Settling in

John sat on the ground as he waited, time passed slowly because of his excitement. He waited for what seemed to be forever in the dim lighting of the cave, many people passed him but even after an hour no one had come for him.

He continued to sit on the floor, unbeknown to him, the gravity around him was getting more and more powerful. He entered a trance as hours turned to days, he slowly sunk into the ground and as he remained seated, his muscles grew several times denser and he started to see a river of energy flowing through the air. This was unlike any other he had seen as it was made of pure power, unlike elemental energy which was riddled with complexity.

He unconsciously started to draw this energy towards himself, it was unbelievably slow as the energies resistance was incomparably larger than that of elemental energy. The more he drew in the more his body started to be filled by it. Only a small bit dispersed through his body at first strengthening and refining it as he continued, most of the energy congregated around his heart. As it kept gathering and condensing it started to become more pure and slowly started to reform his heart.

Even though the process he went through was standard in the beginning as it continued it started to diverge from normal standards. A sort of red, hot and pride filled energy gathered as wells for also fused with the heart, but unlike the other energy this one made alterations to the structure.

He felt extreme agony as his heart started to heat up it burned anything in its radius. After all his organs had melted down into a liquid, it started to gather and enter the newly formed heart.

The blood started to pump through his veins, his organs started to grow back as well at an even high quality than before. His muscles also started to get refined much faster and became more pure.

After his body had reformed its self, he opened his eyes and took in a deep breath. He soon was approached by a burly man that stood well over 7 feet tall and his muscle bulged under his shirt as he walked to John.

"I see that you have finally at your first true step on the path of cultivation, it will get easier as you progress more. Any ways follow me and you will become a true member of the body sect". The man then started to walk away, John panicked and quickly ran after him.

The traveled for numerous more minutes into the depths of the cave system, he felt the heat rise and felt an immense primal joy well up deep inside him causing him to feel right at home in the caves.

While John was in deep thought they traveled deep into the caves and had arrived at their destination quickly. As John saw the man stop he was drawn back out of his thoughts.

"This is the storage room as a beginning disciple you can only get one train method for each of your centers of power". The man said as he lead John to a table gesturing for him to sit and then the man left for deeper into the storage room.

After a few minutes the man returned with techniques fitting for beginning disciples. There were dozens of scrolls per pile except for the mind pile there were only a few in that stack. One pile for his body, one for his mind, and one for his energy. Each of the scrolls had theirs benefits and flaws, even so after a couple minutes he had narrowed the piles down to only a few in body and energy and two in the mind pile.

After some more consideration he finally had decided on the techniques he wanted. Each of them were for up to the third level which allowed for him to easily cultivate up to the third level. He had asked the guy earlier about it and he said that John was on the initial realm, which was followed by the first to the fifth and then one would ascend to a different higher world that was stronger.

The body strengthening technique he ended up choosing was called draconic awakening this technique imitated beasts strengthening techniques, as it slowed the user to amass energy in their body and increase its purity after a certain threshold is met with usually took pretty long to reach.

The energy gathering technique he chose was called divine congregation which allowed for one to use all the elements in order to boost the users body past what the normal strength is permanently, but each use would take days to recover from as the user let the energy run rampant through the body, which strengthened after it healed.

And the mind technique he decided on was called the sea of refinement, this technique allowed the user to not only craft equipment better but also increases the strength of his mental concentration and spells.

After he had chosen, the man told John to follow him again. This time they went up a few levels and he was shown the trading hall, eating hall, all the training areas available for him and the guild hall with all the available missions he could take. Then he was given a key and his mark was updated with a map of the guild and he was told to find the room the key was for.

Once he found the room he new he could finally relax and immediately passed out on the bed. When he woke up he took his surroundings and notice that it was like an studio apartment but with more than just a bed, kitchen, bathroom and living room. It had all those and a training area attached to it, that had a higher energy concentration and reinforced walls.

After he had looked around for a while he finally realized that he was hungry but had no money on him, so he decided to start looking for a quick mission to do for some quick cash.