Chapter 2: The Uses of the Map

Xi Lifeng walked over to the door of his cultivation room, planning to open it as soon as Steward Lei got close.

From his memories, every time Steward Lei came by to drop off his resources he would look at the previous Xi Lifeng with displeasure and disdain. Despite never really having any issues with one another, it seemed that Steward Lei wasn't keen on accepting someone with two mortal parents.

While in most other families or clans such a thing wouldn't be an issue, the Xi Clan, like other noble families, was rich in its bloodline. Despite knowing that giving resources to untalented individuals would likely prove fruitless, it was still an endeavor that the Xi Clan underwent.

To Steward Lei, those resources would be better spent on someone within at least the midranges of talent.

As he was recalling the steward's previous actions towards his predecessor, the time came that Steward Lei was directly in front of the door, raising his fist to knock.

With a swing, the door opened. 

Though not expecting a look of shock or terror, seeing Steward Lei's face in complete indifference was slightly disappointing to Xi Lifeng.

"Here are this month's stipends, Daoist Xi. The distribution hall has added five extra spirit stones and five extra Spirit Essence Pills, as an annual reminder. It seems that you only have one year remaining before being assigned a position by the Clan. Cultivate hard."

With a few brief sentences, the steward handed off a storage pouch and took the one he had given Xi Lifeng the previous month in return.

Without delaying, Steward Lei immediately turned and left--- his footsteps slightly faster than before.

'What a creep... Was he just waiting for me to arrive?? If he is interested in such things, why bother cultivating... what a waste of resources.'

With a sigh and a shake of the head, Steward Lei could only forget about it and move on to the next distribution. If Xi Lifeng wanted to engage in such activities, then let him.

"Damn, that was weird."

Without knowing what was going on in the mind of Steward Lei, Xi Lifeng could only move one in his day.

Watching as the grey dot that was the steward walked away, Xi Lifeng went back to the cultivation mat in the center of the room and sat down.

He needed to know more about this map before he made any moves.

From his understanding, anyone that wasn't him would appear as a grey dot. Besides the blue dot that was him, there was still a multitude of colors on the map that he didn't yet understand.

Besides grey and blue, Xi Lifeng also noticed a series of green, yellow, and brown dots.

After looking across the entire 50 mile area that the map showed, he even saw a stray red dot.

He didn't know exactly what the red dot signified, but its location was in a cultivation room quite similar to his own. The dot had also moved several times in the past few minutes he was looking at it.

Unfortunately, different from that of Steward Lei, there didn't seem to be a label that marked the dot. Though Xi Lifeng was curious, it wasn't something he needed to know.

Moving the map to the corner of his vision, Xi Lifeng went back to focusing on the real world and took out the storage bag that the Steward had given him.

Inside were 10 spiritual stones. Though they were only of the low-grade, it was still 5 more than he would receive any other month. Looking through his predecessor's memories it seemed that the original Xi Lifeng didn't have any interest in women or treasure, thus his current spirit stone reserves were quite large.

Next, Xi Lifeng took out the Spirit Essence Pills. He received 35 pills this month, one for each day plus the extra 'gift,' which was quite a significant sum. The pills were all of middle-quality, likely made by the alchemy apprentices.

Xi Lifeng saw that his predecessor also held a large reserve of Spirit Essence Pills from the past few years. Being only 9th Grade pills, they wouldn't be worth much if he were to try to sell them, so they were simply stored away--waiting for the day they could be used.

Even though 9th Grade pills were of the lowest grade, most could be sold in exchange for spirit stones. Spirit Essence Pills, however, were among the most basic pills that Alchemy apprentices could make, and even those apprentices that haven't officially qualified as 9th Grade Alchemists could often make Spirit Essence Pills of low- or mid-quality.

With the only store nearby belonging to the Xi Clan, any amount that Xi Lifeng could expect in exchange was bound to be miniscule. It was far more worth it to keep them in reserve. If he ever ran through his monthly quota, he could go into his reserves. Similarly, if he were to run low on spiritual energy during a fight or practice, consuming a spare pill would help speed up his rate of Qi regeneration.

As he was organizing the monthly stipends, Xi Lifeng caught the appearance of two new dots in his room. Both dots were starkly different from the other dots he had seen as of now. One dot was shaped similarly to that of the spiritual crystals while the other dot was shaped like a pill.

Focusing on these two new points, Xi Lifeng saw their labels: [Low Grade Spiritual Stones *10], [Mid-Grade Spiritual Essence Pills *35].

"Hmmm? So objects like pills and spiritual stones appear in the map as their appearance in the original world. What does that make the dots? If they were all other cultivators, then why are some of them different colors?"

As much as this revelation cleared some of the questions Xi Lifeng held, it also brought a whole new wave of confusion.

"From what I know, Steward Lei isn't a cultivator... Which means grey should belong to mortals."

With his eyes squinted, deep in thought, Xi Lifeng began to seriously ponder the truth behind each dot. If he wanted to use this map to his advantage, he needed to understand it, first.

"Damn, Xi Lifeng, why were you such a shut in?!"

Cursing his predecessor, Xi Lifeng couldn't help but to shake his head with a sigh. He simply knew too little about the other cultivators in this region of the Xi Clan.

"The colors could really mean anything, but for now I suppose I can narrow it down to a few simple ideas. The colors either signify the talent of the dot, the cultivation of the dot, or the spiritual element of the dot."

"Besides my own blue dot, there are also green, yellow, and brown. Forgetting the single red dot for now, the other dots are all pretty large in color. Considering that this region won't have any Foundation Establishment cultivators, let alone a Core Formation cultivator, I don't think the color is telling of their current realm."

"I also find it unlikely that the colors signify elements. Considering that there are five basic elements, the map is missing two colors for that to be true. Similarly, there is no way that there would be so many single element spiritual roots in this isolated region. Most cultivators in this area should have at least a three element spiritual root."

Resting his head in his hand, Xi Lifeng narrowed his guess down to a single point: 'talent'.

But, for some reason, he couldn't help but feel that that wasn't it. With cultivation talents ranging from 9th grade at the lowest level to 1st grade at the highest level, Xi Lifeng figured that these three colors wouldn't be enough to show the ranging talents of the Xi Clan cultivators in this region.

If green, yellow, and brown went along with 9th, 8th, and 7th grade talents, he felt that there should be more colors to show at least 6th and 5th grade talents, as well. After all, this was where nearly all cultivators outside of the main branch were brought when talent for cultivation was discovered.

That included those with 6-4th grade mid-range talents and those with 3rd-1st grade high-range talents.

"So... If it isn't talent, cultivation, or element... Then what else could it be?"

With his eyebrows furrowed so close together it looked like they connected, Xi Lifeng fell into deep concentration. He felt he was close to having a basic understanding of this map of his, and didn't want to stop until he did.

"Could it be... Luck?"

With a guess, the map seemed to glow for a second as if to acknowledge his attempt to understand the information provided by the map.

Just as Xi Lifeng saw the map respond to him and a smile grew on his face, he immediately buckled in pain. A surge of information poured into his mind, broadening his basic understanding of his talent.