A pile of dust could be seen on the ground, it was the remains of the spirit stone that Zhang Dong had absorbed. He noticed that not every lower grade spirit stone gave him exactly ten points, they mostly ranged from seven to ten while the middle graded one gave him a hundred times that amount a pop. He now had quite enough points to spend on the crafting abode upgrade along with the tranquil mind skill which he did. He felt a slight migraine as the knowledge got injected into his brain once more, the process getting less painful each time.
The first thing he did after that was going to the ground, spring water around. He started cultivating this skill, hoping that it would relieve the stress he was feeling. He took a long breath then exhaled, his breathing slowing down as his body relaxed. His bodily functions slowed along with his breathing, the noises beside him getting quieter with each passing moment. He felt his spiritual energy inside his body, moving through his meridians. His mind was getting clearer with each passing moment, he was becoming one with the surroundings if someone were to enter they would have a hard time spotting him even if they were looking directly at him.
There wasn’t anything grand happening, not flashy effects taking place. Matt just sat there, his breathing was nonexistent at this point as his head was void of any thoughts. He didn’t feel fearful, angry or spiteful, he managed to reach a state of tranquility. He opened his eye, the day had turned to night as he stood up and looked outside. The city was covered in yellow lights, the springs were giving off a greenish hue as the light bounced off them.
“Well, it did calm me down.”
He felt the stress levels declining significantly after he was done with his cultivating, even after he recalled the death of the man he slew, he still felt relaxed.
“I don’t feel any different…”
He placed his thumb to his chin while doing a test, he recalled the night that the had with the busty cultivator. His lower area reacted to the stimulation, showing him that he still felt emotions. Asking your little brother was the proper way to get a feel for your emotions, yes…
“Hm, maybe it works more on negative emotions.”
He wondered if he would be harder to anger now, but he would need to face an opponent to see if this technique would affect his fighting potential. Keeping calm under pressure was quite the big deal, he felt a lot calmer than before.
There were some things that he wanted to do, first buy the crafting abode, then see how well he could craft the earth ranked weapons. He also wanted to get his body tempering up a notch and then try to enhance his cultivation skill to the advanced version. With those boosts, he should probably be able to fight people even stronger than at the late stage of core formation. He had a month’s time till the Patriarch ceremony was supposed to happen, so he had enough time to test things out.
After buying the abode he entered it, it had increased in size and he noticed that there were some other things he could do now. He could edit the items now, he could also reforge old ones. For instance, if he created a high grade sword, he could reforge it with some materials like the beast cores that would improve the advanced grade and add special effects. He did some tests on the cheap common grade items, he could keep boosting the weapon past an A+ into an S grade after that it would jump a grade. So he could well just keep upgrading one weapon that he liked, instead of forging new ones in the hopes of getting the stats he wanted.
He also needed a real weapon, he saw the limitations that his sword skill had if he paired it against an earth graded weapon. Also, he needed to constantly use up spirit energy to keep it going.
“A shame though, it’s super cool looking.”
He lamented that he had to give up on one of his favorite skills, who didn’t like playing around with laser swords?
“Wait there might be a way though…”
He thought about something, what if he could find a weapon that he could combine his thunderligh sword skill. He started scrolling through the many sword diagrams he could get and after a while found something that could work. It was a longsword, it had some dragon patterns in the hilt while the blade looked to be made from some semi-transparent metal or crystal. The thing about it was that in theory it was supposed to absorb external sword skills letting the blade have a second form. So if you pumped in fire Qi into it, it would start forming a flame sword.
He bought it, but even just the schematics cost him about 10 thousand points as it was an earth grade weapon. He wanted to try crafting right there and then, but then he looked at the costs of the resources that had increased by quite a bit. He needed to dump at least 60 thousand into making one weapon so if he failed he would be losing quite a lot. He recalled the prices for earth grade weapons on the low end and they sold for about two thousand spirit stones up to four thousand, he would need to make a middle graded one just to break even.
*I bet this rhythm game will just get harder, I had it easy with the previous ones because my cultivation was already high. I should upgrade my cultivation technique and my body tempering before doing this.*
He had decided on upgrading his cultivation instead of buying a new one later, he was already used to it so changing midway could be detrimental. He pulled out one of the weapons he got from fighting the enemy clan members, it was a lower graded earth weapon. He started absorbing it as he did previously with the other weapons, it took longer as this was a higher graded weapon but even with just one it pushed his cultivation of the great circle to 40%. His eyes gleamed as he took out another weapon moving his cultivation up to 80%, his silvery body started changing color slightly as it started looking somewhat golden.
He took out another lower graded earth weapon, it slowly started dissolving into liquid metal and getting fused with his body. This time around the change was different. Many cracks could be seen on his body, they looked like spiderwebs. The sound was akin to steel bending and breaking as chunks of the first layer of his silvery skin started peeling off and drooping to the ground. The process took a while but afterward, his skin started gleaming with a golden hue.
He was drenched in sweat, the golden luster subsiding after a while. Matt started poking his body, trying to feel if anything was different but couldn’t really tell. He should be sturdier now but he needed to test it out first. The bow that he had as a middle-grade weapon, plus he had the Tsai Patriarch’s saber which was also a middle graded weapon. He had absorbed three lower-tier weapons that were the flying swords of the weaker cultivators he fought. He still had that fire spear though, so he took it out.
*Okay, hope this works…*
Matt grasped the spear closer to the pointed tip and pointed it at his hand. He then started pushing it into his palm, trying to check if it could pierce his now improved golden body. In theory, he should be able to tank the hits and to his surprise, the spear wasn’t able to cut him. He tested it further, poking himself harder not getting more than a scratch. Then he took out the saber that was used against him previously and poked the tip with his finger. This weapon was a grade higher so after some poking he got cut, blood run onto the weapon while he pulled his hand away. The small cut healed itself rather quickly, showing that his body tempering technique wasn’t just about defense there was some added regeneration involved.
He looked inside his storage ring, in it, he had three middle-grade weapons and 3 lower graded earth weapons, this wouldn’t get him past to the middle stage but he didn’t really want those weapons he wanted to craft one of his own for use.
*Man, this is one expensive technique… though the good thing about it is, that it’s fast to level up if you have the resources.*
He absorbed the rest of the weapons and then left his crafting abode, for the time being, it was time to upgrade his cultivation technique. The bathing area looked like a good place to do this, the walls were enhanced to keep the spiritual energy inside and the water in there was rich in Qi. Plus he could open up the ceiling to take in any incoming lightning strikes, he sure hoped his new neighbors wouldn’t mind some thunderous weather though.
In the middle of the pool, there was a platform to sit on, it was directly under the roof that could be opened and was probably used by the previous Patriarch to cultivate. Matt didn’t know if the process would be painful or not, so he hesitated before clicking the Empowered Lightning Qi Cultivation upgrade and gulping afterward. The moment he did that, information started rushing into his brain again but this time around it was quite a bit more painful. Lightning energy started forming around him making rumbling sounds, the Qi inside of his body started getting switched out. The pale blue lightning that he used changed to a deeper blue color as you could see it getting discharged into the surroundings.
The upgrade cleansed his body from some impurities that were formed during the cultivation of a lesser graded method, making his sweat glands push out dark looking goo in the process. The usual vomiting of black blood soon followed, but it was a lot less than what happened when he first arrived in this world. The change was more or less contained and he managed to not pass out in the process.
Matt stood up and gathered some Qi into his fist, throwing a punch upwards into the opened ceiling and watching as his lightning attack got discharged. He sure felt a lot stronger now, he felt that he might be able to battle that volcano construct without needing to change into his avatar form and win. That monster battle power was in the upper echelons of the late stage, maybe on the cusp of getting into the great circle. In theory, he should be equal with core formation experts in the great circle realm, if he reached the late-stage himself he should be able to tussle with multiple of such opponents at once. He had the tropy cultivation art that broke the level boundaries, maybe if he upgraded it further he could go up against a weaker early-stage nascent soul cultivator.
About a day had passed since he got to this room, but he didn’t really feel like leaving just yet as he started to get into the zone with his cultivation. He decided to sit down and gather up some energy, the process was more or less the same but the upgraded cultivation technique showed him a way to purify the energies in the surroundings even more. The purer the Qi he absorbed, the stronger he would be and this wasn’t even the final form of this technique. Soon the sky turned black and lightning bolts rained into his cultivation/bathing chamber. The clan members thought they were getting attacked but after Zhang Jin went to check up, they noticed that it was their Patriarch to be. They could feel the terrifying energy fluctuations coming out of his chambers so there weren’t willing to bother him to stop, the storm clouds only remained directly above the main building and thanks to the reinforced cultivation chamber the thunderous sounds were somewhat contained.