-Week 4, Day 25/Wednesday, Mayort City-
-Time: 5:19 A.M.-
Another morning started for Nivril and once again, he went for his daily training. As he was doing so, he happened to come across the same girl who helped him all the way back when he completed the daily quest for the first time.
"Oh, it's you." Nivril let out without too much thought behind it.
"… I… I'm sorry… Do… Did I know anyone so handsome?… I mean… You really have a pretty face… No! I'm sorry… Actually, you do have a handsome face, I just didn't want to tell you that." The girl completely fumbled the interaction losing to her nervousness.
(Who is this guy?… Now that I think about it, it's the second time some guy has come to me claiming I helped them by giving them a water bottle… Am I going crazy?) She could not help but wonder confused by the whole ordeal.
"Hehehe… Don't worry, I don't mind… you're probably just tired from the exercise, now I think it would be nice if you could go for a coffee or even lunch… Honestly, dinner is not out of the question, I just wanted to repay for that day." Nivril chuckled in amusement but didn't press on it, instead inviting her out as he had planned.
"Hehehe… Unfortunately, I… I don't think I know anyone… Hum… Quite like you, you're probably mistaking me for someone else." She moved her brown hair before her ear and began giggling as she lightly leaned toward him as they talked.
(Is this some sort of weird scheme? Another strategy from that bastard to get me? I might need that fool's help, but he's been missing for a bit. Why does he always disappear exactly when I need him, useless!) Her mind was filled with suspicion.
"No, this is no mistake... I looked different the last time we met, but you gave me a bottle of water a few weeks ago when I was not doing the best." Nivril expressed with a slight smile, not surprised she forgot such a minor interaction after so long.
"Nothing comes to mind, so I'll excuse myself." She felt something unusual was going on and instead decided to leave before it got dangerous.
(He's way too persistent, something's not adding up. I have to get out of here before things go wrong.) She decided while she forced a smile on the outside.
"How about this? Let's just consider this, me inviting you out, and so you can feel better about yourself, choose the place and day we're meeting for this date. What do you say?" Nivril responded seeing she seemed worried he would try something.
"That's a lot right now, and I'm not sure, I can…" She tried to avoid it but Nivril walked up to her and she felt the slight scent of honey and peaches invade her nostrils before his close-up face greeted her with this coffee chocolate scent she loved the smell of coffee, feeling a little cornered but she wasn't complaining.
(This guy… how odd… it's pleasant… Am I being drugged? I should really leave…) Her mind was getting a bit hazy with all of it.
If it wasn't for the fact that Nivril got shorter ever since he assimilated the Sun Phoenix Bloodline, and was now standing at only 1,65m(5'4) so much shorter than his previous 1,95m(6'4). He would have been towering her instead of just being a tiny bit taller.
"Fine, just take my number and think about it. If you ever feel like going for a meal, just call me and we'll do it your way. I hope you don't leave me waiting." Nivril explained and she just gave him her phone and he typed and saved his number as Nivril before giving it back, after showing it to her.
The young woman just silently accepted the phone and Nivril left her slightly confused, relieved, scared, and somehow excited.
(What just happened to me?!… This isn't a dream, right?… So why am I being picked up by some CEO son-type, like its drama?!… No! No! Don't fall for the pretty face! It's clearly some sort of scam or even worse! Human trafficking!
(If you call him you'll never see your family and friends again! So keep it together! Don't think about it! But he smelled so good though… No! Don't think about it!) She convinced herself as she thought about it and just couldn't believe it was real, containing her massive blush and trying her best to think of something else and then failing completely.
From then on Nivril's day went on and he was having a normal day at school with not much to be said about it, well, that was until someone came for an unexpected visit.
"Wow! I'm almost impressed! When they told me you successfully became a cultivator, I couldn't believe someone like you had it in them, I guess I thought wrong, you're not a worthless worm, you're an ant that could be squashed at any time.
"Before you get any ideas let me tell you that I'm already at the Peak tier 10th Layer for both the Energy and Body Martial Apprentice Realms. I'll enter the Martial Fighter realm any day now. I'm too far above for the likes of you." Marissa came up to Nivril and began taunting him.
Nivril ignored her and continued to draw not minding her.
However, she was apparently not done with him. Marissa pulled the papers in front of Nivril before he could even react at all and started looking at all of them.
"What a total loser! You're drawing your teachers?! The principal, the stupid dojo girl, and your fairy slave?! Who's even this one? Looks so average! You have no taste, only horniness! Hahahahaha! What do you say I go to the teachers and the principal with these?
"I could even convince them to make an exposit for your trash art. Aren't I nice? You'll have to pay me at least 80% of the royalties you'll get for kickstarting your sh*t career! But then again people who like art will just buy any piece of trash if an art expert says it means something. Hahahaha frikin dumbasses, just like you!" Marissa continued to bother Nivril with her obnoxious antics.
"Do you like me or something?" Nivril questioned confused as she went out of her way to bother him.
*Bam!* *Crack!*
Marissa cracked the ground by smashing Nivril's desk with the papers and looked at him with an intense stare of rage and aggression like she wanted to punch him and break all his bones this instant, contrasted by the furious blushing happening on her face.
"Don't you ever dare suggest such a thing!!!! I would never be interested in a little puny ant like you!!! You belong underneath my feet and it's there that you'll rest squashed for the rest of your life!" Marissa yelled at him full force with clear anger in every word.
In response, Nivril simply chuckled unable to take her seriously, and this led to her punching the wall behind him, making a big hole in it, before she stomped her way out of there, each step cracking the ground.
"I'll take that as a yes… who would have thought… She's a tsundere now… wasn't expecting that…" Nivril raised his eyebrow before picking up what survived from the rumble of his destroyed desk.
(Oh well, I'll have time to enjoy being her nightmare in time.) Nivril smiled at the thought.
Though unfortunately his drawings were mangled and ripped apart.
After letting out a sigh, Nivril changed places and continued with his day. Nothing much happened in school, and he went home ready to continue his cultivation. Ishmaya had yet to return but that didn't bother, Nivrip who was not interested in what she was doing for now.
Getting into his room, Nivril once again sat on the bed and began meditating focusing on keeping the poison at bay first something that unlike before was almost not dangerous at all. Once he was done with that, he moved on to cultivation, and this time however things were a little different.
Unlike with Essence Cultivation where he was managing various energies that were already inside him, now he had to collect pure energy from the atmosphere where it was abundant and collect it in his dantian, where the pure energy would form into something known as the pure energy fog, inside it then he would have to go in there to stabilize it with something called an energy guardian.
The process was overall less complicated than his essence cultivation.
Following the instructions as he understood them, Nivril focused and took in as much pure energy from the outside into his dantian as he could by directing it there, using his experience with pure energy from when he was essence cultivating as a reference and managed to do it relatively quickly.
In time he could feel his dantian fill up with pure energy bit by bit, like a container being filled with water. The process was smooth and surprisingly lacking in any setbacks, which got Nivril worried as he was waiting for something to go wrong.
However contrary to his expectations, nothing went array and he soon had a full dantian with nothing major taking place.
Not letting himself be scared by the lack of trouble, he continued and moved on to the next phase which consisted of entering the dantian in the form of energy inner projection.
Inside there was nothing but a very thick fog that covered the whole place, showing no signs of ever ending or stopping, moving on for what felt like eternity.
"What now?…" Nivril sighed as he was lost semi-not knowing where to go or what to do as there was no specific knowledge about it in the technique, which led him to believe the so-called Energy Guardian would guide him, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Roaming around this part of himself completely lost on what to do, Nivril began to consider leaving this for another occasion entirely.
"No… let's try to control the situation!" Shaking his head, he could not allow himself to give up so easily.
Focusing himself, he attempted to move the pure energy fog out of the way, unfortunately, it didn't respond to him at all. Instead as if to look at him for even daring to try, some dense fog passed right through his face.
"… It was too easy… too smooth… I hate it here." Nivril felt tired and rolled his eyes at the situation, before continuing to try.
It bore no fruit no matter how much he tried, and so he just went back to taking on the fog the old-fashioned way, and just walking around until he found something.
This led to a long walk that went on for untold periods of time and things just got really, really boring, as nothing but fog existed there. What felt like hours, and hours of time just passed like nothing and there was no progress.
"An instruction manual would come in handy, right about now." Nivril narrowed his eyes and facepalmed without any hint of motivation in his voice.
"You sound disheartened, young man." A husky and rough voice could be heard as he saw a shadow in the fog.
"It's hard not to be when you don't know what's going on, Plus, I hoped a certain energy guardian would react to my distress." Nivril looked pained before revealing a smile as he looked at the shadows in the fog unable to discern its figure besides a short shadowy blur.
"Hahaha! I guess I did, but if you're still so energetic, you won't mind me going back to my fishing, I reckon." The energy guardian responded after laughing a bit with a strong eagerness.
"I would very much mind. I need your help to cultivate and reach the lesser tier 1st layer energy Martial Apprentice realm… And really? Fishing? You should know I despise the taste of fish." Nivril raised his eyebrow and looked at the energy guardian up and down even though he couldn't see its figure, he still wanted his displeasure to be understood by the other party.
"I know, and so do I. You youngins are way too soft. Back in my day liking something had nothing to do with your willingness to eat it. Hehehe" The energy guardian replied before laughing.
"Yeah, because you probably didn't have a choice, but I do. Times change and your era honestly sounds like it sucked." Nivril calmly answered with a slight air of dismissal.
"Hahahahaha! Well said, it did suck. So, do you want to fish with me?" The energy guardian laughed at the response and then threw in an unexpected invitation.
"Honestly, I don't but I'll try, though you'll have to teach me everything from the basics. I've never gone fishing." Nivril nodded reluctantly as he got up and walked toward the energy guardian.
Even getting closer the fog or shadowiness of the energy guardian didn't reduce at all.
"Don't worry too much just let it happen, you'll get the hang of it… eventually… probably." The energy guardian expressed.
After some time, both ended up sitting somewhere and Nivril was handed a sort of stick with a line that looked more like an archaic attempt at making a fishing rod rather than an actual fishing rod that could actually catch anything. Even so, he didn't complain as he felt there was no point in it.
At some point, Nivril felt something biting, and he immediately pulled to try and catch it, however, this time there was nothing.
Later on again, something a bit, and that time however he waited a bit more before pulling and something came up at the end of the line. It was a fish-looking creature with 5 eyes, 3 months, and tendrils coming off it.
Using one of its tendrils the "fish" thing slapped Nivril before cutting off the line and swimming off.
"Hahaha! Bested by the catch, don't worry happens to the best of us." The energy guardian semi-tried to cheer him up after laughing it off.
"Why do people do this to themselves?! This is boring and the catch tastes terrible!!" Nivril was starting to actually let the frustration of this place get to him.
For a long time, an unknown period, Nivril missed and failed to catch anything, getting more and more frustrated as the energy guardian, seemed to catch something every few minutes.
"Hey, you seem to be fuming, try these." The energy guardian threw a curved smoking pipe carved like a wood pine, and a gourd with two ropes as a handle, emitting the smell of alcohol.
"Are you always this much of a bad influence?" Nivril who caught both, asked as he looked at the energy guardian.
"Yes. Are you always so stuck up? I thought young people were adventurous and daredevils… so movies do lie… sad." The energy guardian responded with a cheery tone not making the husky and rough voice less blunt.
"Yes… I'm trying to work on that… I hope I don't regret this." Nivril sighed and took a shot from the gourd before pulling in the smoke from the pipe.
Immediately like he was run over like a truck all over again, Nivril instantly passed out, before letting out a random sentence as he lost consciousness.
"I am the bane of my fate! Pleasure is my body and pain is my blood, I have ruined over a million opportunities… Unaware of failure, nor aware of success, went through personal hell and heaven for those I loved, waiting for nothing in return. All I have is regrets. I will change my path! So now, I call upon! Endless Lust Grind!" Nivril chanted in complete drunkness and highness, unaware of each word, as he faded out.
"Hahaha! It seems this generation is built weak, and can't even handle some Ouroboros Bahamut blood moonshine or Dragon Phoenix breath essence herbs, but he's got the right spirit though, at this rate he'll become part of the top of Earthion in no time, though what I really want to see is him go beyond that… Can't wait for it." The energy guardian shook its head at him and could only laugh seeing such a performance.
This day, Nivril experienced a level of intoxication and dizziness he thought impossible, as if all of his 6 axioms had been affected rather than just a physical sensation, he was hit in places he was not aware existed within him. This drink and blunt, are potent enough to kill all of humanity more than billions of times over.
It was exactly how Nivril envisioned his day when he planned to cultivate, but there was for sure someone out there that thought that spending a day with an odd individual they met today then trying to drink and smoke with them counts as "cultivation"… probably… maybe, but it didn't matter since in the end it worked for him.
That was the day Nivril became an energy cultivator, by reaching the right type of enlightenment… a very drunk and high one.