather. However, this wasn't easy, as the more energy he gathered, the harder and harder it became to control it. Plus, the book wasn't extremely specific about how to go about collecting this energy, it just told him to concentrate and attempt it.
Still, with some help from the system, he found himself getting the hang of it. After a while, he could gather enough energy to cycle it around his body once. However, after that, he would run out of energy to use and would have to start over.
Deciding that was enough for today, William opened his eyes and looked out the window.
"How is it already nighttime?"
Realizing it was late, William quickly ate a piece of bread he got from the inventory and crawled into his bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
...
The following few days, William's schedule was monotonous. Wake up, go to work, get home, check on the rooster, cultivate, go to sleep. Of course, he didn't forget to collect some silver coins while he was doing this, since he would need the money eventually.
Several days later, William woke up early, sitting on his bed and stretching.
"Yawwnn..."
Getting out of bed, William sat cross-legged on the floor to cultivate. Recently, he could almost complete the last revolution, so he was really excited. Just the other day, he had gotten halfway through the ninth revolution before he ran out of energy. Because of this, he had a good feeling about today, so he woke up early.
Even after concentrating and collecting the energy until he felt like he was full, William continued to try, gathering as much energy as he could. When he felt a throbbing pain in his head, William stopped gathering energy and slowly controlled it to travel around his body. He forced it to travel in a cycle through his arms, legs, and head. After reaching the ninth revolution and sensing that there was still a lot of energy left, William was excited, but he controlled his emotions and continued cultivating. Just then, he heard a loud sound from outside, which sounded like the ringing of a bell.
"DOOONNGGG!"
"What happened?"
The bell in the village was never rung unless there was something good happening, or the village was under attack. As he was contemplating this, his control over the energy suddenly wavered, and William quickly returned to control it.
However, with that small distraction, the stream of energy in his body suddenly dissipated.
"NOOO!"
William banged his hand on the wall in frustration. He was so close! Gritting his teeth, he went outside to see what had happened.
When he walked out the door, he could see several villagers looking both excited and nervous, and they all headed towards the north side of the village.
Following the crowd, William arrived amongst a group of villagers looking at two people in a carriage. Villagers handed them copper coins, and they would be returned with some strange herbs William had never seen before.
He tapped the shoulder of a friend to ask what was happening. They explained that these two cultivators had arrived at the village to sell excess cultivation resources they didn't need anymore.
"Why would they sell their cultivation resources?"
His friend explained again. "These cultivators are in the spirit condensation realm, so the low level resources for cultivation in the spirit foundation realm are basically useless to them now. Therefore, they are selling them to buy something better."
"They told you this?"
"They shared this with the village leader, and he told us before they arrived."
After making some small talk with his friend, William came closer to the cultivators to see what they were selling. When he arrived, he saw one cultivator, a fat teen in a green coat, explaining the properties of an herb to some villagers.
"This stalk of a spirit gathering herb is a great resource for those in the foundation building realm, as the pure energy contained in it can be very helpful to your cultivation, and it won't hurt your foundation at all! In fact, this is an immensely popular herb for cultivators in big cities, and there was even a case where a cultivator at the first stage of the spirit foundation realm raised his cultivation several stages using this herb, reaching the seventh stage with a single stalk!"
After several more rounds of singing endless praises for the herb, a villager finally came up to ask for the price of the herb.
"I don't ask for much, and actually, this price is very reasonable! I will be selling this herb for just sixty copper coins!"
William thought about this in his head. An average villager here made about 5-7 copper coins a day, so this was 10 days' worth of money. However, the villagers still had to pay for food and water, so this still seemed like a bit too much.
The villager that asked about the price looked hesitant, and they eventually said, "I can only afford to give you forty-one copper coins, since this is all the money I have saved up. Is that acceptable...?" They then lifted a pouch, which presumably contained forty-one copper coins.
Even though the price had dropped by nearly a third, the fat cultivator looked excited to get the money.
"That's okay, it's perfectly acceptable to me!" the cultivator said enthusiastically.
William watched as the cultivator nearly forced the money out of the man's and hand threw the herb at him like it was trash.
William rolled his eyes. Couldn't the cultivator at least hide the fact that he was excited to get the money?
Suddenly, he heard the fat cultivator talking again.
"Hey, little brother! I can see you've just started cultivating. How about you buy this herb from me! I guarantee that you'll reach the first stage of the spirit foundation realm in a few months!"
William turned to see the fat cultivator pointing to himself. William pointed a finger at himself and looked up.
"Are you talking to me?"
The fat cultivator nodded and walked over to him. He patted William's shoulder and showed him a bright yellow herb.
"Since my cultivation is in the spirit condensation realm now, I can easily sense that you have no cultivation, but there are traces of spiritual energy in your body! These are clear signs that you've started to cultivate! This mind cleansing herb will help you concentrate and gather more energy, speeding up your cultivation! And I'm selling this for only fifty copper coins!"
Many of the older villagers sighed, thinking that another young man would get fooled out of their money today. However, William didn't care. Now that he had more than one hundred silver coins, he was basically rich.
William gave the cultivator a silver coin. "Can you recommend some other things that might be useful to me?"
The fat cultivator looked surprised for a moment, but they quickly grabbed the money out of William's hand.
"Yes, of course!"
The fat cultivator looked excited and led him into the carriage. Meanwhile, all the villagers outside rolled their eyes, wondering both where the young man got all his money from, and why he was so foolish.
Inside the carriage, William looked around and noticed a pile of herbs that was being sorted by another cultivator, who was a thin teen.
"Fletcher, show this guy the herbs we have!"
Fletcher, the thin cultivator, looked surprised.
"Ryan, you're not supposed to let anyone in!"
He grabbed the fat cultivator's arm and dragged him away.
The pair conversed in the corner, but Ryan talked so loudly it didn't really make a difference.
"Dude, come on! This guy's rich! He could buy out our whole carriage!"
Fletcher rolled his eyes and sneaked a glance at William, who was pretending to be looking at the herbs.
"Him? He looks like a country bumpkin without a single gold coin!" he whispered.
"What do you mean? He even gave me a silver coin so I could recommend him some herbs!"
Ryan showed Fletcher the coin William gave him. After some convincing, they both stood up and William pretended he was still looking at the herbs.
"So, what's your name?" asked Ryan.
"William."
"So, you're William! Let me show you some of the herbs we have!"
The fat cultivator led him towards the herbs and started introducing them with all kinds of flattering descriptions.
William rolled his eyes, but he still listened to the introductions, looking for herbs that could help him cultivate. These people were desperate for money, but they seemed reliable to him, so he didn't think they would exaggerate the effect of an herb too much.
After picking a bunch of herbs that would be helpful to him, William handed over a grand total of fifty silvers to the cultivators.
William noticed Ryan getting excited about the money again, and while Fletcher did a good job hiding it, William's experience in interacting with people made it easy to see his excitement as well.
Curious, he asked, "What do you need all this money for?"
Before Fletcher could say anything, Ryan had already responded.
"We're going to participate in an auction."
Fletcher threw his hands into the air and complained.
"Ryan, why did you tell him!?"
"Why not? It's not a secret."
"What happens if the others find out about this auction through him!"
"They probably know about this already, there's no point in hiding this anymore. Now, we can only hope the money we get is enough to buy that item."
Fletcher gave up and got out of the carriage.
"Do whatever you want."
William looked at Ryan, wondering if he had driven a wedge between the two friends.
"Don't worry, he'll be back to normal soon enough," Ryan reassured.
After a brief moment of silence, William asked, "So what was that about an auction?"
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