As James woke up he realized that he had absorbed 50 spiritual qi as he was sleeping. James was overjoyed to realize that his cultivation manual was working as it should be. IF he could absorb 50 spiritual qi as he was sleeping that already made him incredibly happy.
James decided that it was time that he mined all of the spirit crystals that were in this huge cave. He thought that it would be best if he started at the beginning of the cave and work his way towards the end where the dragon originally was.
James took his time as he was mining all the crystals, every time he mined a crystal he would put it into his inventory, he figured that he wouldn't look at the grade or the amount of crystals he had until the end so that it would be a surprise to him. The further in he got the harder it would get to mine the crystals out of the cave walls. As James was mining crystals during the day, at night he was cultivating to try and rise his cultivation level to the next rank.
In the blink of an eye one week passed, James was very close to finishing mining all of the crystals but at this point he was using all of his strength to just mine one crystal and he knew that by the end he wouldn't even be able to mine them anymore. But James knew that he was very close to breaking through to the 4th rank of the body tempering realm and at that point he would easily be able to finish mining all of the crystals.
After another day James had to stop mining crystals because his strength was insufficient to mine anymore and he needed to break through to the next rank to be able to finish mining all of the crystals. Currently James had 702/800 spiritual qi wisps needed to break through to the next rank of the body refinement realm. He knew that it would only take 1 and a half more days to finish gaining the needed spiritual qi so he decided that he would just cultivate putting aside the spirit crystals for the moment.
After another Day and a half James felt the same soothing feeling move throughout his body signifying that he had broken through to rank 4 of the body refining realm. He could finally finish up mining all of the spirit stones that were left on the walls of the cave. At this point James had mined all of the spirit stones in the cave except for the stones in the large open area that Emry was living in for the duration of his stay.
Out of all of James' expectations to mine the stones that were in the area that was left it took him another entire week, adding with the 1 week before it had taken James a total of 2 weeks to fully remove the spirit stones that were stuck in the cave walls of the area he was currently in. Finally now that James was finally done with that he decided that it was time for him to take a break for a couple days so that he could regain the energy that he used in the past 2 weeks.
After a coupled of days James had finally finished resting and he decided that it was time to take a look at his inventory so that he could look at his gains. But first he figured that it would be good if he took a quick glance at both the menu and his attributes.
[Name - James Smith
Lifespan - Infinite
Age - 2.5 weeks old, mental age - 20 years
Cultivation level - Body refinement rank 4
Spiritual qi needed to reach next level - 800/1,600
Race - Aspidochelone
Points - 20
Attributes
Skills
Quests
Shop
Gacha
Inventory]
[Health - 300/300
Spiritual qi - 1,500
Strength - 50
Constitution - 30
Dexterity - 26
Intelligence - 35
Charisma - 30
Wisdom - 20
Perception - 30
Luck - 40
Stat points - 15]
James wasn't surprised by any of the information that was displayed in either of the categories so he decided that he would move on to the next thing that he needed to do, check out his inventory.
James clicked on the inventory and instantly his jaw touched the ground. He had no idea what he was going to do with everything that he had.
[Inventory -
Rank 1 Healing pill, Turtle top hat, Spiritual sense flower, Flying Boat, Low grade spirit crystal x1,295,238, Mid grade spirit crystal x783,845, High grade spirit crystal x179,275, Top grade spirit crystal x97,472, Low grade immortal crystal x21,350, Mid grade immortal crystal x6,723, High grade immortal crystal x952, Top grade immortal crystal x92]
He had so many spirit crystals that he didn't even know what he could use them for. According to Emry the Top grade spirit crystal was already enough to bee a national treasure and he actually had over 90 thousand of them. James had no idea what an immortal crystal was but he speculated that it was like the spirit crystal but the spiritual qi in them was much more condensed and concentrated.
'Hey Winter would you mind giving me some information on these spirit and immortal crystals.'
[Low grade spirit crystal - 1,000 spiritual qi wisps
Mid grade spirit crystal - 10,000 spiritual qi wisps
1 spirit qi drop = 1,000 spirit qi wisps
High grade spirit crystal 1,000 spiritual qi drops
Top grade spirit crystal - 10,000 spiritual qi drops
1 golden spirit qi wisp = 1,000 spiritual qi drops
Low grade immortal crystal - 1,000 golden spiritual qi wisps
Mid grade immortal crystal - 10,000 golden spiritual qi wisps
1 golden spiritual qi drop = 1,000 golden spiritual qi wisps
High grade immortal crystal - 1,000 golden spiritual qi drops
Top grade immortal crystal - 10,000 golden spiritual qi drops]
There was already so much information that James had no idea about but had speculations about so he thought that he would let Winter do all the explaining.
'Hey Winter can you explain to me everything that's going on on this page.' asked James
[First the low and mid grade spirit crystals use the same terminology that you are already used to. The high and top grade spirit crystals use the same spiritual qi but in a more concentrated form, after you condense 100 spiritual wisps you can form a spiritual qi drop which is just spiritual qi in the liquid form. Then there is the golden spiritual qi in which all I can currently tell you is that it is used after you ascend to the upper realm so you dont have to worry about that currently.]
James Felt like this was all to much for one man to carry, currently he was carrying more than this entire world was probably worth. It felt like he now had an entire mountain weighing down on his shoulders. But James felt that he shouldn't think about it and move on to one of the more important questions that he has.
'What can I use the crystals for?' James felt that this was one of the more important questions that he could ask at the given moment since he had so many crystals but nothing to do with them.
[The spirit crystals can be used to speed up the cultivation process since it provides a source to absorb spiritual qi from instead of having to absorb from the atmosphere. The system suggests that the host uses a mid grade spirit crystal in the beginning since it is in wisp form and is easier to absorb. The liquid form of spiritual qi is only used after you condense your core and step into the realm that comes after the core condensation realm. So you will use wisps until the realm after the core condensation realm. I would also suggest that you dont absorb the qi from the immortal grade crystals as it is too potent and will cause you to instantly explode, you can still use all of the spirit crystals but the system suggests you dont use the mid and high grades just yet. Other than that the crystals are used as currency in this world. They are used by cultivators all over the place, but all of the mortals use coins as currency as they haven't stepped into the cultivation world. Finally the last thing they can be used for is the exchange system that will be unlocked in the near future.]
James felt that these spirit crystals were going to become very useful in the long run when he finally steps into civilization but for now he can only use it to increase his cultivation. James also really wanted to know more about this exchange system that Winter talked about but every time he asked her she would just respond with terms like "who knows, cause i certainly dont" or something like "Hmm when did i say something like that". James was starting to feel that he was talking to another person rather than the system at times like this.