That meant that he could devote himself entirely to his cultivation without distractions, especially since he knew both from experience and from the cultivation manual that the natural essence he absorbed could sustain him in lieu of food and water. Day turned to night as he sat in his shelter, not moving a single muscle, focused entirely on drawing in as much essence as possible.
The manual described how to conjure the image of a whirlpool through ones spiritual sense and to use your resolve and will to form an intent capable of drawing in essence from the world. Emphasis for the whole process was placed mostly on your intent. The stronger your intent, the greater your influence on the world around you, and thus the more essence you absorb.
The intent wielded by a young and inexperienced child at the beginning of their cultivation journey, as described in the manual, simply couldn’t compare to that of a grown man with an intense desire for survival, discovery, power, and revenge. Sebastian’s understanding of the natural sciences that still governed the world, even with the addition of magic in this one, also gave him a far more vivid image to conjure, thus honing his intent further. He suspected that both his Title, [Blessed], and Talent, [Akashic Connection], helped as well.
The big disadvantage of beginning your cultivation journey as an adult, however, came from the fact that a grown adult simply had less time available of their lifespan to cultivate. An issue he would have to work hard to combat.
The more he cultivated, the more he harmonized with the image he conjured, to the point where he truly saw himself as a black hole, capable of consuming everything that entered its range. If someone else were to watch the process with their own spiritual sense they would see the event horizon of a black hole with copper colored natural essence swirling toward Sebastian as he sat in the center of a spherical void, taking in and saturating his spirit body with large amounts of essence.
A vibration erupted from deep within Sebastian’s being, which sent a shock wave throughout his entire spirit body and spread into his physical body. It finally woke him up from his long cultivation. He sat there, breathing in the dark shelter, illuminated softly by glowing magical rocks, and he stared out at nothing for some time.
Holy shit! That was amazing, I felt like I became one with the universe or something. What was that shock wave? Wait— could I have?
Sebastian recognized the feeling and quickly checked his Status to see if his hunch was right.
Name: Sebastian Moore
Level: 4?(5)/5
Exp: ??%
Title
- Blessed
Talent
- Akashic Connection
I was right! I leveled up from that, I think? The [System] doesn’t seem to know what to do with that information.
Maybe I broke it?
Technically I think I’m level four, but I guess because I gained so much essence through my cultivation that the [System] recognized that I reached level five… maybe. This kind of confirms my idea that leveling through the [System] is basically just System-guided baptisms within the [Essence Gathering] stage of cultivation.
How is it gonna react when I reach the second stage then?
Time will tell, I guess.
Sebastian exited his shelter—for the first time in almost 24 hours—and stretched. Even though the [System] was somewhat confused, he could clearly feel that he had gotten stronger. When he moved his body to try and wake it up after having spent so long sitting down, it was like night and day. Not only that but his injuries were basically fully healed.
Since he didn’t have anything else to do, he took out his new sword and started swinging it around. He did his best to take it seriously since the better he was at wielding the sword, the better his chances of surviving his next inevitable fight.
Sebastian was no expert at swords so he had no idea what this type of sword might be called. It looked like a viking sword he’d seen on TV before, albeit a little longer, and without much of a crossguard. The main difference being that this blade was slightly thinner.
He didn’t have any experience with swords beyond watching TV, movies, and Youtube so he did his best to try and remember whatever he could from them about how to best wield a sword. Swinging the sword was simple enough, but doing it right was a different story. The biggest thing he remembered was what not to do—according to just about everyone on the internet—which was to use reverse grip. It always looked cool in movies but in reality it had been firmly etched into his mind that it simply didn’t work as well as you might think.
Sebastian spent several hours training with his sword to try and familiarize himself with it and while he was moving about, he also decided to test out his newfound, almost superhuman, physical prowess by doing some basic exercise as well. He was in decent shape before being summoned but now he was like a completely different person. He could move as if he was a professional athlete and did push-ups in the hundreds.
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All this from level 4, or maybe technically 5. Does this mean that everyone in this world is at this level of physical fitness, since they said the average level is 5–8? Or maybe we “Blessed ones” are special in that way too, that our starting points are that much higher?
Regardless, I can’t even imagine what those closer to level 100 are capable of. Well, I’m guessing they’re basically like the big shot superheroes from comics so I suppose I can imagine it. Not that I’m gonna have to settle for fantasy, it’s only a matter of time before I get to experience it myself.
The excitement from exercising, along with an eagerness to continue cultivating, made Sebastian choose to cultivate again instead of going to sleep. While it wasn’t a substitute for sleep, cultivation did leave him more rested than if he had been truly awake all night. He returned to his shelter and settled down before going over the next step in his head.
I’m basically at my level limit, and if my theories are correct then that means that I’ve had several mini-baptisms, one for each level up. The manual says that every baptism solidifies the spirit body, and if it gets too solid then it’s gonna be much harder to sculpt in the next stage, and potentially more dangerous. Likewise if it’s not saturated enough then it’s not gonna be strong enough to sculpt in the first place.
The levels certainly gave me head-start but I need to make sure that it didn’t shoot me in the foot in the process.
Sebastian quickly looked over the manual to remind himself of the criteria and any mention for how to know when you’re ready to move to the next stage, as well as a refresher for how to actually perform the true baptism.
With his preparations done, he closed the book and got into position to cultivate, quickly falling into a meditative state. Although he had gotten better at it, it still took some time. Fortunately, time was the one thing he had in abundance.
The increasingly familiar feeling of sinking into the earth and reaching the Spirit Realm greeted him. He spent some time to properly isolate his spiritual sense before continuing. This time, his purpose wasn’t to draw in more essence but rather to investigate his spirit body, to wield his spiritual sense and take control of the internal essence within his spirit body.
Sebastian used his spiritual sense to observe his spirit body in greater detail than ever and felt that it was a perfect copy of his physical body, with the exception that it was completely solid and homogeneous, without any of his internal organic features—and didn’t have any clothes, of course. The other exception was the all-encompassing shift in color, the entire spirit body maintained most of the external details of the physical body but the whole thing was tinted blue, inside and out. There were no bones or organs, but there was essence throughout the spirit body. Under close inspection, his internal essence was just a hint redder than the copper-esque color of the natural essence around him.
His internal essence wasn’t doing much of anything, it was simply there, saturated into every square inch of his spirit body. Using his spiritual sense, Sebastian reached in toward the essence and tried to control it, or at least cause some movement.
The results were disappointing.
Isolating his spiritual sense to observe was one thing but actually interacting was another all together. Sebastian didn’t know where to begin, and so he simply stumbled his way forward.
Attempt after attempt failed.
He continued to adjust his approach to try something different until finally, after an unknown number of hours, he got the slightest feedback from his spiritual sense.
What had eluded Sebastian, and what the manual didn’t really explain in so many details, was that the key wasn’t to directly control the essence with his spiritual sense but rather to focus on his spirit body directly.
By gaining some measure of control over the spirit body—not that he could actually move it, as it was a direct mirror of his physical body—he could then use his spirit body as sort of a controller for the internal essence. The whole thing didn’t feel very natural. It didn’t even make much sense to him. Sebastian’s intuition was screaming at him that this shouldn’t work because he wasn’t actually moving the spirit body, he somehow influenced the spirit body using his spiritual sense as an intermediary to manipulate his internal essence.
It was strangely convoluted, but the important thing was, it worked.
Sebastian made his internal essence move like a wave through his spirit body, which almost woke him up as it directly roused his physical body as well. Even in this state he could feel energy surge through his physical body.
Calming himself down, he refocused on poking and prodding his spirit body to figure out if he was ready for the baptism and move to the second stage. He was worried that the [System] had screwed him over and his spirit body was too solid to sculpt. His worries weren’t unfounded.
As he compared his spirit body with the descriptions in the manual, he realized that he had in fact overshot it with his levels, though only by a small margin. Not that he had much control over that given the fact that he didn’t know that cultivation existed at the time. Regardless, he determined that his spirit body was appropriately saturated so it shouldn’t be a problem. Worse case, it would just take a little longer to sculpt, which was fine by him.
Not wanting to waste time, Sebastian decided to try his first true essence baptism. It would harden the spirit body further but was a necessary step before he could begin sculpting. Whatever fake baptisms the [System] had done when he leveled up, it wasn’t enough. He needed to perform a true essence baptism himself to take the next step.
The process of performing an essence baptism to ascend to the next stage was… difficult for Sebastian to fully wrap his head around. Although the experience of observing his previous level up through his spiritual sense helped him make better sense of the manual’s more esoteric explanation.
Basically, while both the physical body and the spirit body existed in three dimensions in the Physical Realm and the Spirit Realm respectively, they were intricately and intrinsically connected to one another through some strange fifth dimensional membrane.
By using your spiritual sense, you could feel this membrane and bombard it with the internal essence within your spirit body. Breaking through the membrane would cause the connection between your spirit body and your physical body to temporarily grow stronger, make them truly one. As your ascension then settled down, that membrane would heal and grow back stronger than ever while both your spirit body and physical body have been elevated to the next stage.
Sebastian used his spiritual sense to dig deep into his spirit body.
After some time, he found the elusive membrane separating the Spirit Realm from the Physical Realm. The sensation was almost enough to directly wake him up from his meditative state, but he had built up a stronger tolerance by now and managed to remain focused.
He manipulated all of his internal essence inward, crashing toward the membrane. The collision shook Sebastian to his core, but the membrane held.
Damn! The [System] really screwed me over with its level-ups, that thing is strong as hell. Whatever, I’m not gonna let this stop me. AGAIN!
Sebastian once more took control of his internal essence but rather than simply crashing into the membrane, he focused the essence into a spear of sorts. The mere thought of forming a spear to break a fifth dimensional membrane inside his spirit body nearly wrecked his mind but he reminded himself that it didn’t matter how much, or little, sense it made, it was his intent that mattered. And nothing was gonna stop him.
Sebastian took the essence from all over his spirit body and pushed it inward. He gave up entirely on making sense of the reality of the fifth dimension he was entering with his spiritual sense and instead focused his intent to wield his spear and pierce through the membrane.
Crash!
In his mind, Sebastian could almost hear the sound of a massive window shattering. There was a moment of calm, of complete silence, before an explosive shock wave erupted, spreading throughout both his spirit body and physical body. The slight vibration he had felt when he leveled up last time was like a phone on silent compared to the earthquake he experienced now.
As the effects settled down and the membrane began to heal, Sebastian noticed that this time, being awake and being in the Spirit Realm was one and the same. It wasn’t until the membrane fully healed that his eyes suddenly opened in the Physical Realm, and he realized that he had truly ascended to the second stage of his cultivation.
I did it! Holy crap, there’s no way it’s supposed to be that intense. Surely it was exacerbated by the [System]’s mini-baptisms. Whatever, I’m just glad it worked.
Sebastian’s musings were interrupted by a cacophony of [System] alerts.