Ch5 Cultivation

I hold my pounding head for a few minutes until it stops hurting, and finally turn my attention to the small bag I was given.

It holds a few more loaves of bread, and a pile of dried and salted meat jerky.

Beside it, a small leather booklet with a few dozen pages sits. It reads [Basic Qi Cultivation] on its front in bold black characters. Then, a tiny pile of semi-translucent crystals glow with a faint aura beside it.

I pick one up and feel a very subtle heat coming off it. The tiny shard is no bigger than a fingernail.

Compared to the white pill I was gifted by that woman, this is almost as plain as an ordinary rock.

With my eyebrows scrunched, I open up the leather booklet and start reading. The further I get in, the more my heart drops.

The first few pages give out generalized cultivation knowledge, like the ranks of cultivation in this world.

There is Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, and Golden Core.

Each rank has 9 levels, and before moving on to the next, a cultivator has to reach the perfected stage, better known as the 10th level, to attempt a breakthrough to the next rank.

This small booklet does not share any details on how to break through, nor does it give any in-depth information on any of the tiers past Qi Refining. It only outlines a single way to sit, and the breathing techniques and mental visualization steps necessary to start feeling the qi in the world around me.

I flip through the booklet past these in-depth pages and find a new section that looks interesting.

It outlines the five spiritual roots, water, earth, wood, metal, and fire.

The fewer roots one has, the faster it is to cultivate, because the spiritual energy from the world outside can be concentrated solely through one direct pathway.

The grades of these roots matter too. [1st Grade] being the highest and most efficient, and [9th Grade] being the weakest and worst at holding, circulating, and maintaining spiritual power.

The more I read, the more I realize how I truly have the worst possible spiritual roots there are. Just like the old man that is my Steward, five mixed 9th grade roots….

It references this combination of waste roots many times over in this booklet, saying that on average it should take 10 years to gather enough spiritual energy to break through to the 1st Level of Qi Refining, and another 30 to reach the 2nd.

Most never reach the 3rd level, and die before the 100-year lifespan of an Initial Stage Qi Refiner.

My heart sinks the more I read this text, but I’m also filled with an air of doubt.

I have a strange system with two cards left that can upgrade random items into Perfect objects. If it’s capable of gifting these once, there’s a good chance it will do it again.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Another thing nagging at me is the Inspect function of this system. When it scanned Qin Yue, that young woman with ice magic, I vividly remember it said she was a 12th Level Qi Refiner.

Nowhere in this booklet does it ever mention a 12th level.

There must be other things it’s wrong about too…

—

I contemplate what to do for over an hour, even looking out the window occasionally to watch the day turn into night.

I read over the Basic Qi Cultivation technique, but the fact that it has false information about the limits of a cultivator’s potential detailed in the very foundation of this booklet makes me distrust the whole thing.