Chapter 1 - Leyvi

"Huff huff.." A man was panting from tiredness as he dragged his bag to his small house in the middle of the night.

After he entered his house and locked it, he was finally able to relax and take a few moments to breathe properly.

The man is Leyvi. He just finished completing a mission for his cultivation sect, Mountain Dew Sect. The sect was located in a mountain range that contained a big mountain and a few smaller ones.

Leyvi was accepted into the sect when he was 12 years old and has been cultivating for 8 years now, achieving the middle stage of the Qi Refinement realm. For a cultivator, this cultivation speed is considered quite average.

"I might need another ten years to reach the late stage of the Qi Refinement realm. Sigh, with just a middle-grade spirit root, I can't even imagine how long it will take to reach the Foundation Building realm." Leyvi complained to himself. "Forget it, at least I'm not the slowest. There are more people slower than me. A cultivator with low-grade spirit root might not even be able to build their foundation for their entire life without any chance encounter."

After the daily complaining to himself, Leyvi cheered up again as usual and immediately grabbed his bag and started to check his harvest from his mission this time.

Leyvi took out a few kinds of spirit herbs from his bag. These are all wild spirit herbs needed by the alchemist of the sect to concoct Qi-refining pills. Although there are spirit herb farms in the sect, it takes time to grow them and the quantity is not enough for every disciple of the sect. Therefore, a lot of outer sect disciples needed to find spirit herbs in the big mountains for contribution points.

Leyvi usually picked this mission because it was relatively safer than another type of missions, such as hunting for a demonic beast. Demonic beasts are animals that are capable of absorbing Qi and their physical strength becomes greatly increased. Sometimes, there are also demonic beasts that can learn unique abilities related to their kind and become even more dangerous.

Leyvi participated in a hunting mission a few times and got injured every time. His combat ability was just as average as his cultivation speed. Therefore, Leyvi decided to get the mission to collect spirit herbs now because it is safer, and he could just run away if he met a demonic beast on a rare occasion just like what happened today.

"I'll submit the spirit herb tomorrow and exchange for a bottle of low-grade Qi refining pill." Leyvi put back all the spirit herbs in the bag and walked toward his bed. 

Suddenly, there was a faint glow coming from Leyvi's bag. One of the spirit herbs started to change shape and turn into a glowing bead. It shoots out from the bag and goes straight into Leyvi's head.

"Argh!!.." Leyvi let out a short scream and immediately fainted in the direction of his bed.

The glowing bead inside Leyvi's head became dimmer and dimmer until no more glow could be seen after a while.

The next morning, Leyvi woke up with a headache and wondered what had happened last night. He touched the back of his head and then his hands went all over his body to check if something was wrong, but he could not figure out anything wrong at all.

"That's weird, clearly someone or something hit me at the back of my head last night, but I'm not injured at all. Nothing happened to me. Is it just my dream?". Leyvi was confused.

Leyvi picked up his bag and was relieved that his spirit herbs were still there. "Thank god the spirit herbs are still here, I thought someone robbed me. Huh? Where is one more spirit herb? I counted 56 last night. Now it is only 55 spirit herbs." Leyvi became more confused.

"Is the robber stupid or something? Only took a single spirit herb? That doesn't make sense." Leyvi looked around his house and noticed nothing unusual. The house protection array is still intact, meaning that nobody broke into the house forcefully.

"Maybe I just miscounted the spirit herbs last night because I am too tired. Yeah, that must be why". Leyvi then went to the bathroom and took a shower. All the houses in the sect were equipped with basic living necessities such as a bathroom, toilet, kitchen, bed, and simple protection array to protect the inhabitant. 

After showering, Leyvi went to the kitchen to cook a simple food to eat. Although he is a cultivator, he still needs to eat, poop, and pee like a normal person. The only difference is the frequency of these needs. The higher his cultivation becomes, the less the need to eat and drink because cultivator can replenish their energy by just cultivating.

However, he is still just a middle stage Qi Refinement realm, so he needs to eat. Only the Foundation Building cultivator and the above realm can go without any food for a longer period. It is said that a Nascent Soul realm cultivator can even live without a body!

Knock knock!

Leyvi suddenly heard the familiar sound of someone knocking on his door. He already guessed who had come to his house and immediately went to open the door.

"Leyvi!! Are you alright?"

"Ah, panda girl, you are here. Come in. I'm fine"

The lady who Leyvi called Panda Girl was his childhood friend Anda. She was the same age as him, and they were together from an orphanage in a village south of the Mountain Dew sect. She has a long black hair and a good figure. Anda was accepted into the sect together with Leyvi as she similarly has a middle-grade spirit root and her cultivation has also reached the middle stage of the Qi Refinement realm.

"That's good. I came last night too to check on you, but you already slept." Said Anda while entering the house.

Anda did not care that Leyvi called her panda girl because he was close to her, but if it was someone else, she would be very upset. The reason was that she was born with a birthmark around her left eye, making her look like a panda. If people look at her from one side, they would consider her quite a beauty. However, when they looked at her from the other side, only panda came up in their thought.

Because of this, Anda did not have many friends in the sect. She only has a few female friends, and Leyvi is the only male friend she has. She knew this was because of her birthmark. No other male would approach her due to her ugly panda eye.

Only Leyvi didn't see her as ugly because he had been with her since a kid. She looked normal to him, and sometimes a bit cute.

"You didn't get injured right last night?" Asked Anda.

"I'm fine. I got chased by a demonic boar, but I managed to get away. It was so exhausting though. It kept chasing me until near the sect gate." Replied Leyvi.

"How many spirit herbs did you collect this time? Last time, you got 41 spirit herbs, right?" 

"I got 56 spirit herbs this time, uh no, 55 this time I miscount because I was too tired last night."

"Wow! That's a lot more than last time. You were quite lucky this time, well, if you didn't count the demonic boar. Hehe." Anda laughed. She was happy for Leyvi.

"Well, this is all I can do. My spirit root is attributeless, so I can't refine pills like you, Alchemist Panda! Must be nice having a fire spirit root." Leyvi said to Anda, sounding a bit jealous.

Spirit roots usually come with their designated elements such as fire, water, earth, metal, and wood. Cultivator with fire spirit roots are considered lucky because they have more options for their cultivation. They can fight with fire elemental skills which is very destructive, they can become an alchemist easier than other spirit root cultivators, and they can also become a blacksmith.

Leyvi's spirit root is attributeless, which is quite rare, but since he does not have an affinity toward any element, his options as a cultivator are very limited. For now, he can only find wild spirit herbs in the mountains around the sect.

That said, it does not mean that having an attributeless spirit root does not give any benefit. When breaking through the foundation-building stage, Leyvi will have an easier time breaking through because he does not need to convert his Qi to the respective element.

When cultivating and breaking through, it is better for a cultivator to be near the element of their spirit root because it will increase the efficiency of circulating, condensing, and converting Qi in their dantian. The dantian is the region in the body where a cultivator stores and accumulates spiritual energy or Qi.

For Leyvi, he does not need any of these so he just cultivated at home all the time, while other people need to cultivate near their affinity element if they want to cultivate faster.

"Hmph, why are you still complaining about that? It is already considered very lucky for us to have spirit root in the first place. When the sect came to our village and many other villages in the region 8 years ago, only four people had spirit roots. The other two only have low-grade spirit roots, do you remember? And who are you calling Alchemist Panda, huh??" Anda retorted at the complaining Leyvi then extended her hand and lightly twisted Leyvi's left ear.

The moment Anda touched Leyvi, he immediately blanked, and his consciousness arrived somewhere.

[Anda has a good relationship with the host]

[Her feeling points towards the host is 85/100]

[Pick a talent from the talent list and give her?]

"HUH!?" Leyvi's eyes widened.