Upon walking into the cultivation manual hall, Nadran's eyes immediately lit up. The first floor of the hall was massive, nearly 60 feet in length and width, and it was filled with thousands of intricately decorated scrolls, each one representing a cultivation manual. To Nadran, this represented the future, the path that could make him stronger and bring him up in the world. He began looking around, reading the descriptions of the manuals one by one, looking for something that could catch his eye.
He wasn't the only one in the cultivation manual hall. In fact, the hall quickly became incredibly busy. A large portion of the new students had the same thoughts as Nadran and immediately ran here, and within a few minutes it became hard to navigate the room due to all of the people.
[Flickering Wind Manual: When cultivated, one's movements will become like the wind, and wind-type sigils will become stronger. Interesting, but there's so many manuals like this on this floor. Maybe I'll find one I like more than this. Wait, when did so many people get here?] Nadran suddenly realized that the floor was packed, and he was unable to easily move about. He had been so absorbed in reading the descriptions that he hadn't even noticed other people entering.
Nadran struggled to move around the room, nearly bumping into people multiple times. [Wow,] he thought. [These manuals must be pretty valuable. I'm pretty sure everyone here already has a cultivation manual, yet they still rushed here at the first opportunity. These manuals must be a level above the manuals most people have access to. In that case, I wonder what the manuals in the higher floors must be like…]
Nadran abruptly found himself in an area devoid of people. There were manuals in this area, but compared to the flashy appearances of the other manuals, they looked very plain. Occasionally, someone would end up in this area, but after quickly looking at one of the manuals, they would turn around and walk back into the crowd of people.
Nadran looked at one of the manuals himself and realized the reason why: these manuals were far too simple and basic. They were easy to cultivate with, but they were incredibly limited in their scope and their speed of cultivation. It would be incredibly difficult to have any real achievements with such a weak manual.
Nadran was about to leave as well when he felt a small tugging sensation in his mind, causing him to turn back around. He felt his eyes get involuntarily drawn toward one of the cultivation manuals. It was a dull purple in color and did not stand out at all in this room of manuals. After all, some of the other manuals flashed gaudily, glittering in the light and promising great things. This manual looked far too plain, and Nadran was not likely to have even noticed it if he hadn't felt his gaze get magnetically drawn to it.
He slowly walked over to the manual and read the description. 'Dragon's Eye Manual' was written in a plain font. Nadran looked down to see the description, but, to his surprise, the area where the description should be was completely blank. There was no description at all.
Despite this, Nadran could not shake the feeling that this was the right manual for him. He frowned, but decided to go with this feeling, and brought the manual to the front desk.
The man sitting at the front desk was quite busy, constantly registering the manuals people were taking out while the line only seemed to be getting longer. Nadran had to wait almost five minutes to reach the front of the line, despite the fact that it took less than ten seconds to process each person.
Soon, Nadran reached the front, and handed the Dragon Eye Manual to the man, whose eyes widened in surprise at seeing Nadran's choice. "This… are you sure about this?" the man asked, clearly concerned. "Not only is this manual extremely basic, it doesn't even work. A few people have tried to use it in the past, but when they used it to cultivate, nothing happened. I don't even know if this is a real cultivation manual. Just in case you aren't aware, your first manual is free upon entry, but every subsequent time you come, you will need to spend points to even get these first-floor manuals. Are you sure you don't want to reconsider and find a different one?"
Nadran smiled, appreciating the concern, but responded, "Sorry, but I decided I want this manual. I have a good feeling about it."
"But-" the man began to protest, only to be interrupted by complaints from other people who were waiting in line.
"Hurry up! I want to try out this new manual!"
"If he wants to waste his opportunity like this, let him! Just hurry up and let him pick that one!"
Nadran smiled awkwardly and shrugged, and the man sighed before saying "Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you." He reluctantly registered the manual under Nadran's name, and Nadran left the cultivation manual hall.
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Nadran soon found his room in the residential area of the academy and walked inside. It was the lowest level of accommodation in the academy, and the room was not large, only about 10 by 15 feet in dimensions. To Nadran, however, this room was borderline luxurious, and he could not help but sigh at the differences in status brought upon by talent and strength. If you weren't strong or talented, you could only struggle along the lowest rungs of society, doomed to live in poverty for the rest of your life. Nadran had managed to rise up from poverty to relative comfort in a single step, and it was all from being able to pass a single exam.
Nadran lay down in the soft bed, which felt much more comfortable than his bed at home, and let out a contented sigh as he opened up the dull purple scroll he had been holding this entire time. He would not be lying if he did not have any reservations about this supposedly useless manual, but if there was one thing Nadran had learned in the past week, it was to trust his instincts. It almost felt as though someone, or something, was guiding his actions, but that didn't seem quite right. It was more like… he sensed something different about certain things, but he didn't know what it was. To Nadran, it seemed more like a sixth sense than anything else, and this sense seemed to be telling him that this Dragon's Eye manual was something good.
The first thing Nadran saw upon opening the scroll was a set of diagrams showing certain poses. This was the first aspect of cultivation: mimicry of movement. A cultivator needed to move their body through very complex and difficult movements, imitating the movements of their energy source. Every manual had a basis for its energy; wind techniques used wind as a base, sword techniques used swords, star techniques used stars. It was said that energy of every type permeated the air, water, and earth, and cultivation was simply pulling energy of a particular attribute out of the air and into the body. This energy would expand and strengthen the dantian, which was the container for internal energy within the body. Doing this served two purposes: One, increasing the amount of internal energy that could be stored in the body. Two, changing the attribute of one's internal energy to match that of the cultivation manual. Attributed energy was generally stronger than non-attributed energy, and would be even more powerful than normal when executing a sigil of that attribute. Thus, while in theory, someone could learn sigils of all types, people would usually focus on learning those of their own attribute.
[Thinking about it, isn't this technique… dragon-attributed?] Nadran realized suddenly. [Dragons are incredibly powerful, but that could make visualization hard due to their extreme rarity…]
The second component of cultivation was visualization. One needed to be able to visualize the energy source, and work to comprehend its essence. The goal was to attain a state of 'oneness' with their energy source, becoming closer to the source to better hold and use its power.
Of course, this goal was still far away for someone like Nadran, who had yet to even begin to tread this long and arduous road of cultivation. But today, he would take his first steps on this road, the road to becoming a legend.
Nadran slowly began to adjust his body to match the first pose, crouching on the balls of his feet, his left hand lightly touching the ground as his right hand was held at his side, his fingers curled like claws. He didn't move; he needed to be able to master the still poses before he could even consider moving.
[Visualization of a dragon, how can I accomplish that?] Nadran wondered. [This might be one of the reasons nobody else could succeed.] Suddenly, a thought struck him. [What about… that dragon I saw in my dream?] Although it was a week ago, the strange dream had stuck in his mind. [But, thinking about it, a dragon in my dream should be produced by my own imagination, and thus doesn't represent an actual dragon. I can't possibly use that as a basis for my visualization… can I?]
Nadran thought about it, but, partially due to the strangeness of his dream and partially because he couldn't think of anything else that could work, he decided to at least give it a try.
Holding the same position, he pictured the dragon, trying to remember every detail, from its shimmering scales to its deep, enigmatic eyes. He painted a picture in his mind, trying to encapsulate its strength and grandeur. The better the visualization, the more effective the technique, so Nadran strained to picture every aspect, from it's deep breathing to the way light reflected off its scales.
A faint image of a dragon seemed to appear in the air in front of him as Nadran concentrated, eyebrows furrowed. But soon, his face broke into a smile as he felt energy flowing into his body. He had spent so much time trying to cultivate in the past, only for it to result in failure each time. But now, he had finally succeeded, and he would be able to progress.
Within a few seconds, he felt the sensation of the dragon-attributed energy entering his dantian, forming a small cloud of energy within. This was the hallmark of the slate realm: the energy cloud. Before, Nadran did not have anything other than some scattered energy within his dantian, but now, the energy was multiple times denser than before. While it was a small accomplishment that wasn't even worth mentioning to most cultivators, it held enormous significance to Nadran. After all, a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step, and that step had finally been taken.