Real cultivation

Thankfully the meditation position was widely regarded as an acceptable sleeping posture so even if someone did try to peek at Viria, they wouldn't find him sitting cross-legged too suspicious.

Unfortunately, that also carried its own share of problems – not knowing whether someone was sleeping or meditating could lead to others trying to wake him up and breaking the concentration leading to all the hard work getting wasted in the best outcome, all the way to getting seriously wounded by the backlash.

The latter one though rarely happened on lower levels of cultivation though.

Anyway, after spending some time trying to listen around for any footsteps and calming his breathing, Viria reached out to his hair and took out a single shard.

He put his hands together right by his stomach and focused deeply, concentrating on his own inner energy coursing through his body.

After a few minutes, the young man began sensing the mole-rabbit core warming up in his hands and even heating up, having its temperature raising over his own.

The energy stored within the core began sipping into Viria's body, hesitantly mixing with his own.

While cultivating any type of foreign energy intake it was extremely important to let the body get used to it first.

The monster's energy needed to course through the cultivator's entire body many times before it would start nurturing it the way it was intended to.

...at least with the cultivation level and the soul artifact's grade that Viria possessed at the moment...

Although even when he was young Viria had the trash grade soul artifact unsuitable for cultivation, his family was rich and powerful and did provide him one time with a monster core so he could at least try experiencing the proper training.

Back then it felt as if completing a single course of energy cycle with the core's energy mixed in would never end. The monster core was wasted as the energy expired before the young Viria could complete two full cycles.

Now things were different.

With the spiritual energy flow ten times the speed from back then, it took eleven cycles for the core's energy to stop feeling foreign, and then Viria could experience the power flowing into his body, nurturing him from the inside.

The experience was like nothing he experienced before – especially not in his previous life.

The best way to describe it would be... taking a refreshing bath but from the inside, and it was only getting better and better with each completed cycle.

It felt so comfortable that Viria didn't want the feeling to end at all so that he could bask in it forever.

Unfortunately, that could not happen – after full four cycles of nurturing but halfway through the fifth one, the core energy simply expired and dissipated, and the core itself broke apart in his grip.

"No...!"

Viria gasped and hurriedly opened his hands to see reddish granules – clear evidence that not all energy from the core was processed.

Cultivators with trash grade soul artifacts simply wasted the resource given to them.

The cultivators with low grade soul artifacts couldn't use the resources to the fullest.

That was a simple reality.

"...that's a downer for su..."

[Mole-rabbit core leftovers (trash)]

Viria sighed, about to hide the granules to dispose of them in another place when the dialogue window with the item description appeared within his vision.

"Huh...? Hold on..."

The young man's eyes widened in realization and he gulped down his saliva.

He concentrated and reached out his other hand...

[Prison shiv (mole-rabbit bone) – low grade soul artifact – it sometimes breaks but can be remade from any kind of trash in your possession.

Abilities – Bone weapon (The higher the mastery level, the higher the damage dealt by the weapon) - - Rabbit strike (Adds the speed of a mole-rabbit's jump to the attack)

Mastery – level 4/10

Durability 27/31 –repair– -remake-

???]

...to have his soul artifact appear within his grasp to reveal its description – with only the remake option lighted up and available for choosing...

"Remake."

Viria hesitated only a moment before choosing the option out loud.

[Pick trash from your possessions to use as a material for remaking your soul artifact:

-not available-

Available augmentation

-mole-rabbit core leftovers-]

Just as he expected, more options presented themselves for him to see – well, a single option, actually.

Augmenting the prison shiv the first time made it slightly bit durable, what effect could be added on top of it with the new trash in his possession?

"Mole-rabbit core leftovers."

Viria declared and both the reddish granules in his right hand and the prison shiv in his right one started glowing until only the soul artifact was left...

The overall design didn't change much – again. The weapon still looked like arts and crafts project, only now it had some shards of the monster core embedded in the handle improving the grip.

As for the item description though...

[Prison shiv (mole-rabbit bone) – low grade soul artifact – it sometimes breaks but can be remade from any kind of trash in your possession.

Abilities – Bone weapon (The higher the mastery level, the higher the damage dealt by the weapon) - - Rabbit strike (Adds the speed of a mole-rabbit's jump to the attack) Rabbit aspect (Imbues the user with the speed of the mole-rabbit)

Mastery – level 4/10

Durability 12/12 –repair– -remake-

???]

"Th-third ability...?!"

Viria had to block his mouth with his free hand or he would have shouted those words inappropriately loud.

At the cost of the massive drop in durability, his soul artifact gained another ability! If not for the fragility of the weapon, it would be counted as a medium grade soul artifact!

The experiment was definitely worth it – the young man was sure that he would be able to kill a mole-rabbit before his weapon broke, but now he had another ability he could use to enhance his performance – how good was that?!

Still, judging by the lack of the little tuff of fur on the thin strip of skin hanging from the handle, the monster core augmentation replaced the first one instead of adding on top of it.

It was a bit disheartening because if stacking worked, Viria already had the plan to add the augmentation up indefinitely, but all in all, it was a win. In the case of adding a really bad augmentation, it was possible to erase its effects with another one.