The atmosphere in the lodge shifted as they inspected the list of other races flung into the tutorial alongside them, the injured men and women with them proof that these aliens were inherently far superior to humans and would likely only grow stronger with the system's help.
Just like Patch said back then. This is a race for survival. If the tutorial doesn't kill us, then these alien races might just finish the job.
The grim reality settled around them, a weight on their shoulders imposing a timer, a countdown until they inevitably encounter one of these alien races.
"Do we know anything more about these aliens? How many are in the tutorial? What abilities do they possess? Are there really elves and vampires, or does the system just call them that because they are a race similar to Earth's mythos and fictions?" Peter asked, stroking his chin as he glanced back at the injured people, a nervous energy suffusing the room.
"All I could get were the names; anything more cost a ton more points. I couldn't even get anything about their general descriptions." Patch sighed.
"What about those guys? Are they going to be ok?" Matt asked, staring at the injured strangers sitting against the walls of the lodge due to the lack of any real furniture.
Lee sighed at that, her face grim and lacking its usual color.
"I did what I could, but my mana is limited, and I can't exactly regrow limbs either. I got some bandages from the system shop and fixed the worst of the injuries. I'm not entirely sure what the effects of healing magic will have on the body, but they will need to rest and recover for at least a day before they can start moving again. They all lost a lot of blood. The group nodded at that. It might be a good idea for them to all stick together—strength in numbers and all that—especially with the unknown threat of mystical races lurking somewhere outside, but Lewis felt a fire within him, urging him not to stand around and waste time but to get as strong as possible to avoid being trampled into the dirt by these unknown forces.
The group talked some more, discussing the discovery of the dungeon as well as the various ways they could use the system shop, Peter confirming that they had bought the lodge by pooling their points, which was something Lewis didn't even think of before. That foul tempered soldier wasn't around, David explaining that he had some sort of stealth skill and had disappeared a while ago, deciding to hunt on his own to get more levels, believing that fighting in groups might be lessening the experience gained, which Lewis thought was a good idea to test next time he got the chance.
Eventually all deciding to stay indoors since night was coming, all agreed to take turns keeping watch. Excusing himself from the others, he exited the lodge, feeling uneasy about its flimsy wooden walls blocking his sight. He had no sense of comfort from the building; in fact, it was quite the opposite. He felt like it actually served as a beacon telling anyone around that they were there, which was something that made his gut clench, and knew nothing out there would be stopped by the wooden walls.
With his increased endurance, he felt like he was still relatively refreshed despite fighting all day, so he found a spot at the back of the lodge where he could keep an eye on the surroundings while giving himself plenty of cover to not be immediately noticeable as he sat down with his back to the lodge, his hand moving up to the pendant around his neck as he felt his heart begin to race.
He had been holding himself back from investigating the pendant he had bought from the system guide, wanting to make sure he was in a relatively safe place before he started to delve into its contents, unaware of how exactly it worked or if it stopped him from being able to see the world around him like the system shop.
Taking a deep breath, a giddy energy suffusing his body, he mentally willed the crystal to activate, feeling that ephemeral feeling of another space within the necklace, but instead of his mind drifting into it, it seemed to simply link to his brain, a strange connection that seemed to allow him to access the information stored within it.
Introduction to the Scarlet River Clan Spirit Cultivation Arts.
The art of cultivation can take on any and all forms, and has been explored to the extreme, paths and techniques mapped and studied over eons, entire civilizations built on their own rendition of the 'perfect' path. Yet for all the knowledge on the paths to cultivation within the system, cultivating levels is by far the most prominent. The system rewards individuals for accomplishing great feats or simply advancing on their chosen path, irrelevant of the path itself. But the power bestowed by the system for incrementally advancing in levels is far from the optimum way to true power; many instead focus on the cultivation of their desired strengths, be it an affinity to a mana aspect or simply the mastery of their respective crafts.
An earthen cultivator will often choose to temper and infuse their bodies with earth mana, bringing them closer to their favored element and granting them a level of potency and prowess unmatched even by others walking the same path but merely relying on the system's rewards. The same is true for those who cultivate the mind, forming intricate mental libraries or even separating their consciousness into multiple minds to think multiple things at the same time. Both paths can be accomplished by anyone with the right methods, not needing to be bestowed such abilities by the system. Many cultivated abilities aren't even the result of a conscious effort, simply the result of progressing within the system, such as the ability for higher-level beings to instinctively use telepathy after reaching a certain grade.
But among all three aspects of a denizen, the spirit is usually overlooked. Unlike the mind and body, the spirit is often seen as the metaphysical overlay of a person. It's this metaphysical version that allows denizens to harness the powers of mana and other similar energies, naturally forming channels within that metaphysical space to channel energy, or even stabilizing it and forming a core. As a result, many denizens consider the cultivation of the spirit to be that of the improvement of their cores and magic. But such a belief, no matter how commonplace, is far from the truth of the spirit's true power.
A strong spirit is vital for the control of vast quantities of energy; without it, a person would simply overload from the power that any marginally powerful individual can casually wield. But that ignores the very essence of what constitutes a spirit. Just like the carved waterways of a world, the spirit certainly consists of these carved passage, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also have plenty of unused space where those pathways simply don't reach. It's well known that some beings exist that can even siphon off spirit energy, such as the succubus of the 9 hells, yet such acts don't directly disrupt the channeling of mana or the condition of the target's core.
It's this underutilized field that sets the Scarlet River Clan aside from all others, for we are among the few who have delved into the mysterious power of the spirit and learnt to harness its full potential without the need for mana or any such energy. Yet, due to the mechanisms of the system, taking advantage of this cultivation technique requires an abundance of spirit far exceeding any of a denizen's other stats, but stats alone aren't the issue; it's the potency of the spirit that is the problem and the great limitation for unlocking this path of true spirit cultivation. This can be accomplished through the consumption of spirit treasures other or other esoteric means, but the first step on this path requires that it is indeed your very first. The spirit must be both highly resilient and utterly unblemished, without any mana or magical energy having eroded pathways within it.
Such a strict requirement for a path of cultivation that is already so understudied means that only a select few have ever walked this unorthodox path. Most do so because they have no other avenue, cripples and rejects born without access to mana, searching for a way to survive in a world that has written them off. For those who discovered the true nature of the spirit, they don't tend to stay cripples for long. The spirit might exist on the same plane as that of mana, but for those who may never touch mana, they soon discover that the spirit alone is more than enough, perhaps even better, actually. After all, while everyone else is using the parts of their metaphysical forms that act like pipes to channel arcane energies, slowly eroding them away until the channels are set in stone, we can wield every aspect of our metaphysical forms. For everyone knows the spirit is the reason mana can be harnessed at all, both by forming a core or by simply controlling it; all requires the spirit, the medium through which a denizen instructs its power to act as they wish. But most only control the parts directly touched by their mana, the distinct energy pathways, while the rest of the spirit is mostly wasted, surplus stagnant energy that can be absorbed by any number of parasites or succubus with very limited side effects.
Such a thing would never happen to a scarlet river cultivator; their spirits hardened into the strongest metals, giving them physical might beyond anything that should normally be possible, their physical and metaphysical forms merging into one and multiplying their might. But since the spirit is the conjunctive result of the mind, body, and soul, the spirit has direct relations to all aspects of a being, elevating them all simultaneously without the need for the cultivation of any external energy.
But just because a spirit cultivator cannot cultivate magical energy doesn't mean they cannot imitate the arcane. After all, spirit matter is hardly any different from a true body, especially not for those that have cultivated it to a certain threshold, and even if one uses their spirit to suffuse their being with all their metaphysical power and authority, the spirit is a far grander phenomenon that one would imagine, just like how a person isn't simply made of skin, even if that tends to be the majority of what we perceives with our eyes alone. No, the spirit is still the realm of the metaphysical; as such, a spirit core can be created.
Harnessing spirit energy will open up an entirely new realm of energy, a form of power truer and more powerful than almost anything in existence. Not only because of its ridiculous potency due to the nature of the spirit, but also because of its transcendent nature, making it closer to the power of a true dragon, beings that aren't even a match for gods.
This path is one guaranteed to make you incomparably strong when you reach its peak. This is only a brief window into what is possible in the path of spirit cultivation, motivation to stay strong and persist, for the first steps on this path are nothing but blood and death, forced to fight with little power in a world that far outclasses you. But as long as you survive the first stages, your power will rise exponentially. It's merely unfortunate that most never make it far on this path, the dangers of the multiverse robbing the unfortunate not only of their chance to rise using the systems' favored magical energy but also denying them the chance to scrape their way to the top despite it.
It's with this unfortunate reality in mind that I leave behind this manual, safeguarded by the system to be provided to any who may find use in it. This cultivation technique is not a secret guide to unfathomable power, for only a single individual has even truly reached godhood without access to the arcane, so it is hardly a path anyone would willingly pick. It is the last resort of the broken and desperate to deny their fates and struggle for all their worth until they either die or get strong enough to defy their destinies. And since you're reading this, I guess you're one of us then. I leave behind everything the clan has discovered on the nature of the spirit and its cultivation in this manual in the hopes that one day, you, too, may reach a high enough rank that you aren't crushed by forces that see in you nothing but a cripple.
Lewis read over the message several times as he digested its contents, his mind swirling with questions and ideas. He felt like he was definitely lacking a lot of important context that seemed to have been assumed on the part of the author, but he got the gist of it.
The system guide had told him that the soul and spirit are two very different things. That the soul wasn't the thing one could easily mess with, and that his spirit was ideal for this specific cultivation method since it hadn't been in contact with any mana. He had been confused about that before, but now it kind of made sense. In the view of the broader universe, someone unable to use mana is clearly considered a cripple.
Yet unlike all the others that had apparently walked the path of the crimson river, Lewis held an advantage, for he did have mana. Well, anti-mana, but it was at least something, yet this manual seemed to imply the followers of its path had no other abilities outside of this spirit cultivation, which made him wonder how his own anti-mana functioned if it didn't creat channeled within his sport like the Manuel said was done. It was a question he knew he would be able to find an answer for anytime soon, but he at least knew that it was markable different from any other form of mana, operating on some unknown bases that still allows for his spirit to follow this supposedly very rare cultivation method.
He already could boost his physical might using his spirit thanks to the system spell, so he was already well on his way down this path, yet still possessed a way to gather and wield anti-mana.
If I can survive the early stages of this cultivation technique, then it promises to grant great power, and since I already have my anti-mana, I'm not entirely defenseless in the meantime.
Alright then, I guess I should start studying the various stages involved in the cultivation of the spirit, then.