9 Figuring things out

Kai thought about creating a manual and the menu opened up before his eyes.

==[Create manual]==

=[Base material [Grade 1 Vicious Rabbit] has been selected. This will cost [5 Qi] Would you like to proceed?]

"It costs 5 Qi?". Kai was surprised. This was the first time the system ever required Qi to create a manual. He wondered what the reason could be. Out of curiosity, he decided to accept. He had over 20 Qi at this point so he didn't feel too burdened by the cost.

The Hare's Carcass turned into little motes of light then started rotating in an odd pattern. The lights combined together and formed into a small booklet the size of his palm.

"Oh?, this is new. It's no longer a single page?"

This was the first time Kai had received a book. Most times he would only receive a rough looking paper that looked like an ancient parchment. However this time he got an entire booklet.

Kai picked it up and paged through it. It had three pages written in an indecipherable language. The cover had no special markings and felt rough to the touch. In essence, it looked and felt cheap. Kai thought of learning the contents and it turned into motes of light which flowed into his mind.

=[New Record entered]=

[Martial Arts Cultivation Manual]

>Unnamed Manual [F-Rank based on [Grade 1 Vicious Rabbit]

[Legends say that the great rabbit, Tu'er Ye made a single leap to the Moon Palace and was gifted Immortality by the Goddess of the Moon]

[Practitioners of this manual will gain the favor of the rabbit God, Tu'er Ye]

[Ability]: [Active; Foot work. Perform a short leap at unprecedented speed in any direction]

[Cost]: 1 Qi

[Cool-down]: 1 minute

"This is still considered an F-Rank manual? what the hell...this is by far the best martial arts manual I've seen". Kai looked at the information with glee. A few questions popped into his head like how fast "unprecedented speed" was , and how short "short" is, but he figured he would be able to test those out later.

The system was always vague with these descriptions so he had to actually test it himself.

Kai also didn't fail to notice the obvious downsides of the skill. It had a Qi cost which was painful for Kai, as well as a cool-down time. 1 minute was actually a very long time in a life and death fight. This would probably be a one time use skill so he would make it his trump card.

Kai was ready to replace "Twig" with this skill. Twig was good, but very limiting in that his movement was restricted. One second he would be perfectly balanced but if he moved his foot even an inch off the ground, the ability would stop functioning.

However, just as Kai was thinking this, he noticed that the system had not asked if he wanted to forget Twig to learn the new skill. Kai quickly opened his menu and was pleasantly surprised by what he saw.

>[Unnamed Manual recorded in host's 2nd Martial Arts Manual slot].

==[System Warning]==> [Martial Arts Manual slots are now full]

Kai accepted this happily. He decided to name it [Hare Leaps over Moon] based on the system's flavor text.

Afterwards, Kai decided to go through all the system messages to see what other notices he had missed. He quickly found the notice that had informed him that he gained an additional slot for having broken through to the First Level of Qi Condensation. He hadn't actually tried creating any new manuals since his breakthrough so he hadn't noticed it.

"I wonder if reaching the next cultivation level will unlock more slots."

Kai looked at the over a dozen rabbit carcasses lying on the ground. He desperately wanted to turn them all into manuals but he didn't have enough Qi. He also needed to save some Qi for any emergencies.

"Now that I think about it, what are the cultivation stages in this world?". The memories he got from this body weren't too helpful when it came to information about cultivators. From the perspective of a mortal in this world, cultivation is so rare and mystical that even at the lowest level would seem godly to them…"

Kai put those questions to the back of his mind as he had now learned to do with these hard to answer questions.

"I'll have to add that to my list of information to gather once I leave this place". Kai thought. For now, he knew that there are at least 12 Qi Condensation stages as that was the current limit of the Dragon Subduing Law. This was in line with the novels he had read, so after the Qi Condensation stage, would be the Foundational Establishment stage, followed by Core Formation stage and finally the Nascent Soul Stage.

"If I reach the 12th Qi Condensation stage, will I no longer be able to continue cultivating using the [Dragon Subduing Law]?"

As Kai was trying to figure things out, he worked quickly to gut and strip the rabbits. He piled the hides on one side of the room while the guts were thrown into the river. He cooked a portion of the meat and prepared the rest to be dried.

The efficiency at which his body converted food to nutrients had increased, so Kai already felt much healthier as he gained protein and started to build some lean muscle. Kai planned to dry the rest of the meat in the morning, but would keep it inside for now lest he attracted hungry predators.

Kai went to bed thinking about all the possibilities this world could offer him. All he needed to do now was be diligent and not do anything that would rush his death.

Over the next few days, Kai worked around a strict routine he had set for himself. In the mornings, he would gather water from the lake using water sacks he had created from rabbit stomach linings and firewood from the surroundings.

He would then go into the grass clearing to hunt as many rabbits as possible. The rabbits seemed to be violent and extremely territorial so they rarely traveled in packs. This made it easier for Kai to fight them, however it meant that he would have to search further out each day to find more.

During this time, he discovered smaller worm looking bug-beast that crawled underground, which is why he hadn't noticed them before. They were the length and thickness of a grown mans arm so calling them small was only relative to the massive 1 meter tall rabbits.

The bugs were likely the main food source of the rabbits seeing as there were no other living beings within within the 1Km range he had explored thus far. The worms were also harmless to Kai, but were hard to catch as they would always be underground eating the roots of the tall grass. He tried to absorb Qi from it which resulted in a failure.

He used [Qi Detection] on every bug he encountered, however none of them had any Qi within their bodies, which made Kai question why some beasts had Qi while others did not.

After a few days of rabbit hunting, Kai had gathered a sizable amount of rabbit hides, as well as piles upon piles of dried and preserved rabbit meat . He only did the bare minimum needed to get as much use out of the carcasses as possible without wasting too much time as his main goal was to gather Qi.

During this time, he had discovered that no monsters would stray close to his hut, or rather he felt it was more likely the river. Even when he had previously brought the rabbits here for some "swimming lessons", they would panic and become more violent the closer he got to the river.

He simply chalked this up as coincidence or the rabbits innate fear of water and ignored it.

During these days, Kai had also been experimenting with the system's [Create Manual] skill the results of which were varying degrees of successes and failures. Even after creating manuals non-stop for days, Kai had only received F-Rank manuals. He had to wait 2 hours between each creation however he still created over 30 manuals during the last few days by skipping sleep yet he still never got anything higher than F-Rank.

All the manuals had unique and interesting uses, however none were ever worth replacing anything he currently had.

Kai also noticed that all of the manuals he had been receiving were all [Martial Arts Manuals]. He hadn't received any Internal or Body Cultivation manuals since the first two, making him wonder just what the drop rates on those two were.The system only gave him the manual drop rates, but not what type of manual could drop.

There were three main types of cultivation manuals as the system explained.

[Internal Cultivation Manuals]; The best type that allowed the practitioners to contain and harness the powers of Qi in their body and extending their lifespans the stronger they become.

[Body Cultivation Manuals]; The only option for mortal practitioners to gain a powerful body. Internal cultivation practitioners will also learn body cultivation manuals so will always be more powerful.

Lastly, [Martial Arts Manuals]; these are techniques, skills and abilities that use either the body or Qi to achieve certain feats.

Internal and Body cultivation manuals were obviously the most powerful seeing as they could make permanent changes to his body, meaning he could switch to new cultivation or body techniques while keeping the results gained from the previous ones.

For normal cultivators, this would be a massive undertaking as the longer they were on a specific path, the more difficult and dangerous it would be to try to switch to another, however this did not apply to Kai. He instinctively knew that the changes made to his body were permanent and he could switch to new system manual to continue where he left off, making his potential quite terrifying. All he would forget were the details around the forgotten manuals but the results would be kept.

Compare to that however, the system's [Martial Arts manual] left a lot to be desired. He could gain powerful passive or active skills. However if a better one came along, he would completely lose the ability he was replacing.

Kai now had [Twig] and [Hare leaps over Moon] as his martial arts manuals. He felt that these two were good based on his current needs, so he was hesitant to actually change them. Twig especially was proving to be more useful. Seeing the odd ways in which he could bend and shift his body parts without losing his balance intrigued him, and was quickly becoming his go to skill, despite the obvious flaws. Without this ability, he would probably have gotten hurt a lot more, and maybe even died...

As for [Hare leaps over Moon]. The cool-down was long and it had a high Qi cost, however the results were completely worth it.

Kai had tested the skill and found that he could catch up to a hare's pace, meaning he didn't have to wait for them to attack him first. In that blink of an eye, Kai was able to leap right into their faces and crush their skulls with one Qi empowered punch.

He could only move within a 6 meter radius of his starting point ,and was essentially a one time use skill as enemies would become weary after he used it, however anything within the leap radius was in his kill zone.

On his seventh evening in the hut, Kai sat cross legged in the middle of the Cabin watching his small fire crackle. He took a deep breath and willed his status...

==[Status]>

[Name]: Kai (No Last name)

[Age]: 14 [Life expectancy = 32 years]

[Internal Cultivation level]: First Level of Qi Condensation

[Body Grade]: Mortal Grade 2

[Health]: 40/40

[Qi]: 100/100

[Qi Gather rate]: 1 Qi/day

[Status]: Healthy

==[Stats]==

[External Strength]: 6+(0)

[External Defense]: 13+(4)

[Internal Strength]: 2+(0)

[Internal Defense]: 1+(0)

==[Equipment]==

Headpiece = Old Fisherman's hat (Grade 1: External Defense 1)

Necklace = Old Fisherman's Cloak (Grade 1: External Defense 1)

Body = Old Course Cloth Outfit (Grade 1: External Defense 2)

Feet = None

Ring = None

==[Cultivation manual]==

[Internal Cultivation Manuals]

>[Dragon Subduing Law] [F-Rank based on Grade 1 Fishing Rod]

[Limit]: Qi Condensation level 12

[Qi Gather rate]: 1/ day

[Ability]; Absorb Qi from a beast you have caught yourself. Limited to 2 Qi per beast. Limit increased based on cultivation level.

[Current level]: Level 1

[Qi Breakthrough Requirement]: 100/100 Qi (Second Level of Qi Condensation Available)

[Body Cultivation Manual]

>[10,000 year immortal Summit Law] [F-Rank based on Grade 1 Rock]

[Martial Arts Cultivation Manual]

>[Twig] [F-Rank based on Grade 1 Twig]

[Ability]: [Passive; Foot work. Slightly increase balance when standing still]

>[Hare Leaps over Moon] [F-Rank based on Grade 1 Vicious Rabbit]

[Ability]: [Active; Foot work.Perform a short leap at unprecedented speed in any direction]

[Cost] 1 Qi

[Cool down] 1 minute

A smile full of pride appeared on Kai's face. In just a week, he felt like a completely new person and was now ready to make the next breakthrough.