Just A Little Sparring

James had been trying to break through to the first level of mental forging for almost twenty minutes now and he realized that there seemed to be some bottleneck. Conor proposed the idea that maybe it had to wait until he officially stepped into the Qi gathering realm.

This explanation satisfied James enough to convince him to go outside and stop wasting his friends time.

"What do you want us out here for? Shouldn't we be training more?" Whit seemed a little nervous, they had both gotten a glimpse of what kind of monsters they were up against, and all they wanted to do was increase their strength. James genuinely couldn't blame them for this and just sighed before speaking, "you are going to test what it's like after every breakthrough, it won't take long but I just want you to be very well acquainted with each other's level of strength. Basically, fuck each other up if you wouldn't mind lol," James didn't realize it yet, but he was giving off the aura of someone in a position of power to these two, so they asked no questions and quickly listened to him.

Standing apart from one another, with James off to the side, a very soft voice was heard from the latter, "fight..."

The two friends lunged at one another and immediately there was a collision of fist to face. Whit had landed a clean shot on Alex which would soon cause him to stagger, but at the exact moment he got hit, Alex's fist flowed through the air before making contact with Whit's ribs. They both staggered heavily and were over ten feet apart when they recovered their balance.

'Whit has the advantage in speed and power, but Alex clearly is taking advantage of his natural affinity towards water essence to take some of whits momentum and use it to counter, as well as soften the impact on himself. They're both gonna be pretty good, don't you think?' James gave his quick analytical assessment from the first collision and Conor responded in kind

"Seems like we picked the right cultivation methods for both of them. Haha, this will be quite fun..."

As Conor's voice trailed off in James' head, Alex and Whit were already going in for another confrontation. Now that they had felt their new strength for themselves, they got into a much more close quarters fight than before. James immediately sat down, and although it was just some first level body tempering noobs fighting, he could feel the auras of each of them very clearly. In his eyes, he was a gentle dragon of mist and water tangled up with a ferocious raging dragon of fire and sparks.

Upon seeing this, James had actually gained a sense of enlightenment and looked inward to see that he could now look at his infinite thunder seal in a new light. This only made him more eager to put himself to the test soon, but that would have to wait.

"Alright, that's enough," James called out to Whit and Alex to stop their brawl, he just wanted them to realize that they weren't normal people anymore.

"You're each at the first level of body tempering, which raised your physical strength but most importantly your endurance and defense. But what if you were up against someone at the seventh stage of body tempering?" As soon as James finished speaking his silhouette turned blurry and he appeared in front of his friends and broke Alex's arm and two of Whit's ribs with two quick punches.

"Leveling up increases power exponentially; whether it's body tempering, divine sense, or cultivation level, two or three levels can make a world of difference, not to mention realms." James finished his lesson. He then realized that his friends were groaning in pain, so he quickly ushered the two of them to try their body tempering method once.

There was a look of pleasant surprise on both of their faces upon realizing how quickly their broken bones were healing. It would still take an hour or two, but James also explained how recovery would speed up the body tempering process, so Whit and Alex no longer complained about the pain. They were going to be in seclusion for a while anyway so getting injured was fine if it meant more power.

James brought them back to their 'cave abode' for them to cultivate in seclusion again. He was going to go out and test himself in the field and collect some more food and resources. There was food in the ring he had obtained, but not much. He assumed that the higher ones cultivation level was, the less they had to eat.

Upon leaving his little hiding place, James started dashing through the terrain, his lightning Qi recharging faster than he could use it, as he looked for a place where he could find food. He had already deemed that time was irrelevant to items inside his storage ring, so he would be able to just stuff food in all the extra space to last them a long while.

While sprinting about, his body had already taken a step into the eighth level of bone fusion, all he had to do was break through once more and perfect his body tempering base, he would be able to effortlessly cruise through the nine stages of Qi gathering.

In fact, body tempering methods were only distributed to those of high class and one as high end as the storm dragons allowed James to advance extremely quickly at first. Although a cultivators body would get stronger as their energy did, body tempering was an extremely effective method of gaining the upper hand over your enemies, which is why the higher ups in the other world kept such methods to themselves. This meant that there wouldn't be many tempered body cultivators that James would encounter, if any.

Upon reaching the nearest grocery store, James immediately went for anything with a shit ton of calories. From what he could tell, nutrients weren't nearly as important to low level cultivators as much as raw energy.

Once he entered the building, Conor scanned the nearest area and found a powerful life force residing in this store, probably a cultivator. James was immediately excited upon finding out that this cultivator was stronger than the one that he had saved Whit from, but still in the realm of what he could handle.

James concealed his presence and energy and began to, despite his massive frame, sneak around as silently as a cat to get close enough to his opponent to cut off his escape routes.

Although he had promised that he would uphold strict laws of justice on this world when he became strong, he also knew that one had to do what they had to do to survive. He was confident that this cultivator had the blood of multiple families on his hands, and wouldn't hesitate to murder James and his friends if he got the chance...

Unfortunately for him, he no longer possessed the strength required to accomplish such a feat.

"Huh!?" the cultivators head swiveled to the barely audible sound of footsteps, but it was already too late.

The mans dark hair and sharp facial features had an ugly expression as he cried in his heart. 'I was just looking for beans! how did this happen ;(' he immediately pulled out his spear from his storage ring and got ready to fight. He didn't know who this person was to be able to sneak up on him so well, but he was sure they weren't friendly.

'Damn! I was really hoping he was a sword practitioner...' James lamented in his heart. He was hoping to observe some sword styles from a much more experienced cultivator.

"Relax, will you? You can still practice your own skills against his spear. What's the point of copying others anyway?" Conor rolled his immaterial eyes within their realm of consciousness.

James huffed in disappointment, as he drew his arrogant sword and lunged toward the handsome looking man.

Before being able to reach him, James thought to himself, 'This guy doesn't seem as crazed as everyone else, do you think their adjusting to the environment here?'

Conor could give no response, and James finally made contact, only using two lightning streaks in his brain and the power of his body to parry the incoming spear thrust to one side before leaving a shallow cut on the man's waist. Realistically, if he used even a single thunder streak in his legs or arms, this battle would have been over, but James wanted to draw this battle out. It wasn't like he could just pick skilled fighters off the shelves in a grocery store... wait...

The handsome man wasn't flustered as he changed his thrust into a side swipe to slash at James who was now dashing away from the his old point of attack.

James tried to block with his sword once more, but he was too slow and his form was off, causing a large gash to appear on his arm and chest.

'SHIT! THAT F*CKING STINGS!' James wasn't used to the pain of a real battle yet, but he was quickly able to regain his composure. His wounds had already started to heal with the help of Conor's body tempering technique.

Spear heads were thrust one after another towards James, keeping the pressure on him after he briefly lost his footing. James was able to catch the spear handle with his off hand and let loose a swipe at the cultivators head, as if trying to cut his head off from the nose up.

His opponent twisted his body and tilted the head back. He had narrowly managed to dodge this blade, leaving only a shallow line on his cheek, and some of his silky hair sliced off.

This was something James was prepared for, counting on, even. His sword now high and to the left of his opponents head, James flipped the blade and slashed back down on his opponents shoulder, bearing two thunder streaks in his right arm.

The mans arm went flying, but didn't go far since it's grip remained on the spear. "gross..." James mumbled as he clasped the spear in his left hand, peering in disgust at the hand so adamantly clenching onto its weapon.

By now, the cultivator had turned tail the other way down the isle, like a lizard after detaching his tail (or arm lol). James, of course, wouldn't let him get away with this. He released the spear and clasped his sword with both arms over his head, injecting all his remaining lightning energy into the sword.

"Thunder Blade!" James roared as he brought down the sword and launched a dangerous but sloppy torrent of lightning down on his opponents back. His lack of skill was made up for by his raw power and the lightning burned all the way through his opponents back and insides.

James stood awkwardly for a few seconds, still hunched over after releasing his sword strike. A sudden voice called out from James' mind, "Crin-"

"Shut mouth." James cut Conor off before he could finish insulting him. The sword vibrated angstily as if it couldn't decide to be happy about his master's raw strength, or upset about his lack of knowledge in sword skills.

The sword's opinions went ignored as it was put back in the storage ring, and James walked over to inspect the spear.

He pried the dead arm off of the spear and took a look at its energy signature and durability. "...Good shit," he thought before chucking it into his storage ring as well. he grabbed the storage ring of the other cultivator as if he was just picking up more groceries.

James noticed the ring had the words, "Ye Feng" inscribed on it, he then used his energy to bend the metal and change it to, "Whit".