Ep. 54 - ‘Cultivation’, Girly, Come With

And so, here I am, in this city called something like Blazing Chicken Farm. I am pretty sure that is wrong, but the name isn't important.

It has been around 10 minutes since I left that guy passed out in an alley. I have been strolling around the main street, entering the mind of every single one of these unsuspecting citizens. I couldn't find any of the cultivators that should theoretically populate a cultivation world. Like, what are they doing all day? Sitting around? Oh, they actually do you say? Tell you what, that's stupid. They have reality bending powers just like wizards and don't explore the world just because they have to cultivate.

Before going on a rant, I hit the jackpot: an unsuspecting young master of some clan coming out from a bar, dead drunk. What's with this place? Barely lunch and everyone is drunk! I searched his mind and he was from a family called Chen? Eh, they all sound the same, no offence. For all I know, if I call myself Chihuahua, they will think I am from some kind of reclusive family. Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes, the young master Chen. I searched all the juicy info and found that he had just been told that he was a cultivation genius of some sort, so his family allowed him to study the best techniques of the clan. I obviously took said techniques and the location of the clan library. Then, I also manipulated his mind.

The unsuspecting bastard stumbled towards me and handed me his space ring. I 'gratefully' accepted his 'charity' and made my way to his clan.

I arrived outside a pretty nice complex with those things, how do you call them? Eh, those independent living quarters. It was really nice, to be honest. Not my style, I prefer European architecture, but it was still nice. I cloaked myself in every way I could and I tried passing in front of the guards at the gate. They didn't budge, so I think I'm pretty safe. I ran all the way to the library and analyzed all of their books, before storing them safely in my inventory. I then got the fuck out of there. I waited on the roof of a nearby building until someone went to call the Elders and Patriarch, exactly the people I was waiting for. I got close enough to establish eye-contact and searched their minds. I quickly got all cultivation-related knowledge. I was lucky that one of the Elders was a 'formation master'. In reality, he was barely able to create some elementary formations, but he was a good boi and studied a lot of high level formations and runes. I will make good use of them, though I want more information on them. Little problem: the formation master felt something wrong and started looking around before looking in my direction. I trasmated back to the ship before he could find anything.

On the ship, I moved towards the next clan in the city and repeated my little heists. I love taking stuff from the rich and give it to myself! Robin Hood had a good ideal, but it isn't sustainable in today's society. Anyway, now, I have enough knowledge to actually give myself profound veins and create a decent cultivation technique. I want to visit the Star Realms to take a look at their libraries so that I can create an even better one, but that can wait until I actually begin cultivating. Little miscalculation: The people of this universe can't sense me since I don't have profound energy, but they might start realizing things when I end up getting it.

"MoonRay, find an isolated mountain range. As far as possible from civilization."

While she was piloting, I ironed out the details of the ritual. I want it to be something like the MPH ritual, which fuses the new Profound Veins with my ethereal veins. Now, the problem with that is space: I am a robot, made out of Quadra. I don't have space for veins. Therefore, I will have to transform the profound veins into an ethereal 'something' and tie them to my soul, which means that it will hurt like a bitch. On the plus side, I will cultivate even faster and can create a lot of profound entrances in my soul. In the future, when I cultivate my soul as well, I will be able to have even more profound entrances.

Now, as for the types of veins. Some of the books the clans have so kindly given me talk about different types of veins. I, being so extra, will make my own kind of veins: the Tula veins! Shitty naming but extremely OP! The effects of these veins should be stabilizing the soul, increasing mental capacity, comprehension, increasing cultivation speed, facilitating the circulation of profound strength, and so on. A lot of little gimmick, but these are the main ones. I concentrated in particular on stabilizing the soul since I believe that all these rituals are affecting us a little too much, probably has something to do with the soul.

MoonRay found me a beautiful mountain range about half a million kilometers from the nearest village. Yes, the size of this fucking planet is incredible. Anyway, I have a ritual, a deserted mountain range, and my customized Oryx out to guard the place. I pumped as much Light, Aura, and Magic I could inside of it, so it should hold its own for a while if a decently strong cultivator arrives.

At any rate, I inscribed my magic circle, got comfortable, and braced for impact. Since I don't know exactly how many profound entrances my soul can sustain, I decided to make the ritual create as many as possible, stopping only before 'overloading' my soul. I channeled my energies (sounds so 'new age') into the magic circle and experienced some nice soul-shattering pain. Adding things to souls isn't a good idea, at all.

I experienced a grand total of two fucking days of excruciating pain, then the ritual just kinda ended, no flashy explosions, no nothing.

I tried releasing my Aura to test whether the ritual actually worked as I hoped. Surprise, surprise, those shitty veins 'materialized' along with Aura. Yeah, everything worked out as intended: since the veins need to be physical according to what I read, I decided to tie them to my Aura, the materialization of my soul. Basically, they are material yet not, at the same time. TLDR, it worked, I can cultivate.

After checking that it worked, I tried seeing how many profound entrances I had, and I got a headache. Remember when I said something about slow, automatic pseudo-cultivation in the Potterverse? Turns out my soul did the same and became stronger over time. I have 2746 profound entrances, all opened. Now I remember why I like cheating.

I got to work on my next project: cultivation techniques! So, in the Potterverse, I had come up with a simple pseudo-cultivation technique which, essentially, was just passing Light, Aura, and Magic in our blood. In my case, I had to push the energy into my immaterial veins. Now however, I can make a real cultivation manual. I put almost all of my processing power, semblance, and magic into thinking about the best technique I could come up with. It took me two hours, but I did it!

Hooh, I'm getting way too excited in this universe.

Where was I? Yes, cultivation technique. I called it Heavenly Tula Cultivation Technique since Chinese put 'Heavenly' in front of pretty much anything. I swear that, if a God jacked off and finished on a tablecloth, they would call it a 'Heavenly Tablecloth'! Ok, I never want to think about that ever again, so let's just forget about it. Basically, this is my personal technique that can only be done by me.

Yeah, so… I had to try this technique, so I started running my Akashic Engine in reverse. I basically divided my Engine in two: production and absorption. I could keep the bare minimum of production to keep my body active and focus only on absorbing stuff.

Anyway, I started absorbing the strange energy I started feeling around me ever since the ritual was complete. That, apparently, was profound energy, and it took me a couple of minutes to enter this Elementary Profound Realm. Now that I had a small stock of profound energy, I started the second part of my cultivation technique: producing profound energy. I stopped my Akashic Engine and set it back to normal. I then tried pushing some of that sweet profound energy into the machine. Guess what? I exploded! No, I didn't, though it would be pretty cool if I did. I started producing profound energy at an alarming rate, so I stopped the production once again.

Time for the third part of the technique: collapsing the energy on itself, creating a 'profound singularity'. That was obviously the hardest part of the technique since I had just barely gotten this kind of energy. It basically being tied to Aura helped me a lot since I could use it to compress this unfamiliar energy. I stayed on the ground for three days trying to compress it sufficiently, but I did it! I created a singularity!

Part four of the technique: go back to normal and let the singularity and Akashic Engine do their magic! That is my favorite part!

Let me explain exactly what I did. I have profound veins now, that should be clear by now, and I absorbed some profound energy. Nothing too complicated until here. I then connected my profound energy to my Akashic Engine, essentially getting infinite profound energy. I just produced enough to boost me to the Earth Profound Realm, then cut the production. I compressed all that energy into a 'singularity'. Now, it isn't a real black hole, I would be very dead if it was. No, it basically acts like an automatic absorption and circulation device.

TLDR, when I reactivate my Akashic Engine in full, the profound singularity will automatically take all that sweet profound energy, refine it, compress it, and circulate it, effectively cultivating on its own. Yeah, I cheated. I know I said that cheating ruined a universe for me, but I also said that I just wanted to know that there is something out here that can interest me. Now I know, so I can go onto the gaining strength part.

I restarted my Akashic Engine and felt the cultivation increase abnormally fast. The good thing about my first singularity and my technique is that new singularities will be automatically created once enough energy and density has been reached. It's totally cheating and I love it.

Oh? I just reached the Emperor Profound Realm. My Domain should form. No, maybe I should form it? I don't really need a particular Domain, though my pseudo-domain of 'knowledge and interference' was pretty nice. I tried channeling profound energy into my eyes, since the pseudo-domain is an application of my eye powers.

I felt like that 'pseudo' was a thing of the past: my domain actually formed and I had omniscience within 50 meters from me in all directions, my semblance was automatically being used, and, best of all, I had complete control over anything within my Domain, if I was stronger than them or within one Realm of power. Seriously OP.

Oh! Divine Origin Realm. The feeling is pretty nice: vital energy deification. Well, my vital energy is basically what is produced by my Akashic Engine, which means… Improvements across the board! Every single energy got immensely more powerful, refined, pure, and all those fancy schmancy adjectives. Heh, being a robot cultivator has its benefits.

Divine Soul Realm felt more… Subtle, in a way. Less impressive if I have to be honest. Well, I could finally understand the laws better. All this time, I had the knowledge and could use them in my creations because my wish required knowledge. Now, I can do it myself anytime. Law of lightning? Look, I'm Thor! Law of Fire? Look, I'm the Torch! And all those lame examples from pop culture.

Now then, the Divine Tribulation Realm was seriously interesting. My profound strength increased by leaps and bounds, which means that the density of energy inside my profound veins skyrocketed and many new singularities formed, increasing my strength yet again and creating a repeating cycle.

Now then, breakthrough again. Theoretically, I am not forcefully breaking through to the next realm since I am literally doing nothing, but Heaven doesn't give a fuck, apparently. Now then, what do you do with a Domain that gives you limited Omniscience and Omnipotence, knowledge on the laws, and Divine Heavenly Tribulation Biribiri? You abuse the shit out of it. Oh, I must add that my lightning clouds were tens thousands of kilometers wide. They could easily cover a whole hemisphere of Earth.

You know, black lightning is cool as hell and, when I saw it completely still within my domain, I think I got a little hard. I used my omniscience to understand this lightning and try to replicate it. If I had to choose a dominant law, I would choose 'knowledge'. Yes, it exists and is OP compared to all other laws, except 'nothingness' and 'everything'. Those two are like the tippy-top of the pyramid, then knowledge and void are just below, half-step into the top. Anyway, I was saying that I would choose 'knowledge' because it lets me know everything: every possible law, every possible future, every single thing.

It took maybe a second to understand the black lightning and how to use the laws to replicate it. If Nora becomes the Goddess of Lightning, I am totally having her use this black lightning. I thought about something cool to do when I have time: having my Akashic Engine produce law elements. Theoretically, I would become invulnerable to every single law at that point.

Anyway, I waited a couple of hours for the waves of lightning to end. I nullified all of the lightning bolts, but they just wouldn't stop. There are some cultivators that actually arrived and are keeping their eyes from popping out every new round of lightning. I did that very martial-style bow that you always see or read about in cultivation worlds, wouldn't want to cause a bloodbath right after arriving here.

After the lightning bolts ended after a grand total of 283 rounds, I broke through to Divine Spirit Realm and a whole new sense opened up to me. You know about all those things like magic eyes, Rinnegan, 'seeing the energy'? Yeah, that's bullshit. I doubt anyone has actually seen anything more than traces of the energy. What I am currently seeing can't even be described. It just feels like I can finally see everything.

Then came Divine King Realm and my energy completely changed. It wasn't just about density or quantity or quality. It gained several new properties which literally made me become a divine being. I remember that some fanfictions called this Primordial Energy or something, so I will use that name as well. Divine Sovereign Realm was just a straight-up upgrade compared to Divine King and I felt like I was less restricted by the universe, or should I say 'Heavens'. This should be the ability to travel through dimensional cracks. I might not need the UJD for much longer.

I ignored the cultivators that were currently coughing up blood. I tried using the law of knowledge and it seems that violent emotions destabilize the energy inside the veins, which causes a blood build-up and 'coughing blood'. That makes much more sense than shitty Chinese writing.

Now then, Divine Master Realm was another straight-up upgrade, but the ability to use the 'God Manifestation Art' was completely useless to me as I didn't have any True God Blood. 'Now I need to think about how to get that blood, though it will become obsolete when I become a God myself, which is in probably a minute or so.'

Now then, Divine Extinction Realm was cool, I guess. I felt stronger, certainly, and I had a certain instinctive feeling as if all of these bugs around me were below me. Shit, not another curse-like thing, please. Well, for now, the breakthroughs stopped. It took me maybe 10 minutes after the lightning to arrive at a realm that the best of cultivators spend millenia to even consider a possibility. Heh, scrubs.

Oh, and… Since I have a metallic body, no impurities came out, since there are no impurities.

I looked at all of those bugs gathered around me. Mere mortals, just a couple of Divine Origins. Ah, cultivation affects your mindset, don't try it kids.

"Are you just going to stare at me all day or what?" I asked, lookin at each of them in the eye and searching their minds. Oh, so good! Cultivation enhanced everything about me, even my efficiency in mind-search. Let's see… Normal cultivators… That guy is pretty strong… Oh, a real formation master and a medical expert. The others are just not noteworthy. I copied all the important knowledge, from flying to the formations, then I pointed to the two I 'marked' and said: "You two stay. The others can leave."

Ha! Their terrified faces are awesome! Too fun! I saw that those I didn't point at turned and ran away as fast as possible. "Don't worry. I want to talk with a formation master and a medical expert. You two seem to be from the same clan. Tell me more"

The medical guy spoke out first: "Senior… What can we do for you? Has our clan angered you in any way?"

Ah, I love this place. You get strong and get to order people around. "No, as I said, I want to talk with the two of you. You see, I want information on formations and medicine. I already copied the knowledge you two have. I want more, so start talking."

They looked afraid and slightly pissed. Someone just entered their minds and took their knowledge without them realising, that is scary and infuriating at the same time.

The formation master spoke next: "Senior, if it's knowledge you are searching for, I am sure that you will find it in our Xin clan' library. If you so desire, we will offer the utmost hospitality and put our knowledge at your disposal."

"Oh, you sure know how to make a man happy. I am Tula, Divine Extinction Realm, guide me to your clan. In exchange, I will even give you a Divine Treasure." I said, flexing my newly acquired cultivation level a little. They nodded happily after hearing the word treasure and started flying.

We were flying really fast, probably faster than the ship can go without using the FTL Drive. It took a couple of hours to arrive in the capital city of the Divine Flaming Chicken Empire. We arrived in front of a complex like the ones in Blazing Chicken Farm, just much bigger and much more pompous. Well, I was only interested in their library so I wasn't that impressed.

This shitty complex is as big as an entire city back on Earth and we had to walk because of the dispositions from the clan head. Oh, I will kill him for sure… That insect. At any rate, we spent 40 fucking minutes walking in silence. Not the comfortable one where you know you are relaxing and nothing much is up. Well, I did take the opportunity to understand why I didn't become a God.

The hypothesis I came up with did and didn't surprise me: first of all, I don't have enough energy, second, the law I am trying to become the God of doesn't exist in this universe, which is false, third, there already is a God of Knowledge, which I exclude because my understanding of the law is by far superior to anyone out there, plus my knowledge itself is superior, fourth, I know too many laws and am preparing to become an Ancestral God directly or maybe even more, fifth, my body can't withstand the energy that comes with being a god.

Now, if it's the first, then I just need to wait, the second already is impossible, if it's the third, it is just a matter of time until the 'Heavens' realize that I am superior in understanding and utilization and therefore switch our realms, if it's the fourth, then it's just a matter of time, if it's the fifth, I will have to change my material to 'Penta', which I still need to create. Since it's either time or changing myself, I will check out the library real quick, then head to another desolate mountain range, create a new material real quick, and become a God. Pretty easy.

Anyway, we arrived at the library, so I whipped out my domain and started strolling through the library, absorbing all the juicy knowledge and improving it automatically. Ah, I love my powers. The library was enormous, almost as big as the one on the ship. It took me a few minutes to walk through the entirety of it. I looked at the two Divine Origins and tossed them a stone, then said: "That is called a Resurrection stone. Channel your energy into it and you will be able to communicate with any dead soul as long as you know their real name. It's your payment for the knowledge I just collected." Obviously, I didn't give them the original, just a copy I made with the laws and based on the original. Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

I didn't wait for the response and trasmated back to the ship. Now, I had enough knowledge to be considered a God of Medicine and Formations. I immediately made a couple of very interesting techniques: one technique, which is a physique transformation technique, that will transform me into the embodiment of as many laws as I understand, which means every law, and another technique that will allow me to transfer all of my knowledge into digitized form automatically, which means no need for more heists, unless it's for fun.

I also integrated all of this knowledge with the magic system I have made. Formations are basically runes, enchantments, and rituals, so they are my kind of stuff. I finally found what the problem was with the MPH ritual: there is the remnant of a draconic soul. It's just the intent of the soul, so we never noticed, even with soul magic. Oh well, now that I know, I can either eliminate this intent myself or create another ritual to fix the problem.

I have some things I want to do, but first, I am craving food and good alcohol. Just for good measure, I scanned the gold coins and created a bunch, so that I could eat and drink as much as I can. This will be my cheat day since I won't be under scrutiny by my wives.

I trasmated in an alley near the main street. I was about to go find a restaurant or whatever the equivalent is in this world, when a sound caught my attention. I turned my head and found a very startled teenage girl. Who was crying and had a red cheek.

"Oh, girly. Didn't see you there… Sorry for startling you. Are you okay?" I asked, just to make sure. She didn't respond and nodded her head. I noticed that she was quite thin, as in malnourished, not the fit kind of thin. She had silver hair, though it was mostly covered in mud. She was really nice looking, kind of like a more serious and mature Ruby when she was in Beacon.

She reminded me of my dear wife, so I asked: "Uhm, are you going home or something?" She shook her head. "I see. Er, look, girly, I was just about to go find a restaurant and grab something to eat. How about I offer you something? As compensation for startling you." She looked wary, but nodded the same. The hunger must have outmatched her wariness. "Ok. Then let's clean you up." I said very gently and used magic to clean her body and clothes, if they could be called so. I also casted tons of healing, purifying, and de-cursing magics, just to go the extra mile.

She widened her eyes. "It's magic. Cool, right?" She nodded and let out a small smile. We started walking and arrived on the main street. I offered the girl my hand since it was quite busy. I read the mind of a few wealthy merchant-looking guys and found the 'best' restaurant in this city. It was a pretty long walk, so I casted a lot of buffs on the girl and winked once she noticed. Heh, I like surprising people, apparently. No, maybe it��s just girls that remind me of my wives.

We arrived at the restaurant and got a table. The waitress/bitch was about to complain about the girl, but I shut her up by releasing some of my spiritual pressure, something I found out I could do after entering Divine Soul Realm. I obviously excluded the girl from all this pressure. The bitch looked terrified and immediately threw out a young master to give us the best table in the establishment. I ordered two of everything they had and one of all the alcohol they had.

"You know, I still haven't presented myself. I am Tula. You look a lot like my wife, you know…" I said, trailing off at the end since I noticed I never once heard her speak. "Hey, I know I'm asking a little late, but could you be mute?" she nodded. I raised my hand and slowly touched her neck, then I used a few revival spells, localised healing spells, and life laws to heal her.

She pulled back a little but didn't resist, too much at least. "There… we go. Try talking now."

She was about to shake her head, but tried nonetheless: "A…" she widened her eyes and looked at me. I just smiled and winked.

"Magic, I told you."

"A… re you… a cu… ltiva… tor?" She asked, straining her voice. She had not talked in who knows how much time after all.

"Oh, you got me." I raised my hands in defeat. "Yep, I am a cultivator, a pretty strong one."

"So...rry. I di...dn't mean… to-" She started saying. I already knew where she was going with that sentence.

"No, don't worry. I told you: you look similar to my wife, so you are not a nuisance or any of that. Just relax, I can see that you have had a pretty bad day. No one will hurt you, no one will disturb you." She nodded then started sobbing again. I casted a noise barrier just so that no one would cause trouble for us. I then leaned in on the table and pat her head. 'Ultimate Heavenly Technique: Tula Headpats! Ahh, I want to kill myself after thinking that.'

"Would you tell me your name? Or should I guess?" I looked in her mind, not the personal memories, just her name. I found nothing. She never had a name. "Or maybe, I could give you one? Hm… I just noticed that your eyes are purple, so why not Amethyst? It's a very nice stone used in things like jewelry where I come from." I made a small flower out of amethyst. "Here you go, an amethyst flower for you."

She took the flower in her hand and looked at it like it was the most precious thing in existence. "Ame… thyst? My… name?" she asked, going back to crying.

"Only if you like it. We can come up with another one. I could even continue calling you Girly if you want." She shook her head.

"No… I like it…"

"Then… Amethyst, do you have a place to return to? Someone to return to?" She shook her head. 'Yeah, I guessed that when I saw her, but I hoped she at least had a hut or something in the outskirts… Ok…'

"Want to come with me then? I travel with my friends and wives a lot. At the moment, I am going on a solo adventure though. If you want… No one would deny you coming they are all great people. I even have an adopted daughter, she's adorable."

She looked absolutely stunned. I couldn't help myself and checked her thoughts. They can be resumed with one word: 'Why?'

"There isn't a reason why. I'm just doing it. A whim, you could say. You were at the right place, at the right time to meet me. If I really had to give a reason, then it's because of you looking like my wife and I shudder just thinking about her all alone, without shelter in this city." She looked at me and was again stunned. "Magic, remember?" I said, pointing to my eyes and making them twinkle like old man Dumbles.

She was undecided, she felt like she was taking advantage of my kindness and her luck.

"If you feel that way let's do it like this: how about you become my apprentice and assistant? Well, not MY assistant, but my wives might be entertained by the idea. One of them was a heiress to an important 'merchant group', so she had some assistants before meeting me." I said, trying to convince her. It's true that this is a whim, but I just can't help but have a gut feeling she should come with me. I checked the time in the DanMachi universe and saw that only a minute or so had passed there, so I sent a message saying: 'What do you think about an assistant?'

After half an hour, during which me and Amethyst were silent, I received 11 messages: from the gang, Ais, and Loki. The unanimous response was 'Cool!', so I guess we are getting an assistant. Now, I hope Amethyst accepts, otherwise I might have to buy a slave or something. I can't ask about an assistant then go back without anyone in tow.

"Amethyst, I asked my friends and wives about the assistant thing… They would love to have you with us. Think about it, we have a long lunch ahead of us."