28 First Cultivation Session

Taking the Pearls with him into the clearing, Cifer sat with his legs crossed in a meditative pose. He slowly cleared his mind and summoned his White Lily. It was still in shattered crumbles, so utterly deprived of Essence that it could barely sustain itself. But even so he could feel the power of Death and Mercy coming from it in waves. It was easy for him to Connect with it as the majestic power in it obediently heeled at his command, opening up to the Loss he felt when he thought of his parents and the separation from his old home. The Sorrow he felt for the fact that it would be a long time until he could reunite with Auntie Azumi, and the heavy weight of the Fate that his Potential had laid on him.

His compassion fueled his loss and sorrow, and he knew he no longer had a choice but to follow the plans laid out. It was a Mercy for him to leave before the Clan became a target, even though justice wasn't strong enough to protect them yet.

The White Lily pulsated in his heart as Mercy and Death flowed through him. He began forming the whirlpool of Essence from this inheritance, planning to use it as his Cultivation method from now on. It would place a larger demand on his resources, but it would also make him incredibly strong within his level and slow his cultivation to avoid unwanted attention. Cifer wasn't greedy, wanting to immediately rocket to the skies and rule over everything. Instead he would prefer to focus on his foundations and build himself up step by step. Remaining nearly invincible within the same level every time.

The whirlpool formed, Cifer began breaking the Striped Blue Pearls that Oji had given him. The amount of Essence that formed was enough for his purposes as he broke the seventh Pearl. As Cifer felt the power of the whirlpool smashing through his body he grit his teeth at the pain that formed. He had not been prepared for what should have been obvious. That breaking down his Limits would prove painful.

Before his eyes the White Lily began to take in the bottom of the vortex of Essence, pulsating more as it absorbed more with each rotation. As he cultivated, the White Lily had already started to show signs of the wavy Green of the next layer of the Essence Sea. He focused on maintaining the whirlpool as it constantly remade his body to hold the core of his Origination that would enable him to refine his own Essence. He grew stronger steadily, the imperfections being thrown into the depths where they were crushed into paste and expelled by the White Lily.

As the White Lily grew more bright and better nourished, the pieces began to slowly reassemble themselves. Reforging and regrowing into a new whole. But Cifer could sense that the amount of Essence required to complete even the first part of this reassembly would far exceed the current limits of his body that had only just began to feel the power of Essence within him. Yet he could feel that the moment and time to reattach the first part was already upon him. So he fed more into the vortex, breaking one of the Wavy Blue Pearls from Momo.

It gave a lot more than he expected, causing the whirlpool to expand in a horrifically painful way. He could feel his bones creak and his blood vessels burn as every fiber of his being cried out in agony. The sheer number of imperfections that were gathered by the tyrannical vortex in its attempts to prepare him to break down his Limitations was agonizing to the extreme. But he recalled his motivations, the people counting on him, the parents to longed to meet him, and Cifer stirred the whirlpool faster. As he did he felt the vortex suddenly drain away with all the collected imperfections in his body being cast off and the Essence being absorbed completely to repair the entire stem of the White Lily. But not perfectly.

Drained and in great pain, Cifer was shocked to see that there were still obvious cracks in the two places where the White Lily had rejoined it's stem and the six petals were still disconnected from each other and the stem. But now each piece could be made out as a whole, and even though crinkles and tears still showed on the petals and cracks showed where the stem had nearly broke, it was a large improvement what had been seen before. After all, what had been there before was closer to the torn and crushed ruins of a flower. Now the damage was comparable to Clan Leader Aoi's Halberd had when he showed it to Cifer.

Cifer slowly stood up, wondering what this meant. He looked around him, the world clearer despite the later hour. He smiled, and ran around the camp, feeling the air as it slowly sank in. He'd made it to Early Broken Origination in just under an hour during his first Cultivation session. Wondering what kind of difference that would make, Cifer picked up the scythe that he'd used to fend of the ordinary animals he'd run into on his way here.

Fortunately he hadn't run into any Origination Beasts, which would have been extremely dangerous. But this area was not known for housing any strong creatures who might parallel even a Low Origination human. True, there were many valuable parts of such Beasts, from their skins that could be used to make Armor to their meat that could somewhat aid cultivation and even their hearts which often stored an Essence of the type the Beast itself had Cultivated. In short, there was no end to a demand for people to hunt such Origination Beasts even without the occasional attacks that damaged towns and sometimes small cities.

Not that Cifer was planning to hunt one. He was still far too weak for something like that, they'd eat him alive without the right Techniques and having upgraded his strength far enough. But he did intend to spend some time practicing with the scythe tonight while he still felt invigorated by the breakthrough. It bothered him how many imperfections the vortex had found, and he had the sense that he could improve that by more naturally working them out with a good sweat. Besides, it would help him see how much faster and stronger he'd become while tiring him out to go to bed.

After all, he and Momo could get everything sorted out in the morning. They'd be stuck together for a long time after all. Not that it bothered him by much. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts from that dangerous line of thinking, Cifer focused himself on training to use the unusual weapon.