Arthur slammed into the cliff a foot pass the edge, rolled over and over onto his backpack and his face. Grimacing as he came up, feeling the edge of his pot, the contents of his backpack digging into him. Hoping he didn’t break the jar with the heart.
Hearing the crumbling of the cliff behind him.
That spurred him on, content to get away before it came crashing down.
Far enough away from the cliff edge to be safe, Arthur noted a small cave. He debated what to do, considered the falling sun. It was a little early – he could have pushed on for a few more hours, but if the cave was empty, it was a safe position to sleep. Better than hunkering under a fallen log or around a makeshift barrier or tied to a tree at least.
Decision made, Arthur moved towards the cave, poking his head below. Not able to see much, he shifted his metal flask, pulling it out and using it to shine some light within. It offered a very badly diffracted beam inside, but with his Keen Sight, it was enough to pick the ferret like creature lunging for his face.
Arthur didn’t manage to get his spear up in time, only managing to flip the creature sideways as he raised it towards the charging monster. It crashed into him, unbalancing him for a moment and forcing him to drop the flask and scramble to keep his crouched footing.
A few desperate moments later, he managed to kill the damn thing, haft of the spear on its neck and his full body weight crushing the ferret like creature’s trachea. Or the monster equivalent of it anyway. Once it stopped trying to fight, he stabbed it open and extracted the small core before checking more carefully for more monsters.
Thankfully, the rest of the cave was empty enough. He slipped in soon after, moving the couple of pieces of dried dung to the corner and covering it all with sand. Thankfully, it wasn’t too fragrant, so sleep would not be too hard to acquire.
One last moment to set up a simple trap and alert system with bell and rope and then he had his backpack off as his pillow. Eyes drifting close, he pulled up his status as the last thing to do this night.
Cultivation Speed: 2.773 Yin
Energy Pool: 11/30 (Yin) + (7/7)
Refinement Speed: 0.1421
Refined Energy: 0.27 (40) +(0/3)
Attributes and Traits
Mind: 15 (Multi-Tasking, Quick Learner, Perfect Recall)
Body: 25 (Enhanced Eyesight, Yin Body, Swiftness, Fast Twitch Faster, Lightning Reflexes, Explosive Strength)
Spirit: 15 (Sticky Energy, From the Dregs, Strengthened Aura)
Techniques
Night Emperor Cultivation Technique
Focused Strike
Accelerated Healing – Refined Energy (Grade III)
Heavenly Sage’s Mischief
Refined Energy Dart
Bark Skin
Seven Cloud Stepping Technique (197%)
Pocket Simpanan Tua (135%) (Refined Energy Dart - 84% Integrity)
Imbued Strike - Yin Poison
Yin Aura (Level 1) (108.4%)
Partial Techniques
Simultaneous Flow (189.3%)
Yin-Yang Energy Exchange (94.1%)
Yin Poison Darts (49.9%)
So close to being able to use multiple techniques at the same time. He needed to spend more time working on that, but splitting his attention while traversing the forest was a bad idea. Still, he could try some small degree of it later tomorrow. He certainly needed to cultivate to acquire some more energy. Even if he used Refined Energy more, Tower Energy was needed to survive on a day-to-day basis, nevermind its use for a lot of his more basic techniques.
Tonight, perhaps. When he woke up, he’d cultivate.
***
Tonight’s cultivation process was different. Perhaps with his constant use of Yin aura and his expanded understanding of what Yin chi could do, but when he began to process the Tower energy into his body, filtering it out and changing it within his meridians as necessary, Arthur could swear he could feel the differences.
It was ephemeral at first, transient in nature, like the very ghosts he had fought before. By the time he focused on it, for one reason or another, it was gone. He did not try to push the matter, knowing that it was not the kind of energy he was attempting to create right now.
Instead, he tried to understand it, taste the differences in chi. Feel how it interacted with his body, where it was stronger in his meridians and where it faded. What the changes were as time went on, because he knew he would need to wield those changes at a later time.
A part of him wondered if it was worth it, if he could not purchase some technique or guidance from the Tower about all the forms of Yin energy there were. He had no time to train it here, but at least if he could understand some portions, he could push his understanding faster when he got to it. The information coming from the Tower, the manuals and the techniques provided an aid, but it was well known such information had limitations too.
No, better to do train when he could, especially if he could split his time, his attention and energy across multiple goals. Save time, a little, because it all added up. Same with his attempts later on at cultivating this new energy and activating another technique. If he could do both, how amazing would that be?
Methods to do so were rare, expensive in the Tower if they were even available to purchase and often, entirely unecessary and a waste of time. Pulling a single point of energy in an hour made little sense. Not when you could just sit down, cultivate properly and pull multiple points especially as one grew stronger and acquired proper cultivation methods. Even worse, often these moving cultivation methods supplanted normal cultivation methods entirely.
There were a few who did it, but those few were either incredibly lucky to acquire rare techniques or enchanted items that sped up such a process.
Which was why, even if he did try to learn and figure out how to do it himself, he wasn't disappointed when he failed to get his other techniques working. The more important aspect of all this was learning how to move energy simultaneously. After all, when h e could use his Simultaneous Flow techniques properly, he could start chanelling multiple full body techniques. He could run Bark Skin and Heavenly Sage's Mischief. Or even the Yin Aura and the Bark Skin, making him much, much harder to kill.
Next step, of course, was to upgrade Bark Skin. Make it tougher, make it Bark Body or Iron Hide or whatever variation there was out there. He couldn't exactly recall anymore, never having paid that much attention to the next level. After all, he had so much to learn, and the exact variations were unknown. Not till he came in, not till he had actually tried everything and seen what worked for him.
That was the the difference between practise and reality. You could plan all you wanted, but the moment you were stabbed and bitten, all those plans went out the window.
Then you adapted.
Just like he had to his Seal and being a Clan Head. And how he was forced to adapt to traveling on this floor. He would improve, adapt and move on and climb out of this damn Tower.
No matter what.