Cultivating was a breeze, Leo decided as he absorbed the surrounding anima in the air. It wasn't like he wasn't aware of his seemingly monstrous absorption rate, but he just thought that cultivation itself would be different.
That after entering the ranks of the supernatural he would experience an entirely different life yet here he was meditating like he did almost all of this and a big part of his past life. He figured out quickly that there was a reason that meditation was a tightlipped technique on earth.
It was the fact that it helped with the anima and since humans didn't want to make their enemies any stronger, they kept those techniques hidden. In fact, they even halted any progress made by the ordinary person.
It was stupid, Leo thought. As it effectively hindered the progress of all humanity. Humans were able to develop this far because they shared their ideas with each other, they communicated about dos and don'ts.
There was a reason why the metaphor 'standing on the shoulders of giants' held so much truth in it even if the average person wasn't able or didn't want to hear it. In Leo's eyes it probably is a metaphor that would apply to any sapient civilization in any universe.
Leo shook his head to get rid of these thoughts. He stood up as he ended his cultivation session. He got some anima crystals to accelerate the process of absorption, but if they were common crystals Leo would run through them like they weren't even there.
He jumped slightly and as soon as he landed struck out with a quick jab-hook combo, he felt his hands cutting through the air as his arms moved in blurs.
He felt strong, more than strong in fact. He felt like he could hold the world on top of his shoulders. His body showed more progress in a single session than a month of arduous training would have. Even as he started training, he didn't feel his strength increase as much.
He had been cultivating for a month already and had already a solid foot in the low-level. Honestly, he thought it would be more difficult and it will be more difficult the further he will go on his cultivation journey, but it all felt unsatisfying.
He felt better with every session, but he felt it was too easy. He had trained for hours every day that wasn't a carefully picked rest day.
He pushed himself to the limits each time and he would grow more powerful because of it, but now he was sitting cross-legged on a mat with a crystal in his hands and a stomach full of spirit meat, and he was growing more than he had ever.
But this was what he wanted wasn't it? Cultivation to reach heights unimaginable, to gain the power to topple mountains. If his strength grew as slowly as he did without anima, it would take him hundreds of years of back-breaking training to reach anything close to what he fantasizes about.
If someone else would hear what he thought of cultivation, they would have strangled him already. Finding cultivation too easy as to go as far to complain about the ease of it? Yeah, most if not all would be furious about his thoughts.
He could only sigh as he thought about his first wor… his third world problem. Either way besides his masochistic tendencies, his life was fulfilling right now.
He figured that though this world separated the cultivation of the body into external and internal, he just combined the two techniques that he got to toughen his body.
He knew that he could absorb anima from his surroundings with more ease than others, which was also a reason why he was instinctively able to absorb the anima from the sustained technique orbs used in the assessment.
With the meat in his stomach, they wanted him to train his organs and with medical baths and normal cultivation the manual, Arcanum gave him wanted him to strengthen his skin and muscles, but Leo thought that the techniques was a bit strange.
They guided the anima into the specific sections of the body while having it stay in some areas for a longer time. He felt how the energy dispersed inside his body as he circled the anima around his body according to the techniques, but Leo felt like they missed out on important areas, especially those that helped with balance.
They were also strange in their prioritization. For example, the external technique started with the extremities and then went inwards to absorb the anima and disperse it there first. Leo would argue that it would be the most important to toughen the torso first.
A tough torso from which his arms and legs could get their strength from, while protecting his yet fragile organs.
Besides, one would be more prone to injury with a weak core, no matter how strong your legs or arms were. Seemed to be the logical conclusion to train the torso first.
A reason they gave in the manual was that most people here seemed to have an easier time absorbing anima with their arms and legs than their torso, which had to be false for numerous reasons. First the air had anima inside of it, meaning that theoretically they could cultivate while simply breathing.
Second, the food was already used to cultivate their organs with, why not use it for the external part of the body as well. Of course, one could faster cultivate if one focused on only the internal aspect of the body, but that introduced another problem.
The body's inner body would be a lot stronger than the skin and muscles, which in turn will lead to some problems. The manual mentioned that the cultivator needed to wait for some time if they advanced with the internal aspect of the body to advance until the external body caught up.
Leo knew that it had to be caused by imbalance. For the simple reason that one needed to have stiffer and stronger tendons if one wanted to support stronger muscles.
Otherwise, if the tendon were too weak for the muscles it would lead to having the tendon stretch a lot, resulting in micro-injuries in form of tears in the tendon fibrils. When it is repeated often enough it will lead to greater injuries in the tendons.
In turn if the muscles were too weak it would also lead to injuries. A stiff tendon would lead into it stretching less and transmit more stretch at faster velocity to the muscle fibers, which means it would lead to muscle injuries.
So, with just examining the case between tendons and muscles it would be better to have it strengthen simultaneously in balance than go with the suggestion of the manual of training it in succession.
Of course, Leo would usually prefer to train with something that had been tested through the ages, but now he would rather stand on the shoulders of the giants of his past life. A more balanced seemed to be the healthier course of action.
After coming to that realization, he had modelled the two techniques into one that could be used for the entire body and could be used with every breath of his.
Might as well cultivate the entire time, Leo thought as if it was no biggie. The only reason he sat down now would be to meditate, which coincidentally accelerated his cultivation by a lot. It seemed like his state of mind affected the rate at which he absorbed anima, another thing that he would need to investigate further.
He figured that his new cultivation technique might be a great improvement to what they already got here. Especially, those that focused entirely on the body would probably want to learn this as it at least cut down the waiting time after each advancement of the body minor-rank.
Despite his invention of a better technique withing a week after getting to know Arcanum's body strengthening techniques, he had found himself bored rather quickly, since he needed to reach the low-level until he could utilize any anima moves.
He had already advanced to the low-level in awareness and mind, which he breezed through like he was expected to.
His affinities were tailored for those, and he barely had to put any effort into advancing. He just needed some time for his mind to utilize anima as well have his awareness register the anima more easily.
The rest was simply to use the pressure created by the mind cultivation technique onto his mind to manifest energy inside his mind space, which was just his mind palace manifest more realistically almost to the point he couldn't distinguish it from reality anymore.
His mind palace was just a memorization technique he had used for years already, but with the introduction of the technique and this weird mind energy, it started to flow into his mind palace, making it more solid.
He quickly realized that his memories were easier handled than before. He was no beginner in memorizing information, but this energy strengthened his capacity and accelerated his mind's ability in all aspects that he thought were important.
Normally, cultivators would get major headaches and had difficulties in concentrating, which Leo experienced nothing of.
To advance in the rank of awareness he needed to be more aware of his surroundings and to become one with his surroundings. Considering that he could have an ego death during meditation every time he wanted, to become one with his surroundings were exceptionally easy.
To be frank it was like they taught him how to breath or walk, something that he could do instinctually or almost without effort.
With cultivation he had found what he was looking for and despite the surprising ease with which he cultivated, he did find some things that pushed him mentally and physically.
Even though, he spent most of his time advancing his body, he was already planning on going on some missions the Arcanum Hall was presenting for every member of the faction. Most of them were requests to investigate strange phenomena or help some professor in their laboratory.
Leo had no interest in those missions as he barely had any idea about what could cause those phenomena. Considering that he just arrived in this world it wasn't that surprising. And to help someone in their laboratory wasn't something Leo really considered.
It was mainly his bias of novels he read in the past. Usually, those experiments they conducted with the help of their new recruits ended with them becoming disfigured.
He also could just go to Ms. Magenda to attend her tutelage and he wouldn't need to worry about fulfilling his quota. He had already accepted her offer and became her disciple, but her tips in cultivation were practically useless to him.
Her experience was useful for the normal person and the talents but someone like Leo would just breeze through most difficulties on his own. Her knowledge about the later levels were currently unnecessary for Leo as he would still need to 'grind' the lower levels.
There were mainly two big reasons why he joined her after asking around. It wasn't her assets, Leo clarified in his mind to himself.
For one, she was an Archmage and those usually won't take any disciples, at least it would take decades until a new disciple for an Archmage would be announced. It was rarely done and the other reason for him accepting was her presence.
Not her ara ara vibes, which were a plus alright, and not her aura, but her being around. The other Archmages were usually couped up in their laboratory and not come out after months or for some even for years.
Leo wanted someone that he could go to regularly if he had problems. It wasn't like he needed help until now, but cultivation would only become more difficult.