ATG 2

Carl landed face down in the dirt. He dragged himself to his feet, disgustedly brushing off the dirt and dust. Damned portal spit him out so he didn't have a chance to land normally.

Looking around, he saw he was in a town square near a marketplace in the middle of the day. Nobody who was passing by seemed to be bothered by a person appearing out of nowhere, so he figured there was some magic making people ignore his entrance into the world, or people appearing out of portals was a normal occurrence around here. Maybe some combination of the two?

He looked down at himself to take inventory of what he had with him, and noticed he wasn't wearing the same clothes he had on when he finished accepting his choices on the jump doc.

'Now that I think about it, every time I get inserted into a world with a background I'm wearing what my background character would. What happens to all my cloths that I'm wearing when I'm transported into the world?' Carl thought. 'Does the jump chain have a laundry service? I'll have to check to see if the clothes I was wearing are in the warehouse.'

Once Carl finished being distracted by nonsense, he finally actually noticed what he was wearing. He appeared to be wearing a school uniform. He wearily chuckled at his circumstances.

"I've been Isekai'd into the world. Complete with Japanese school uniform. Wonder if I've got classmates running around too." Carl muttered to himself in a wry tone of voice. "I suppose having been Isekai'd into the world counts as a protagonist's background."

He was half amused at his situation, and half annoyed. He had been hoping for some background memories to help him figure things out, and gain a basic understanding of the world, but it turns out he would have to do the information gathering on his own.

First things first, he needed to get a room at an inn so he could process all the memories and knowledge bouncing around his head that he gained from perks. Several of his perks came with the associated knowledge, so he would have to spend some time using his occlumency skills to sort the unorganized mess it left in his mind.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, and that he was mostly out of the way of everyone's walking path, Carl opened up the portal to his Warehouse just enough to reach in and grab his briefcase that he got from Uncle Pennybags in the Monopoly challenge.

Making sure once more that no one was watching him, he whispered an amount to his briefcase, "The local equivalent of 100 pounds." Opening the briefcase, he saw a single cyan colored coin. Plucking the coin out, and holding it in his hand while tucking the briefcase under his arm, he set out. He started with approaching a man that was walking by to ask about nearby inns he could rent a room at.

"Excuse me, could you.." Carl started asking the first person he came across.

"Piss off, I'm busy."

The man glared so aggressively, Carl just shrugged and moved on. Like the jump document said, the world was full of assholes. He decided to change his target.

Carl approached one of the stalls in the market place. He saw the man there was selling footwear and trying to entice customers. While Carl was looking at the vendor, he suddenly got a sense that the man was a decent sort that tried to make an honest living.

Huh, good to know his Heart of Snow Glazed Glass was working. Guess he needed to focus on an individual for a few seconds to get a reading, then, since he didn't get a sense of the first man he approached. He had been looking around more than focusing on the man, so that was probably why he was surprised by his reaction.

"Hello. Where do you think is a nice inn around here?" After getting the vendor's attention Carl asked while fingering the cyan colored coin. The man's eyes zeroed in on the coin. Just because he was a decent sort didn't mean he would turn down a tip for providing good information. He had a family to feed, after all.

"The Plum Gourd Inn is three streets down the left hand path." The man gave him some simple directions. Carl neutrally smiled and flipped him the coin before departing to follow the man's directions.

While walking along, Carl kept an eye out for anyone that might be targeting him, and observed the town as he walked. The town, or at least the area he was in, didn't seem particularly affluent, but it wasn't the slums either.

After several minutes, he arrived at the Plum Gourd. The courtyard style inn at least looked like it had decent upkeep, so Carl felt like it would make a decent place to start. The large building at the entrance to the courtyard property was a restaurant, and there were smaller individual buildings that had rooms for rent inside the courtyard.

Carl made his way to the manager and after a short conversation learned how much it would cost for a week stay at the inn. Carl bent over his briefcase and near silently muttered the amount he needed. Opening the briefcase, he pulled out 30 of the cyan coins and handed them over to the manager.

After which the manager called up a helper that showed Carl to his room. Pocketing the key the helper gave him, Carl entered the room and locked the door behind him. As he looked over the room he'd rented, he couldn't help but snort in amusement as a thought occurred to him.

"It's probably a good thing I didn't get that I'm Surrounded By Assholes drawback. I probably would have had someone trying to steal the room I had just paid for because he was so much more important than me. That seems to be a common trope for protagonists, some rich arrogant young master just has to throw his weight and self importance around, and is just shocked when the protagonist doesn't bow down to him."

Carl let his magical senses flow out to inspect the room. He wasn't sure if he would recognize anything suspicious because the cultivation and magical worlds had absolutely no connection. Would his magic recognize a cultivation based listening array? But it was better than nothing.

Seeing that there was nothing immediately suspicious, Carl opened up a portal to his Warehouse. Inside he saw Rover relaxing in the living room.

"Heya, Rover. Anything unusual happen?" Carl greeted his familiar.

Rover gave the equivalent of a bird shrug and a negative chirp. Carl petted the adorable Phoenix for a while. Supposedly he could turn back into his dog form if he wanted, but Carl guessed that having wings and the ability to flash anywhere was too good to give up.

"Rover, I want you to be really careful. The world we are in is very dangerous. There are innumerable strong people who would love to capture you, and either enslave you or make you into potions ingredients." At Rover's indignant squawk, Carl faintly smiled and petted Rover in comfort. "Yeah, I know, they are horrible people. So you need to be very careful when wandering around the world. Not just the people, I'm sure other very strong animals would love to eat you. So be super cautious. It might be a good idea to stay close to home here in the Warehouse until we can test to see if your flaming ability would get you out of any methods they might have to capture you."

Upon seeing that Rover took his warning seriously, Carl was reassured. Later on when he'd integrated his craftsman knowledge, they could test some arrays and other things to be sure that Rover could escape when he needed to.

Carl then retrieved a set of ward stones and exited the Warehouse. He had soon set up defensive and alert wards around his room. He would be busy for several hours to several days. It was important that he have some defenses up to feel at ease in such an alien place.

Making his way to the bed in his rented room, Carl sat down. Settling his mind properly, he began meditating and soon dove into his mindscape. Looking around, he sighed at how messy it was with all the extra information just thrown in.

Carl decided to start with the medical knowledge. He started sorting the knowledge and memories that came with them into a medical knowledge section. Until now his medical knowledge hadn't been used very much. It consisted of what he'd learned in the HSDK world, making use of his martial arts skills to heal, and a scattering of spells from the HP world. He just hadn't been in situations where he needed the healing.

But now with the knowledge equal to the Medical Saint Yun Gu, Carl had to expand the medical wing storage to accommodate the huge influx of knowledge. As Carl was filing everything away, he was briefly reviewing it. His basic knowledge of biology increased by a large amount, especially with everything associated with Profound cultivation, veins, and entrances.

Carl learned that the number of Profound Entrances that everyone had was 54, but each person had a different amount of them open. An ordinary person would have only 10 entrances open. Someone with 20 entrances open would be considered an exceptionally gifted person.

So with his roll of 15 earlier on the jump document, with 25 entrances open he would have been considered a genius even though he had less than half of his entrances open. Carl was pretty happy he'd gotten the perks needed to have all of his entrances open.

Carl continued to sort the medical knowledge, occasionally pausing to go eat at the inn's restaurant so he could listen to the talk in the common room and start getting used to the world by eavesdropping on the various topics of conversation.

After some time sitting in the busy restaurant, Carl decided to attempt some more in depth information gathering. He cautiously extended his mixed telepathy and Legilimency skills towards one of the workers that was bustling around. He assumed that since the man was a lowly worker, then he would have low cultivation and low defenses.

Soon enough, Carl found himself inside the man's mind and searched it for information on the Empire and general goings on.

Carl learned a bit about the continent he'd been dropped on. The whole continent was ruled by the Illusory Demon Royal Family from the Demon Imperial City. The Royal Family, with the surname Huan, was the main branch. The first Demon Emperor was a Neon Sparrow Demon that had obtained the legacy of the Golden Crow, obtained the allegiance of Twelve very strong generals and their families, and with them had conquered the entire continent.

'Well, what a coincidence that I chose the Golden Crow legacy, and the royal family here has the Golden Crow bloodline. Did the world get modified when I picked the beast bloodline? If I had picked the Ice Phoenix, would the Royal Family's bloodline be that instead?' Carl idly wondered. Carl shrugged away the thought, since he had no Jump-chan to question, there was no point in thinking about it too much.

Every thousand years there was another Demon Emperor that would ascend the throne. The tenth generation Demon Emperor had gone missing over a hundred years ago and was presumed dead.

His son, the Little Demon Emperor, ascended the throne after his father's death, which was about 95 years ago. In addition to assuming the throne, the Little Demon Emperor had just married his older sister (which was something the Demon Royal Family did in order to keep the purity of the Golden Crow Bloodline high) when he disappeared on his wedding night. Nobody knew what had happened, but there were rumors that he had gone looking for the Demon Emperor's Seal that had disappeared at the same time his father disappeared.

The Demon Emperor's Seal was apparently the symbol of authority of the Royal family. It allowed the upcoming Demon Emperor to enter the Golden Crow's Holy Land that was in the center of the Golden Crow Lightning Flame Valley to receive the blessing of the Golden Crow Spirit that resided there.

The Golden Crow Lightning Flame Valley was a proving and training ground that opened every five years. The members of the Illusory Demon Royal Family, which included the Duke Palaces, and the 12 Guardian Families were allowed to participate. The valley was filled with strong flames and thunderclouds that led to the constant growth of fire spirits, lightning spirits, and other fire and lighting type demons, as well as many rare materials and treasures. So entering the valley was a good proving ground for the Empire's youth, as well as testing their luck and skill in obtaining rare cultivation resources.

So after her brother and newly wed husband had disappeared on their wedding night without consummating the marriage, the Little Demon Empress had ascended the throne. But her authority was shaky because of the missing Demon Emperor's Seal and her inability to enter the Golden Crow's Holy Land and receive the blessing of the Golden Crow.

When Carl thought about the situation, he was quite suspicious of the circumstances. The Little Demon Emperor was reportedly quite dedicated to his role and responsibility as the future Demon Emperor, so for him to go on some quest on his wedding night without insuring the next generation of his royal family could be born was out of character. Carl smelled a rat in the Empire.

In the hierarchy of the powers in the Empire, first was the Demon Royal Family, of which only the Little Demon Empress was left.

Next down was the 12 Guardian Families. They were the family/clans of the 12 generals that united under the original Demon Emperor, and so they had a large amount of power and authority in the empire.

Below the power and authority of the Guardian Families, there were a total of 103 Duke's Palaces, who were branch members of the Demon Royal Family.

Carl also learned that the former number one of the 12 Guardian Families was coincidently the Yun clan. Carl wondered if the family was related to Yun Che, the supposed protagonist of this world. It would be one of those things that made up a protagonists background, being a member of prestigious clan that was on the decline, so Carl wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

The number one family, the Yun Family, had been implicated in the death of the Demon Emperor and the disappearance of the Demon Emperor's Seal, so they had been suppressed for the past 100 years, hence why they were the former number 1 family.

With the information dump about the gossip in the Empire that Carl received from the people in the restaurant, he had a lot to think about. There were certainly deep currents in the Empire, and he would have to tread cautiously or he would be drowned.

Carl returned to his room and continued sorting his mind. He had moved on from the biology of cultivators and started going over the various herbs and animal parts used in to create medicine. Carl was pretty happy that he already had the knowledge of what plants and animals he would need to add to his farms. He was also thinking of how he would have to test his potions from the HP world to determine how they interacted with the bodies of cultivators and if it had the same effect as it did on wizards.

Carl finished up sorting his medical knowledge by the sixth day of his stay at the inn. Instead of continuing on to the other information, Carl checked out of the inn. He had had enough time to sort out some of the info dump in his head, got a bit of background on the world he was in, and had time to look through his papers that came with the briefcase from Uncle Pennybags, which included the locations of his various properties that followed him from world to world.

So with that information, it was time to change location to a more secure place that he owned in the town.

One of the things he'd discovered while looking over the financial information that automatically updated was that his restaurants in this world weren't doing as good as they should be, which was negatively affecting how many people stayed at his inns, and his income was lowered.

Carl made his way to the closest inn he owned in the town, which was on the outskirts of the Demon Imperial City.

Upon arrival, the workers immediately recognized him as the owner. In the HP world, Carl had investigated his properties, and found that the workers there were constructs like his farmers were. They were basically like VIs, Virtual Intelligences, that weren't self aware like an advanced AI would be. They did a fine job doing menial tasks, but they evidently didn't have a lot of initiative.

After meeting with the manager VI in his office and exchanging the pleasantries, Carl immediately got to the point and asked why their sales were hurting.

"I'm afraid I don't know, sir. Everything is running like it was in the Harry Potter world, where we were doing so well."

"Hmm. Show me to the kitchens. The main complaint is about the food, so let's start there."

"Yes, sir."

Carl followed the manager to the kitchen. Seeing the bustle, he didn't stop them from doing their job, but did have them bring him a dish that was already cooked so he could taste it, having them restart cooking the dish for the customer.

Once Carl tasted it, he could tell that something was missing from the food. After a week of eating the food at the Plum Gourd, he could tell that something vital was missing from the food being cooked at his properties, even if he couldn't pinpoint what it was at first.

"The only real difference in these dishes compared to the inn I was in before is the food source. Could it be that these dishes are missing the saturation of profound energies, so the cultivator obsessed people can taste the lack of profound energy? Well, I certainly can tell the difference after only a week in this world, so of course they can. I guess all the food I added from a magic world will not suffice for a cultivation world. So I've got to change my farms production over to a local product, or my revenue stream will disappear."

Carl and the manager returned to the office to discuss a plan of action.

"Okay, first off I want you to send workers out to the market place. They will get me saplings, seedlings, and seeds of all the local foods. We'll start growing the local stuff on the farms, and within a day the food should improve. While you're getting started on that, let all the other managers know the news so they can inform their customers in their cities that we've had a food sourcing problem, but that it will be fixed soon. Make sure they all know that once we've replaced our food stocks with local food, they are to do anything they can to attract the customers back. Have a weekend of free food, or a party, or banquet or whatever they think will be the best idea in their particular region to attract the customers back."

"Yes, sir, I'll get right on that."

"Good. Give me a room to stay in, and when your workers get back with the goods, send it on to me so I can introduce it into the farms as soon as possible. Oh, don't forget to get local meat animals too, can't have our meat dishes being inferior."

"Yes, sir." The manager then called several workers and got started on carrying out his orders while one showed him to his room.

Once there, Carl started meditating again, working on his new knowledge about crafting. Occasionally pausing as the workers came in with the seedlings, saplings, and animals. After the first afternoon, they had gotten all the local products they needed.

Carl reached out to the Heaven's Time Pearl and pulled himself inside. Looking around at the endless grassland and cloud covered sky, Carl whistled, impressed. The land was endless. There wasn't any visible source of the light, but everything was still lit up.

Carl opened up his Warehouse and joined his farmer VIs in tearing out the old profound energy-less food goods, and planting the new stuff from the ATG world after adding it to his Farmville market system so he could continue to replicate and grow the good stuff. Once everything was planted, Carl left the farmer VIs to their job.

It was something he would have to keep in mind on each new world. Making sure that whatever he grew would meet the market's expectations. His properties already had nearly a week of poor sales and worsening reputation because he'd been too focused on his own personal meditation that he hadn't noticed how poorly things were selling, so in the future he'd have to be more proactive.

That was the difference between hiring actual people and relying on the provided VIs. An actual person would have noticed the trend and sought to fix it, or at least let Carl know something was wrong, while the VIs just continued on their way, following their previous instructions with no deviation.

Carl then continued his meditation and memory sorting, starting on the crafting knowledge. There was just so much information; it took him quite a while to go through it, making sure he was familiar with each memory before filing them away.

He was fascinated by the methods and materials that craftsmen used. He couldn't wait until he got samples of the ores, crystals, stones, and profound beast parts and the beasts themselves so he could start producing the materials needed to actually build some of the arrays and devices he now had knowledge of.

After a week of sorting his crafting memories while under time dilation, Carl finished up with his crafting memories.

When Carl checked, he saw that his farms were now fully stocked and harvesting the new goods on a continual basis. He left the Heavenly Time Pearl's time dilated inner world and appeared back in his room in his inn. Less than a minute had passed by in real time for the week he'd spent in the Time Pearl.

Carl smiled happily at the Time Shenanigans he could pull.

He entered his Warehouse and, using the screen provided, had all his properties restocked with the new goods. He sent out the notice to his managing VIs to start their public relations campaign to try to attract their customers back.

Later that day, outside the inn, he watched the banners and posters being put up, advertising that they had solved their food sourcing problem and that the food was back to the quality they expected. Carl had of course tasted the dishes his VIs made with the local product and found it to have that profound energy taste that was missing from his other foods.

Over the next couple of days as Carl watched over his financial records, he was pleased to see the sales going back up to where they should be. Satisfied that things were proceeding properly, Carl felt it was time to return to his own efforts.

XX

Inside his room, Carl finally opened his eyes and let out a long drawn out sigh.

"Well, that's finally done then." Carl muttered to himself. He had finally completed the sorting of his memories. It had taken a little over three weeks, not including the break to organize his new food source, to organize all the memories. But with the time dilation it had only been two weeks real time.

He now had ready access to all the information on healing, crafting, and cultivation in general in the ATG world, the cultivation method of the Great Way of the Buddha, and the information from his other perks that included retaining secrets, patiently planning, and being a sex fiend. That last one still made him snort in laughter, despite how useful it was.

Carl stood up from the bed he'd been sitting on cross legged while meditating and employing his Occlumency. After stretching out, he entered his Warehouse and poured himself a mug of Root Beer. Sitting down, he pulled out the Jade Tablet that had the Golden Crow's Record of the Burning World inscribed on it. It was the item that came with the Golden Crow's bloodline. Now that he had all the rest of the information sorted, he was willing to add the information in the Jade Tablet into his mind.

Carl sank his mind into the Jade Tablet and started reading the information therein. The cultivation world was interesting in that they didn't generally have books to read. They had jade tablets that were accessed with the mind and profound energy. Despite his crippled veins at the moment, Carl's cultivation was at Elementary 1. Although he was still stuck at the very beginning for the time being, he had enough profound energy to be able to read the jade tablet.

There was so much information involved in the cultivation techniques that the only way to pass on the information in a timely and accurate manner was through the mind and profound senses. Once it was imprinted in the mind, the user could spend their time ruminating on the information and slowly digesting it while figuring out how to apply the information.

Carl spent several hours imprinting the seven stages on his mind. He knew he wouldn't be able to utilize it until he'd healed up his profound veins, but he wanted all the information available to him first before he went and healed himself. He wanted to be sure he maximized the capacity and utility of his profound veins on the first go around.

Once Carl finally finished imprinting and organizing the information in his mind, he took a break for food once more. It wasn't until the True Profound stage that he could go for a week without eating food, and he was hungry.

After filling his belly, Carl made his way to the Medical Bay. The few times he'd used the Medical Bay previously, Carl had just set it to automatic, since he didn't really know how to determine what to heal, and just relied on the programming to take care of things.

But now that Carl had the memories equivalent to a Medical Saint in his mind, he wanted to take an active part in his own healing process. He set the medical unit to scan only, and laid down while the scan took place. A few minutes later, it was done, and Carl brought up the information on a computer terminal in the bay.

It took some time for him to get used to the format the information was presented in, but Carl eventually got used to it. Once he'd gone over the information, he then looked at what the medical unit suggested for healing. And he was glad that he'd decided to go over the healing plan manually. Because while the suggested healing course would heal his profound veins, they didn't optimize the veins in the process. There were several tweaks and additions that Carl could see needed to be done, now that he had all the knowledge of a Medical Saint, that would make his Profound Veins much more robust and capable.

After fiddling with the machine for several hours, Carl succeeded in setting up the healing and conditioning treatment that would save him quite a bit of time in training his profound veins' endurance.

Once he had locked in the treatment, Carl laid down in the unit and let the program progress. The sensation of the profound veins healing and growing like they should have was uncomfortable. It wasn't painful, so much as itchy and a strange wiggling feeling. It felt a bit like he had dozens of small snakes in his body crawling around under his skin and muscles.

He was quite happy when the process was finally finished, and he could get up from the med unit. He stretched and jumped around, to test his body and how it felt now. Everything was where it should be and felt fine.

Carl made his way to his room, and sat down. He cautiously started his cultivation, inwardly chanting the mnemonics and sending the energy flooding into his body along the paths that the cultivation technique from the Golden Crow's legacy described.

The amount of energy flooding in was almost too much at first for Carl's amateur cultivation. Even though he had all the knowledge, he still needed to figure out how to replicate the knowledge for real. The Heavenly God's Spiritual Veins, with all the profound entrances open, were no joke.

But after fumbling around for a bit, he was able to steady his efforts and smoothly rotate the energy through his veins. It was feeling pretty damn good, feeling the energy collecting inside the veins in his body. The energy slowly started becoming denser and denser. And then suddenly it felt like something in his body changed, or upgraded or something. It kind of felt like the equivalent of shifting gears while driving a standard, he suddenly had more energy. He had just crossed a threshold, and now he had more power pooled up and it was denser.

Carl paused his cultivation and looked at the clock. He'd been in meditation for about 8 hours. Only 8 hours and he already advanced to Elementary 2. He got up from his meditation position, smiling at the success he'd had. According to the cultivation knowledge he had, that was pretty damned fast for a newbie.

Downstairs, Carl found Rover waiting for him, singing merrily. There was something about Rover that caught Carl's eyes. He was a bit different now.

"Hey, boy. How are you?" Carl asked. Rover chirped and almost danced happily in place. "Mind if I check you over?" At Rover's nod of agreement, Carl extended his senses towards the bird. Magically he seemed pretty much the same. But to his Profound senses Carl felt that the Phoenix in front of him was at the Elementary 2 stage. "Holy cow, so my familiar shares in my cultivation and advances with me? That's awesome. Put it there, Rover!" Carl held out his hand, and Rover gave him a low five in agreement that it was great news.

Carl decided to celebrate their success and poured out a large bowl of Root Beer for Rover and an even larger bowl for himself. He then changed into his animagus form, and started lapping up his delectable drink. Rover would take a few drinks, then sing for a bit, then drink some more.

Once Carl finished his bowl, he paused to inspect his form. He could still feel his Profound Veins even in his animagus form. Feeling the profound energy circulating through his body as a panther was an enjoyable experience. It made him feel a tiny bit more energetic and powerful. Compared to his already high physical abilities, the small level up was practically nothing, but something about the energy just felt so great.

Shrugging off the sensation, Carl changed back to his human form. Sitting down at his kitchen table, he pulled two boxes closer to him and looked at them contemplatively. Inside each of the boxes were one of the Evil God Seeds. The instructions that came with them were that he had to eat them one at a time.

The reason he even hesitated to eat them for now was because Carl was thinking about how in some of the stories, if someone ate something that had more energy than they could handle, they would explode. The instructions hadn't given any warnings about things like that, but he was still wary, even with his Nine Profound Exquisite Body perk that should prevent such things. Carl decided that he would take it a bit slow and careful with his cultivation until he got more practice.

He would hold off on eating the seeds until he'd trained up at least the first level of the Great Way of the Buddha, and gotten to Nascent 1. Better to be safe than sorry. He secured the boxes once more in his room, and started his practice again.

Carl sank into his mind, and started looking over the cultivation formula for the Great Way of the Buddha. According to the information within, it was also known as the Forbidden Heavenly Tome. It once belonged to a True God from the Primordial Era, who was known as the Rage God.

'The Great Way of the Buddha affects the cultivator's blood, meridians, muscles, skin, and hair. It doesn't even have the slightest relationship with my Profound Veins or Profound Strength. It depends on the strength of the soul and nature instead. Practicing the art depended on a person's comprehension.' Carl thought, reciting the basic information the technique had given him.

As Carl began contemplating the formula, his perk Heart of Snow Glazed Glass began showing its worth, helping Carl understand certain basic truths and relationships about the formula. As Carl sunk into contemplation, he found that his senses were cut off from his consciousness. He struggled against what seemed like a large white expanse of fog.

An aged voice rung out in his consciousness. "Fifteen year old youngster. Do you really have the ability to comprehend the 'Great Way of the Buddha'?"

"That's of course." Carl replied.

"Oh? Then what is your understanding?" The elderly voice asked.

"Why? Are you stuck then? Need some pointers from me?" Carl asked.

The old man's voice gave a harrumph. "This old man was going to help you, but now you are on your own. Can't even tell good from bad." He grumbled.

Carl chuckled a bit. "Old man, you're too easy to rile up. But you didn't even introduce yourself and were already asking for my innermost thoughts. That's kind of rude, you know. And you say I can't tell bad from good." Carl continued joking, implying it was the old man who was the bad one.

Another harrumph carried to Carl's mind, before the old man fell silent. Apparently the old man was pouting and wasn't willing to give up information in order to get information from Carl.

Carl then ignored the old man. He had been surprised that some old geezer had started talking in his head, and he was understandably wary of just what was going on. He didn't know if the old geezer was simply a remnant of consciousness of the Rage God who was the progenitor of the technique, or if he was some cultivator that was alive and somehow trying to get information from Carl to determine who was practicing the technique, or some such. Either way, Carl didn't feel like entertaining him unless the old man extended a bit of trust first by giving Carl some answers. It was his head and the old man was a guest. And as a guest, the old man should act like a guest, not the host.

Carl then thought about what the old man had said. Despite his wariness, he took the question seriously, even if he wasn't going to share with the old man. What was his understanding of The Great Way of the Buddha?

Frankly speaking, calling it the Great Way of the Buddha was a bit of a misnomer in Carl's opinion. The last owner of the technique was known as the "Rage God", so thinking that it only pertained to benevolence and kindness of a Buddha was a red herring. How else would he get the nickname of Rage God if he didn't have a bit of a violent streak?

It was also called the Forbidden Heavenly tome. The technique required strength of soul, comprehension, and absorbing energy from nature to advance.

It seriously sounded like the Sage Arts from Naruto.

The "Great Way" of the title also had Carl thinking of the Dao. And if there was one thing that was expounded in many cultivation tales, it was that everyone had their own version of, and understanding of, the Dao. An understanding that pertained specifically to them, and how they interacted and understood the laws of Heaven and Earth.

Carl began thinking about what was important to him, what drove him, and what inspired him. What was his Nindo, his Ninja Dao?

He remembered the scene he saw in the Mirror of Erised, and how the relationships, power, authority, and freedom that Carl saw his mirror form had made him feel.

To be the master of his fate. To have the power to build his own world, and protect those he loved. To destroy his enemies so they never had a chance to threaten them. To be as righteous as he wanted, or as sly as he felt like. He was the one to choose his actions. Not anyone else, and certainly not the Jumpchain. One day, he would be free of the aptly named chains.

And in that moment, when everything crystallized in Carl's mind, he felt the change. Energy began pouring into him. The energy filled every part of him, his muscles, his bones, his blood, his organs, even his hair. He could feel the change happening, the strengthening of his physical body.

Unknown to Carl, a phenomena appeared around his body where he sat. A six foot tall insubstantial silver pagoda appeared around Carl. The only one who might have seen this happen, Rover, was otherwise occupied. A six foot tall silver pagoda had also appeared around the Phoenix at the same time as the one appeared around Carl.

The two silver pagodas rotated 360 degrees before shrinking down and imprinting themselves into their respective foreheads. They were too small and faint to see properly, but the mark was there nonetheless to show their success.

Inside Carl's mind, he heard the old man exclaim in shock. "How is that possible!?" Before Carl regained control of his senses.

Carl chuckled in mockery at the old man's reaction. "Damned geezer showing up in my mind uninvited, thought I'd just bow down to your superior wisdom? Ptui!" Carl mock spat. "If you're in my mind you damn well better show me respect or you get none in turn. It's not like I took you on as my master or anything. And your shock at my accomplishment just shows how much you wouldn't have helped me, hehe."

Carl totally ignored how the old man's question had indeed set him on the right path. Give an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Getting up, Carl began testing his body after attaining the first step. He was very aware of his own strength, and could tell that he'd had a small boost in strength. "Well, I succeeded Rover!" Carl crowed in triumph as he got close to his familiar. "Whoa, what's that?" Carl looked closely at Rover's head. He could faintly see a silver speck that looked like a pagoda. Evidently, those who had their own mark could see the mark on other's foreheads.

Carl began laughing aloud, clutching his stomach. "Oh, damn! That is awesome Rover! You even get to share the Great Way of the Buddha! You're going to be the biggest, baddest Phoenix around!"

Rover began dancing, catching on to Carl's excitement. The two celebrated for a time, before Carl sobered up. Looking at the clock, he saw that he had been focusing on the Great Way of the Buddha for over a day.

"Well, damn. Time to eat again. You hungry?" Rover chirped a yes, so Carl began cooking up a feast for the two of them. "I tell you, Rover. It feels like all I've done lately is eat, cultivate, eat, cultivate. But hey, that's just the life of a murder hobo, right? The only thing that could possibly break the monotony is to go out and insult my betters, murder someone for drugs, and fight off all their relatives."

Carl chuckled. He joked, but those kinds of things had a way of starting a runaway reaction. Once you did one action, unless the person caught in the middle of it had a sudden decision to give up their life to their enemies, they had to stick it out to the bitter end. Ride the whirlwind, with no way to get off.

Once the feast was prepared, there was no more thoughts about what if scenarios in Carl's head, just the need to feed the beast in his belly. Looking over at Rover, Carl could see that the same need had gripped his familiar.

After cleaning up, Carl spent some time going over the financial reports for his properties. He then found all the additional items his VI employees delivered to his room to add to his Farms. There were some examples of different ores, crystals, and herbs. He was happy that he would be able to add those to his production line. He was still missing quite a lot of items because the cultivation world had a huge diversity of items. But they would show up eventually, one way or another.

Once all the business was taken care of, Carl settled down once more to start cultivating. Whatever else happened, personal strength was still a hugely important aspect of life in the ATG world. And a journey of a thousand miles and all that.

XX

Less than a week later Carl was sitting in bed, grinning hugely. He had just broken through to the Nascent 1 level. All his perks and the legacy of the Golden Crow really sped up his cultivation speed. He'd learned from some of the customers that the geniuses of the cultivation world would be lucky to break through to Nascent 1 after 3 months. And that would label them a veritable genius.

And here Carl was, breaking through in just under a week.

One of the interesting side effects was that he could see Rover actually growing bigger with each breakthrough. Carl guessed it was a side effect of cultivation, because the profound beasts were usually much larger than their normal counterparts. Seeing a wolf the size of an elephant or larger wasn't that unusual.

Now that Carl had broken through, it was time to eat the first Evil God Seed. He retrieved the two boxes. Opening the first box, he saw inside was a marble sized glass looking ball. It was colored a brilliant scarlet.

"Well, looks like the flame seed is first, Rover." Carl said as he looked over at his familiar. "Bottoms up!"

And before he could second guess himself, he swallowed the seed. He could feel the small seed dissolve into a fiery liquid that sank to his stomach, before spreading throughout his body. He felt a raging surge of power bursting through his Profound Veins. A scarlet light was shining out of his body.

And just as suddenly, the heat disappeared from his body. The scarlet light pulled back inside his body. But the huge amount of energy was still inside his veins. Carl swiftly started employing his cultivation technique he had learned from the Golden Crow's Record of the Burning World to make use of the profound energy to advance his cultivation level.

He spent an indeterminate amount of time pushing the excess energy through his veins. He felt a huge chunk of the energy being siphoned into his inner world that he gained from the Nine Profound Exquisite Body. The rest of the energy was being used to advance his cultivation level.

Nascent 2. Shortly after he reached Nascent 3. The breakneck speed he was leveling up was exhilarating. If it wasn't for the Advanced Leveling perk that made sure his foundation wouldn't suffer for the fast upgrades, he would be worried. Nascent 6. Nascent 7.

The amazing amount of energy finally began to slow down, and he sighed in relief and amazement. He had reached Nascent 10 in such a short time due to the energy inherent in the seed. And judging by just how much energy had gone into his inner world, he could have advanced much, much further if it had been applied to his cultivation level. If it didn't blow him up, that was.

"Right, there is that. Don't blow yourself up in your quest to get strong." Carl sarcastically warned himself. "Well, now. What should I do next?" He was eyeing the box the seed for water was in, pondering if he dared take it now. "Right, take things in stages, and don't blow yourself up." He reminded himself, packing away the box for later.

Carl looked over at Rover, who was looking very fine. His feathers were a deeper scarlet color, and he was even larger than before. "Well, celebration time with Root Beer?" At Rover's enthusiastic response, Carl laughed and went to get their drink of choice.

Holding up his mug, while setting down Rover's bowl, Carl announced out loud. "Here's to us! The dynamic duo!" Rover chirped happily. "Now, drink up Robin!" At Rover's indignant squawk at being called Robin when he was so clearly Batman, Carl laughed aloud. "Just because you can disappear whenever you want doesn't make you the Dark Knight. Robin's a bird, and you're a bird. Ipso facto, you're Robin." Carl declared while running from Robin-er…Rover's winged attack, laughing uproariously.

Eventually Carl was cornered, while an enraged avian hissed at him. He didn't even know birds could hiss! "Fine! Fine! You're not Robin." Carl finally gave. Carl paused while Rover looked at him expectantly. "Because you're Batman." He stated in a growly voice.

Rover chirped happily and flew back to his bowl of Root Beer, having won the argument.

"The happiest damned Batman I ever saw." Carl muttered to himself as he collected his own mug, chuckling at Rover's antics.