God Of Crafting

This short rest I mentioned turned out to be surprisingly… short.

'Is it because we cultivated with a different kind of energy, or what?' I thought, looking down at the inner palms of my hands.

I wasn't surprised—I was baffled by the effectiveness of the restorative power of this strange, unseen spiritual force compared to what I would expect from its normal, much more noticeable counterpart.

'That level of regeneration…' I thought, only to then gulp my spit down my throat.

"It's like what, a fifth stage? Or maybe even sixth?" I muttered to myself, still too engrossed with the strange output of my spirituality to pay attention to my words or voice.

And if there was one thing that my rapid advances in the past left me lacking, it was the experience of living as someone with a certain level of strength.

That's why I couldn't be happier to have Claire by my side, who, by the sheer time she spent cultivating since her earliest upbringing, could much better recall and thus compare the two sensations.

"It's definitely sixth stage at the very least," Claire didn't even hesitate as she confirmed my thoughts… only now making me realize that I'd somehow started speaking my thoughts out loud.

"Well, while that's a good thing and all…" I looked around the second level of Leila's garden. "It's clearly not a big deal for people here, I guess…?"

To a degree, this was a stretch.

Who was to say I didn't just make another massive breakthrough on par with the discovery that led me down the path of creating power so immense it developed a certain level of sentience, a will?

'Yeah, the chances of that happening,' nearly as soon as I got the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I managed to discover something entirely new, a wave of doubt washed over my brain, knocking some sense back into it.

"Actually, I don't really think that's the case," Claire muttered as she followed my example and looked around, only to then stand up and turn around on the spot. "I know what you are thinking, and I know what makes you doubt it," she stated with confidence as she suddenly grew all serious and even supported her chin with her arm, rubbing it as she went around in circles.

Now that our dual cultivation, which greatly reinforced our cultivation at its middling stages through intimacy, had evolved into something that kick-started the very first step of cultivation for both of us, its effectiveness was something else.

Earlier, it was limited to mostly just an ever-growing sense of familiarity. Now, I could literally sense her presence as if it was some sort of a newly gained passive ability of mine.

And with the ability to sense Claire's presence came the natural evolution of our minds also reaching the level of unity that distance could, at most, dull but never cut.

"The people born here aren't the same as those born on the other side of the border," Claire stated as she turned back to me, only to then plummet down, collapsing in a way that allowed her to push her knees away and sit cross-legged right down from her stand. "Most of them are born as true cultivators. In other words…"

Normally, I would still have to guess what Claire was getting at. But with our connection as it was…

"Ooh…" I moaned in surprise.

It was so… simple. So obvious and so right in everyone's face. But, at the same time, even though my circumstances made it easier for me to notice, they also made it harder for me to do so.

The people on this side of the border were born with a much higher cultivation starting point than those of the modern world.

This, while not a part of common sense, wasn't a secret either. Anyone who would try to find something like that out would do so before even taking the first sip of the coffee they would prepare for their research session.

And yet, the implications of this simple fact were quite interesting indeed, all the more for the two of us as we tried to figure out whether the effects this cultivation garden had on us were something Leila planned or not.

Those born as proper cultivators would never really think about redoing something they were born with. And just like hardly anyone would ever bother changing how they naturally move, the chances of those people actually going back to recultivate the entirety of the mortal stage despite being born as cultivators…

"That's… an interesting point," I admitted, already falling into my usual habit of taking my time thinking over stuff. Because now that Claire pointed this fact out to me, I just couldn't help but keep trying to find new ways in which this innate quality of the locals would affect how they perceive various things.

"So yeah, I don't think having us cultivate that… strange energy was, in any way, a part of Mom's idea."

"Then…" I squinted my eyes as I looked down at the floor before turning my eyes in the direction I expected the staircase to the higher floor to be. "What was the point of us being here, then?"

"Why ask me?" Claire shrugged her shoulders. "I'm as clueless as you are."

"Is that so," I raised my eyebrows a bit, only to then shake my head and stand up before offering my hand to help Claire up too.

"Yeah, it is so," Claire nodded her head, only to match the direction of my eyes and, after taking a moment, nod her head. "And yes, I think we should go and give the third floor a try. Even if we couldn't figure out what the first two floors were for, who is to say we won't catch on upstairs?"

Hearing this, I couldn't help but laugh a bit. I then reached out and wrapped my hand over Claire's back before resting my hand down on the indentation of her waist, pulling her into a casual side-hug.

"You really know me best, don't you?" I grinned, not even feeling the need to bring up how this was exactly the same line of reasoning that was already sprouting in my head.

"Who else could ever know you better than I do?" Claire smiled back, even going as far as to rest her head down on my shoulder… only to then pull me ahead, adding to our momentum as if allowing ourselves to approach the staircase casually would make one of us doubt the idea and stop us from executing it.

Yet, the fact that we wanted to go up didn't mean the designer of this weird garden would make it an easy task for us.

"Just what the hell is wrong with this place…" I muttered under my breath, struggling just to keep walking ahead, only to come face-to-face with yet another turn in the path leading between the vast yet perfectly well-maintained vegetation of the place.

In theory, we could just keep going in the same direction, directly through all of the plants in the way… but given how we both suddenly realized just how tiring it was to move through the garden, I didn't even want to imagine how much harder it would be to ignore the path and carelessly step off it.

"So the place by the stairs was a safe space of sorts, wasn't it?" Claire stated right as she grabbed me by my hand and then stopped me from taking another step.

"Hmm?" Turning around to check what was going on, I couldn't do much as Claire pulled me down to my knees while collapsing down herself.

"As hard as it was to notice, we didn't really struggle to move much at first, did we?" Claire asked.

"You mean back on the first floor?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"No," she shook her head. "I mean already on this floor, right when we decided to go search for the staircase up."

I lowered my eyes as I searched through my memories.

"M-maybe…?" I hesitated to give a decisive statement, given how I couldn't really pinpoint the moment at which just walking through this garden suddenly became a struggle.

"Then, what if…" Claire bit down on her lips as she mirrored my look and pinned her eyes down to the floor. "What if this is just as much of a test as climbing the stairs to this floor was?" Claire suggested as she raised her eyes and looked at my face. "Wouldn't it mean that as long as we just cultivate some more…"

I squinted my eyes a bit further.

It was an undeniable truth that taking a step now required much, MUCH more effort than it did back when we first departed from where the stairs from the first floor spat us out. But… maybe we didn't feel the same burden because we had already cultivated for a bit?

"That does make sense," I sighed as I admitted it, shaking my head and looking up. "I somehow also feel finding that weird, oppressive energy… I don't know if it's just me with how we can't even notice it, but…"

"Yeah," Claire smiled, knowing perfectly well when I simply wasn't sure enough about my theory to properly spell it out. "I think it's going to be easier to gather it here than it was at the floor's entrance."

I breathed out before smiling a little. Read new chapters at empire

"We ended up roughly midway through the third stage, didn't we?" I allowed my smile to grow a little bit wider. "So, what rank should we aim for with this session?"