The Shovel System

Far away, moonlight paints the land in gentle silver.

A towering ancient figure contemplates the moon in the star-dusted midnight sky. The old matron is bathed blue from tall gems scattered around her on the snow-capped peak of the mountain that Jackie first arrived at.

She stands twenty-two meters tall, and her old face is lined with age. She leans on a beautifully carved wooden cane, her name is Twilight Willow. Twilight's salt-and-peppered hair is pulled into a right bun with two jade hair clips inserted to hold it in place.

"What does it signify?" She questions, reflecting back to the vision she saw before Jackie exploded from energy deviation.

She works through the events again, recalling the frightening experience.

Twilight's face blanches.

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Twilight directed her cultivation towards the little mortal man, pushing the knowledge of her compatible techniques into his body.

Things were proceeding well until Jackie's shovel began shining. Her delicate celestial power rebelled and erupted.

She g.r.o.a.n.e.d, but couldn't arrest the rampaging power without suffering cultivation deviation and either bedevilment or death. She did her best to fight with her rebelling celestial power while glaring at the brightening shovel that was bobbing between her and Jackie.

Then, the little mortal's body started to distend and crack, potent rays of brilliance perforating out from all over him as he started crumbling.

She blinked at that moment, the light too bright even for her cultivated eyes.

She opened her gaze to a vast black abyss that spread to infinity, many specks of light in the background and an unfurled painting of cartography underneath her. The picture was so enchanting that she gulped and had to rip her gaze away to look at the dying little old man.

Disturbing murmurs crawled their way into her ears, forcing her to snap her gaze from the little man that was swallowing more and more of her power to peer far into the abyss. Something at the corner of her perception drew her eyes, so she glanced up.

Overlooking the infinite abyss were eight heaven-spanning thrones with seven maddeningly tremendous abyssal silhouettes sitting on them, their hands resting on enormous shovels that stretched from beyond infinity and eternity down into the depths of the infinite void.

Glacial fear pierced through her like she was thrust through the heart with an icicle.

The seventh silhouette hoisted its mind-bogglingly huge shovel and pointed it at Jacky, releasing a golden flash of power across the infinite beyond. The golden ray sprang into Jackie.

The mighty power popped the old man like a balloon, leaving scarce more than a puff of golden mist behind.

Willow then felt vertigo and suction. She plunged with the mist into the painting below, the moon speeding by then the firmament and finally her mountain, then she witnessed her body with its eyes shut. The character for Patience was scrawled out in blood next to her wounded hand.

She dropped into her body and snapped her old eyes open, trembling. The disturbing ethereal whispers faded away then.

A small cloud of golden mist was roiling before her. It bolted through the shattered floor of the ruined cultivation chamber, disappearing beyond her Celestial senses.

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She opens her eyes and strokes her injured hand, "Four months, and it still hasn't recovered. That botched ceremony cost me my peak cultivation, I've sunk an entire level and need to regain it."

She laments and returns to moongazing.

Twilight cultivation creates a Vessel and unites it with seven other cultivation power systems. The Vessel itself plays a dual role of cultivation technique and container for all eight powers-itself and the seven others.

Each Cultivation technique in the Twilight Vessel creates its own individual pool of power.

Spiritualism creates an elemental whirlpool for its power source, it advances by washing each organ with its corresponding element, transforming the user into an attuned Elementalist.

Body Cultivation creates a vitality pool. The vitality travels through Meridians, forming vitality cycles. Advancing requires tempering in harsh environments and grueling physical training and then adding additional loops of vitality through the meridians, soaking the muscles, bones, and organs with the vitality to continually evolve them.

Vessel cultivation creates the Vessel Forge, where the vessel houses the eight separate powers. Tempering the Vessel and consistently reforging it with rare and exotic materials improves its level and quality, allowing it to contain greater powers. Tempering the Vessel is done by running each power through it, enhancing their connection with the vessel and its cultivator.

Jackie's Vessel Forge looks like an infinite plane with a massive buried shovel inside it. The shovel is Jackie's vessel for the eight powers, containing one mysterious jade seal for each.

Occult cultivation focuses on either generalization or specialization; The One Hundred Steps art is a speed specialized cultivation technique. It channels occult energy. Advancing requires practice, magical power of ever improving quality, and the secret Runes. Occult Cultivation is well known to be mostly practiced by puppet sects. Occult cultivation is widespread in some areas because channeling is extremely fast - it exists in the higher dimensionality of the cultivator. Practicing the specialized techniques also tempers the body to be more closely aligned with the dedicated occult energy.

Soul Cultivation is a rare technique. It improves the quality and quantity of the soul power a cultivator can wield, protects him from soul attacks and enables him to use powerful soul spells. Some soul cultivators can leave their mortal body and steal a more powerful body by wiping out uncultivated souls. Soul cultivation also makes the user comprehend difficult concepts faster and easier, improve their memory, and exerts pressure on people with weaker souls. It creates the Soul Lake, which gradually fills with soul power.

Alchemy cultivation is different from cultivators that dabble in alchemy. Practicing alchemy cultivation creates the Philosopher's Cauldron in the mind palace, the Cauldron draws in alchemy essence from alchemical creation and forms Chaos energy. Advancing requires using the Chaos energy to forge more cauldrons around the initial cauldron and enlightenment in the alchemy dao. Users of this technique tend to be poison cultivators, bombers, etc., but unlimited variations exist, just as there are infinite alchemy paths.

Maneuver Cultivation creates connections with constellations in the sky to summon the strength of the mythical heavenly monsters. This technique advances by absorbing Mythic Essense from the constellation at night. Higher levels can invoke a copy of the creatures to battle on the cultivator's behalf, serve as its mount, or act as the vessel for the mythic creature to unleash its awesome might. Each level of a maneuver technique unlocks one unique ability of the linked constellations called a Maneuver. This technique creates a Mythic Tapestry in the Heart of the cultivator, mythic monsters are painted on the tapestry with mythic essence and the larger the tapestry, the more power the cultivator wields. Channeling the energy of the tapestry requires the cultivator to perform various poses in rapid order.

The Shovel Dao inherits the same unique deployment as the Twilight Dao it converted, while each of Jackie's separate cultivation techniques is stored in his Vessel and not his corporeal body.

Jackie is in the unique position of all eight of his techniques using the same type of energy, equal but separate. This means that when he enters the Forming Constellation Stage linking up his various powers will not hinder him.

Usually, a Forming Constellation stage twilight cultivator must link two of his unique techniques together, creating a new unified energy to advance from the first stage to the second stage. Then the cultivator must connect those two to a third, then promoting through until all eight techniques have fused their energies to form his unique constellation, enabling him to channel power from any of his separate pools to power any of his methods. This effectively gives the Twilight cultivator eight times the energy of a same level cultivator but at the expense of taking eight times as long to refill his vast ocean of power.

A non-twilight cultivator practices other, unique methods to advance in the Forming Constellation stage.

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Jackie blinks his eyes as the embedded cultivation memory flits through his brain.

He stares at the couple bowing to him and booms, "I am Jackie Lewin, I expect respect, integrity, courage, and loyalty. The profound and mysterious arts I will impart to you will change your fates forever. How far you can travel down the path of immortality depends on you."

He then orders, "Raise your heads!"

'Dadgummit, They don't want to be here at all!' Mopes Jacky mentally.

"Tell me your names."

Silent Wolf takes a few measured breaths, giving Jackie a once over. He then proudly speaks while pushing his c.h.e.s.t out, "I am Silent Wolf! This woman is my wife, Quiet bear, and that infant is my son, Solemn Wolf." He steps out in front of them and roars, "I will kill you if you lay a hand on them!"