Hearing that accusation, Lothur looked incredulously at Annaliese as he tried to smell his clothes. 'I feel nothing!' He pondered quietly.
But the irritation in Annaliese's gaze was genuinely troubling, and he was not silent for long. "What are you talking about?"
"Lothur..." She walked towards him with a sharp look on her face while one of her hands was trailing towards his right wrist to prevent any attempt to escape from this scoundrel.
"Lothur, answer me at once. Who is the bitch?"
But this young man was not the type to obey when told what to do. "Anna, if you are smelling any woman's scent, it must be because there were many 'flowers' in the place where I sat earlier."
"You must be mistaken." He let go of one of her hands but continued to stand in front of her, watching her with a confident expression on his face.
Lothur could tell Annaliese the truth, but from her behavior, he knew it was best not to assume what he had done to Elke earlier. He would do it if Viktoria questioned him, but not with his sister-in-law or any other person.
"Lothur!"
"Do you think I'm an idiot? If you don't tell me now, I swear I'll tell my sister everything!"
Lothur narrowed his eyes and then used his tongue to lick his lips. "Do that!"
"Tsk!"
'Bastard! On his first day in this place, he's already gotten some little slut!'
'How degrading!'
'That is a real humiliation to our family!' She stood silently watching Lothur, red with anger.
But since Annaliese only had her word for pressing Lothur at this instant, she did not feel she could pressure him to speak the truth if he did not want to do so.
So, with that in mind, she thought of a solution to solve the problem. 'I will keep an eye on this ungrateful brother-in-law to prevent our family name from being further degraded.'
'I will not say anything to my sister for the time being.'
She then said in an irritated manner. "Then what do you want with me, scumbag? Can't you see I'm busy?"
But Lothur did not like her tone and used one of his hands to take her left wrist and bring her closer to him. "Anna, why are you so angry? You know well about my relationship with your sister."
"Can't you give me a break? Who do you think is more limited by this marriage? Your sister? Or me?"
But that woman in front of him said nothing. Instead, she just watched him with a judgmental look, still dissatisfied.
"Sigh..."
"I came here because I want your help regarding spiritual cultivation."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"The academy does not intend to allow me to use the areas related to cultivation."
Her eyes then opened in realization, recognizing this point was indeed pertinent. "But you can't cultivate. So, what difference does it make for you to know that?"
"I think you'd better use your time to learn the other subjects and get your degree as soon as possible. Only then will you be able to help our family and bring pride to my sister."
"Tsk!"
"Our family?" He said with a bit of irritation in his tone, but he did not lose control. "Then forget it. I'll make my way to solve my problems."
After that, he started walking on the path opposite her, thinking it had been a mistake to trust her.
'Elke can't do the same as Annaliese, but I can get something out of her...'
"Wait!"
After a few seconds, Annaliese ran after him, shouting at him to wait for her.
"What do you want?" He asked as he looked at the woman walking on his left side.
"Sigh..."
"I'm sorry for saying that, Lothur."
"I said more than I should have..." She said in an apologetic tone, understanding that she had wronged her brother-in-law.
She knew very well how unpleasant it was to be compared to her older sister, who was so much more talented than she was. And with that, after saying those words to Lothur, she had immediately felt bad for speaking so casually about his greatest weakness.
"Tell me what you want to know, and I will help you."
"If you can lend me your basic cultivation books, that will be enough, and I won't have to bother you once again."
"I'm sorry, but the academy doesn't give us those books. We have to return them once we change sectors. So, the ones I have are all from Sector-4."
"Why don't we talk about it? I'm not like my sister, but I can teach you the basics."
"Really? So, tell me something, how does a person know that he has reached the 1st Transformation? Or the 2nd? Is there something special between different levels?"
Upon hearing that, Annaliese tried to suppress the surprise on her face, as she did not want to offend this young man unnecessarily by implying that he was an ignoramus. "Well, that's simple."
"Any cultivator first needs a proper cultivation technique to begin their journey. From that technique, he will naturally feel the difference between the strength of an ordinary human to a 1st Transformation cultivator."
"The first stage is focused on transforming the mortal body into a spiritual body. It consists of nine spiritual cleansings, which are basically the processes in which your body eliminates toxins and undergoes changes necessary for soul development."
"At that stage, each time we take a step forward, spiritual cleansing brings us benefits. Like, for example, increased vitality, physical strength, endurance, visual ability, in short, everything improves."
"Since this process happens nine times, we say that the Mortal Warrior goes from the 1st to the 9th Transformation."
"So, that's how it is..." He muttered in a low voice as he remembered what had happened the night before. "Does this spiritual cleansing release a stinky black goo?"
"Oh? Yes, that's what we call impurities." She answered without paying attention to the satisfied expression on Lothur's face.
'Looks like I'm able to cultivate now!' He celebrated internally, realizing that the system had saved him and solved his body's problems. 'I'm probably at 1st Transformation!'
'But...'
"Is it possible to start cultivation without a technique?" He asked.
"No."
"Let me tell you a bit of history. The first cultivation techniques were created from the intuitive procedures of cultivation geniuses from ancient times."
"If you want to know, the difference between today and that time is that today we have numerous techniques at our disposal, of qualities of all kinds. With them, we can start our cultivating journey immediately. But back then, a cultivator needed to understand nature on his own to be able to start his cultivation."
"But this procedure adopted by the past geniuses is nothing more than the primordial form of our cultivation techniques."
'Then how did I advance in level?' Lothur wondered quietly. 'Is the system my technique? Or is it that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'?'
'No. That last option is the Physique, so it can't be a technique!'
"Anna, when we talk about cultivators, what does the Physique mean?"
"Physique is not exactly the body, but the quality relative to the body. Because of this, we all have a type of Physique, but it may or may not awaken, may or may not be useful in our activities."
"In any case, once someone awakens a Physique, it naturally confers some ability to that person."
"Have you awakened yours?" He asked in curiosity.
Annaliese then shook her head negatively. "It is challenging to do such a thing, and there is often a need for special resources or conditions for that to happen."
"As far as I know, even my sister couldn't awaken hers."
"Oh?" A smile broke out on Lothur's face as he imagined the competitive advantage he would have because of this.
"So, how do I rate the level of a Physique? Is there such a thing, or is there no rating?"
"The Physique rating is the same as that of spiritual cultivation." She replied as she looked at the side of Lothur's face, still walking with him through that open area of Sector-4.
"If you ask me, the difference between Physique and spiritual cultivation is the dependence on external resources. With spiritual techniques, you will depend on your soul power and those techniques to use your powers. Whereas with Physique, your soul is used as fuel for its abilities."
"I don't need to tell you which is better, right?"
'So, that's it!" Finally, Lothur could not contain his smile and demonstrated an image to Annaliese as even more attractive than he usually was.
'Looks like that's the benefit of the system! It can give me abilities as I gather those things!'
...