A week later Alex was sitting on his balcony absorbing the morning sun as he felt a dull thud sound out in his mind. Looking inside his mind palace he saw the palace itself begin to rearrange itself into a new form, the walls more sturdy, the pillers taller, the carvings more intricate, the alter larger. After about an hour the palace had compleatly rearranged itself.
On his window his soul cultivation tab updated to [rank 9 basic soul palace] and a new stat apeared under resistance called [spiritual power], it was self explanatory but now that his soul palace had reached the basic rank he had gained the ability to intricately controll spiritual power. As aposed to just throwing it around like before.
Reaching his hand out a focusing on the table in a corner of his room, it lifted off of the floor as he moved it around with his mind. After a bit he placed it back down. This was the most basic use of spiritual power, the ability to effect the material world with his mind. There was also mental attacks, defence, illusions, silent messaging, and of course the general increase to mental capabilities.
Now that his mind palace had reached the basic rank, raw energy wouldn't be enough to grow the palace, he had the refine it before use. Like the difrence between his old qi whisps and his new qi strands. Luckily he had 4 big and 1 small things to do that for him.
A storm entirely made of tamed tribulation lightning, a lake made of tamed tribulation corpse water, and a model sun and moon were, to no ones suprise, good at refining energy. The heaven and earth lotus seed had also sprouted a couple days ago, drasitcly speeding up his progress in reaching basic rank 9. And all the energy he absorbed was already mostly purified before the rank up. The only difrence now was that it was 'officaly recognised'.
Drawing in some sun qi it reached his mind space, was struck by tribulation lightning, quenched in corpse water, purified with moon qi, and passed through the heaven and earth lots seed before being fed to the sun, which burnt away the remains impurities before absorbing it. The new energy radiating off of the sun met with the energy radiating off the moon, they ,ixed togeter to form purple sun qi and red moon qi before being shaped into more material for the palace.
Which was also heated by tribulation lightning, quenched in corpse water, and passed through the lotus seed before finnaly being added to the palace and baithed in pure sun and moon qi to grow further over time. This was what happend with every piece lf sun and moon qi Alex absorbed, with ambient purple sun and red moon qi from dawn and dusk going strait to the second step of being heated by the sun.
All this insured that each and every piece added to his palace was as high quality as it could be. Insuring a sturdy and wide foundation for future progress. He would continue this process untill his palace reached basic rank 1, at which point he would advance to advanced rank 9. Undergo a new process of development. And build a perfect rank mind palace for future progress. He wasen't skimping costs with any of this, same as his body and spirit cultivation.
While he ditested the idea of 'cheating' and waiting to become over powerd. The feeling of growing stronger over time was beyond addicting. He would just go out and have some fights when he had the chance, which just so happend to be now. Seeing as he had 1 month and 3 weeks before the tournament he would start heading to where the tournament woukd be happening, white peak mountain in the central continent. He would chose some sect missions to do along the way for contribution point, the sect currency.
He had used his annual free sect resources for his spells, so he would need some contribution points to get more. Even as the 'student' of the sect leader he needed to earn his own resources. 'Fucking capitalism, can't even escape it in another world.'
Standing up he walked over to nuwa and went to pick her up, before realising that her new size didn't allow that. "Hey nuwa, is it ok if I give you a trait that alows you to shrink smaller? Kind of hard for you to rest around my neck when your almost twice the length of my body." Alex didn't want to just give nuwa a trait without asking as he thought that was rude, after given her the devour bloodline skill he hadent given her anything without asking, but she usually refused anything he offered. This time however.
Hearing the questions nuwa looked up before answering immediately 'yes. Please, I mean yes please. Thank you.' This was the second time nuwa had acted a bit weird when Alex had offered her something. First when he offered to make her own dragon bead unique and now when he offered this trait. He was mildly confused as to why she reacted like this.
What he didn't know was that due to her spirit stat increased and her [gem of wisdom], she had been developing intelligence faster then almost any other spirit beast. That came with the addition of emotions, and her own personality. All this felt weird to her as the sudden feeling of intense emotion was alien to her. She had a small level of emotion before this, and even knew what most of them meant to an extent. But now it was like all her previous understanding of them had been thrown out the window as they gained new meaning, or compleatly new emotions formed altogether.
For perspective, before gaining the gem of wisdom and a spirit stat of over 150, nuwa coukd only feel 'displeasure', 'annoyance', 'like' 'comfort' and 'relaxation', and even these where muted to an extant as she simply didn't have the mental capabilities to feel more then that even with a high level of intelligence. But recently those emotions had become unmuted and new ones had formed, like anger, laziness, sadness, and one she coudlen't quite put a word on.
This combined with the fact that Alex seemd to be a weak spot for her emotions and she was confused, also a new emotion, most of the time when he suddenly spoke to her as she would be overwhelmed by sudden feeling she had no experience with.
It could be liked to someome who had never felt any other texture then 'smooth'
All of a sudden being dropped onto a textile factory. They woukd have no idea what 'rough', 'bumpy' or 'spicky' would feel like, amd would be overwhelmed just the same as nuwa was.
Back to Alex, 'System, please give nuwa a trait that allows her to shrink down to a smaller size. Worth, how about, 1 week worth of points?'
[Trait [size manipulation: tier 1] has been given to nuwa. Curent exchange points: 20,800]
Taken out of her thoughts by the feeling of something inside her shifting, nuwa focused and realised she had gained the trait. As alex reached out to pci, her up she shrink back down to just under a meater, 1 third of her previous 'miniature' size.
Once again taking her rightful spot of Alex shoulders she got comfy and went back to sleep, as she mostly did to refine her bloodline and progress her cultivation.