Transcending Dreams

[Cultivate in Qi-rich environment for 20 hours: +120000 XP]

[Level Up! | 5 Stat Points Added] x9

William had finished cultivating a few seconds ago, but he didn’t feel like doing much of anything at the moment. The past two times he cultivated underwater, the results had been shocking, but it was never to the point that it didn’t seem real.

This time it was that, and more.

Level: 39

Experience: 84216/4875

He had gone from level thirty to thirty-nine. With the frankly stupid amount of experience points that hadn’t been registered because of the minor realm limits, it would easily take him into the fifth level of Qi Gathering. That meant the final level he would end up stopping at would likely be above fifty.

In the grand scheme of things, William supposed this wasn’t too big of a deal since it would only be an advancement of two minor realms, but still, it was far above the rate he was used to.

Even with all the gains that had been practically handed to him on a platter, a tiny voice in the back of his mind was still disappointed.

Unless William was willing to enter the trench, this was likely the end to the effortless experience points he had gained so far. Of course, nothing guaranteed the trench would have greater benefits in the first place.

William pushed himself off the lakebed and swam over the trench to get another look at the entirely new world it contained. His closeness to it made him notice something that he had missed before.

There seemed to be a few layers to this trench. The life it contained progressively became more and more abundant the deeper one looked.

The layer closest to William seemed to be filled with corals and relatively small sea life like harmless fish and the like. Since he couldn’t see the system giving him the name of the species or the level, he assumed that the fish were just that, fish.

With the constant spirit fruit William had been eating for days, the urge to enter the trench and grab some of the fish was high. But he didn't come this far to enter a place teeming with life without some preparation like an idiot.

Past what he hoped would be a future source of food, William could see plenty of unreadable system messages above the small forms swimming lazily. The colorful corals still existed, but they were accompanied by actual spirit beasts instead of harmless fish.

He had a feeling that these spirit beasts would make the Draebern look weak, mainly since they lived in water with such a high concentration of Qi. Though it did make him question how they could cultivate when William needed to return to the surface to advance realms.

Perhaps the water in the trench didn’t suppress the release of Qi? William shrugged his curiosity off and made to return back to the shore, intending to cultivate on land before deciding what to do next.

As he was about to swim away, he noticed something strange at the edge of his vision.

A small, turtle-like thing was staring intently at him as if trying to threaten him into leaving. If William hadn’t seen it right at the line where the barren and life met in the trench, he might have been worried that the turtle might have bad intentions. It also helped William's paranoia immensely when the system didn’t put the basic status above the thing, telling him that the turtle wasn’t a spirit beast.

William swam back and forth, smiling when the tiny turtle’s eyes kept track of him. He quickly found that it wasn’t the only thing watching him. While it was rare, some of the aquatic life in the topmost layer looked at him unblinkingly, though the turtle was unique in that it was the only one of its kind that he noticed.

William’s memories were vague on this, but he thought he remembered that they liked to stare at people that seemed interesting to them. He gave the things staring at him a cursory check for a system status, but like the turtle, there was nothing to see.

With that oddity nothing to be concerned about, William headed back to the shore, eager to start cultivating again. Within a few minutes, he stood on the shore, near the edge of the lake, shaking free the water clogging his Impact Boots.

He would usually have tried to figure out what was wrong with them. However, with his almost overwhelming urge to cultivate, he stored the boots inside his spatial stone and sat on the grass.

Not long after, William was engrossed in cultivating. The familiar, soothing action of circulating his Qi made the time fly. He was more than happy to keep going for an extended amount of time since he had been using the quick and dirty way of settling the additional spiritual energy after adding to his Spirit attribute.

Instead of cultivating like William had been doing at the start, the proportionally small amount of added Qi allowed him to easily direct it to his Heart Meridian, even when doing other tasks. However, that meant his body was ill-suited for using that Qi efficiently, and it would have been necessary for him to cultivate anyway to get used to it.

It didn’t take long for William to sense that his pathways went through the qualitative change that signified his advancement to the next minor realm. He would generally take this as a sign to stop cultivating and drool over the new numbers, but with the stupid amount of experience points available, there was another breakthrough to be had.

William was proven correct a few minutes later when his pathways looked ever closer to being crystalline. The Qi pathways seemed ethereal at the start, but they seemed to be getting more and more solidified as he advanced. He supposed that made sense since they were meant to hold more Qi as he got stronger.

He stopped cultivating and opened his eyes to see the alerts that almost filled his vision.

[Cultivate in a Qi-dense environment for 12 minutes: +2 XP]

[Level Up! | 5 Stat Points Added] x14

[Cultivation upgraded | Qi Gathering (3rd Level) —> Qi Gathering (5th Level)]

[Modified | Health Overall: 1200 —> 1400]

[Modified | Max Level: 39 —> 59]

[Modified | Max Attribute: 60 —> 80]

[New upgrade requirements available]

Upgrade Requirements (2):

1. Spirit: 60

2. Eligible for Level 60

William was ecstatic, as always, to see such progress being made. Still, he realized that he had been a fool as he stared at his cultivation status. He should have stopped his advance into the fifth level of Qi Gathering and eaten some spirit fruits. The efficiency would be reduced drastically with his higher cultivation.

He stood up and walked closer to the lake to drop a few spirit fruits into the water, taking them out when they started pulsing and munched on a Lightning Berry.

William could immediately tell that its effectiveness was reduced since the shocks he had been feeling two minor realms ago had almost disappeared.

[+5 Spirit]

[Modified | Trait: Soul Damage]

[8% —> 7% Attribute Reduction]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 275 —> 300]

[+5 Stamina]

[+5 Agility]

That result was still fantastic for just one Lightning Berry. Still, this minor realm would likely be the last time they would be of any real use, at least with providing multiple attribute points per fruit.

The most telling sign was that the Impurity he was gaining was reduced, quantifying how much effectiveness the spirit fruit was losing. Not that Impurity mattered much here, with the lake acting like the ultimate neutralizer for that issue.

William was about to drop a few more fruits into the water, enough to get all his attributes to their current max, when his eyes went wide.

[-100 HP]

He spit out a mouthful of blood and immediately sat down crosslegged at the edge of the lake.

William had been casually leading the additional Qi to his Heart Meridian, as was common the past several times, but unexpectedly, it was rejected by the meridian.

He quickly brought the minuscule Qi that had scattered back into his control. He could sense that his Heart Meridian was giving off the same warning pulse that his Lung Meridian did, indicating that it wouldn’t accept any more Qi.

In fact, it seemed that the speck in the center of his Heart Meridian was slightly brighter than the one in his Lung Meridian. He decided to test the latter by guiding the free energy to it, but the speck of concentrated Qi in the Lung Meridian pulsed in warning, making William pass right by it and search for a new meridian to open up.

With the cultivation manual saying the order he opened them up wasn’t important, he randomly picked the Stomach Meridian as the next to fill.

The empty space in the meridian gobbled up the Qi, with no discernible change happening. However, that was similar to the past two meridians he opened up. William didn’t doubt that would change when more Qi was added to the Stomach Meridian.

He opened his eyes and stared at the water in front of him. Perhaps it was best to stay seated so he could cultivate as soon as he ate the rest of the fruits. He didn’t want to risk spitting up blood again.