Arts of Creation

A year passed slowly as Lucius studied steadily, increasing his strength and knowledge greatly. He had already finished refining all of his strands of qi and bringing his basketball sized qi ocean to the size of a ping pong ball, a qi lake. However, since he should have a qi sea sized (tennis ball sized) qi core instead he began to gather and refine more qi so he could fill it up to the desired size. This would mean that he would have an exorbitant amount of qi once he entered the qi condensation stage and it would be of extremely high density and purity. He had also been following the Body Refining arts properly and reached the middle stage of the Hide realm. The Body Refining section of the Cosmological Arts was a method of best utilising one muscles to train. This could be different for different environments and so this part was quite expansive as training in a lake was different from training in a magma lake. It encompassed all environments and especially emphasised the benefits that different environments could bring in strengthening his cultivation once he had passed the first boundary. It also told him of many 'Body Refining Treasures' which were pills, elixirs and various spiritual environments (such as the 'Flaming Life Spirit Pond' or the 'Earthly Strength Pill'), and the most optimal way to utilise these resources. Lucius had also been growing tier 1 produce and cooking various dishes with them. Dishes that could cure a cold, that could invigorate someone before a battle and other various types but mostly dishes that could help with his cultivation. He had also gained a grasp over all the weapons he was being trained in and became quite good at fighting. Although he never actually got a hit on his father in a spar, his strength, speed and precision had increased greatly.

As time passed Lucius was approaching his seventh birthday, only a week away now, and he had begun to breakthrough to the next stage of qi condensation. His qi core had already expanded to the size of a tennis ball over the last year. It shone brightly with a deep white lustre, like a brilliantly glowing pearl that spread it's light through a sea of darkness. He was now attempting to condense his qi sea into a qi pond as the Cosmological Art required a qi pond instead of a qi lake like normal methods of energy cultivation would require. He focused his mind on his dantian and began to circulate the qi rushing inside him, from the formation that Orion had enabled, and slowly churned the qi throughout his body from his head to his toes. He started building up momentum and power as the rushing strands merged and became a stream and then a river that encompassed his entire body that began to contract as Lucius refined this river at a speed he had honed after a full 2 years of refining qi. He pulled the river that had now become a band of bright white qi and had it swirl around his qi sea, refining it even further as it sped up around the qi sea. It continued to contract even after touching the qi sea, pulling it tight as the spinning of the band caused the qi sea to spin too as it slowly got smaller. After 5 hours of the band spinning the qi sea had condensed by a full centimetre. Lucius had broken through to the first layer of the Qi Condensation stage.

Lucius usually celebrated his birthday a day before the actual day so that he could focus that entire day on the new room he had unlocked in the Garden and so on his seventh birthday he arrived promptly at the Art of Creation room, opening the door and stepping in. He noticed that the room was actually divided into three segments with even more doors and such behind each segment. His mother appeared in front of him and began explaining.

" Welcome Lucy, to the Arts of Creation room. The room is split into three for the three main subjects of creation, alchemy, blacksmithing and symbolry. Symbolry is the most vital out of the three as the other two actual use symbolry within them. This encompasses formations, talisman creation and runes. Alchemy encompasses creating pills that can heal, poison and increase your cultivation. Blacksmithing encompasses creating artefacts that are either, offensive, defensive or auxiliary in nature. For the next year you will learn the basics of alchemy and blacksmithing, refining pills and artefacts at the second tier, while also studying the basics of symbolry and learning tier 2 talisman creation and formation creation. Runes can only be created once your cultivation reaches the second boundary. "

Acacia then guided Lucius into the alchemy section. It was a pearl white room as always with a 10 metre tall oak coloured bookshelf with 10 layers , each a metre tall, that was filled to the brim with books on the left side of the room. The bottom shelf was labelled tier 1 and this continued upwards until the top shelf that was tier 10. In the centre of the room was a pill furnace that had a diameter of 5 metres, it had 6 legs and was inscribed with the heads of the Animillia realm at each leg, dragon, phoenix, turtle, tiger, bear, elephant. Opposite the phoenix was the turtle, opposite the dragon was the tiger and opposite the bear was the elephant. Next to the pill furnace was a 3 metre long marble table, it had a glazed design with the colours fading from white to black in a weird swirl. Acacia walked over to the bookshelf and took the first three books from the bottom left and put them down on the marble table before sitting down at the seat on the side of the cauldron, gesturing for Lucius to sit down on the other side. The three books were of different size going from left to right (small to medium to big) was 500 pages to 2000 pages to 10,000 pages. Lucius sat down and Acacia began her lecture.

"In the Arts of Creation the tiers do not correspond to realms but to boundaries, the first tier houses all that comes before the first boundary while second tier is after the first boundary and third tier is after the second boundary and so on. You should be able to complete all the first tier shelves for all 3 subjects by the time you turn 11 years old. Your father and I had calculated for you to reach qi condensation on your seventh birthday, but you were able to get there a week earlier which is quite impressive, as once you have reached qi condensation you would have gone through a lot of collisions while refining your qi and thus have conditioned your mind and soul to withstand the pain. Cultivating the mind is exceptionally difficult and most cultivators will never cultivate their minds, not because they don't want to but they simply can't. You need a powerful soul to begin with, or you have to increase your souls strength which is painful and annoying, and then you also need a good enough mind cultivation technique while also spending a lot of time cultivating your mind that you could spend on cultivating energy or even your body. Actually, the Lazarus clan are exceptional experts in mind cultivation and they spend more time on it than other top tier clans, only being rivalled by the phoenixes. As you are half Lazarus you also have the bloodline talent to be cultivating your mind and so you will have to work thrice as hard as any normal cultivator who would only choose one path to follow as you will be following all three at once. We will be beginning with alchemy as you are most accustomed to it out of the 3 subjects within the arts and it also starts off the most simply, an exorbitant amount of reading. From left to right these books are: 'Tier 1 Recipes', 'First Encyclopaedia of Tier 1 Beasts' and 'First Tome of tier 1 Herbs'. For tier 1 there are 3 books each for beasts and herbs, you will first read and memorize the first books of beasts and herbs and then read and memorize the first third of the recipe book. Once you are done with that we shall begin refining tier 1 pills. "

After she finished the lecture, Acacia showed Lucius the other 3 rooms while giving him a further three books from each room. The symbolry room was identical to the alchemy room but instead of a furnace there was a large flat purple wooden table with different tools lying on it, from paper to ink brushes to pens, pencils and small sharp knifes. The Blacksmithing room was slightly different as it was more spacious as it had to fit all the various tools and equipment he would be needing to craft. There was a purple-gold alloy anvil, along with hammers, tongs, pliers and so forth. There was also a 6 pronged animal cauldron in the centre of this room too. The books he got from the Blacksmith room were: 'Designs: Tier 1 Artefacts', 'Tier 1 Beast parts: part 1' and 'Tier 1 Minerals'. However, these were in reversed order from the alchemy books as the designs far outnumbered the minerals. For symbolry all three were 500 pages thick and their names were: 'Tier 1 Symbols', 'Tier 1 formations: part 1' and 'Tier 1 Talismans: part 1'.

Lucius knew he had a long road ahead of him.