Cultivation

It was already night when Gremory woke up, so everyone of the Hjmar guild was already sleeping near Gremory.

Redwig threw a white stone at him, it was the size of his hand and was shining in the light.

"The way of the warriors usually is the Cultivation. It is a technique that involves the cultivation of Qi, this strengthens the body of the warrior but it also has limits. You are a mage but you fight like a warrior, I never saw anything like that. If you start the cultivation then you maybe will be able to fight like before without hurting yourself."

"Wait, if something like this exists then why I never heard of it? I was trained by a warrior but he never talked of something like this."

"The Qi comes from nature, so the reserves are limited, there are places where the Qi condenses and we extract it in the form of a mineral. However, is pretty hard to find these locations so the cost is usually high and only a guild can buy it. But the guild would not waste in someone with rank below C, this is why we only accept the warriors who manage to reach this level."

"So... Why are you wasting this on me? You probably know that I am rank D."

"Yeah, I know. But I think you are almost rank C, if you move to the next level then your recovery will speed up. After all... We still need you on the fight and very soon."

Redwig explaneid the plan of Geoffrey and the attack that would happen in just a few days. It was too crazy even for Gremory but he knew that was the best choice to gain some time.

With the help of Redwig, he started the cultivation process using the white rock. Gremory already knew how energy work in this world and Qi was just another kind of energy, the process of absorbing was almost automatic to a warrior if he was concentrated enough. Then most of the time he just stood with the white rock in his hand while meditating.

The flow of Qi was similar to mana and spread through Gremory body, but it was an exhausting process. But Gremory was almost reaching rank C and with that boost, he reached the evolution point just two days later.

---Two Days Later---

Another day waiting for the remaining squads to report back and it was almost time for the next assault, so Geoffrey marked the remaining squads as dead on the board and everyone started to prepare to leave the camp.

But the preparations would take at least another day, and Gremory has not used the entire white rock given by Redwig.

'At least I will be able to follow them while running now...' Gremory thought while looking at himself.

The process of physical breakpoint was much faster and easier than the magic breakpoint. From night to day Gremory gained height and muscle, now he was 1.78 meters (5'10"), as tall as Danton even with his age. His physical build was now athletic but his appearance was still pretty bad with all the marks on his face and all over his body.

'It is incredible how nature can store energy in so many ways, first the Mitre Crystals and now this white rocks imbued with Qi. I wonder if I could make a core to store the dark energy and then bring the undead with me without worrying about my mana, just like the core of a golem.'

'Besides, after here I will have to find a way to find the Oracle and kill her.' Gremory thought, but soon he remembered the conversation he had with Robert.

'I mean, deal with her... Oh, I almost forgot, where are the non-humans?'

Gremory went running to the tent where Geoffrey was and asked.

"Where are that blue-skinned non-humans we saved?"

"No-humans you saved? Do you mean after destroying their entire life? Don't be soo hypocritical, we sent them to be sold as slaves when the merchant's guild came to drop supplies. I heard something about being better to sell them as slaves them leaving in your hand."

'The rumors are not helping me as always.'

"What? But I was just going to help them!"

"Help them? Why? Look... I know that is hard to do what we did, but we had no choice, and if you want them so badly them finish everything here and go back to Lathrium and buy them back. They will not be sold right now since the city is preparing to a siege."

"I will, at least they are safer there."

"For now..."

Gremory left the tent and went back to the cultivation. Once he finished the white stone, he grabbed some Mitre Crystals from his dimensional bag, and while reading about golens in his book of Runes Tier 3, he tried to recreate the inscriptions and succeded.

But he failed in summoning a golem, the dark energy just got stuck in the crystal without doing anything.

He tried once again but took one mitre crystal of medium size, imbued with mana and made the mechanism of conversion between different types of energy and then tried again the inscriptions for golens.

All the process was extremely thorough and took hours, but he made a perfect medium size Mitre Crystal with a tier 3 inscription using mechanism of golens, conversion of energy, and movement of mana. The great golens usually need two mechanisms only for them, so the rune was pretty bad when compared to that, but it was enough for the experiment.

He put the crystal on the hand and summoned Cerberus while manipulating the shadow of Cerberus into the Crystall, the summoning still took 20% of Gremory mana but it converged into the Crystall and now was using the mana from the crystal just like a golem.

'It worked, I probably could do the same with the undead now!'