Sitting cross legged with the glowing ritual lines around him, Helo starts to feel nervous. He can barely feel them behind the containment fields. But he knows that there are quite a few powerful treasures and a lot of energy surrounding him, almost all of it will be flowing into his body.
Helo looks directly in front of him to the rune he can easily read as ‘Start’. All he has to do is place a tier 2 mana core on that rune and all the energy will start flowing. It will flow from the cores and treasures surrounding him, into the swirling lines of the ritual. The energy will spin around him like a tornado as it slowly draws closer.
This design was Helo’s idea. It was something he considered but wasn’t skilled enough to make on his own. He remembers how he drew in energy from his first cultivation session. Then he started to wonder what would happen if the energy was already like a tornado before entering his channels.
Yoeko loved the idea and designed the work of art surrounding him.
Taking a deep breath, Helo slowly pulls a mana core from his necklace. The glowing blue gem-like item appears in his hand and Helo slowly sets it down on the rune in front of him.
As soon as the mana core contacts the ritual all of the intricately flowing lines surrounding him light up at once. With a blinding flash the ritual starts. Helo has a second to look around him and he can see as the energy from every item is dragged out and starts spinning around him, slowly drawing closer.
Diving into what he calls his ‘Core’ area, Helo just manages to enter meditation as the energy starts to pour in. Already experienced in the process from when he and his party cultivated in Japan, Helo uses his own energy and will to grab the spinning energy and drag it down into the center of his being.
As the energy enters his core and mingles with his own energy, it loses whatever semblance of will that it once had. The vitality and darkness flooding in starts to spin faster the closer it gets to his core area. Helo’s grasp tightens and the energy starts to become increasingly more like his own. Activating ‘Bloodline Awakening’ Helo’s bloodline energy starts to flow through his body in preparation to absorb new energy.
Once the first wisp of cloud like gold and black energy reaches his core area. Helo lets his metal grasp go, and the energy flows through his body along the same channels as his own physical and mental energy. His bloodline pulls the energy along and continues the year long process of adapting Helo’s body to his bloodline.
Helo has no idea how easy he has it. When most people cultivate, they are forced to meticulously control each morsel of energy to control their cultivation. If someone loses control they might find issues within their channels, body, mind, or spirit that stop them from progressing further. Or it might even cause a backlash that can be deadly.
But Helo’s own bloodline starved body is almost eager to adapt to the energy that is flowing in. He doesn’t have to go cell by cell and give them a vitality-based attunement or focus on each aspect of his spirit to fill it with darkness. He can direct all his focus to the torrent of energy flowing in, then let it free within his body.
With channels as robust as his own, the large volume of energy isn’t enough to break open his pathways. But they do put a strain on him.
Minutes into his cultivation Helo is forced to contain the incoming energy in his core area. Even without a core of his own, the energy he is gathering seems to form one as he continues to pull the flood of vitality and darkness deeper into his being.
The good part is that the energy that he is forced to stop, is easy to contain. The process of stripping the energy as it enters his body makes it far easier to grab the now malleable energy.
One side has a tornado of willful energy flowing in, while the other has a stream of malleable energy flowing out.
Helo forces the tornado of incoming energy to slow down, lessoning the strain on his body and mind. It takes over half an hour of adjustments, but finally Helo finds the perfect amount of force he needs to apply to pull the energy in at the same rate that his bloodline uses the energy to change his body.
This is the benefit of most bloodline holders. Bloodlines are a parent’s gift to their children. Having a powerful bloodline that is not diluted or weakened through the generations means that Helo’s body has an imprint of what it is supposed to be like.
For someone like Alli. Whose bloodline is strong, but diluted, she needs to use a lot more effort to reach what her bloodline is supposed to be. For Helo, his bloodline will take care of most of the work, Helo just needs to find vast amounts of resources.
The fallout of having such power engrained into his very soul, is that any changes require far more effort and pain. To create a bloodline, you need to be tier 5 with a fully adapted physique of your affinity. Only then can you create a pathway for any future generation’s success.
That is the reason that Alli and Hinata’s bloodlines diluted over time. With parents only reaching tier 3, they can only rely on a bloodline created generation ago, without creating their own.
What makes human races and other base races so special is their ability to adapt to new affinities and create and change their own bloodlines. For someone like Helo, any change to his bloodline will be met with extreme resistance and most likely dangerous fallout.
Able to finally relax as the internal and external flow are balanced, Helo slowly releases his hold on the energy he contained within his body. For the first few minutes his channels are stressed again as a large quantity of energy flows out from his core area. But after a while the ball of energy is gone. Now as the tornado flows into his body, it is directly released into his channels. All Helo has to do is maintain the flow.
Finally able to think without excess mental strain, Helo starts to get a feel for the energy that is flowing in. The vitality is extremely willful and flows erratically. Helo assumes this is due to it coming from so many different people. At the same time the dark aligned energy comes mostly from the flower, due to this he can tell that the energy is a contradiction.
It has an extremely powerful concept engrained into it, but at the same time it feels like it has almost no desire of its own. This is an effect of the affinity. With a dark attunement and a null concept, the flower feels meaningless. But the effect that it has is very powerful.
The energy from the flower doesn’t want to be touched, or moved, it reminds Helo of how he used to feel apathetic. That same lack of desire makes it easy for Helo to contain the energy as it flows in, much easier than the erratic vitality.
But at the same time if someone without Helo’s affinity absorbed the flower, they might die in a similar way that Helo almost died when he ate the pill Akira gave him. Thankfully Helo’s bloodline and his spirit’s minor attunement to darkness nullifies most of the apathy that comes with the flower.
Letting the energy flow through him, Helo relaxes into his meditative position and time seems to slip by. Helo can feel the cells in his body are overwhelmed by a flood of vitality, then they are remade with a golden like sheen. A similar process happens in his spirit as the apathetic energy enters his spirit carried on waves of his bloodline energy. The energy flows through his mind and core slowly filling his spirit and darkening the color.
The ritual continues turning as swirls gold and black cloudy energy flow through the air around Helo. As it approaches him the energy is sucked into a spinning vortex into his body.
Days go by as Helo lets the energy continue to flow through him. With no idea about what is happening around him, Helo’s mind enters a trance-like state as the repetition and ease of his cultivation relaxes him.
Helo is only jolted back to full alertness as his body and spirit reach a critical state. Scanning himself quickly Helo must rely on his Kitsune Goddess given title ‘Spirit Blessed’ to see his spirit quickly.
For the last few months a few cells within Helo’s body were slowly changed. Instead of producing red physical energy, they started to produce gold-tinged energy instead, showing his growing attunement. His spirit was in a similar position as the energy that flowed into his channels from his mind and core had dark streaks.
But as Helo scans his body, he can tell that something is changing. The red-gold tinged and light purple-black tinged energy reaches a critical point. Watching with a stunned mind, Helo can see as the energy in his body takes on a warm copper color. At the same time his spiritual energy goes from pinkish purple to a dark purple.
Wooooah. Helo says within his core as he follows the new energy with his mind’s eye. As the new energy flows through his channels, it reaches his core. When the two energies meet within his core an effect that Helo has been trying to recreate happens.
The mixed cloud like energies clash to create a silver smoky energy. Trying to poke the energy with his will it barely reacts to his contact. Poking it again Helo can tell that the energy is some kind of amalgamation of his spiritual and physical energies. But he has no idea what to do with it.
Focusing back on the world around him, Helo mentally sighs as he can still feel vast amounts of flowing energy. Focusing back inward Helo starts to divert his two energies into twin spirals within his core.
Whenever the energy meets, they create that silver-grey energy. But with no idea what it is, or how to control it, Helo is nervous to let the process continue. Instead, Helo creates twin circles around his core area. This lets the energy flow in two streams without making contact but still allowing his energy to flow through his pathways.
This requires constant effort. Similar to how Helo uses his natural energies flowing nature to modify skills, increasing strength, lengthening time, or slowing activation. Now with a tornado of incoming energy flowing directly into his core area, and twin streams of bright copper and dark purple energy around the outside, Helo can feel his will start to slowly get taxed.
Releasing the twin streams Helo can see that the two energies continue to flow in the paths that Helo created for them, only the paths slowly start to fall apart as his will no longer guides their paths.
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While continuing to cultivate Helo slowly tests to see how long he can sustain the twin streams without his own effort. He is happy to find that he can release them for over a minute before they start to destabilize. Plus, the faster his energy flows, the less effort he needs to put into maintaining the stream.
I need to find out what this is. Helo says while looking at the small bundle of silver-grey energy in his core area. The energy slowly starts to dissipate as Helo refuses to touch it while he is distracted with cultivation.
Falling back into his trace like state Helo doesn’t know how long it has been since he started his cultivation session. He was focused on maintaining the three different energies flows and keeping his bloodline energy flowing through his body. Unlike his other energy, his bloodline doesn’t cycle through his core, but his heart.
He can tell that with each cycle some of the energy flowing through his body also flows into his heart and goes to replenish his bloodline. But this is a feeling he has gotten used to.
Checking over his body for a second time, Helo is happy to see that the now copper color of his physical energy has brightened, turning slightly closer to gold. While his purple spiritual energy has darkened, it is getting closer to black.
Drawing his mind from his core in who knows how long, Helo opens his eyes and sends out his aura for the first time in a while. There are still small wisps of energy flowing from the now shriveled pod and the wilting flower. Sending his aura out Helo quickly snatches the last bit of energy and sends it directly into his heart for his bloodline to replenish from.
Having ‘Bloodline Awakening’ active for his entire cultivation session dramatically eased the strain of cultivation, while also reducing the amount of stored energy vastly.
About to push himself to his feet Helo is distracted as he hears a “BING”.
Sitting back down Helo opens his notifications.
Your bloodline has awakened from 24% to 25%.
Your physical and spiritual energy has reached a critical stage of attunement.
Helo stops to think and realizes that must have been when he was jolted awake and the motes of attunement in his body turned into a complete change of his natural energy.
Your Body has gained a minor Vitality attunement.
Your Spirit has gained a minor Dark attunement.
Your bloodline has gone from 25% to 28.9%
You have gained +5 to Vitality and Will.
You have gained +5 to all stats.
Helo wants to check his status, but he can tell that there are more notifications waiting.
Your skills will need to be upgraded and modified to function with your new affinity.
Helo isn’t sure how to feel about this latest notification. He is excited to upgrade his skills. But at the same time his pseudo-tier 3 class only helps him grow his skills until they become rare grade. Going past that he won’t have system assistance.
At the same time his skill, ‘Forced Still’ already allows his bloodline to be pumped into it and that causes the skill to be unusable for almost a day. Helo is worried that his skills are going to start having long cooldowns and only be usable once a fight.
Not having any way to deal with his new problem, other than pushing forward Helo finally pulls up his status.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (28.9%)
Attunement: Body (Minor-Vitality), Spirit (Minor-Dark)
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 43
Stats: 612
- Str: 40 (+5%)
- Agl: 96 (+15%)
- Dex:64 (+15%)
- Per: 71 (+30%)
- Vit: 130 (+50%)
- End: 41 (+15%)
- Int: 40 (+5%)
- Will: 130 (+50%)
His eyes go wide as he stares into space. Only he can see the massive amount of total stat points that he has. Does everyone get so many points from their cultivation, or is it my bloodline, or was it the attunement?
Starting to wonder if everyone else gets so many extra stat points Helo doesn’t even realize that Akira is now standing in front of him.
“You must have had some great gains to have such a lost look on your face.” Akira says with a smirk at the sitting Helo.
Looking up, Helo grins back. “Well, I was just contemplating how awesome I am.”
Akira raises a questioning brow, and Helo goes on to explain how much stat points he has and how they just keep growing.
“Whhhheeewwww.” Akira whistles. “Damn, you do have a lot. But keep in mind that you have a higher ranked bloodline than everyone on earth, well at least at your tier, once the world opens up to the wider multiverse, that might change quickly.”
“Also.” Akira stops to think. “Everyone gains the same base stats per level based on their class, tier, and bloodline. But everyone can gain stats outside of this, through things like training, cultivation, titles, gear, and using unique resources.”
“Unique resources?” Helo asks.
“Things like natural treasures. Or very valuable alchemy concoctions like elixirs. Elixirs are different from potions, in that potions give momentary boosts, while elixirs are permanent.” Akira explains the difference before changing what he is talking about.
“Anyway, you have a lot more stat points that I had at your level. But keep in mind that someone with enough wealth could purchase their way to your level or strength, or higher.” Akira looks serious as he says. “There are only so many elixirs someone can drink per tier. After you reach your limit, their effect vastly drops. But they are a great resource.”
“Have you taken any?” Helo asks him.
Akira shakes his head. “Only a few in tier 1 and 2. Elixirs are extremely rare dungeon drops. They are also hard to make and hard to find the correct resources for. But that still doesn’t account for cultivation, gear, and training.”
“You said you started attuning your body?” Akira asks him. At Helo’s nod Akira continues. “That is something that someone normally does at tier 3 or 4. From the records I have seen it is one of the requirements to reach tier 5. Since you’re attuning your body right now, you’re getting a large influx of stats. That is something I have only started doing. So, you will have a lead on people your level, but that lead will shrink once they start attuning their body.”
Akira looks at Helo and considers his massive number of stats. “Well, it might shrink. Also, from the records I have seen, someone can get about thirty percent more stat points on top of what they already have, from things like training, cultivation and elixirs. That number fluctuates based on someone’s relative strength, but it supposedly sits around thirty percent.” Akira shrugs. “There are not enough resources on earth for anyone to test that, but it is what our records indicate. The only way to go above that is through gear.”
“Is that the reason that you had Hinata cultivate?” Helo asks the Kitsune.
Nodding Akira smiles. “Yes. From what I have learned from my own tests, it is much less resource intensive to do earlier. You need lower tier resources, and your body has less endurance to combat the process of breaking down your body and rebuilding. A downside is the lower Vitaliy.” Akira nods at Helo. “But I think you learned the benefit of having a bloodline. It mitigates the vitality issues by letting the body more easily adjust. If someone didn’t have a bloodline I wouldn’t recommend it, but for you, and the girls, it will give you a step ahead of your future foes.”
Helo digests everything he just learned. Standing over him, Akira looks at Helo for a few seconds in contemplation. Nodding his head Akira pulls up his own status. Willing the information to Helo, he says. “This is my own status minus a few things. The stats shown don’t consider my titles, gear, or my percentage modifiers.”
Name: Akira
Race: Kitsune
Bloodline: Foxfire Elemental (Rare)
Teir 3
Class: Foxfire Spirit Weaver
Level: 156
Class: Illusion Master
Level: 121
Stats: 2,968
Skills: Spirit Combustion (Epic), Illusion Sub-Domain (Epic), Reality Shift (Epic), Blue Fire Slash (Rare)…
Helo stares in awe at the massive number of stats. “How do the percentage modifiers work?”
Akira shrugs. “It is almost impossible to make gear that does it. You can only get those modifiers from dungeon loot or titles.”
Helo doesn’t say anything, but his mind goes to his necklace that his father supposedly made.
Looking back at his status Akira says. “My base stat total is about 2,600. I can get about 800 extra stat points from training, elixirs and cultivation, this brings me to 3,400. Right now, I only have 2,968. That doesn’t include my percentage modifiers, tier modifier, or gear.”
Helo realizes that this is a lot more complicated than he expected.
“I don’t know if people in the wider multiverse reach their max stats. But I know that on earth it is almost impossible.” Akira says seriously. “It would take the resources from the entire world for someone at my tier to absorb enough energy to do so.”
While Akira is talking Helo is doing the math in his head. With his base stats, plus the stat points he gained for leveling, he is at about 464 stats. With 612 stats in total, he has 148 stats gained from his training and cultivation. Pulling out his tablet Helo realizes that he has about 9 stat points over his thirty-percent limit.
Showing the numbers to Akira, the man laughs. “Hah! Well, I guess I was wrong. The only person on earth to be at the thirty-percent mark is you.” Turing serious Akira says. “But it will get even more difficult to reach that limit with each level and each tier.”
Helo nods along, he understands what Akira is getting at, but right now he is just proud that he has reached this so-called mythical limit.
Grabbing Helo’s shoulder Akira easily pulls him up and to his feet. “Well, it has been almost two weeks since you started cultivating. The girls sure do miss you.” Akira smiles at Helo. “Let’s get you back to the mansion before the school comes knocking on my door truancy.”
Stumbling at how long it has been Helo looks at Akira in surprise. “Two weeks?”
“Just about.” The Kitsune nods his head. “It is Friday. You cultivated through your Japan field trip, the weekend, and to the end of the next week.”
“How?” Helo asks in surprise.
“Well. I have been keeping an eye on you. You started out by sucking in massive amounts of energy. Good idea with the aura vortex by the way, it took me a while to figure that out. Anyway. After a few hours you slowed down considerably. Then something in you shifted, and you slowed down even further.” Akira says while he leads the still stunned Helo from the dojo to the main house.
While they walk in the front door Yuki Kashiwagi steps from a side room. She smiles at Helo in a motherly way. “Oh, you poor dear.” Grabbing Helo from her husband Yuki leads Helo to a seat at their kitchen table. “Let me get you a meal. You haven’t eaten in nearly two weeks.”
It isn’t long before Helo has a plate in front of him filled with rice and sushi. Having never tried sushi before, Helo carefully takes a bite. He quickly realizes that he really enjoys raw fish. So, eating quickly, it isn’t long before the plate in front of him is empty and a happy Yuki is providing another.
Realizing how disrespectful he is being. Helo starts to slow down his voracious eating with a blush. Yuki just smiles at him happily. “Mhmmm lets see.” She says while tapping a perfectly manicured finger on her chin.
“Everyone did fine in their rifts. Your party members even gained a level or two.” Yuki says with a nod to herself. “From what I have heard, the mansion is fixed, Arisah is working hard to fix the garden. Mhmmm. What else.” Yuki’s eyes go wide. “Oh! There is another challenge this weekend. Akira and I area heading to Hornhiem to watch.”
Stilling eating slowly, on numerous occasions Helo wants to join the very one-sided conversation, but Yuki happily keeps chatting away. Feeling a hand on his shoulder he sees Akira behind him. Seeing Akira shake his head, Helo just shrugs and focuses on his eating while Yuki chats and puts more food on his plate. Is this what having a mother is like?
“Anyway. Isn’t it dumb that they claim to only broadcast near their home for safety, but anyone can just go to Hornheim and watch the school’s broadcasts. Whatever, it makes for a fun weekend trip. Right honey!” Yuki smiles at Akira. Before he can answer she is talking again.
“I think. They just do it to bring more people to their city. It really is a great scheme they have going for themselves. Really driving up business. Other than non-awakened entertainment, the school really is the only place that broadcasts year-round for awakened to watch.” Yuki places a few more sushi rolls on Helo’s plate before setting down the dish and picking up the rice.
“Well… nobody really expected you to want to be in a tournament anyway, so they didn’t feel bad when Carl signed up. He said that this is a great opportunity for him to show his fealty to his mistresses in combat. Isn’t he just so cute.” Yuki places a hand on her cheek and smiles.
For the rest of the afternoon Helo and Akira eat tell they are stuffed, as Yuki happily chats at them about anything and everything.