With nothing special to do, Arthur found a place to sit down in the public square and started to ponder. His most immediate concern was getting stronger, but he wasn't sure what the best way to go about it was yet. Just cultivating normally by himself would naturally not be very fast, and it would just be a waste of time, yet going out to temper himself would just be plain reckless. As far as Arthur knew, demonic beasts could be divided into ranks according to their strength.
A rank 1 beast was equivalent to a body-refining cultivator. They could then be further classified into low, mid and high-tier depending on their strength relevant to their rank. A low-tier rank 1 beast was equivalent to an early stage body-refining cultivator. Which was to say that Arthur could basically only fight against the weakest of demonic beasts, and if he happened to run into a demonic beast that was high-tier rank 1, or even rank 2, he could kiss his new life goodbye.
Arthur decided that he wouldn't adventure out into the wilderness before at least breaking into the 7th stage of the body-refining realm. He reckoned that if he broke into the 7th stage of the body-refining realm, he should be able to defend himself against any rank 1 demonic beasts, and he would probably be able to flee if he encountered a weaker rank 2 beast.
With all this said, Arthur also knew that running into a rank 2 beast in any random forest was very unlikely, but he wasn't about to be reckless without any particular reason, that would just be stupid, he had no intention of throwing his life away anytime soon. Since he had started formulating his plan, it was time to think about putting it into action. To reach the 7th stage of body-refining would probably take Arthur a few months if he were to do it the normal way, but there was no way he was going to waste that much time when he had the Goodwill system.
"System, can you show me medicines that speed up body-refining?"
When he saw the massive list popping up before his eyes, he quickly adjusted his search terms a little.
"Can you narrow it down to medicines that are suitable for my physique, as well as ones I can afford?"
After stating his new terms, the list got a lot shorter, and he finally started looking through it. Since a lot of options were missing, it didn't take him too long to find something good. He skipped everything that cost more than 20 points, and he immediately found something that seemed pretty good. Bone-strengthening powder was perfect for his current needs. According to the description of the system, he just needed to dissolve it in water before absorbing it into his body, and it would speed up his body-refining several times. The most important part was that a bag of bone-strengthening powder only cost him 5 points.
He could easily get more than 5 points a day by just going around town and helping people out. Since he could just save the surplus points for something better, Arthur felt like it was a pretty good plan. With a plan of action in mind, Arthur decided to get to work. The next few weeks were going to be pretty monotone and boring, but he didn't really mind, in fact, he was really excited.
After spending a few hours walking around outside, he returned to his hotel room with 17 new points in his possession. After buying a bag of bone-strengthening powder and pouring it into a tub of hot water, Arthur started practising his different techniques. For the coming month, this would be his daily routine.
After the first 2 days, Arthur had already broken through to the 4th stage of body-refining. After the first week, he had broken through to the 5th level. After the second week, he had broken through to the 6th level. And after 4 weeks of cultivation, Arthur had reached the peak of the 7th stage of body-refining
...
It was currently late summer in brille, and in the courtyard of the Silver Bliss Inn, a youth was practising hard with his sword. His moves were fairly gentle and ethereal, but they contained a lot of concealed power. In one of the rooms of the inn, a woman was attentively watching him practice. For the past month, it had practically become a tradition for her to watch this young man train. Not only did he look captivating, but he was making progress really fast, and watching him advance had become routine.
This young man was naturally Arthur, and in the past month, he had made a lot of progress. His cultivation had taken a large leap forward, and his techniques had become a lot more refined. His Thunderfire Sword Art had reached level 4, while his Phantom Wind Movement Art had reached 3. This meant that Arthur was rather talented in the sword, as he had even begun to form his own sword qi.
In this past month, he had transformed into something completely different, and he had also learnt more about his own talent and where he was. After deliberation, Arthur was pretty sure that the levels of his different techniques corresponded to the mastery system that other cultivators used. Normally, the mastery of a technique could be divided into 5 stages: Initial, Beginner, Proficient, Perfection and Transcendent.
Reaching level 4 in his sword art meant that Arthur had already reached perfection. Reaching perfection in a High-Mystical grade sword art in just a month indicated that both his talent for techniques and his talent for the sword far outshined his cultivation talent. Arthur was naturally very pleased about this since it was way easier to augment cultivation speed rather than comprehension, and with the help of his system, he would naturally be able to cultivate pretty smoothly.
Unfortunately, the bone-strengthening powder had practically started to lose almost all of its effect now that he was almost at the 8th stage of body-refining. Although that was the case, Arthur had already accumulated a bunch of points, 587 to be exact. Although there were plenty of different medicines he could buy with that amount of points, Arthur wasn't planning on wasting them just yet.
Spending them to just advance a single rank wouldn't do that much for Arthur right now, he'd rather spend them on something more substantial. Since his strength had advanced by leaps and bounds, he felt like it was time to adventure out into the unknown to temper himself. Although he was way stronger, he had still never really fought anyone yet.
The forest that was a few kilometres north of the city was a local spot for youngsters and hunters to explore and temper themselves. In the deepest reaches of the forest, you could probably find a few rank 2 demonic beasts, but in the outer reaches, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything like that. There were also plenty of medicinal herbs and the like, which was the main reason people explored it, is there anyone in this world who isn't fond of money after all?