Young Jade spent the next four days working tirelessly to achieve his goal. Despite his many attempts to communicate, Spark never answered his call so Young was forced to do things his way.
He decided to use the natural spring as a base of sorts. He slept there and would leave to relieve himself, collect food, and then return to do training exercises. During this time he also explored the remainder of the Spark System's features and devised a schedule for his training activities. He spent the majority of his days doing two tasks : body conditioning and Body Reinforcement.
When his body needed a break from Reinforcement, he would focus on doing sit ups, pushups and cardio by running laps around the spring. He would then replenish his qi and begin the process all over again. When he grew tired he would sleep, regardless of the time of day and then repeat the process. Because of constantly handling dangerous energy Young's ability to do so improved drastically as well. Not only this but he became able to deal with larger amounts of energy as well.
Finally on the evening of the fourth day he finally succeeded in accomplishing his goal:
[Body Reinforcement (Outer) - 0 (100.5%)] +
[Quest Complete : Body Reinforcement (1) ]
As soon as the meter reached 100% Young Jade felt a surge of power run through his body. His skin began to grow hard and taut down to the muscle and finally his body grew extremely warm. After several seconds the process was over and the sublime light which accompanied the sensation faded away.
[Body Reinforcement was successful, you've reached rank 1 of 3. As a result your body has undergone some drastic changes.
+25 Health. +50 Stamina. +5% Resistance to Physical Damage. Absolute Defense +1]
His status now looked like this:
[Name : Jade, Young]
[Age : 15 Years Old]
[Affinity : Lightning (Evolved)]
[Martial Style : None]
[Health : 141 / 141 (7%) ]
[Qi : 442 / 442]
[Stamina : 95 / 165 (21%) ]
[Power : 9 (23%) ]
[Speed : 6 (35%) ]
[Agility : 4 (52%) ]
[Intelligence : 7 (8%)]
[Cultivation Rank 0, Level 16 / 99*]
[Soul Sea Grade 3]
[Physical Resistance : 5%]
[Elemental Resistance : 10%]
[Absolute Defense : 1]
[Body Reinforcement (Outer) - 1] +
[Body Reinforcement (Inner) - 0] +
[Body Reinforcement (Frame) - 0] +
"Huh? That's it?" Young Jade felt somewhat unhappy with the results based on the effort he'd put in initially. One of three ranks? There were nine body reinforcement ranks total? When he thought about it this way perhaps the rewards weren't so bad. His resistance to physical damage would rise to 45% once he managed to max each of these categories out.
His qi had basically doubled in four days' time , his health and stamina also increased a great deal along with a few of his other stats due to training. Also upon examining his status screen another stat appeared:
"Help > Absolute Defense." Young Jade called out.
"Absolute Defense : When using Body Reinforcement, you may undergo many changes, one result is developing absolute defense. Regardless of the damage you take, this amount will always be deducted from the total."
"Absolute defense hmm? That's actually not too bad. And this is on top of percent based damage resistance? If I continue to raise both it will be incredibly difficult to damage my body."
The more he looked over the results in detail, the more pleased he became. In fact, he now felt motivated to complete the other two Body Reinforcement quests, but not immediately. As a reward to himself, Young decided to take a break from training for the rest of the night. A few hours of rest and recuperation couldn't hurt after all.
He still had a great deal of stamina remaining and as a result he wasn't tired. With this in mind Young Jade decided to go for a walk in the cavern to stretch his legs. Since the sun had already set he decided to gather a few more mushrooms as well-- something he'd neglected to do earlier in his rush to complete Body Reinforcement (Outer).
He'd never wandered around the cavern at night, which is why he was surprised to see a new alert upon exiting the crawlspace.
[Enemies detected : 6 ]
"Mini-Map [1] : The mini map is a useful tool for navigation but it also tracks nearby threats and points of interest. Use it to your advantage to avoid unforeseen encounters."
Young froze in his tracks and peered around, immediately calling forth his Beast Spirit Short-sword. He didn't see anything -- yet, but he decided to be safe rather than sorry. He firmly grasped the blade of his sword and walked forth cautiously.
"Mini-map > Open." Young whispered as he began to advance. Indeed the map displayed several red dots. After a few steps Young paused to watch the spots moving around on the mini-map.
"Why can't I see them?" He thought to himself. To be sure the light inside the cavern was dim, but there were luminous plants all around. There was more than enough light to see a fair distance. He continued to press forward, the anticipation building as he moved.
"Combat Ready (1) : Monsters, otherwise known as Spirit Beasts, are hostile spirits that prey upon humanity. When defeated by a cultivator their energy can be absorbed and used for cultivation. Unlike the ambient energy of nature, this energy can easily be absorbed with little trouble. Defeating monsters and absorbing their energy is one of the fastest ways to grow your cultivation rank."
As he read the alert Young heard the sound of shifting rock echo around the cavern but he could not immediately place where the noise came from. He strained his eyes , taking note as one of the red blips began to move towards him. Finally after a few short seconds the red blip overlapped his own position on the mini-map. He waited with baited breath, his sword at the ready -- but nothing came.
Or so he believed. The sound of falling rocks clued him in too late as a large, grey mass fell down from the ceiling.