Chapter 3 - Preparation
After Wayne finished scanning all the cultivation techniques and locked the data on his laptop, he went to the living room again with all the cultivation techniques. "Now, let's start fusing all these cultivation techniques," Wayne was excited.
He had no idea what he would produce in the end but he anticipated that it would be something extremely good. He needed to create the highest rank technique so that he could build the most cultivation points.
Wayne held the hand cultivation technique with his right hand and leg cultivation technique with his left hand. He activated Precious Touch and he was given two choices, Addition or Multiplication. Wayne chose Multiplication and the two books shone.
After that, both of them disintegrated into light particles and they combined to become a huge light orb. Then, the light orb started changing its shape into a book and the light disappeared. Wayne took the book and appraised it.
Name: Limbs Cultivation Technique
Rank: Normal
Grade: F+
Lock: 2
Wayne opened the book and there were no words written inside. "…Is this technique incomplete or broken too?" Wayne was thinking.
He used Precious Touch once more on the limb cultivation technique book and just as he thought, he could fix the technique. Without wasting any more time, Wayne fixed the technique and there was some improvement to the technique based on the appraisal. The lock remained the same but the grade increased to E-.
"So, every time I fuse something, I need to check if there is any problem with that thing before I use it," said Wayne and he continued fusing the cultivation techniques. A few hours later, the same fusion scene happened and a single book was formed from the light orb.
There were no other books in front of Wayne other than the single book that was just formed. Wayne used Precious Touch on the book and fixed it. Staring at the book, Wayne was smiling. He knew the technique he formed was the best of the best. Wayne appraised the ultimate cultivation technique book he created.
Name: Perfect Body Cultivation Technique
Rank: Silver
Grade: SSS+
Lock: 4/25
Staring at the data shown by the system, Wayne stood up with his hand above his head. "Yes!!! SSS+ Grade cultivation technique!!" Wayne was screaming excitedly. "With SSS+ grade, I will have no problem in building my cultivation map with maximum points!!" Wayne was happy.
"Not only that, but this technique also jumps immediately to silver rank! That means, once I build my map, I can absorb the cultivation gem of silver rank from the beginning!" Wayne exclaimed happily. He patted his chest to calm himself and looked at the data again.
"So, this technique can only exist in silver rank since it forcefully unlocks four of its locks," said Wayne. The technique was at a silver rank because of the lock. At 1 lock, the technique was normal rank, 2 locks were iron rank, 3 locks were bronze rank and 4 locks were silver rank.
The more the technique's lock was unlocked, the higher the rank of the technique. The higher the rank of the technique, the better the cultivation gem a hunter or explorer could absorb. With better cultivation gem absorbed, the stronger the hunter or explorer.
In Wayne's case, he got a jump start with a silver rank cultivation gem. If he could kill a silver rank monster and gain a silver rank cultivation gem, he could immediately absorb it and become stronger than his peers from the beginning.
Most newbies hunters and explorers would start with the lowest rank cultivation technique and would start from below. Only those from the noble family could get a better rank cultivation technique.
"25 locks… So, 13 is not the highest lock?" Wayne was looking at the locks. From what he read online, 13 was the highest lock a technique or skill could have. The one who got that was a super-strong veteran explorer with countless achievements throughout his life and he was deemed to be the strongest humans in the world.
"I need to keep my special power a secret. No one needs to know about this power," thought Wayne. If the strongest human could only have 13 locks, Wayne would call for trouble if people knew he had something with 25 locks.
"Sigh… Having a cheat power is helping but tiring at the same time," said Wayne and he held the perfect body cultivation technique and absorbed it. A massive amount of knowledge regarding the cultivation technique entered his mind.
Wayne gritted his teeth because it was painful. He did not feel this way when he got Precious Touch. The pain lasted for an hour before it dissipated and Wayne was drenched in sweat because of the pain.
"… I need to learn a pain tolerance skill," said Wayne while smiling wryly. Wayne stood up and checked his technique and the perfect body cultivation technique was added to his status.
"Time to build my cultivation map," Wayne was excited. Wayne entered his room and sat cross-legged on his bed. After that, he closed his eyes and focused his mind. Then, he felt his environment was changing. What Wayne did was what the perfect body cultivation technique wanted him to do.
Wayne opened his eyes and he realized he was not in his room. All he could see was boundless darkness. He did not panic as he knew that his body was still in the room. His mind was the one that entered this dark empty space.
Wayne knew that the place was his soul sea. Since he had yet to build his map, the soul sea was empty and lifeless. Once he started building the map, the soul sea would not be dark, empty, and lifeless like what he saw.
The Wayne in his mind stretched his hand forward while Wayne's body in the room started absorbing the mana in the air. Once the mana entered his body, Wayne's consciousness sent the mana to his soul sea and started building the cultivation map.
Half an hour later, a single empty white orb was formed in Wayne's soul sea. Wayne focused his mind and stabilized the first cultivation point he built. It took him five minutes to stabilize the first point.
Once the first point was stabilized, it shone brightly and a small area around the point turned blue and it was full of energy. "Wow~" Wayne was amazed. This was his first time seeing it and it was different from the video depicted online. The feeling was completely different.
Once he gave the point enough look, Wayne continued to build his second point. Since he had experienced building the point, his second point took less than 30 minutes to build and stabilize. He built his third, fourth, and fifth and the time kept shrinking as his experience increased.
Even so, the time stopped shrinking at 10 minutes. That was the fastest time he could build his cultivation point. He tried to lower the time more but it was impossible. Since it was impossible, Wayne did not force it. He calmly continued to build his 360 cultivation points.
40th Winter Year 2500, 10:00 in the morning
Ten days had passed since Wayne started building his cultivation map. Other than eating and sleeping, Wayne had spent all his time building the cultivation map. He wanted to keep building without sleeping but it was impossible for a newbie like him.
He might be able to stay overnight if he had level 10 in energy and endurance. Even so, that let him stay awake for one night only. If someone wanted to stay awake for a few days, they would need to increase their level of energy and endurance a lot.
At the moment, Wayne was building his last cultivation point. Since the perfect body cultivation technique had SSS+ grade, Wayne managed to build the maximum amount of cultivation points.
Wayne's maximum points with his B+ potential and body talent amounted to 360 points. He was currently building his 360th point. A few seconds later, the last point was built and suddenly, they all shone brightly in his soul sea.
Wayne was looking with his mouth wide open. "Something happens!" Wayne said with amazement.
The first point he built shone brightly and it let out a silver line and connected to the second point. Another line appeared at the second point and went to the third point. The line continued from third to fourth to fifth and so on.
A few minutes later, all 360 points were connected by the silver line but the map looked erratic. Even so, the map was not done yet. With all the points connected, it started moving and a few minutes later, it took a shape of the human body.
Once the cultivation map took that shape, it shone brightly and the blue area in Wayne's soul sea expanded a few kilometers before it stopped. The empty, dark, lifeless soul sea was now filled with energy and the place was bright.
"I did it!" Wayne was excited. He could feel that his status had increased. He got out of his soul sea and immediately checked his status.
Name: Wayne Weller/Furiose
Age: 15
Lifespan: 150 years
Potential: B+
Talent
1. Body – B+ [Perfect Body Cultivation Map, 0/360]
Status
Health: E (Level 1)
Energy: E- (Level 1)
Strength: E- (Level 1)
Endurance: F+ (Level 1)
Dexterity: E (Level 1)
Magic: F+ (Level 1)
Luck: E- (Level 1)
Techniques/Skills
Precious Touch (Rank: Special) (Grade: Special)
Perfect Body Cultivation Technique (Rank: Silver) (Grade: SSS+) (Lock: 4/25) – All status increase by +5 grade per cultivation gem absorbed (not including the grade added by the gem)
"Haha~" Wayne was happy. All his status was increased by five grades. Five grades were increased a lot. Not only that, but his cultivation technique also increased all the status, not just one or two. "This is the ultimate cultivation technique!" Wayne exclaimed.
Wayne calmed himself. What he had achieved did not mean he became the strongest. He was still at the start line and how he cultivated the map would determine how strong he would be in the future. He merely had the potential to become strong.
If by chance he used low-rank cultivation gems to fill the cultivation point, he would not be able to become strong. Not only that, skills, fighting experience and many more would determine how strong he would be in the future.
Once Wayne calmed himself, he started planning his next move. Since Wayne aimed to get the hunter license, he would need to participate in the hunter exam that would be held on the 45th of Winter. He had less than five days to prepare himself.
His next move would be to learn a few skills. The skills a hunter and explorer could learn was limited to their talent. For example, someone with fire talent could only learn fire-related skills and someone with water talent could only learn water-related skills.
Other than that, more limits appeared based on how many cultivation points someone had. The more points they had, the more skills they could learn.
The cultivation technique had ranks, grades, and locks but skill had an additional status which was tier. Similar to lock, the highest tier skill ever found was tier 13 and the same explorer was the one who found it.
The tier would determine how many points would be used in the cultivation map. A tier 1 skill would need 1 cultivation point, tier 2 would need 2 cultivation points, and so on. Having more cultivation points meant having the opportunity to learn more and higher tier skills.
Even so, the skill could be deleted. If a hunter or explorer found a better skill, they could delete the skill they had learned and learned the new skill. The same was possible for cultivation techniques.
"I am still weak, so the only skills I can learn are tier 1 skills. I will need three basic skills. Offensive, defensive and movement skills. With my body talent, I can only learn physical skills," Wayne made his analysis.
Someone with body talent could only learn skills related to the body. In most cases, most hunters and explorers learned physical skills. The physical skills mentioned here were punching and kicking skills. Something like a fireball, water prison, and more would be impossible.
For a beginner like Wayne, he needed balance in his skills and thus, he chose the three basic skills needed if he wanted to enter the fighting scene. He would need at least one offensive, one defensive, and one movement skill.
"For offensive, let's get three types of skills. A super-weak-but-can-be-used-many-times type of skill. A super-strong ultimate offensive skill and a speedy offensive skill," said Wayne and he jotted down what he wanted in a notebook.
"For defensive skill, I will need a physical defensive type and a magical one," said Wayne and he continued to jot in his notebook.
"As for movement, I will need a super-fast explosive speed skill, a technical movement skill, and maybe a nimble skill?" Wayne continued to jot down what he wanted.
Once Wayne finished his plan, he went online and searched for a suitable skill he wanted. Since he could upgrade the skill using Precious Touch, he made sure to buy them in bulk. Tier 1 skill was common and thus, he could find a lot of the same skill sold in the shop online. He made his order and waited for them to arrive.
While waiting for the skill books to arrive, he went online and surveyed what the hunter examination would entail. According to the government's official hunter website, the examination would have three parts.
The first would be a written test. A stupid hunter would not get their license. Many incidents in the past were caused by stupid, idiot, and fool hunters. Due to that, the government put this written test in the examination. If they failed this test, they failed everything. No bargaining.
The second test was the ability test. This test was simply a test to gauge the potential and talent of the would-be hunters. Only those with an average of D- and above would pass this test. The second test usually had the lowest rate of failure because most that applied already knew their average ability thanks to the system. Even so, some were stubborn and would still like to try, and thus, the test was added to the examination.
The last test was the most important and dangerous, a combat test. Examinees would be brought to a dungeon and they needed to stay and survive in the dungeon for a few days. This test would test their combat and survival ability. This test would usually have a lot of casualties.
Once Wayne read all of the information about the examination, he closed the website and searched for the syllabus for the written test. He went to many forums and jotted down what the past examinees had answered for the written test.
The written test would be the only test Wayne needed to prepare. As for the ability test, he would pass without much problem because his average ability was B+. For the combat test, he would need to learn the skills and practice with them but he could not do that because he had yet got the skills. So, the only thing he could do was prepare for the written test.
Late in the evening, all the skill books he bought online arrived. Wayne checked them all and similar to the cultivation technique, the books were blank. There was nothing written inside and he knew immediately that the skills were either broken or incomplete.
Without wasting his time, Wayne fixed them one by one. He bought a lot of skill books but all in all, there were only eight different skills. He bought extra for each of them because he needed to upgrade them all. He wanted them to have as many locks as possible so that he could use them for a long time.
Once he finished fixing the skill books, he scanned them all and saved it. Once all of that was done, Wayne started inspecting the skill book. The eight skills he bought were jab and palm strike for his offensive skills.
Wayne bought iron skin and mana skin for defensive skills. Dash, flowing water, and monkey jump for movement skills and focus energy for support.
Wayne planned to get three offensive skills but he did not have much choice and most of them were higher tier skills which he could not use at his current status. So, he opted for one of the offensive skills for a support skill that could help increase the power of his skills.
All eight skills were tier 1 and thus, once he learned all of them, he would only use eight cultivation points. With all of that out of the way, Wayne started upgrading them.
There were three ways Wayne could upgrade the skills. Two of them were using the Addition and one was using Multiplication. For Addition, the first method would be upgrading the grade and second was locks. As for multiplication, it would fuse the skill and create a new skill.
Wayne did not know what was the best and he tested all the methods. He knew what he should do but he did not know the result and thus, he needed to do a lot of tests. If he made a mistake, he could use Subtraction or Division to fix his mistake.
A few hours later, Wayne finished upgrading all the skills. "Phew~ This is harder than I thought," Wayne made a lot of mistakes.
He also accidentally found out other uses of Addition which were stacking. He could stack the skill to make a combo skill. He knew in his mind but he overlooked it. All in all, Wayne succeeded in upgrading the skills.
***
Name: Jab
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: B+
Lock: 25
***
Name: Palm Strike
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: S
Lock: 25
***
Name: Magic Iron Skin
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: SS+
Lock: 25
***
Name: Dash Plus
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: S-
Lock: 25
***
Name: Flowing Water Step
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: A
Lock: 25
***
Name: Monkey Jump
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: A-
Lock: 25
***
Name: Focus Energy
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: B+
Lock: 25
***
Name: 10 Palm Strike (combo)
Tier: 1
Rank: Normal
Grade: SSS+
Lock: 25
Wayne succeeded in upgrading the skills. He had the jab, palm strike, magic iron skin, dash plus, water flowing step, monkey jump, focus energy, and 10 palm strike.