24 Dual cultivation

Chapter 24

There are four cosmic powers. Powers that follow the set of rules according to their creation.

Life, death, time and fate.

Life is beautiful but rare. A life may be born tomorrow. A life may not be born tomorrow.

Time is an aspect of a straight line. It's like a stiff person with something stuck up their a.s.s. Time moves in only one direction. Forward.

Of course, there have been many who tried to mess with time but time always straightened itself no matter what.

Then there is fate. Nature can also be called the same. These are a few sets of laws that cannot be broken such as people can't breathe without air or gravity acts as a limit to people. If it is this world, then without mana, you can't use skills.

Punishment for breaking these laws is violent. Such as if you force yourself to use a skill even though you have no mana left, then you will end up using something that is non regain able, such as soul power or life force.

Death. The final power. The most powerful one. Of course all the other powers are strong in their own way but death is the strongest because it is absolute. Death cannot be avoided.

It will come and it will come at all cost.

Anyway, that is enough for an intro. The main agenda is how it affects me. I am born of death. I am literally a spawn of death. Yep, my father's death. Well, technically half death but let's not go into that.

It would make sense if I grow strong using death energy as I am compatible with it. However, during my rebellious phase, I researched into life to defy my father.

It was painful. Very painful but I was able to do it tenaciously despite dying millions of times. Perks of immortality.

Anyway, it took about a thousand year but I was able to properly wield life energy like I could wield death. It took another thousand years to make them coexist.

Right now, I was doing the same. I can't use mana or any other power but that doesn't mean that I can't use any at all. I could always begin with death from the beginning but I wanted to wait until my body was strong enough to store two threads of energies inside me. Life and death.

As I would grow stronger, of course these hair thin threads would also grow with me and at some point, they would become small balls.

These beads or balls shouldn't be underestimated. They are enough to snuff out worlds in instants. Of course, in nature I am not them so it will be very difficult to do so.

The other thing was dual cultivation. Unlike many novels, in which dual cultivation is something very fun, in reality, it isn't.

Dual cultivation means the cultivation of dual elements. Many aspects depend on it such as talent and compatibility.

This requirement is necessary for me because if I don't use this, I won't be able to practice life. But did it have to be at this point?

Well, that is because integration is the easiest at this point. I'm not only trying to store them in my body but also using them to integrate them with my body. It's painful. Of course it is.

But so is the pain of the penta enhancement array. Basically what the penta enhancement array does is rip my body apart and rebuild it at the same time and since this stage focuses mainly on vessels, this part is the hardest and most painful.

What's a little more pain added to that, right?

Yeah, Right!

I'm in so much pain that if I wasn't who I was, my mind would have exploded eight days ago.

[And only four more times left]

'Thanks the fu*k very fu*king much for fu*king reminding me of that fu*k.'

[That's a lot of fu*k]

'That is all I have right now.' I replied but didn't move from my spot. Despite overflowing with power, I was extremely exhausted. Weird. But my body wasn't moving at all.

'Show me my new skills.' I asked Allison to show them to me.

[Decay LV: 1]

[Shadow verse LV: 1]

[Regeneration(Low) LV: 1]

Only one skill from the life side. Makes sense though since I already have many skills from the branch of life.

Light and divinity are the most known branches of life. And I already have four skills from them. Another one would make it five.

Similarly, shadow, curse, and necromancy are the most known branches of death. There were many more but these were the most practiced.

From curse I got decay and from shadow, I got the other one. I didn't gain any from necromancy it seems. Maybe at higher levels.

Unfortunately, element integration has no effect on stats. Even if I cultivate them for eternity, not a one-point increase in stats would happen. Skill gain. That was the only thing that would happen.

And cultivating them is necessary because if I don't do that, then the skills that I have gained from the elements, I won't be able to level them up. However, the skills offered by them were the most useful.

They may not be much right now, but in the long run, just these skills would make me the greatest threat to this world.

But none of them compare to the next benefit. The benefit that is very good for a doctor like me.

As I said, I'm a spawn of death and death grows stronger the more people die. For me, however, I have to kill others myself to grow stronger hence the leveling system.

Even if there had been no system, I still would have grown stronger by killing.

But now that I have integrated life with myself, I will also gain Exp through that. However, in this case, I won't gain high Exp according to the higher-ranked person I save so leveling through this is a gamble. Sometimes I win big, sometimes I win small. I win always nonetheless.

Life doesn't grow stronger by making more. No. Although that would have been fun, it would have been too easy with my face and techniques.

No. Life becomes stronger the more people I save. Save them from death. Save them from a crisis. Save them from hardship. 

I mean, making Rose's life better would also count as saving it. In other words, doing good deeds. And who other than me is the most benevolent person?

There would have been a side effect if I didn't have death as well. As I said, everything has rules. Rules say, if you are kind, then only be kind. If you are cruel, you will receive a penalty.

So if I save lives but also take them, then there would be a penalty. Using both of them is to cancel out each other's penalty.

A perfect strategy for strengths of all and weaknesses of none.

Now moving on to the next step.

'Show me my stat increase.' I asked Allison to show the effect of the penta enhancement array next.

[STR: 151

AGI: 151]

My strength had reached the beginning stats of C rank. My strength and agility are at C-.

'What will be its limit?' I asked. Integration would take about six months so my stats would still increase.

[Half]

This means that my strength would reach the beginning of the B rank in six months. It is quite marvelous. And I will grow stronger so it was safe to say that just in a year, I would be entering the A ranks if all goes well.

But growing stronger after that would be difficult. Maybe not now but maybe in two years, increasing my level by one would be difficult. Soon I would require Exp in billions to level up if I'm lucky.

Penta enhancement array would be useful then but even that has its limits. So reaching divine rank or beyond that would take a lot of time. I still believe it would take five years.

[If you are not serious about it]

'There is no reason to be serious about it.' I replied. There wasn't. I didn't know why I was here. What was the reason for me being here? Was it to defeat the demon king? I doubt it. He will be easily defeated by me.

In other words, too easy of a challenge. I was here for something else but even until now, I wasn't told the reason nor was I even given a clue for that.

[You will know soon]

'By when?' I asked. To which she replied.

[By the end of the first year.]

The end of the first year? Only one thing rings the bell. The final test of the first years. The test that almost everyone fails except for the main cast, supporting characters, and major villains.

I won't get an answer of confirmation from Allison anyway so I will find out about it in one and a half years.

======

I stood up after a few hours, refreshed and naked. Of course naked. Everything that was in the bubble had turned to nothingness.

And that was why I now had a one-legged bed and many pieces of furniture of mine were missing half of their bodies.

I deactivated the bubble and the shield disappeared. The item also disappeared along with it. My concern wasn't that someone might attack me while I was in there.

My concern was to keep what was happening inside, inside. My screams, view and everything else were white and blocked from view.

Before heading to the dresser, I checked myself in the mirror to see the most handsome man, staring back at me. The second most. The first spot belonged to the real me.

The next thing I noticed was the excitement. At least I'm not lacking in that department. And the last one was my hair and eye color.

My hair and eyes were both white. Although my natural color was black hair and black eyes, no matter in which fragment I went, my hair and eye color would change as soon as I would integrate life energy with me.

Death energy seems to never have any effect on my looks. My charm hadn't increased but I definitely thought that I looked good.

I entered the bathroom next and took a long hot bath. After that, I dressed myself and buried my pitching tent in a tight layer of clothes, and opened the door of my bedroom to the reception room of my chambers only to see two very anxious people parading in the room.

They both turned to look at me at the sound of the door opening and exclaimed, "Your High_" but stopped midway when they saw my looks.

[Your party member Rose is now level 179]

[Your party member Maximillian Specter is now level 126]

I was happy to see that they weren't slacking off during my absence. Rose had entered the middle rank of C whereas Maximilian was also in the middle of the D rank.

Rose's talent was terrifying indeed. This growth was almost at the same level as me.

"What? Never seen someone so handsome before?" My question brought both of them out of their surprise.

"Your Highness, your…." Rose began speaking while gesturing towards my hair.

"What? Don't tell me it doesn't look good." I asked with my eyebrow raised. She hurriedly shook her head in panic and said, "You look amazing, your Highness."

In her hurry she had forgotten what she was saying so when she realized, her face turned a shade of red.

"Haha." I laughed slightly in response but that also helped them both to remember the real reason for their anxiousness.

"Your Highness, you are cutting it very close. Head elder's birthday ceremony is about to begin!" Max exclaimed and said loudly.

I didn't panic though. I didn't want to attend in the first place but if I have to, then I must dress properly and there was nothing in Adrian's closet for that.

Luckily, in the shop there was.

[Hartman's suit]

[Cost 100000]

It was expensive. But you can't put a price on beauty and elegance.

'Buy it.' The suit was bought and put in inventory. I equipped it directly from the inventory and my clothes changed in front of both my viewers.

Aside from their jaw-dropping at how I had done that, they were also blown away by how I looked.

"Let's go and dominate this party now," I said as we left my room.

=====

I wonder how many would be disappointed after reading the title and the chapter.