Qi
"What are you doing?" Ryu asked, still incredulous with the way Feng Po caught him mid execution of vanishing raindrop steps.
At first, Feng Po said nothing, as he just continued to conjure runes, completing a formation, then walked out of the circle and looked back to Ryu.
"Try to walk out of there, kid." Feng Po said.
Suspicious, Ryu went to the bord of the circle and placed one hand to go out, but his hand was blocked by a barrier that formed a blue dome, completely encapsulating him inside.
"This is a formation to prevent you from going outside. I said it is time for your first lesson, now let's get started, take the staff out. And give me that egg to keep it safe. This thing must be precious, as I have never seen something like this, just from its aura alone I can say it is precious." Feng Po said, picking the egg from Ryu and placing it carefully at one side.
"No, I don't want you as my master. Let me go. My friends are waiting for me. They should be worried." Ryu begged.
"Don't worry about your friends, I found them three days ago looking for you, and I told them that you would stay with me, training." Feng Po said.
"And they accepted your words just like that?" Ryu asked, skeptic.
"Of course they accepted, once I told them that I am your master, they calmed down and went back to the sect." Feng Po said.
Ryu couldn't accept that his friends had abandoned him with a senile old man, as for the second time, they have left him behind in a dangerous situation, the first being at the empty den of beasts.
But instead of taking the staff as Feng Po asked, Ryu extracted the sword from his ring and slashed the barrier using all his power, but no matter how hard he hit the barrier, it remained intact.
"No, kid. We'll start with the staff, as that pathetic use of the spear showed many flaws in your combat technique." Feng Po said.
"Ah, so you admit that you were watching the fight and still done nothing to help me. And now you want me to accept you as my master? Get off." Ryu said.
"Did you want me to save your ass? That's not how a master act, you can only grow fighting on your own." Feng Po said.
"That's your excuse for not helping? Anyway, I am not going to follow your orders. I will just sit here until you shut off this barrier and let me go." Ryu said, sitting on the ground in the middle of the circle with legs crossed.
"So you stay there while I will get some fish for my dinner." Feng Po said, turning around and leaving Ryu alone.
So Ryu stood alone in the middle of an artificial forest, caged like an animal for a maniac who decided by himself that he would be his master. But since Ryu wasn't willing to share Feng Po's delusion, he remained seated for a while and used this moment to inspect his progress.
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Sword Mastery increased to intermediate level 2
Spear Mastery increased to beginner level 7
Slew a leader horned lizard, Stats point Aura +1, total 2.
Quest completed: Save the villagers.
Reward: 5000 exp.
Total exp 6080 of 1800
Necessary exp to next level achieved.
Level up
You are now level 10
High-grade difficult mission completed, analyzing user's performance.
Reward: Upgrade job ticket.
Level 10 achieved, cultivation technique advanced to level 1.
Qi unlocked, Shop unlocked.
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'Finally, I've reached level 10. Now I can start meditating to get qi with this my power will raise many folds.' Ryu thought.
This advancement marks an important transition for every cultivator because, to improve themselves further, they rely not only on experience points but also on qi, achieved through meditation.
In the first stage of cultivation, when they cultivate using book zero of the cultivation technique, it's actually nothing more than preparing the body for the subsequent levels where the cultivators begin to use the world's energy to become stronger.
So Ryu opened the main page of his system to see it.
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Name: Ryu Sei
Cultivation technique: Heaven and Earth Inversion (book one)
Level: 10 Exp: 4280 of 2500 Qi: 0 of 5000
Essence: 0
Stats:
Strength ->31 Agility ->43
Dexterity ->25 Resistance ->23
Focus ->21
Aura -> 2
distribute: 5
Skills:
>Passive
Heavenly Pillar Martial Art Style (degraded)
Enhanced Vision (first stage), Enhanced Sense of Touch (first stage)
Axe Mastery (Intermediate) level 1, Bow Mastery (Beginner) level 1, Hammer Mastery (Intermediate) level 1, Spear Mastery (Beginner) level 7, Sword Mastery (Intermediate) level 2
Tracker
>Active
Vanishing Raindrop Steps
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Confirming Ryu's expectancy, he had achieved enough exp points to reach level 11, but not there was still lacking qi to progress further.
Next, Ryu went to the shop bar to see what kind of skills there were for sale. As he opened the screen, a series of rectangles with skills names and descriptions appeared, divided on its rank and type countless skills at display.
There was a filter to allow the search of skills, that divided them between ranged type, close range, concealment, nature, pure qi attack, support, healing, and many other kinds.
Ryu went to the attack type to see some active skills as he just had a movement technique, and a screen changed ordering the skills by price.
The moment Ryu saw the prices, he almost fainted, as even the most basic of skill, Bash, had a price of 10.000 essence, a skill consistent of type of slash had such a price. A weapon proficiency skill type costs 25.000 essence, this is just for the beginner level 1 skill, to progress the skill further, there is the option to pay, but the price wasn't friendly as to upgrade a level 1 beginner skill to the level 2 the cost was 1.000 essence.
Pissed with these absurd prices, Ryu moved to the profession screen, where he saw countless types of jobs, some of which he doesn't even know exists. At least the first job was a free take, so he skimmed through the screen to see the options, at the top was the jobs like inscriptions, alchemist, blacksmith, healer, musician, but when he scrolled the bar down, jobs like a jeweler, armor maker, beast tamer, started to appear.
In the end, Ryu decided to leave the professional choice for a later time, when he could put thought into it and make a good decision, so he closed the system and tried to calm his mind.
The truth was that he was eager to try and meditate.
Then he tried to sense the qi around, and it wasn't long before the system sent a notification, which woke him from his meditative mood.
<
As the notification broke his concentration, he closed his eyes to begin meditation again. But, this time, it took a few more seconds to receive a notification since his focus was divided between meditation and waiting for the system warning.
After the notification, Ryu felt a cold stream entering his body and flowing to his chest, where the dantian was located.