Chương 14: Cultivating Healing

After thinking for some time, Nyx chose to allocate all five of his free points to strength, taking the total strength attribute to eleven from the initial six.

"Where to put this Mod Card… for now, let's just leave it as is." His main weapon wasn't yet decided. He used weapons based on the situation that called for the different types. Right now, he was a lot better off than before, so he wished to first find himself a better, catch-all type of weapon before investing a valuable mod card on it.

As for the skill shards, after some back and forth with Arcane Archivist, which cost him a whole ten gold, he got himself information about both the skill shards and the spirit stones. Previously, he had been going off rumors.

"Now I've gotten it straight from the dragon's mouth." The archivist had built up a stellar reputation for the authenticity of the information he provided. And in a place where trust was already scarce, he was certain the guy wouldn't dare sell him garbage info in exchange for some gold.

"Especially not when he's already making a ton from his information, and other service-related businesses." He'd even offered to sell him information regarding the locations of chests in exchange for two gold. They were mostly for wooden treasure chests. But based on what he'd found out, the guy's treasure-chest information business was booming and had become one of his core streams of consistent income.

Nyx had no use for wooden chests, and was instead much more interested in the cultivation aspect after learning about the spirit stones. He could see why others would snap that info up like it was Mac and cheese, or a limited-edition Pokémon booster box. As for the stuff regarding cultivation, based on the information, it was a much simpler thing than what he'd initially thought to be the case. The process of using these spirit stones was simple. Nyx followed the instructions in real time, step by step.

He first closed the window of his vehicle, and sat down in a meditative lotus position. Relaxing his whole body, he breathed in through his nose before exhaling through his mouth. After repeating the exercise three times, he retrieved a single, light pink spirit stone. The cool, soothing object materialized in his palm, which rested over his thighs. According to the archivist's instructions, he first focused only on the soothing sensation emanating from it.

For ten minutes straight, though his mind often wandered, he slowly got better at focusing exclusively on the sensation. And soon, piercing the darkness of his closed-eyed meditation, he started to see hues of glowing pink wafting off the stone. Even though his eyes were still closed, he could see the stone and the energies clearly. Mind's Eye. According to the archivist, this ability was the prerequisite to cultivation. The mind's eye fed on one's spiritual energy—more akin to mental energy.

Which was used to draw on the energies of the world trapped and concentrated inside the stones. The next step in cultivation was forging the absorption mechanism using this spiritual energy. The idea was to imagine a tunnel forged from spiritual energy that would latch onto the energy of the stones and pull it into oneself. Although it sounded simple, the process of even sensing his own spiritual energy took Nyx another good hour before he was finally able to discern its form.

While the mana of healing within the stone was like vapor, this spiritual energy was more akin to liquid. The next part gave him even more trouble. In the process of manipulating this spiritual energy to form the tunnel, he ran out of spiritual energy entirely. To recover, he'd have to meditate for another half hour before getting back to forging the tunnel. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Spiritual energy was generated by ones soul.

By doing breathing exercises and meditating, one could calm their soul, allowing for faster recovery of this essence. Either way, after recovering and forging the tunnel, Nyx began to feel a stream of something foreign flowing into him. The initial sensation of the energy hitting the pit of his stomach made Nyx's body go rigid from the sharp pain. But having been warned of this beforehand by the informant, he wasn't caught off guard and didn't break out of the session.

After the initial bout of pain, the sensation gradually transformed into a sort of fluffy, pleasant feeling—like someone was kissing his navel area. Which was an odd way to describe it, but the sensation felt oddly familiar. As to how he knew what being kissed on the navel felt like, it was better not to go there. The inflow of mana gradually filled the metaphysical space around his stomach until he felt full.

The stone itself was also emptied, so he moved on to the next step: channeling these energies and establishing what was referred to as mana veins, or meridians. The process involved moving a small amount of these energies along his limbs. Following the instructions, he first moved it across his lower body, which sent jolts of pain crashing into him like a truck, making him grit his teeth until he thought they'd shatter.

But already warned this would happen, he pressed on and moved the energies toward his upper body, before cycling them back into the space around his lower abdomen. He continued cycling it, and after another hour, the pain gradually subsided. He was finally roused from his cultivation session by the sheer stench emanating from his own body.

"Phew, done with the first session. According to the advice, I should promptly take a bath to wash away these impurities." He bought himself several gallons of water with gold, stripped off his clothes, and washed his whole body.

"Thinking back on it, this is the first time I've taken a full bath since coming here, huh." He stretched his arms and hopped in place, his body feeling strangely lighter and more energized than before.

"The effects of opening one's dormant mana channels." Based on the information he'd gathered, once he finished opening his mana channels, cultivated and formed a core, and honed his spiritual energy handling capability to a certain degree, he'd be able to make use of healing mana, and even other elemental energies!

"The best part about forming mana into a core is self-regeneration of energy." It was also a reason Nyx was so eager to press on with cultivating a core. Healing Spirit Stones weren't something the mines at Black Stone Mountain yielded—that much had been confirmed after speaking with the informants. He'd also, as a test run, intentionally cut his skin, and when he rubbed the wound with the stone, it healed within minutes. Minutes!

He had no intention of using these stones merely to heal his injuries—by forming a core with them, he'd have access to a consistent, self-generating spring of healing mana! After bathing and putting his clothes back on, he noticed a distinct scent, almost rosy, emanating from his skin. To be absolutely sure it was indeed coming from his skin, he sniffed his hands up close, and sure enough, it was indeed coming from his skin.

"A side effect of opening the mana channels with healing spirit stones," he murmured. It was something the archivist had warned him about—that if one used a certain type of mana to open their mana channels, those channels would become specially tuned to that mana. Other types of energies could still flow through them, but the channels would be especially efficient at conducting the type of mana used to pry them open.

Those who'd opened their channels with fire mana would gain resistance to fire and heat, their bodies running at a higher-than-normal temperature as a side effect. Those who'd used water, by contrast, would gain a natural resistance to cold, and their bodies would take on a glossier, well-moisturized quality.

"I believe their skin also tends to have higher-than-normal self-healing properties." Nyx heaved a sigh, and brought out the knife he'd previously bought to test the spirit stone's properties on his skin. This time, he again made a small incision, biting his lip to keep from yelping at the sting that followed. Then he went outside to check the sky.

"About four or so hours remaining before sunset." He boarded the Armoured Racer, and after several minutes, checked his wound again.

"It's gone." He ran his palm over where the cut used to be—smooth, just like before he'd made the incision. Nyx let out a breath, amazed at the changes his body had undergone simply from opening his mana channels.

"Wonder what would happen once I form the core itself." For now, he focused on the task at hand before night arrived, reopening his vehicle's status screen.

"It's about time I upgrade a few more of the vehicle parts to level three."