Alifren was focused heavily on chewing some food, disgust on her face, with Tem sitting at a polite distance on one of the logs that served as seats, as if waiting to be called. As Axl sat on the other side of the firepit, Alifren spat out her food to the side.
"Bah, I can't believe I'll have to figure out food all over again," she picked up another skewer from the fire. "No wonder the undead always bring their own drinks to the barhouse."
"Is there anything else?" Axl asked. "Any other side effects?"
"Not really, now that the initial shock is worn off. It's frankly more seamless than I expected, except for the deviations in my Path. But much of that is probably thanks to the higher rarity Lineage you gave me."
"I didn't really give you anything." I got you killed. The words got stuck in his throat, and he simply stared into the fire instead of responding.
"All good with you?" She set aside a skewer from the smell alone. "You look a bit rattled."
"Yeah, I just upgraded my own Lineage, and had to make a hard choice. I'm not sure it was the right one."
"That you had choices at all probably means you're on the right path, is what I'd guess. But what do I know about progressing properly? I've been coasting for quite a while now and need to catch up."
"On that note, I need to catch up with my Attribute gain, could we spar on occasion? I could also use some help with the training regime for that, if it won't interrupt your meditative cultivation too much."
"Oh, I sure as all hell would love an excuse to do that. I can't believe you elves like this glorified breathing so much, it's so damn tedious. Even if I can feel myself getting Karmic Energy and aligning my Mana with my Undeath, it's so gradual it makes me yearn for a mantis ambush."
Axl wondered about this for a while—when he got engrossed with the meditation, it was in the smith's ore garden, and he also got a sense of bored wrongness when he was doing it in Nox's bamboo forest, and it certainly didn't seem to be an issue of the quantity of Mana. It was about finding some that resonated.
"I think I might help with that," he said, and took out the chunk of roots that he and Moxlin obtained from the tree of spiritual obsidian. Its roots spread out some four meters in diameter from the meter-and-a-half circular trunk base, and it still emanated a strong, steady Mana. He'd barely gotten it into his storage space, the trunk a much harder placement into Moxlin's, since it had much denser Mana than the more diffuse tangle of roots. Brillhit's rings wouldn't even have a problem taking in the whole tree, so hopefully they'd be able to take full corpses in the future when he killed their soul just right.
Alifren gingerly approached the chunk of wood, placing a hand carefully on one of the outermost roots. She stood there, eyes closed, and several seconds turned into minutes. Axl smiled, seeing that she'd slipped into a meditation fugue so easily, meaning the tree's root base was a good fit after all.
Not wanting to interrupt her, Axl turned to [Elided Tome of Equanimity], eager to get some answers from a proper cultivation manual. It was broken up into very well outlined subtopics, and instead of charging through in order, Axl couldn’t help but focus on the ones that would affect him the most, starting with the section on forming a Cultivator's Core. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a massive, sprawling section, easily many times the apparent size of the book, so he barely skimmed it before moving onto other ones, content that he'd be able to study up on the process well before he would start it himself.
One quick and easy one was on how to customize his status screen, showing a common modification that those following balanced paths often made, and he eagerly set it up himself.
Name: Xel-389b (Roken)
Level: 18
Grade: G
Class: Usurpation of Balance (Rare)
Core: (none)
Spiritual Organs: Gastric Cauldron (branch G)
Lineage: Alchemical Vessel in the High Elf (root F)
Attribute points: 180 (base 81, flat modifiers 68, 20.5% modifiers 31)
Attributes (12): Strength, Endurance, Vitality, Agility, Bilesong, Mentality, Perception, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Limerence, Luck
Free Points: 0
Free Boons: 0
This felt much more informative—it didn't state the same value for all Attributes separately, since they were always the same, and also gave him the breakdown of his base Attributes compared to his titles and achievements, further separated by the flat additions and the percentage increases. This would be important once he got more info on how further ahead he'd be from others—he had only a loose sense that he could take on cultivators in early F and perhaps some in the middle of F-Grade, but not Suliana or Soffal, who were in the middle of F-Grade and likely also had Titles and Achievements of their own. That was before his recent power-up, however, and he was curious how he'd stack up once he caught up to his Attributes.
As a minor thing, Axl also added his Grade below the level, if only because it felt right, like a goal to be reminded of.
Another thing the book greatly illuminated was what meridians were for—and turns out it was almost entirely relevant only when one got a Cultivator's Core, since the meridians would allow for much better transmission of the Attuned Mana from the Core to be sent to other organs, like [Gastric Cauldron], or to skills. The diffuse internal Mana that Axl mostly used was largely unaffected by meridians, so any benefits would wait until he formed his core. This was a mild disappointment, but did indicate he was ahead of schedule, the book implicitly making it sound like nobody ever managed to get meridians before forming a Core, which Axl figured was a good thing for him.
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The book also outlined exercises to strengthen, widen, and otherwise improve the meridians, which Axl felt were oddly reminiscent of body tempering. Perhaps another round of that would also help his meridians for free, too. Almost made him look forward to the lightning tribulation his use of the element was cooking up. Almost.
Most importantly, Axl found when reading the section on increasing grades a very important note from Oocile. Mostly the book mentioned that one could increase your grade at level 20, and chose to gain more levels before doing so, with each level being harder to gain—Oocile noted that he had managed to get one of his Skills to the F-Grade while still in the G, through improving his proficiency with it, and he only had the option to increase the grade at level 22. From this and observations in his students, he noted that any aspect of your cultivation that you brought to the higher tier increased the level needed to increase in grade by two levels.
As Axl looked at that new information with dismay, the next section perked him right up, with Oocile mentioning that while this was a strong bottleneck he needed to overcome, it greatly aligned his offered class improvement paths with his upgraded Skill, so much that he in fact decided instead to upgrade another Skill before entering the F-Grade at level 24, even mentioning some regret he didn't also try to do the same with his Core.
This was essential information, and one that got Axl excited about being given more control over what the Deep System would offer him to improve. He already had his Lineage in the F-Grade, so what else should he try to get up there as well? [Mana Shroud] and [Attuned Drill Strike] immediately came to mind, but he also felt that [Mind-Soul Bulwark] and his newly acquired [Bolting Motion] would be nice additions—but what about [Gastric Cauldron]? Or maybe he should try getting a ranged attack skill and include that? He sighed, realizing he'd have to make some hard choices there, or else he really would get stuck in a G-Grade bottleneck from biting off more than he could chew.
Begrudgingly, Axl forced himself to put the [Elided Tome of Equanimity] away, since right now he needed to focus more on his Alchemy, not only to get used to his upgrades on that front, but on a much more mundane front, also to replenish his stock. He also needed to warm up for his revisit to the Dao Vision, which his alchemical to do list would hopefully help with.
He started simple, just remaking his G-Grade healing potions with the same ingredients and largely the same process, but letting himself slowly and carefully tweak the recipe to make it more efficient or the effects more pronounced. After the first few, he got more ambitious, and worked on the [Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium] to increase the amount of concentration of the reagents as well as the degree of refinement they went through at the refinement corona before entering the flask nucleus, four entire revolutions around the flask, turning what was a fine powder into a translucent wisp of air.
When he made that potion, he could sense it wasn't just an improvement, but a real step up—he stared at the vial in his hand, the Mana within incredibly dense to [Mana Shroud], an almost tangible, roaring vitality within the rose-red liquid. It was, without a doubt, an F-Grade healing potion, his conclusion reinforced by him gaining a proficiency step in alchemy.
Technical Arts: Glyphistry: Glyphic Alchemy (G.6), Glyphic Spellcasting
"Is that what it looks like it is?" Moxlin was on his shoulder, sounding tired but energized.
"Yes," Axl held up the vial for her to examine more closely. "I think it's an F-Grade healing potion. My new Lineage and Attributes helped me finally make the jump."
She took it gingerly in her forearms. "Pretty! I've seen other F-Grade potions before, and they seem more blunt than this, just cramming Mana in. This looks different than that, more refined."
Axl reached up and held his palm so Moxlin could lean against him, enjoying the compliment he'd just received. She was a real artisan after all, from a nest with those impressive-looking 4-legged spiders he glanced at back in the tunnels. That he'd make something better than artisans like them felt like a real hallmark of improvement.
"How did your quest go?" he asked, retracting his hand.
"I did it!" Moxlin raised the potion over her head in a triumphant pose. "I got a mirror for your compendium! Now I can examine it as much as I want directly, it's soooooo much better than you having to tell me all the time!"
"Good," Axl nodded, even if he felt the reward was rather half-baked, since it was linked to him. "But are there limitations there? Like can you only look at certain parts when I do?"
"Not like that, mostly on distance, so if I'm too far from you I can't look at new parts of it or ones that are updated. But I actually chose this one over a more stable copy of my own, because if you improve it or replace it with something better, I get to see that too!"
Axl flinched, taken aback by such a deep commitment to sticking with him—the Deep System reward would be useless to her if they split up.
"Sorry," Moxlin said, fidgeting with the potion in her arms. "I should've asked you first, I—"
"I'm glad you did," he interrupted. "I’ll work hard to make sure your choice pays off. And keep that potion, I will make a bunch more, we might as well replace our stock with these better ones."
Moxlin leaned onto his neck, her soft fur reassuring, and after a while the potion disappeared into her storage.
"Anyhow," she said, and pointed to Alifren in the distance. The orc sat on the roots, wearing a light gown, cross-legged and deep in meditation. "What's up with that? You giving away our good stuff again?"
Axl chuckled. "Call it a loan, for now."
Moxlin poked him in the cheek with a forepaw. "Aiaaaa, I'm going to have to forbid you from doing any trading or gift-giving without me there. Seriously, for somebody with Charisma as high as yours, you should be better at this!"
"Next time, sure."
At this, Moxlin waddled over to Tem, wanting to brag to him about her victory as well, clearly having forgotten the bird's uneasiness with the topic.
Axl went back to work with his alchemy, making more batches of the centipede and calcium-depleting poison, then another dozen of his empowerment potions, not pushing himself to improve those recipes quite yet, since he had a bigger vein to mine—almost literally. Still, it took him well over a day to make 35 of the F-Grade healing potions, 25 for him, 10 for Moxlin, 15 of each of the poisons, and 12 empowerment potions.
He likely could've taken less time if he hurried, but he found himself unable to stop experimenting on improvements and tinkering with the [Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium]. But Axl purposefully let himself indulge, deciding he had a bit of time to let himself enjoy the process more—there was no pack of wolves charging down at him, no peak challenge to overcome. With a pang of guilt, he again felt glad he didn't choose the first option for his Lineage improvement, and simply let himself get lost in his artistry. I'm just a jumped-up miner, after all, if Terrania wanted a better soldier, she should've chosen a Jovian marine or something.
The bulk of his busywork done, Axl got up and stretched, seeing Alifren still deep in meditation and Moxlin working on a large array closer to the arena building. He turned to Tem, the cliff swallow perking up and flying over to one of the seats around the fire.
"My lord?" the bird bowed.
"What do you know about the Twilight Zazen?"
Tem immediately jumped to ground, wings over his head, then bolted back to the treeline. Axl's Charisma clearly felt the little creature's fear, glaring and frantic. But before Axl could say anything, he felt the roiling clouds above, the storm of tribulation appearing and rapidly gaining force, its arcs of lightning cuts of indignation as the world's Mana receded in fear.
Well, that's just slitting great.