There was only one button on the screen.
‘This is very strange.’ On the whole screen, there was only one button. ‘Start Simulation?’ He read the text on the button before pushing it. Suddenly, he was in a white space that seemed to extend into infinity. He held up his hand, only to find the plastic hand of a dummy being raised. ‘This…huh?’ Information was once again pulled into mind. Not minding the influx, he easily went through it, finally figuring out the function of the space. ‘A way to simulate practice methods without actually practicing them?’ He raised his eyebrows, nodding his head. ‘I can definitely see the use of this in the future.’ He brought up the Simulation Window again and clicked on the “Exit Simulation” button. ‘But right now, I think I can do without.’ After finding himself back in his room with all his body parts intact, he started going through the details of the Body Training Chapter of the manual. ‘I really need to change the name of the manual in the future.’ He closed his eyes and started going through the section about the Body Training Stage of the manual. ‘Okay, this manual is…very vast.’ There were only five law runes; earth, metal, water, fire and wood. Using these five runes, three cycles could be created; Generating Cycle, Weakening Cycle and Breakthrough Cycle. ‘I can use the Generating Cycle to gain 250 jin of strength per cycle up to the maximum of 200,000 jin of strength, which should be the maximum for Body Training Stage.’ He paused as if grappling with something strange. ‘But, I can actually regress in cultivation through the Weakening Cycle, which reduces my strength but increases the upper-limit of my strength, doubling it if I go all the way back down to the start.’ There was more to the benefits of the Weakening Cycle. After every 9 repeats of these two cycles, he would be able to increase the amount of law runes he could accommodate on his body by one. The amount of law runes dictated his strength on the next levels of the manual. One rune could make the difference between dying and living to see another day. ‘Time to start practicing.’ Taking a deep breath, he began materializing the runes in the Generating Cycle.
….………………
One Generating Cycle took approximately one-quarter of a long hour (thirty minutes) to complete.
It was a little different from the sequence of elementals he had utilized before. Instead of using the wood elemental to break the metal elemental’s effect, he was supposed to reinforce the metal elemental until it breaks apart by itself, creating a water elemental. Then using a wood elemental, he would reabsorb the water elemental and using this wood elemental to reinforce a fire elemental and refining the earth elemental to begin the cycle anew.
After 5 days, Lin Ming finally opened his eyes and exited the Instant Dungeon. The sound of the bustling crowd and insects came rushing in as the dungeon disappeared. ‘You don’t realize how much you miss civilization until you’ve been in isolation for a few days.’ Chuckling to himself, he made his way out the door. ‘Time to go to work.’
It was another shift of work, albeit deboning was a cinch for the current Lin Ming with his strength as well as the skills. “I’ll see you tomorrow Han Gu.” He waved towards the middle aged warehouse worker collecting the parts of the ferocious beast. The man grunted and nodded, before getting back to work. It was only a short walk from the Grand Clarity Pavilion to his residence. ‘Its convenient that I don’t have to eat or sleep, I can just work uninterrupted.’ He entered the Instant Dungeon once again. ‘I think I should be able to spend around two and a half months in the dungeon this time. Lets aim to finish off two cycles in this time.’ Making himself a goal, Lin Ming closed his eyes and started to mould true essence into runes.
It was only ten days later that he opened his eyes. ‘I’ve reached Tempering Marrow.’ A smirk adored his face. ‘Lin Ming, I’m afraid I’ve left you in the dust.’ It was three months before the Profound Martial House Selection when the story actually started, yet he had achieved something that the protagonist of the book couldn’t achieve until much later. ‘I’m even more so ahead in terms of combat prowess.’ He pulled up the skill window, scrolling down to one section in particular.
Divine Ability: Metal Bell Body <Passive> Lv. 1 Exp: 50.0%
Reflect any attacks below Divine Sea Realm
10% Reflection of all attacks
Divine Ability: Earth Clay Cloak <Active> Lv. 1 Exp: 50.0%
Create a layer of Earth Origin Energy around the body, negating all attacks below Divine Sea Realm.
10% Negation of all attacks
Divine Ability: Burning Empowerment <Active> Lv. 1 Exp: 50.0%
Give true essence an inherent burning quality, bolstering all attacks.
+10% Attack Power
Divine Ability: Azure Overgrowth Glow <Active> Lv. 1 Exp: 50.0%
Give true essence an inherent vital quality, bolstering defence and recovery.
+10% Defence
+10% Recovery Speed
Divine Ability: Rainfall Echo Strike <Active> Lv. 1 50.0%
Repeat all active skills prior utilized
Repeat all active skills x1
These skills were present as a direct result of his manual. Every cycle caused their effects to get better and better, represented by the level up, until they condensed into law runes. There were two more that he was particularly interested in.
Zephyr Body Art <Active> Lv. 1 0.0%
10 MP/hour
Integrate with a Wind Elemental, allowing yourself to become one with the wind.
Gain the ability of sound control for the duration of activation
Gain the ability of Flight for the duration of activation
+100% Speed
+100% Attack Speed
Lightning Conversion Art <Active> Lv. 1 0.0%
10 MP/hour
Integrate with a Lightning Elemental, allowing yourself to become one with the lightning.
Gain the ability of lightning control for the duration of activation
+100% Speed
+100% Attack Power
+100% Attack Speed
‘This can allow me to move forward with the plan. There’s just one more thing I need to make sure of.’ Closing his eyes, he began activating the Weakening Cycle. ‘This will make or break the plan.’
If he can passively reflect 10% of a divine sea's attack (heaven realm, 33 realms, or sky spill planet? Big difference between the three.), then someone under the life death stage wont even be able to touch him, which like negates the whole 'hurt, fight or fight' scenes, and if he improves at this rate, the whole steppes arc. On another note, will he suppress himself to enter the steppes?
Anyway, this would also mean that he would passively offend the young masters cuz he's better than them, so Ouyang something will be extra ticked.
On another note, should he start creating divine runic symbols early since it is unlikely that he's be able to repeat the exact circumstances behind meeting that master and the girl that talked to him in the feminist club, and by extension the prince?
On a fourth note, will he need to tie loose ends when ascending, considering he will never suffer from heart demons? And he also knows that he can come back later. He also knows the other way to ascend other than the phoenix clan.
Also, I just realized he'll never suffer form internal injuries or hidden injuries, which is a major boon by itself.
I'll try to bring things up as close to the arc as possible, though I'll also mention when you need to consider some things for future arcs, like making him break trough realms early when he's needed on a lower realm for a treasure realm arc.
On a different note, do you think body cultivation can surpass the essence cultivation limit for treasure realms?
And on a final note, will he cultivate Soul?
Replying to your first note, from my understanding:
As long as your essence cultivation isn't above life destruction you should be unaffected by the curse. Even the Emperor Realm guarding the land wouldn't pay attention to him if his essence cultivation is below revolving core. Do correct me if I'm wrong here tho.
As for your second point, I'm trying to take this novel in a different direction from the original Martial World. I'll just leave you with this hint for the time being
:
Young masters like Ouyang something wouldn't even be qualified to hold our protagonist's shoes.
@LazyFlesh That would be very helpful, I'm still hoping that our protagonist could score big treasures like:
Samsara and Primordial Martial Intent as well as Primordius Battle Spirit
As for his Body Transformation cultivation surpassing the essence cultivation limit, I mean he is not even cultivating something that is in the rules of the 33 heavens much less in the essence cultivation system so that actually shouldn't even be an issue.
I do plan to give him a Soul cultivation technique. That 50 luck stat is not just for show ya know.
