2 days later
If one were to look at a specific part of whirlwind Valley, you would see the peculiar sight of a man doing frenzied crunches for five minutes before collapsing on the floor only to repeat this a few hours later. why?
-ding, side quest completed-
-please collect your reward-
"Yesssssss"
Finally, after almost three days, Richie managed to just barely complete his mission, he could have done it quicker though, if he didnt pass out so many times
" Give me my reward NOW"
-here take your reward-
-you don't need to shout at me though- the system said sadly
Richie them felt something appear in his right hand, a few somethings, he immediately looked in his right hand with overwhelming anticipation, and, the pills were there, in all there glory, Mist was even forming over them.
Hehe,this system is really stupid, I am going to abuse these pills so much, Richie thought internally.
-You know I can hear your thoughts anyway so you really dont need to shout out loud or 'abuse my pills by selling them, they only work on you -
"how did you know I was going to sell them?"
-I hear all of your thoughts and your intentions behind them-
well can you hear this? Richie thought
-yes, like I said, you might want to eat those pill soon, or, you might not be ready for what's currently on it's way here-
It didn't really matter if the system would remind him to cultivate or not, there was no way he could forget about those incredible pills he got.
He then threw all ten pills into his mouth and somehow swallowed the all
"gulp"
-YOU IDIDOT! YOU TAKE THE PILLS ONE AT A TIME, WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB!-
"why are you shouti- oh crap yeah"
"AAAAH MY BODY"
A qi gathering pill worked by dissolving in your stomach and releasing the qi which was specially described to go straight to your qi core. (every human has a qi core unless it was destroyed upon being crippled)
Due to the overwhelming amount of qi that is stored in a 'perfect pill' (like the system reward pills) It would be extremely stupid to consume more than one at a time, you need time to use the qi for cultivation before taking another.
Why would it be stupid? Because if you dont manage to quickly use all if the qi to cultivate, your body may explode due to the overwhelming amount of qi in your body. Anyway, let's get back to the dying Richie.
Richie immediately got into a cultivating state an started attempting to use all the qi, but there was way too much qi, it was completely flooding his body.
"Aaah, I can feel it, I'm about to die, goodbye world"
-dude, shut up, you're fine-
Richie then realised that whilst there was still the pain, he didn't feel like he was going to explode anymore, it seemed his mana chamber had increased in size.
-you made a breakthrough, your mana chamber can store just barely enough qi for you to not explode-
-you're lucky I took 90% percent of the qi out of the pills beforehand-
"that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt though!"
-well then cultivate-
"good point"
Richie then started cutivating through the pain until it just didn't hurt anymore, he had used basically all of the qi in the pills, he was so close to breaking through, he just needed a spirit beast to fight so he could take its core and uses it as a catalyst to breakthrough.
spirit beasts are born with qi cores which human can absorb the qi out of upon death, they are usually used to make a breakthrough through sub-stages, because you can absorb a lot of qi from them very quickly.
- don't worry, I've already sent a beast on it's way to try and kill you-
"aren't you supposed to be trying to keep me alive?"
-yeah, but you'll die anyway if you dont breakthrough in 3 days so, good luck , hehe-
well, that was oddly suspicious, but if a spirit beast was really on the way, then he needed to set up traps immediately, he wasn't the kind to jump into an enemy without having a proper plan.