William's room was flooded with a surge of Mana as he tested the effects of the second Cultivation Technique he had come up with. It had been almost ten days since he read the Cultivation Guide, and the process of creating his own Technique was much easier than he expected.
The System didn't mention anything about his skill improving when he upgraded the Cultivation Talent, so he couldn't tell which Talent or Title was responsible for the decreased difficulty.
Perhaps it was the Mind Talent, or the thirty-percent bonus to his Mana Control from the Spell Master Title, which was currently at Epic Rank.
Either way, he couldn't complain. Within the Cultivation Guide, William learned about the existence of Mana Circuits, which functioned similar to blood vessels. Mana would flow through different parts of the body at high speed and could even change direction when being used for Spells.
William now understood why non-Cultivators could use Mana, since everyone was born with Mana Circuits. The small amount of Mana contained within a person's body was directly stored within the Mana Circuits.
Only under rare circumstances could the maximum capacity of a non-Cultivator's Mana be increased, such as when William consumed the Mana Dragon's Blood Essence. If not for the System, William would have been stuck with a hundred maximum Mana until he started Cultivating.
Other than Mana Circuits, William also better understood how Mana flowed throughout the environment.
Mana was everywhere, usually contained within specific forms. For example, the grass beneath one's feet was made of Plant Mana Particles, and the ground beneath that was mostly Earth Mana Particles.
These were obvious, but what he didn't know was that the world itself generated Mana Particles of various types from within its own core. From the core, the Mana Particles followed the path of least resistance to the surface.
Sometimes, the Mana would find itself trapped and unable to escape to the surface. The pressure of Mana Particles would build up until it condensed into Mana Stones, or in some rare cases, a natural treasure such as an Element Vein.
Like the one William absorbed from a tree in the Livingwood Forest, or the Earth Vein in the Foam Desert.
Once the Mana Particles escaped to the air, Mana Currents were formed. Cultivation Techniques were designed to tap into these Mana Currents. Once the Mana Currents were redirected towards a Cultivator's body, they could then start the filtering process to remove the Elemental Mana that they weren't attuned with.
In William's case, he could skip the filtering process almost entirely, since he had an absurd number of Elements.
His first Cultivation Technique was one that controlled the Mana Currents to enter his body directly, where the conversion process to Spirit Qi would happen internally.
This turned out to be a mistake, since the Spirit Qi would become somewhat violent and damage his insides. While he was still able to convert the Mana to Spirit Qi, and it was slightly more efficient than his previous Cultivation Technique, William's Regeneration Talent had to work to fix the damage.
In a sense, it was too reckless.
He moved on to a second Cultivation Technique a few days later. Instead of absorbing the Mana Currents into his body, he controlled multiple Mana Currents to merge together and form one large Mana Current. He called the Mana Current to wrap around his body, while he condensed it all into Spirit Qi at one time.
The swirling vortex of Mana slowly condensed and transformed into one large Spirit Qi strand that William then absorbed into his body. The process took almost fifteen minutes to complete one cycle of Cultivation, but his Cultivation Base increased by fifty Spirit Qi in one go!
-Invented a new Cultivation Technique: +5 PP
-Invented your first Cultivation Technique: +25 PP
-Evaluating Technique quality...
-Invented an Epic Cultivation Technique: +25 PP
-Name your Technique.
William thought for a moment on the name of his Cultivation Technique. Since he created it by converting a large amount of Mana all at once and there was no filtering process, William decided to keep it simple and call it the Mana Devourer Technique.
-New Technique: Mana Devourer
-Adopt this as your new Cultivation Technique? Yes/No
Eh. It's a shoddy name, but I don't care all that much about naming these kinds of things.
Yes. Adopt the Technique.
William's body changed slightly as the new Technique's effects overlapped with the previous one and replaced its effects. In just a few minutes, the process was done.
William moved forwards to evaluate the new Technique, starting with calculating his new Cultivation speed.
If he now earned 50 Spirit Qi per fifteen minutes, and his previous Cultivation was one Spirit Qi every five minutes, that meant his Cultivation speed had increased by almost 17 times!
When he looked at his Status to check his physical changes, however, William was both surprised and frustrated.
-Cultivation: Qi Refinement 9 (0/1000)
-Cultivation Base: 150/10000
My lifespan decreased by 250 years, and I'm back in the Qi Refinement Realm! William cursed in his mind.
He knew that when one changed their Cultivation Technique, their Cultivation would regress down a few levels, but he was at Foundation Establishment 4 previously! How could this be considered a few levels?
System, what rank was my previous Cultivation Technique?
-Uncommon. Two levels below your current Technique. Fresh chapters posted on NoveI[F]ire.net
William nodded his head. It made sense. He checked the rest of his Status for the other changes.
William was pleasantly surprised to find that his health had increased from 800 to 900, his Mana reserves could hold an additional 300 Mana, and his Cultivation Base could now store ten thousand Spirit Qi.
William didn't feel any weaker than before, which meant his Qi Refinement 9 Cultivation was now strong enough to compete with his old self in Foundation Establishment 4. After thinking about it for a while, William felt this was an acceptable trade-off.
There was just one other thought on William's mind that made him a bit concerned.
Do I have to go through the Tribulation again, System?
Shit. If I knew the regression would be so exaggerated, I would have at least pushed for the late stages of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Who knows how powerful the next Tribulation will be.
This wasn't stupidity on William's part, for once. He had been given inaccurate information by his Elders in the Five Elements Sect, who had little knowledge of the various ranks behind Cultivation Techniques and couldn't have expected William to improve his Cultivation Technique by so many levels in a short period of time.
If the Five Elements Sect's Cultivation Techniques were evaluated, only the ones on the very top floor could be considered Epic-Ranked Cultivation Techniques. Who would expect an Outer Core Disciple to gain access to one of these just months after his entry into the Sect?
I'll just Cultivate and improve many levels at once. So what if I have to go through the Qi Refinement Tribulation again, I can handle it!
William steeled his resolve to improve his strength as fast as possible. With his new Cultivation Technique, William was able to completely fill his Dantian with Spirit Qi in just over four straight days of Cultivation.
He called Sir Reynolds and explained the situation to him in detail. The Artifact Spirit looked at William with slight surprise, not expecting the boy to have such a low-ranked Cultivation Technique.
"You were part of a famous Sect, right? Didn't they give you better options for Cultivation? These Techniques can't even compare to that of Master's old Sect back in the day."
William shook his head, "There are stronger Techniques on the higher floors, but I didn't have access to them."
Sir Reynolds nodded his head. The greed of these Sects has come this far, huh? No wonder they're willing to send their Disciples to their deaths in this Ruins every month...
"So you need to attempt the Qi Refinement Tribulation for a second time?" he asked William.
"Yes, Sir Reynolds. Will it be safe, or should I improve my strength first?"
"If it's just the Qi Refinement Tribulation, its strength should only be a few levels higher than before, and not an entire Realm. For you, this shouldn't be an issue."
William nodded and followed Sir Reynolds back to the previous field where he attempted the Tribulation before. When they were fully prepared for the Tribulation, William nodded to Sir Reynolds and sat on the ground cross-legged with his eyes closed to break through.
"Wait, Disciple William." Sir Reynolds called out.
William opened his eyes and looked in the Artifact Spirit's direction, "What is it?"
"Have you made your decision?"
William thought for a moment about what Sir Reynolds said. The Artifact Spirit was referring to whether or not William had sided with the world or the Heavens.
Would he side with the Heavens, who seemed to rule over his world with an iron fist, or would he side with the world, who was but a servant rebelling against the master?