It had been another few months and Alex was now chronologically 1, but phisicaly 5 and mentaly about 22, this was gonna get messy on the future wasen't it? Anyway, he was currently in the manner library, yes there was a manor library. Once his father noticed his abnormal growth he was obviously checked to see weather or not he was some kind of monster that had so,e how stuck into the manner and replaced him.
Obviously all the tests came back negative as he was 100% human, probably. Since then he has just been treated as a 'child of heaven'. Apparently there would be a child born every now and again that had some strange trait that was unexplainable. Such as being born with the power to summon lighting, growing in cultivation just by sleeping, or growing much faster then normal. This was how he was able to explain away his faster then normal growth as well as his intelligence. He didn't know how it was related to his trait with the same name but he didn't really care for the time being.
Beast's also had a variation of this called 'children of the earth', also called beastly monarch's. Back to Alex, he was studing various topics in the library, such as the continents history, geography, political state, and other random peices of knowlage. So far he had memorised a map of the surrounding area, the political state, and languages, yes there was more then one. Other then that he was obviously studing cultivation and body forging along with the world's various professions, not like he could do anything with that knowlage for now but oh well.
The world was your standard cultivation world. Five contenents, one in each direction and one in the center, four oceans, also in each direction. Various sects, ancient families, kingdoms, and such. And the good ol' beast's to attack every now and again.
The power system was also the same, body forging, Qi absorbing, foundation building, Golden core and nascent soul, he didn't know anything above that.
Meanwhile body forging, the cultivation system not the stage, went. Blood refining, marrow refining, bone refining, organ refining, tendon refining, muscle refining, skin refining, fusion, master, grand master, saint. Each stage before master was pretty self explanatory, the only difrence from the norm was the order of refinement.
He also checked up on beast stages but there wasent much there, bloodline refining, in which they would purify their bloodline. Body forging, self explainitory. Totem manifestation, where they would conect to ther ancestor and gain mystical powers. Core forming, in which they would form their beast core. And spirit nurturing, where they would commonly gain Intelligence.
Now, for what he had done over the last couple of months, not much actually, mostly just gain more hosts, he was up to 24 now. And he gained a total of roughly 30,000 points. Of those he had 10,000 left. The other 20,000 went into upgrading his [beast tameing] skill, it's curent bonuses where 250% growth speed of the world average, it now had bloodline purification and spirit nurturing as nurturing affects, and it gave 25% of his traits and statuses. As for the snake who got to enjoy these bonuses, he decided to be basic and name her nuwa, a Chinese God related to snakes if he remeberd. It had also had some growth,
[Name: nuwa
Bloodline: emerald scaled serpent
Cultivation: bloodline refining stage 3
Strength: 18
Speed: 24
Dexterity: 24
Constatution: 12
Vitality: 20
Spirit: 2
Resistance: 12
Traits: [poison fangs] [emerald scales] [bloodline purification] [bloodline evolution]
Statuses: [being nurtured by sub world(conditional)]
Bloodline Abilities: [crystal scales growth]]
All her stats had gone up by 4 expet for vitality, which went up by 6, she had gone from a lesser emerald scaled serpent to just a emerald scaled serpent, their cultivation was also bloodline refining tier 3. Other then that she had gained the traits [emerald scales] which just made her scales more Qi condutive as well as durable. [Bloodline purification] and [bloodline evolution] assisted in purifying and evolving her bloodline respectively. And her bloodline ability [crystal scale growth] alowed her to eat various gems and cristals and add them to her own scales. It required a large amount or resources though.
Hearing a bell in the distance, Alex got up, dusted himself off, and put the books back before leaving the library. On the way out he said good by to the librarian and headed off the the dining room. On the way he greeted the butlers and maids, all of which where at least at the peak of body forging or blood refining.
Don't be fooled by their low rank, each of them probably had stats in the dozens and could wipe the floor with both him and his pet easily. His father was even more of a monster at foundation building stage 3, at that point he was barly human. He could turn a builder the size of a small car into dust with one punch, jump three story buildings, and run faster then any mundane horse, it was also the stage that mystical powers started to realy show. He could summon fire and water at ease, create barriers, do alchemy, and more.
You might think Alex was overpowered with his diffrent traits and statuses, but they were all support traits, sure once he started cultivating and body forging his power would sky rocket, but for now he was weaker then he was before he died. Apparently a fully grown healthy adult had 10 in each basic stat, and stats weren't linear, 20 strangth wasn't twice as much as 10. It was like the difrence between someone who could bisep curl 10 kg and 20 kg, and for speed it would be like someone who could run 10km/hour and 20km/hour, and the diffrence got even bigger the higher you went.
It also wasen't like he hadn't tried to get some combat baced traits, statuses or techniques, but they where all absurdly expensive. At first he thought 'well, its easy to get all these overpowered support traits, how hard can it be to hard to get combat traits, right?' Well, he was in for a suprise when it costed 1,500 points to get a basic swordsmanship technique.
He thought, 'maybe swordsmanship is just special?' Nope. Axe, 1,400. spear 1,700. whip, 1,800. Hammer, 1,300. Close combat, 1,000. And that was all for something so basic he could look through the library for a couple of minutes and find thing three times as good. At one point he bit the bullet and spent 1,000 for a basic CQC (close quarters combat) technique, and it was so bad it didn't even show up on his system window. All it did was teach him the very basics of how to throw a punch, how to kick, how to block or dodge an attack, and the basic spots to aim at. He knew this stuff even before he reincarnated, all it did was make the actions muscle memory and increace the level of complexity a tiny bit, just barly more then a street thug.
After a little testing and asking the system, it came down to resources. It took something to gain something. Because he was useing exclusively exchange points, everything was at a massive mark up. It's why it seemed so cheap to make his traits permanent. Except for parasite he hadn't made any trait out of thin air, he had only made them permanent or gained them through some other method. And even [parasite] was just a modification of what he was already doing in to womb mixed with a little luck. As for [Beats taming] it was that cheap because the system had used the already existing contract and his traits as the basis to create it, even then it cost hundreds of points for what was affectively a glorified modification.
If he wanted to get any decently powerfull combat related traits, statuses, or techniques he needed to have something to base them off. Same went for anything else. Snapping out of his thoughts he realised he was at the dining hall. Inside was a table big enough to hold an entire feast. The hall was lavishly decorated with banners depicting the family crest, a sword going through a dragons skull, hanging above massive coloerd glass windows that had various images depicted on them.
Lighting up the hall was a chandelier, but instead of candles, there were glowing runes caved onto the golden frame. On the table was a feast fit for nobility, several diffrent fruits, vegetables and grains all grown with Qi, the meat of demon beast's raised as livestock, wines and juices made from even more Qi grown fruits. On one side of the table was dukes daughters. He had 5 daughter, twins from his first wife, who where the 1st and 2nd eldest, both where in their mid thirties but looked to be in their early twenties. The one in a red dress that covered all but her head was Marissa, and the one in a blue dress that left little to the imagination was Elissa. Both had long black hair that reached their lower back and porcelain white skin that practically glowed, they where known as the 'twin jade beauties' and where at Qi absorbing stage 7.
The 3rd eldest was the child of his second wife, Ellen, who was in her late twenties. She wore a dress that was closer to a suit and had olive skin and shoukder length browm hair with more muscle then the twins combined. She had more of a masculim charm but in an effeminate way. She was at 40% marrow refining.
The 4th eldest was jade, the third child to his first wife, she was in her early twenties and wareing a white chongsam. She had white hair down to her lower back and was another delicate jade beauty. She had just entered Qi refining stage 1 a couple of months ago.
The 6th eldest was Lucy, the second daughter to the dukes second wife, she was in her late teens and was wareing a mix between a dress and cultivation robes. She was in her late teens and had short red hair, her build was in-between the twins and Ellen. She was at 50% blood refining.
On the other side of the table where the sons, or more accurately son. Davin was the dukes 1st son to his third wife and 5th eldest, he was in his mid twenties. Davin had a well muscled build had short curly black hair, he was wareing black cultivation robes and was annoyingly handsome.
He was also at Qi absorbing stage 3 and 70% blood refining, except for alex's father he was the only double cultivator. Alex himself was the 7th, and curently youngest, child. The reason for such a large age gap between him and the next youngest, Lucy, was because the duke had been looking for a son. and after having Davin, who was, in his eyes, both a 'suitable replacement' as well as incredably talented, The duke saw no need to have more children immediately.
But judging by the third wives bulging belly the duke had celebrated alex's birth with going for another talented son. Speaking of the wife's, the dukes first wife, who was sitting to the left of the table head, was Verisa. she had black hair and was the text book definition of a 'home wife' in appearance, she had long black hair and was wareing a green dress. She was also at foundation building stage 1.
The second wife, who was sitting next to Verisa, was Loran. she had firey red hair and was best described as 'wild' in aperance, she was wareing red cultivation robes that barly fit her muscled frame. She was at 20% bone refining.
The third wife, who was sitting to the right of the end of the table, was alex's mother, Alice. she hair long curly black hair and was waring a light blue dress with way to many frills and was best described as 'dainty', he even wondered how she had given birth to him safely. But her cultivation level of foundation building stage 2 explained that.
Sitting down next to Davin, Alex waited for his father to join them so he could start eating.