Chapter 21- Cultivation Levels

Maxwell used the map to find his way to the entrance to the inner sect. The only entrance was a small archway that was guarded by a formation. Maxwell could only enter it using his token that proved he was an Inner Disciple.

He found himself in front of a small building that had a sign on it.

"Manager of Inner Sect." Maxwell read out the sign to himself.

'I guess I should go there first.'

*Knock, knock*

"Hello! Anyone there?" Maxwell knocked on the old wooden door that was closed.

"Come in." A grumpy voice that belonged to someone whose sleep had been clearly disturbed spoke from the inside.

The door creaked open, and Maxwell entered the room. It was a small room with a counter and on the other side of the counter there was a wooden chair where a sleepy old man with ruffled hair sat.

"So, what do you want?"

"I'm a new inner disciple and I came here to collect my uniform."

"A new inner disciple?" He was confused for a second before realization flash across his face.

"Oh, so you're the winner of the Grand Test in the capital."

He removed a folded set of uniform from below the counter. It was a green uniform with silver cloth lining the edges. It would be lined with gold if he was a core disciple.

Maxwell picked it up and stored it.

"Okay, go now, let me sleep." He rudely shooed Maxwell away before resting his head against the counter and dozing off.

'Oh, he's sound asleep immediately. What a pity, I can't ask him anything.'

Maxwell turned around and left quietly. He headed straight to his designated residence.

'My room is number 341. 341… no, not there.'

His eyes rested upon a walled area filled with dead plants. The plate outside said it was room 341.

'Oh, there it is. I won't be resting early today with how terrible it looks.'

Maxwell pushed open the metal gate and walked in. He saw dead grass and plants, all withered up. The ground was cracked. His room was medium sized. It had a small bathroom with an adequately sized bath. The inside was clean because of formations, but the porch had a layer of dust on it along with leaves.

'I guess I have to clean this the normal way since I can't use wind qi or water qi.'

Maxwell found a roughly made broomstick tucked away in the corner of the residence. He took a good hour to sweep everything, from the porch to the pathway. He piled the leaves up in a small area of a flower bed and destroyed it with his qi.

"Phew, that's all done. Now I can take a nice rest after laying some basic formations. The rest can be done tomorrow."

Maxwell stretched his back before heading inside to take a nice rest. Little did he know what was going on in the small town inside the sect.

"According to my little bro, there's a new inner disciple who has space affinity."

"Oh? He got good news; we need to bring him to our faction. With him, our faction can become number 1 in the inner sect."

"He won't come easily, especially if he's the arrogant kind. We need to offer him something."

"Of course, once we get him to our faction, we can make fortunes using his space qi."

"Won't we need techniques to craft spatial rings?"

"That's the easy part, there's nobody who can use space qi so there are many available in market with no demand."

They laughed themselves away, confident they would pull Maxwell to their side.

They were not the only ones, countless other factions planned to bring him to their side, yet none of them actually knew how much he would be wanted.

Maxwell woke up to a lot of noise outside.

"Ugh, what's the commotion outside?"

He fixed his clothes slightly and walked outside to check what was happening.

'What the…'

He found himself facing hundreds of inner disciples waiting outside the gate for him. They immediately piled on him.

"Join our faction we will give you-" The source of the voice was pushed out of the way and interrupted by someone else.

"Don't listen to him."

Soon there were so many people speaking that Maxwell couldn't understand anything. He hadn't said a word till then.

"Okay, Okay. Everyone calm down." He spoke with qi enhancing his powerful voice.

"I won't be joining any faction; I prefer being alone." He added.

His words disappointed and angered scores of eager faction leaders that were trying to get him to their side. The crowd quickly dispelled, with only a few stragglers remaining behind.

A red-haired teenager, around 16 years old approached Maxwell.

He stopped in front of Maxwell and was fidgeting with his hand. "Can I purchase a spatial ring from you?"

It was a weird sight, with the significantly taller boy looking at Maxwell nervously.

"Huh, sure. You can buy this ring, it's Magic ranked, low grade." Maxwell brought out a silver ring and spun it around with his fingers.

"How is 5000 Earth Grade Spirit Stones?"

Maxwell didn't answer as he was thinking about the price.

"Is that not enough? How about 6000?"

"That's enough, here." Maxwell tossed the spatial ring to him.

He caught it in his hand and then gave Maxwell a Spirit Stone bag, containing the 6000 Earth Grade Spirit Stones.

"Thank you."

Maxwell went back inside and changed into his uniform. It was rather loose, but he would soon grow into it. He then rushed towards the outer sect for the classes he was forced to attend. He ran straight to where he was supposed to be.

'Phew, I'm in time.'

He entered the room right on time. There were round cushions for everyone to sit on and he took one of the remaining empty ones in the middle row

Soon after, the elder arrived who oversaw teaching them basics. He had dark brown hair with traces of white hair. He looked disinterested and bored.

"I will be teaching you the basics about the world of cultivation. Even If you think you know it you still must listen."

His voice was emotionless, as if he was reading something off a script.

"The cultivation stages are Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Soul Transformation, Martial Grandmaster, Martial King and then Martial Emperor. As for the higher stages, you don't need to know them.

"I'm a Martial Grandmaster, the Inner Court Elders are Martial Kings, and the sect leader is a Martial Emperor. The current emperor of Azure Dragon Kingdom is also a Martial Emperor.

"In Qi Condensation realm, qi is collected into the dantian and then used to expand and strengthen the dantian, like all other realms, there are 10 stages.

"Foundation Establishment has 10 stages but legends say it goes all the way till stage 20. The highest I've seen is stage 12. In the first 10 stages qi is used to unblock the meridians and expel the impurities. As for the later stages there are no solid facts about them, some say you develop a spiritual sense if you break through. This is the most important stage, you have to be careful when breaking through. Any one mistake can affect your future cultivation, or it can even disable you."

He emphasised on this point as everyone there were in Foundation Establishment Realm.

'Orphelia's already in stage 12, she should easily get to stage 13. I should reach stage 20 if I want to win the bet.'

Maxwell got distracted by his thoughts and his attention was no more in the class.

"You there, pay attention. Don't think you that you don't need to pay attention just cause you're in the inner sect already. Now tell me how does someone breakthrough in core formation realm."

"The qi in our dantian has to be purified and refined to extreme purity and then stored in the core, every breakthrough fills a portion of the core. The pure qi is too pure for our body to handle."

"That's correct."

He seemed slightly annoyed that he couldn't make an example of Maxwell but continued. He gave details of how one breaks through to soul transformation realm and stopped there. He then started talking about affinities and Weapon Intents.

"Every cultivator is born with spiritual roots that decides their affinities. Affinities are divided in Low, medium and high grade. They affinities decide the highest rank of the element you can cultivate to. Low is rank 2, medium is rank 5, high is rank 7. Nobody in history has reached higher than rank 5 in our world.

"Now, about weapon intents. These are very hard to develop, but they are the strongest trump cards against cultivators of higher levels. You can develop weapon intent through self-comprehension with training or from traces left by someone else using the weapon intent. Of course, you can even get some Spiritual herbs that help in comprehension. No weapon intent is the same, but they are always similar to the weapon they are shaped using. Sword Intent would be sharp and thin. Spear Intent would have a high piercing strength and range along with size.

"Weapon Intent is divided into multiple levels, we don't even know the names for the higher stages due to the intent contained in the words. A strong person might even be able to kill someone just by uttering the name of the intent. The first 3 levels are essence, embryo, and heart with each of them divided into beginner, middle, peak, and mastery stages."