Ch 10 – Cultivating and Surprising Discovery

"A map!" Kaleido's mind trembled as he couldn't help but get into a sitting position from shock.

Why did he only open this scroll until now? It's both because he had more pressing matters to attend to, and he feared that it wasn't a map like he expected. He saved it for last so that he would feel less saddened or more joyful if it was a map. Luckily for Kaleido, it was a map!

His eyes rapidly darted all around the map, and with just a single glance, he instantly pinpointed his location. "That's the lake down the south, and my cave is down east of the lake. Northeast is where Jie Clan village lies kilometers away."

He inspected the map carefully. Unfortunately, he only saw two different human settlements on the map. "There's Jie Clan Village in the northeast, and… Lo Clan City northwest, and it's located further away from Jie Clan. If I had to traverse it on foot, it would take me multiple days, unlike Jie Clan where I only had to walk for a few hours. And by the red markings on this map, there are also multiple beast settlements on the quickest path towards Lo Clan City."

Kaleido sighed after seeing the map. He kind of knew that it might be a map because he got it from the same building he got those knives and hunting gear from. And seeing these red markings, he confirmed that the owner of this map was a hunter who hunted wild beasts for a living. Of course, that knowledge was useless for Kaleido.

Discarding his turbid emotions temporarily, he focused on the map and engraved all of its contents into his mind. He used his sharper memory and made sure to memorize it, testing his memory multiple times along the way until he was sure that he can confidently recall 100% of the map without any problem.

"Sigh," Kaleido closed his eyes, and stored the map in his bag. While he indeed got a map like he hoped, its contents weren't so hopeful. The closest human settlement, Jie Clan Village, got invaded by rockmen and was probably destroyed by now. So, the next best thing was Lo Clan City, but it was so far away that it would take him days to reach it if he took the shortest route. If he wanted a safer route, it would take him more than a week to arrive at the city.

"With my Space Knife, I am confident of killing below Rank 4 considering I killed a Rank 3 Jie Clan Elder with a single swing. But beyond that, the supposed peak of the mortal realm, Rank 4 and Rank 5, I'm not sure if I can deal with them as easily. While I do have the ability to teleport, I would need precise spatial coordinates to use it, and this map isn't that helpful when it came to that. I only have a guesstimated distance with my own intuition for this crap, so if I do use the cave to teleport, it would probably land me near the beasts and be killed by them," Kaleido scratched his chin and felt annoyed.

He took a single step forward and landed himself back two steps backward. New problems arose, and he couldn't help but be annoyed at his rough journey. But he calmed down and assessed what he could do to solve his current issues.

He scoured through his memories and what he knew of the Gu World. He inspected his strength and more importantly, his weaknesses. After a short period of silence, his eyes gleamed with light and he muttered: "Theoretically, there's one simple answer to all of my answers. Battle strength! If I have high battle strength, then even if I have to slay God and Buddha, I would be able to do so!"

"But how do I gain more battle strength?" Kaleido asked once more, and multiple answers appeared in his mind. From better skills, or getting better at combat, or more Gu, but there's one simple solution that eventually appeared that would link in with all of his other solutions: Cultivation.

In the world of Gu, Gu Masters are divided into five different realms. Rank 1, Rank 2, until Rank 5. Each Rank is further divided into four small realms, initial, middle, upper, and peak. The higher one's own rank is, the more options and power one could gain. They could use Gu more with more primeval essence to expend, they can wield higher ranked Gu, and such.

A higher cultivation rank would not only allow Kaleido to use Space Knife Gu more (though it might be useless considering he has immense primeval essence production), but would allow him to use higher-ranked Gu! With a higher-ranked Gu, he can more confidently explore the strange nameless cave full of space path Gu Worms and get more Gu for himself!

'So cultivation it is, huh?' Kaleido hummed lightly and pushed away his bag and other items near him. He slowly got into a lotus position, and his eyes closed. From the dimly lit cave, the only sound that remained was the soft howling winds and the crackling fire.

'First, I must calm myself down.' Kaleido inhaled deeply, his stomach expanded as air filled in his lungs. 'Inhale.'

Slowly, he exhaled the air that entered his lungs. His stomach deflated, and the soft sounds of his breathing entered his ears. 'Exhale.'

He continued to breathe deeply, and soon, his mind turned blank. His focus was put entirely on the breath and nothing but the breath. Finally, after an entire minute, his senses were directed toward his aperture.

It was a spherical space located inside his stomach. There, green primeval essence filled it to the brim, and two Gu Worms were floating within the green primeval essence sea. Each of them revealed the aura of a Rank 1 Gu Worm, and one, in particular, felt deeply linked to Kaleido: 'Unknowingly, Space Knife Gu became my Vital Gu. Unfortunately, I don't have the recipes of its next rank or more, so it would probably remain Rank 1 unless I gain its corresponding recipe.'

Discarding his useless thoughts, Kaleido instead focuses on his aperture walls. At initial stage, the walls were akin to light and flickered from to time. In middle stage, the aperture walls would become similar to water, and the thin light of the initial stage aperture walls would now flow freely. When one reaches upper stage, the walls would undergo another change and the light condenses into a solid state. Finally, the peak stage aperture walls would have a crystal-like appearance!

'To further one's cultivation stage, one would have to nourish and refine the aperture walls with primeval essence.' Kaleido remembered it clearly and followed what the book said step-by-step. Manipulating his green copper primeval essence, it flowed towards his aperture walls and he saw that the aperture walls absorbed his primeval essence continuously.

Once again, his shocking primeval essence production speed shined brightly, and his aperture remained at full capacity even when the aperture walls relentlessly absorbed the primeval essence of his aperture. Of course, Kaleido was still a complete newbie in cultivation, and he opened his eyes after a while and lets out a sigh, rubbing his head that ache.

'Cultivation is more mentally taxing than I thought, but it is surprising to see how fast I cultivated. While I don't know how fast I am exactly, I can at least expect that my cultivation speed should be peerless when compared to those A Grade geniuses.' Kaleido wiped the sweat that gathered on his forehead and grabbed a purple-colored fruit from his bag.

Munch. A sweet and sour taste flooded his taste buds. The fruit had a texture between a banana and papaya, with a taste between an apple and an orange. The skin was crispy and was almost like an apple's skin, but denser and thicker. Kaleido ate the fruit fully with closed eyes.

After five minutes, Kaleido slapped his face and sat in a lotus position once again. 'Okay, let's resume!'

Swish. The green copper primeval essence sea of Kaleido rapidly flowed towards his aperture walls at an endless rate. By the time his primeval essence was expended, it would have been regenerated already. Due to that, the only limiting factor in his cultivation speed was his inexperience and mental exhaustion.

Kaleido only received knowledge about cultivation from a book; he had no mentor, no teacher, nor proper guidance. With that, one can expect that his technique was rough and brutish, but for Kaleido, that was more than enough as his monstrous primeval essence production rate can overcome the gap in technique.

So if we consider that, his true problem lay in his mentally taxed mind. But with time, he would get used to cultivation, and he would be able to cultivate with more skill and less exhaustion. This was the same as when Kaleido first started working out. At first, it was tiresome and hard as hell, but he got used to it and got better.

Slowly but surely, Kaleido continued to cultivate and got better, repeating a cycle that maximized his cultivation sessions. He would cultivate for around 30 minutes, eat fruit or drink some water, and rest for around 5 minutes before continuing. In his mind, it was better to cultivate for 30 minutes at peak condition than 1 hour of mediocre cultivation.

And so, with a training plan that worked similarly to the Pomodoro technique, time passed quickly. 'Hmm?'

With his 'sight' that inspected his aperture, Kaleido stopped feeding primeval essence into his aperture walls and he saw a mystical sight. The thin light walls of his aperture that flickered from time to time started to undergo a qualitative change. The light seemed to have become water-like, and the sparse light wall became fuller and denser. Not only that, but as he expended his primeval essence to feed his new aperture walls, the newly produced primeval essence was darker and denser compared to before. Upon replacing all of his primeval essence with Rank 1 Middle Stage primeval essence, he finally opened his eyes.

"Hoo," Kaleido couldn't help but smile and felt refreshed. Rank 1 Middle Stage, after hours of hardship and mind-numbing cultivation, he finally finished and was greeted by the dark night sky outside the cave.

'It's already night!' Kaleido exclaimed inside his mind after seeing the dark night sky. 'With the map, I was able to find a clearing near this cave, meaning I finally have a place where I can test out this new Gu worm! If I were to exert the lowest amount of force that I could, then the damage it would cause shouldn't be that bad, right? Who knows, maybe it's not even an offensive type Gu Worm!'

Kaleido hastily stood up and grabbed his bag. He also grabbed a black-colored cloak and put it on. With all the things he required now on his body, he puts out the bonfire and rushes out of the cave. Time was precious, and the faster he learns of his second Gu Worm's ability, the more beneficial it was to him. Of course, there was the risk that he might be damaged by the Gu Worm, but the benefits outweighs the risk for Kaleido.

Knowledge is power, and ignorance was a weakness. To solve this weakness, he'll have to take risks and find out the effects of his Gu Worms.

"I'm here," Kaleido muttered as he arrived at the clearing. The expanse clear of any trees and shrubs was vast. It was surprising to see how vast this clearing was, but Kaleido had more pressing matters to attend to.

He took in a deep breath, regulating his breathing as he flared his spatial awareness to his limits. He then accelerated his thinking, and thought: 'I must be sure that if this Gu Worm can harm me, both indirectly or directly, I must be able to respond to it swiftly.'

With all of the preparations he could possibly do done, he hardens his mind and without hesitation, poured primeval essence into his unknown second Gu Worm. Just like when activating Space Knife Gu, the black markings on his body glowed dimly, and…

Flash!

Black light erupted from the Gu Worm, and space warped. Within the next moment, Kaleido opened his eyes and saw himself deep in the forest, but he knew what happened clearly: 'I… This Gu Worm teleported me hundreds of steps away, and that was me barely using its ability!'

AN: This chapter has 2103 words.

Hehehe, finally got me them glasses!

I wanted glasses solely for looks, and I'm pretty happy now that I have them. Although they aren't ideal, they're still good.

Anyways, if you too want to look smart, then just give me power stones.

(December 22, 2022 – 392nd day of writing)