The way to go

[Mortal grade 0 human (x2) defeated. 2 mortal essences obtained.]

'That would indicate i have a shop and magical wallet somewhere, but i can't acces it yet. Shity system.'

[Main quest: Survive (completed)

Requirement: Resolve the situation. (X)

Failure condition: Death or capture.

Reward: 100 mortal essences. Access to gacha, shop and quest board. (X)

Penalty: Ultimate aniquilation of the soul.

Bonus 1#: Killed one or more assailants. Grants 10 mortal essences per kill. (X)

Bonus 2#: Stay undetected while murdering an assailants. Grants +2 DEX. (X)

Bonus 4#: Left a trap behind. Grants +1 INT (X)

Hidden bonus 1#: Saved one or more companions. Grants +1 to all stats. (X)

...]

There were other bonus objectives, but those were the only ones he'd finished. There was one for killing all assainlants, which would override the first bonus and grant him 50 essence instead, one bonus for blowing up the place, and one for defeating the police coming for the place too.

He was homicidal, not suicidal, so no thank you.

Accepting the quest rewards, he could already feel the diference on his phisic and mind.

He'd also gained a level in psicology, medicine, sneaking and deformed mind.

One might think that this guy was not giving any fuck about a strange situation, but to begin with, he'd recently been run over and was still in shock because of a near death experience... not. This is just how Aki is.

'Open shop. Search for cultivation technique. Nope, i'm too poor to buy the cheapest techinque. Maybe i'd have gotten one if i'd tortured those guys back then, but i don't really want a demonic script right away, it'd influence my desicions too much while i'm still training my willpower. Nothing i can do about the past, open quest board.'

See what i mean?

[Main quest: Start cultivating

Requirement: Reach Mortal grade 1.

Failure condition: Failure to satisfy the time limit ( 1:22:42:51)

Reward: ?

Penalty: Ultimate aniquilation of the soul.

Description: You have proven to be worthy through a life and death situation (Far too well for my taste) and will now begin on the journey towards ultimate power in a competition of the most dificult tipe. It is suggested to check the starting pack gifted through the first side quest.]

Getting up, Aki went to the bathroom, took his knife out and slashed at his left wirst. He'd already confirmed he was right about the side quest and didn't mind one bit that he had to bleed. Selecting said side quest he didn't much care about the stat boost he saw in the equipment given to him, he didn't really have the time to before the pain came after all.

A bit of washing the taste of blood out of his mouth, Aki cheked his wrist. There was not even a scar left on the one he'd cut, which didn't really surprise him since it said one of the rewards was a full body heal. No, he was inspecting the two slightly curved blades that appeared to have tattoed themselves in them. Wakisashis or tantos, no way to know without summoning them and asking google sensei.

He couldn't see it, but he knew there was a big ass katana floating over a lonely rock on his back and drums with space for six bullets on both his shoulders. He almost wanted to curse the bastard of a system that didn't warn him, but he could care less about something so obvious.

Instead he focused on the blood attribute cultivation tecnique that he'd obtained. Using it he'd be able to raise his mental stats and affinity to blood simply by meditating. There was a part of the information that was directly inscribed on his head that told him he'd be able to raise his phisical stats to a lesser extent if his affinity was raised, but that was for later.

There was nothing about meditation making you not need to sleep or eat, so he'd do it tomorow since it was late as fuck already.

*****

Having easily dropped the two gangsters at the next armed fort of their's and findind it still maned with loyal boys, Aki didn't much care what'd happen to the gang anymore, so he just smiled and asked to call him when they started killing people. He'd be there.

Right now, he'd just finished the paperwork for a kick-box subscription, bought supplements, left his things thrown in his bed, changed clothes, did a 100 flections and squats, plus running 10 kilometers in the treadmill of the apartment building he lived at.

He had the kind of body that hardly gained or lost weight, so for someone like him that lived alone and worked a dangerous job, that ment he mostly looked sleek, nevermind he normally ussed bagy clothes for 'style' and deep pockets, so there was no way any of the three hoties living in the same place noticed him while he listened to a podcast about breathing tecnichs and yin-yang bulshit next.

Don't get me wrong, he knows that it won't take a week to get to grade 1 since he simply has to get all his stats to 10, except luck, and most of them are alredy there. The manual said so at least.

[Daily quest: preparation (Complete)

Requirement: Complete exercise course (X)

Failure condition: Failure to satisfy the time limit ( 10:51:32)

Reward: +1 to STR and VIT

Penalty: ?]

He'd tried to over achieve on this simple quest, but that was aparently not possible since the counters that appeared if he presed the colapse button and never rose over the limit.

Not like he had much energy left though. He might be fit in his age, but he simply hadn't eaten anything today. Mostly because he wanted to see if he could raise his strenght when he was more tired. He'd either not done it enough or it didn't work like that, because his stats only got up by the quest rewards.

Going back home and drinking a protein shake was something he definetly didn't like, but he'd practically be body building from now on, so fuck that.

While he waited and ate, Aki cheked multiple magical comodities on the shop. Conclusion: He was even more poor than he expected.

He'd be able to build his own gym if he wanted and not spend much, but anything cultivation related would cost much more. Killing people was just not going to cut it for his finances. A storage artifact costed 10k for storing simple things, elixirs that raised stats costed about the same and many consumable pills costed around five to ten essences.

Don't ask about the gatcha. His pocket almost stabed his heart when he tought of trying it even once after looking at the price tag.

There was a pill that substituted sleep and food for a day, but each costed eight essences, because aparently the costs were somehow influenced by his affinities and blood was good for anything that affected the body.

That ment he'd need to kill eight people to spend one day cultivating non-stop, which he knew was going to be boring as fuck and stop him from doing a lot of things.

Sighing hard, he looked for simple sword katas on the internet and started practicing a relatively easy one. This time he didn't stop because he was tired, he corrected his posture, hands, focus, foorwork and everything else one could think of inuberable times before the notification finally appeared in front of him.

[Hidden quest: Karate kid

Requirement: Gain one martial skill (X)

Failure condition: None

Reward: 100 mortal essences per martial art (X)

Penalty: None

Hidden bonus 1#: Finish this quest less than 24 hours after receiving your gold finger. Grants a peak mortal realm martial arts manual.

Hidden bonus 2# Finish this quest before accending your first rank. Grants +5 in all stats.]

He smiled and passed out.

*****

Waking up to a terrible smell, about five minutes later acording to the clock on the wall, Aki found himself in the middle of a puddle of pus, blood and black stuff you'd see in a cultivation novel. His skin and hair were about as bad as the floor, so he first took out his trashed clothes, which he'd burn in the building's caldera later, because thank America there was one in here, and headed to the shower.

Scrubbing the thing off wasn't just gross, it was also hard.

An intensive hour of training (about cleaning murder scenes) later, Aki was about done with the liquidproof trash bags on stock, or whatever they were called, but had finished cleaning.

He'd hopped things like this weren't going to happen, but prayer and hoping weren't effective methods to change fate.

Instead, he started looking for a muay thai dojo a bit further away from his home. Kickbox was fine and all, but it'd be almost useless if he had to fight beasts, nevermind it'd be easier to find cultivators in an older art and that this one in specific had high killing potential if what the stories he'd heard were right.

Fuck the paperwork he'd done before, he didn't expect it to be so easy for him to make his first breakthrough when he saw that endurance and dexterity were going to be complicated attributes to raise. There's only so much his autistic brain can let him improve his coordination even when he now has a goldfing, nevermind the mental exaustion that was literraly needed to increase his body overall defense.

He'd also like to complain to whoever separated VIT and END, probably so there would be an even number of stats, because they were obviously ment to be raised together.

On the bright side, he found out that with when he used swords, there would aparently be a multiplier to all his phisical stats, though it was literally zero right now, that would grow by 1% per level of the skill. With a bit of luck there would be much of such skills in the future.

Now, for his sword cultivativation manual...

"Thunder. I want the best one that has a major in the lightning element." He'd already though about how to start his build, and this was the first step. It didn't even take a moment for his goldfinger to find the thing he wanted and inprint it on his mind with a head splitting ache and itch. Luckily he'd sat before asking for it or he'd be on the ground.

He'd apparently be able to cultivate his mental stats to a lesser extent if he used this phisical cultivation method. He'd also be able to create sword intent, a lesser form of energy that strengtened his attacks, but that would be for after he made his first major breakthrough.

Aki didn't think much and imediatly bought a nurishing pill. He'd not sleep that night. He'd stay in his undies and swing his sword around until it was near midnight, relax a bit, and start the next day's training by looking for an actual dojo.

[Ding!]

But he'd first start with looking at the first main quest which was forgotten since he'd passed out with it's completion.

[Main quest: Start cultivating (X)

Requirement: Reach Mortal grade 1. (X)

Failure condition: Failure to satisfy the time limit ( 1:8:32:41)

Reward: Choose one*

Penalty: Ultimate aniquilation of the soul.

Hidden bonus 1#: Complete this quest with the rewards from a hidden quest. +1 day time.

Description: Great, first step taken, now keep going. The competition isn't as nice as me.]

"Show options." He said, completly not surprised by this being part of a competition. His goldfinger might think he didn't pay attention to the inital message, but he did. This was a kill or be killed thing, though it wasn't a battle royale, just that you could rob someone else's goldfinger to strenghten yours and that would help with reaching the realm of higher gods. Or something. The information avaible about this cultivation system was minimal after all. At least he knew that he should be the only earthling to have entered this competition since it spaned the freaking multiverse.

The only frightening thing was the time resource and the possibility that his rivals were not as under-developed as him.

He had the option of receiving more time for his main quests, an extention of the stipulated dead line one might think, but Aki knew better, so he asked about it. Aparently, if you won more time though quest rewards, this time would be used to dilate the time spent in relation to the other participants, granting you more time.

That ment someone could acumulate a shit ton of extra time and go much faster than anyone else in their cultivation.

The other problem was that cultivation and it's seemingly infinit elevation of the lifespan of things would make it so that there was a possibility earth's 'adequation', was going to be because it was fairly behind not just in cultivation terms, but also tecnological levels.

He'd already received the bonus instantaneously, and the remaining time was added to the new main quest, reaching mortal-2, so he could deliberate about which reward he'd want.

Not that he'd do that.

"I choose average atunement to arcane affinity. Please." He asked, and a purple rock with a smooth surface appeared in his hand. He imediatly tried to reproduce the feeling of summoning his blood binded weaponry, shoving energy into it, and then things suddenly went gray before he was teleported somewhere else.