The two reached his dorm quickly and Lin grabbed the paper from the bedside table so they could compare. They both sat cross legged on the floor as both of their schedules laid side by side before them.
Lin's schedule:
————————————————————
Period 1: Qi manifestation and utilization (1) - rm 207
Period 2: combat skills [indv. & team] (1) - rm 374/class arena #2
Period 3: leadership and battle strategy skills (1) - rm 239
Period 4: elemental qi utilization (1) - rm 152
Period 5: sword arts and techniques practical class (1) - rm 283/class arena #5
Period 6: concoction alchemy (1) - rm 311
————————————————————
Wang Ling's schedule:
————————————————————
(Lin's schedule copy and paste)
————————————————————
"…"
"…"
"Was there even a need to compare?"
"Apparently not…"
They both looked at each other and started laughing.
"Hey, do you wanna go back to the training hall? We can have a competition on who can make the bigger dent." Wang Ling suggested, smiling.
"Sure, but I can't promise your victory."
"We'll see."
The duo walked back to the training area and approached a durenium pillar. They each stood on opposite sides of the metal pole and counted down. Then, they punched the pole with all their might making two ear shattering bangs.
Students whipped their heads towards their direction and immediately started gawking at the sight. Two fist sized dents were pushed into a durenium pillar by two boys.
"I definitely won this one." Wang Ling said after looking at Lin's slightly smaller dent.
"Dammit, you're right. Well I don't specialize in punches anyway, I usually focus on the sword and twin daggers." Lin said, making up a reasonable excuse for his smaller indentation.
"Yeah me neither, I use the spear, but I have been focusing on my punches lately."
The surrounding kids widened their eyes after listening to their exchange.
"They don't specialize in punches?"
"Right? How can they make a dent in the pillars when they specialize in blades?"
"That doesn't make any sense. You'd think they've been practicing their punches for ages!"
"Well clearly not."
Wang Ling smiled saying "I'm going to the shopping hall now. Wanna come with or…"
"No thanks, I wanna practice controlling my sword aura." Lin responded.
"Alright, then I'll see ya' later." Wang Ling departed from the training hall. Lin turned to the weapon racks and grabbed a wooden sword. It was surprisingly heavy for a piece of wood. Lin looked at the hilt of the sword and saw a small slit between the wooden handle and the wooden blade. A shiny piece of metal seemed to be covered by wood like a sheath that was tightly fused to a blade. Lin felt the sword in his hand, feeling comfortable as he swung the weapon in swift graceful movements.
Once he knew the sword worked for him, he walked back to the durenium pillar. He called to bai in his head and Bai answered telepathically.
'Is there a way I can use regular sword aura? I don't wanna use any elements right now.' Lin thought.
"If you want to use a specific type of sword aura you need to focus on the specific type of qi you use. Elemental sword aura is possible because your dantian automatically changes the qi into the elemental attributes a split second before your sword aura activates. To control what kind of qi comes out you need to restrict and then convert the qi into the intended type. To control the strength you need to restrict and constantly control the power of the qi. Controlling sword aura is unimaginably difficult and takes years of practice to perfect so I recommend starting now." Bai said telepathically.
'Alright, so you're saying I need to stop the conversion from happening, extremely quickly? I'll try.' Lin paraphrased.
He summoned his sword aura focusing on his dantian while doing so and mentally held the state of the qi before sending it to his sword. A white light emitted from his sword before reverting to it's colorful default. 'So the qi circulates… that means I have to maintain it's attribute-less form constantly. Ugh.'
Lin repeated the same process and the white light stayed for longer each time. After two and a half hours the forgotten system dinged with a new notification.
-Ding- New skill [Qi control] learned.
Description:
Control your qi to the extent of your abilities. Its form, movement, and strength are now much easier to control. Once level 2 is reached you can hold the control without focusing on it for a longer time. Once level 3 (MAX) is reached you do not need to focus on the qi and it will naturally do what you want.
"Great! This is exactly what I need!" Lin exclaimed aloud. He continued to practice and advance the skill to level it up. By the time the skill reached level 2, the sun was already halfway settled. Lin went back to his dorm and got ready for bed.
He activated the ability after three days of dreaming and a map layed before him after setting the time he would wake up. He looked at the places on the map that he had apparently already been to.
-Alliganoid swampy territory
-Monster thicket
-Sunshine clearing
-Misty valley
-Cave lagoon
-Abandoned shoreline
There were also gray areas that Lin assumed were undiscovered areas. He decided to return to the beautiful Cave lagoon once again as it was a relatively safe area with beautiful underground lakes.
He was brought to a cave that glowed a teal blue. A bubbling body of water sloshed a few feet away from where he stood. The bottom of the water shined with a type of glowing stone that was spread out in luminous scatterings.
Lin got into the warm, clean water refreshing his body with a much needed relaxation. He kept his senses open for any creatures and relaxed as much as his alertness could allow.
The bubbling bursts of heat from the ground below the water imitated a hot tub except the lake was much more beautiful and comfortable than a that. Lin has been relaxing for the past few days but this was a different level of relaxation that would refresh him fully. He needed it as he's been running around on a different planet thousands of years in the future. It was an unimaginable change that no one would be able to describe. It was a nice but very overwhelming adjustment. He appreciated this escape greatly.
He loss track of time as he shifted between relaxing and fighting pestering monsters constantly harvesting brown and red orbs all the while chilling his time away.
It was soon 9:00 am, the time he set to wake up, and he opened his eyes so refreshed and relaxed that he would never be able to describe it.
He cultivated all the orbs that had been piling up over the week and when he noticed one yellow orb, his heart immediately began pounding in excitement. The orb would give 5,000 points in foundation as he had passed the 50 level threshold which multiplied each orb's value by 5x. He swallowed before crushing the orb. A huge rush of qi entered his dantian and he immediately cultivated the qi. After an hour, the red, semi-solid blob in the projection of his dantian became encased in a thick layer of black.
'My qi blob is slowly turning into a huge jawbreaker.'
Lin then began compressing the black qi layer until it matched the red inside, which ultimately took three and a half hours. Lin acknowledged the large and noticeable change in the difficulty and the speed which it took to compress the qi blob. He was really starting to like his qi control skill.
After putting on his clothes, brushing his teeth, and styling his hair Lin headed towards the training hall. He practiced his qi, alternating through the different elements, even discovering additional elements such as lightning and space. Space was especially good as he could teleport a few inches away from where he was standing by swinging the sword in the intended direction and sending out the space attribute qi to the spot on the ground.
'What if I could create portals? Like I swing the tip of the sword in a full circle while instilling the place I want to go into the qi. Wait… Bai, can qi hold memories and ideas? It would make sense since the knowledge pill needs to be infused with knowledge…' Lin had a sudden revelation.
"Technically yes, since you can track leftover qi signatures to identify a person, it is hypothetically possible. But I do not have any knowledge about such things." Bai said before letting out a sigh.
Coincidentally, Wang Ling had the same such thoughts at the same time and tried experimenting with it since he was especially interested in the possibility. He soon realized his talent with such things after half an hour, well he didn't realize his talents but instead found it easy even though it's usually extremely difficult.
He continued experimenting with the idea and came up with something: the qi having its own will along the guidelines it's set with and it turning into an animate being. Wang Ling bubbled with anticipation, eager to start exploring.
He tried to manifest the qi into a shape but failed, yet he didn't lose hope and perservered until a system notification appeared in front of him.
-Ding- New skill [Qi control] learned!
Description:
Control your qi to the extent of your abilities. Its form, movement, and strength are now much easier to control. Once level 2 is reached you can hold the control without focusing on it for a longer time. Once level 3 (MAX) is reached you do not need to focus on the qi and it will naturally do what you want.
"Yes! That'll definitely be useful!" He shouted aloud, then returned to creating his qi beast. He found it much easier to control the qi and soon formed a wolf that surprisingly morphed into a realistic looking organism. Instead of staying as a loose formation of qi, it actually combined into a physical form!
Wang Ling became ecstatic and started to give the beast intelligence, setting guidelines like following his and any other authorized person's orders, staying docile unless told to attack, being kind to people unless Wang Ling or any other authorized person became wary or hostile towards an individual, etc.. Wang Ling added the any authorized person part so that Hao Lin, or any other companion could control the beast. Of course, Wang Ling specified that his orders would override any other authorized person's orders.
Soon Wang Ling's qi beast was complete.
-Ding- You have created a new skill! Please enter a name and description for the skill! Description will decide how users will be able to use the skill. For example: fill the slots for chosen items —> slot interface will be created to follow the description.
Name: Intelligent qi beast
Description:
Form a solid beast of your choice and set its rules and guidelines (maximum amount of rules: 8). It's abilities will increase in amount and strength as you level up the skill.
-Ding- According to your description you would like users to create any type of rules they want for the beast with a limit of eight rules. Additionally, you would like the system to create abilities (that are specific for the type of beast they create) for each level of the skill, ascending in strength as they continue to level up. Am I correct?
[yes] or [no]
Wang Ling pressed yes while admiring the amount of intelligence the system possessed.
-Ding!- New skill [Intelligent qi beast] created!
+500 to all stats
+200 BAP