Arc asked around the sect, and until he found someone who knew were the bear went
"It's been sitting by the inner disciple cafeteria, i heard someone is feeding it"
An inner disciple with short black hair spoke
"I see thank you"
Arc handed him 100 spirit stones for his troubles,
The inner disciple was overjoyed as he thought to himself
'Core disciples really are rich'
Arc headed for the inner discipled cafeteria as he thought to himself
'Hehe, i directly skipped becoming a inner disciple so this will be my first time going there'
Arc laughed at himself as he walked, after arriving all he could hear were to people arguing over who would keep the bear
Arc saw a man who had long red hair, he had extremely arrogant manner of speaking arguing with,
girl with short hair who just radiated 'rich and pampered' energy
Arc turned and saw bear seemingly watching with interest
Arc lightly spoke catching the bear's attention
"sorry i took so long, seems you've been busy"
"Yeah i don't even know how this started, after you left i smelled something good so i went to get something to eat, and while in line these 2 started arguing"
"I don't know what they are saying, but its funny to watch them"
"They are discussing which of them gets to own you"
The bear gasped, "how rude"
The arrogant man, hearing this conversation turned his head to tell Archean to mind his business until he saw the robes
'Shit, were we arguing over a core diciples pet'
The girl either didn't notice or care, as she spoke
"That bear is mine, and if either of you have a problem with it cry about it"
Arc laughed lightly, and translated to the bear as he walked away, the bear followed behind him, seemed annoyed, it turned back to look at her seemingly remembering her face
This action annoyed the girl, and she went to go find the someone to take the bear by force
Unfortunately, that person never came to help, what did come is her getting "grounded" by her master
as he found out from someone else what she was trying to do, and then she tried to lie to him to pin the blame on the arrogant looking disciple
As for that arrogant guy, he decided to into "closed cultivation" until the heat died down,
he would rather not be a enemy to a core disciple over something this small it just wasn't worth the risk
Arc explained to the bear that since they both cultivation the same system they should work together
The bear had no problem with this, as it was beaten by Arc, it was very curious of his source of power
"By the way, do you have a name? I forgot to ask"
"No, i haven't picked one yet, i'm still thinking about it, i haven't been a spirit beast long"
"Okay, let me know when you have finished picking a name"
The bear nodded and spoke
"By the way, where are we going?"
"A store, unlike you i didn't receive a memory inheritance, so i'm going to buy spirit beast technique's"
Arc said with a sigh and began thinking
'I've saved up 20,000 spirits stones, and at any moment I could go pick up some more at the bookstore,
but it would be a waste to treat them like a bank when i can wait until reach golden core
and have them take me to central continent,so let's hope this is enough to buy several techniques'
They descended the mountain and headed to the name bookstore Arc sold "his" book at, as they not only sold fictional books, but cultivation techniques, spells,and martial arts
"Hello sir, how are you doing today"
"Im great, i just wanted to know if you have spirit beast cultivation manuals?"
"Yes we have a wide variety of them" the store checked the jade 'computer system', before speaking again
"Yes we have a total of 134,564 spirit beast cultivation manuals available"
"I have 20 thousand spirit stone, i like to purchase as many earth element techniques i can afford"
"Yes you can purchase a total of 293 techniques, would you like physique copies or a jade copies, if you want physical you will have to wait a few days for us to print them out"
"I'll take the jade copies"
Arc's heart ached, he would've loved to add those books to his walls
The attended nodded seemingly understanding his pain, and handed him the jade, as Arc payed
After receiving the jade Arc headed back home with the bear
"We are heading to my house now, I'll ask Aurora where you can stay"
"Okay"
Once they made it to the first peak, Arc went into the house knocked on Aurora door and she opened
"Did you need something?"
"I was just going to ask, where should the bear stay;Can he stay on the first peak?"
"That's no problem, he can stay in the woods between the first peak and the second peak"
Aurora answer camly, before turning her attention back to her work
'Managing a sect isn't easy'
Arc thought to himself, as she and the other grand elder's seemed to alway be on the first peak working seemingly only stopping to cultivate, or teach their students to cultivate
Arc wanted to get stronger, so he could help Aurora, so after he told the bear where it would be staying, he immediately went into his room and began to read the jade copies
"Drake, bear, lion, moose, deer, all sorts of different beasts, let's find out which one is closests to me"
"Lets see this one looks promising, eh no, i don't have a tail"
"This one looks cool, nevermind it need wings"
Arc slowly read and broke down the techniques, he brought out the "perfected" layered photo of himself and began making drawing of each cultivation practice to see how it would affect his body
He did this for a few hours before stopping, he decided to take a break and draw,
pushing himself beyond his means so often would only cause problems
He must learn to balance work and breaks, and so he began to draw something to make him happy specially Aurora,
He found himself feeling much better,and continued to draw for the remainder of the day
'This brat'
Aurora felt her face warm, as she could sense very clearly someone "plotting" about her due to it being in the range of her senses,
and she could tell it was coming from Arc's room
"She is so beautiful, i could do this forever"
Arc felt peace in his soul, and it resonated within his body
Arc realized that painting was too a form of cultivation, and he had constantly been using it for such,
so now doing back to his normal paintings the quality was much higher than before
Aurora who was working suddenly felt what can only be described as a line of karma form,
she followed the line with her qi, and found that she could see through Arc's painting as if it were her own eyes
When Arc drew it, it was resonating with the soul, he who could understand the shape of the soul, drew the shape of her soul subconsciously or at least as well as he could see it
As for why Arc isn't able to do this when he took drew his soul, it's very simple, she is a golden core cultivator,
she is fundamentally a different type of being, as to cultivate is to evolve into a higher being
Once he gained that cultivation, he theoretically would be able to something similar
Arc looked at the painting and found that Aurora's head turned and faced him, his eyes went wide, as he spoke
"Did the painting just move!?"
The painting seemed to have enjoyed his reaction and laughed lightly, before speaking
"Come to my room and bring the painting"
Arc realized that Aurora was speaking through the painting, and grabbed it quickly before heading to the room with it
After arriving arc handed over the painting and Aurora started analyzing it,
then something magical happened her qi flowed into the painting at an alarming rate and a second Aurora appeared out of thin air
"This is incredible"
Arc spoke
" it's just as I thought, by giving the painting a "soul" it could take physical form, but since it's only a drawn copy of my soul, it can only act as a vessel for my soul"
The Aurora's looked at him as they spoke
" if you draw a new soul, you could theoretic give life to your paintings, but your realm will hold you back from such things"
The second Aurora, sat at the table and began to work, while the real Aurora spoke once more
" Now with an avatar, I can work more efficiently, is what I want to say, but the energy absorption is crazy"
" I can only maintain this for five minutes"
Aurora spoke bitterly, she finally got an avatar form but its not sustainable
"Okay…"
Arc was to say somewhat disappointed, he thought for a moment they could go out and have a real date leaving the clone to work
Aurora seemed to have noticed his mood and said something to cheer him up,
" How about we go to the forge in a few days and you can be my aid,
"i will forge a tool to help my breakthrough soon, you can help me"
Arc eyes lit up, and he spoke excitedly, "yes let's do that"
They spoke briefly and then the avatar disappeared into thin air, after that happened Aurora had to go back to work, and Arc left back to his studies
Arc found that while spirit beast cultivation manuals are cultivable to him they are not perfect, some parts of certain techquies work well, while other party's wouldn't be possible for him
So he began recording all those compatible parts from each technique, as well as marking which techniques contained the least amount of "inconveniences"
"Turtle techniques, specifically dragon turtle, is the most compatible to me, the main issue being i don't have a tail, you would think not having a shell would be a problem but since that's part of the spine, it would still work well"
Arc muttered out-loud as he researched
"Since the tail part correlates with the lower body, I could replace the tail portion of the dragon turtle, with the earth dragon lower body technique, that one was compatible to me"
Arc ponderd, creating a technique isn't a simple matter even with all the references he now has available
Arc once more took out the layered painting of his soul, and placed upon it another layer that represented the dragon turtle, earth dragon combination technique
Since it is a clear representation of his body this would be a good way to test it without having to actually do it
He followed the flow of energy with the painting to see any problem that could potentially form, such as energy trapped, or meridian paths incomplete
He found that the way the energy flows is remarkably similar to his own, while the direction of the energy couldn't be more different
This made his realize, that while his energy his almost identical to a spirit beast, his meridians are still linked in a human manner
Thankfully since he plans to take a physical route; the flow's direction doesn't matter,
especially since energy can flow freely through every cell in his body
Few people in the world have bodies this wired for energy manipulation or absorption
During this experiment though, he did find one issue between these techniques that can't quite be remedied,
the dragon turtle qi, and the earth dragon qi do not want to blend meaning his method of changing out parts of techniques will not be achieved
"This is way trickier than i thought"
Arc muttered out loud
Arc then began taking out his martial arts manuals and cultivation arts notes, Hoping to bridge the gap in the techniques
Then take those working parts and use them as the foundation to create a new technique suitable for himself
Arc began recording the information rapidly, He found that combining these techniques seemed to cause spirit qi and ki to blend together
Arc realized that that he wouldn't be able to "calculate" everything that quickly so he prepared to enter "closed cultivation", as taking the techniques apart would be a long process
Arc remained within his room for two months before exiting with his completed technique
After leaving he happened to run into Iris who told him everything that happened during his closed cultivation,
During that time period much happened in the sect; the first being the inner sect competition,
where a unknown newcomer won first place and was accepted as the student of the sect leader
That person was the brat of the Lavier family; he had also renounced his name changing it to wuji,
Those being the smaller matter, the larger being the sect known as devil crow valley, one of their elder's has reached nascet soul cultivation
Now they have three the most of any sect within the continent, this could completely shift the power balance, and so the atmosphere was tense
Arc didn't really feel to much stress though, after all whatever happened he is only at the qi cultivation realm
With that in mind Arc decided to head towards the library and greet the old man
The moment he walked in he saw the shift in the librarian's demeanor, as he spoke
"The flow of qi also feels different, this doesn't feel like a human technique. What happened fo you?"
"I have a weird physique that kind of forces me to use it"
Arc spoke bitterly
" it awakened when I broke through the qi condensation, and it's only been further amplified"
Arc and the librarian chatted randomly speaking all all what has been happening lately in their lives
The old man then brought up that the nascent soul party will soon be happening, and all the surrounding sect's have been invited
Aurora and the sect leader will be attending in the name of the black mountain sect,
while the grand elder, who is the only nascet soul cultivator currently in the sect would remain to guard it
As her "disciple", he would be expected to go with her, representing the black mountain sect
Hopefully it will just be a simple party and they're not gonna try to do anything stupid,
but if they are going to attempt to use the momentum to gain greater authority, then we will be in quite the pickle
This was something Arc was not yet aware him, making his realize that perhaps he underestimated how much of an impact this would have
Arc headed back up to the first peak directly to Aurora's room this time she was free
So they began chatting about the tool she will be forgining to help her breakthrough,
it was something similar to a metal cage with lightning rods
Its purpose wasn't to stop the lightning, but break it down, and make it easier to absorb
The lightning was incredibly dangerous and while most who challenge it try to weaken it,
There are endless benefits to those who were refine it at full power, as it increases your power, longevity and potential significantly
This is also the most difficult way to breakthrough but will cause Aurora to be significantly stronger than a normal nascent soul
The lightning isn't spirit qi, its real true lighting formed from world qi amplified significantly by spirit qi
This causes it to be dangerous to even lighting cultivators,
but this gives Aurora an advantage as few people has an understanding of world qi,
Arc was among these few, though he was definitely the weakest to understand world qi
Arc withheld no information, he shared everything he knew of world qi, the absorption and how the blends into spirit qi
He shared everything in hopes of something that could help her, due to his low strength, he was worried his understanding wouldn't be able to help her
This conversation continued until Iris arrived, Aurora decided to pause her conversation with Arc
She began explaining something to her students they didn't wait for mia, as she wouldn't even understand what was happening
Mia looked emotionless most the time due to one simple fact, she isn't thinking,
it's only when she starts to think that you see she is very hardworking, but also very stupid
" We will be heading to represent the Black mountain sect for the Nascent party, according to the information we have gathered, they will not directly attack, but they may attempt to bait us into attacking"
" from what it looks like they're going to try to hold a competition, in honor of the new Nascent soul cultivator"
"Mostly they will invite one of you to compete and they'll attempt to kill you, either I retaliate, leading to them to have an excuse to target our sect"
" Or I let them do whatever they want, essentially letting them believe we are pushovers, most likely would lead to them attacking our sect again"
Iris seemed worried as she spoke
"What can we do to prevent it"
Aurora then spoke confidently
"They can try but they will fall against Arc"
Arc shook his head before responding
" I'm not very good at fighting"
Iris once again felt a headache form, it seemed as if everyone around her enjoyed causing her stress
Aurora looked at Arc's confused face and spoke
"spirit beasts are stronger than same level cultivators, we use tools and weapons to reach a similar level to them"
"you chased down a spirit beast for weeks on end, while only be a qi condensation, the bear being a foundation establishment"
" essentially if anyone put you against a cultivator your same level, it would be difficult for them to cause any trouble"
" they have to still pretend like they're a good guy, so they won't pin you against someone with a higher realm that you,
"at most they will put you against a strong qi condenser, holding a powerful artifact or defensive gear"
Arc seemed worried as he spoke
" I chased the bear for weeks because I couldn't land a fatal blow, i'm not good at fighting, I need more experience"
"Thats simple then go grab your spear"
Aurora spoke calmly as a smile creeped onto her face
Iris recognizing that smile felt her hairs stand on end as she stuttered
" I-i-i think Arc can handle it from here, I'll be leaving"
She ran out leaving Arc without hesitation
Arc removed his spear from his storage ring, and before he could even react Aurora punched him
Arc's body flew through walls, and he landed somewhere in between the first peak and second peak,
The same forest the bear is living, though Arc had no time to realize that as Aurora never stopped her assault
Arc saw her wearing a large silver armor and wielding a large sword, it was just as long as Aurora was tall, if not longer
Iris seemed to have seen this coming and to prevent being included she decisively left
A green Aura surrounded her as she ruthlessly attacked Arc, leaving him no exits, he was forced to adapt or collapse
She does not take no for an answer, if he fell unable to fight, she would strike him with earth elements, knowing how weird his body is, allowing him to recover quickly
Naturally she wasn't using her full power, as she is a golden core body tempering cultivator, is infinitely close to her tribulation
Even the average nascent soul cultivator wouldn't want to taste the bite of her sword,
Arc began fighting back eventually and attempted to use formations, the barrier was broke, the illusions were ignored, and the isolation barrier only stopped her for less than a second
She actually felt annoyed it stopped her that long, so she struck him faster than he could react
The longer they fought the more surprised Aurora became, as no amount of pain would make Arc flinch or fall back, Most people who hate to fight typically are afraid of pain
Arc continued to fight, and his skill improved rapidly, since Arc has understanding of his soul and body, he only need to find the good habits to have in a fight, and directly implement them into his muscle memory,
Arc used Aurora as a template, they fought similarly, only difference being she welds a large sword, and he a spear
He slowly adjusted his habits, to better fit combate with a spear, and became more aggressive attempting to gain some ground
Neither Aurora or Arc were content with staying at the same level, they were always pushing forward
Aurora stuck him with the handle of her sword before kicking him, sending him flying through several trees
Arc felt pain all over his body he had no injuries as she forcibly imbued him with earth spirit qi his body automatically healed, leaving him with only the pain and no injuries
Arc gasped for air, as his grip over the spear tightened he struck forward attempting to cut of her advancing attack,
the attack didn't seem to faze her as she struck one more forcing Arc to collapse this time he was unable to get back up
While Arc has not taken any physical damage during this might, his mind and soul have been under pressure and stress, so he collapsed due to metal fatigue
Aurora finally ended her assault, she placed her sword within her spirit ring and she sat down next to Arc and spoke
"You did well, starting today until we head to their sect, we will fight like this until you are unable to stand"
Arc slowly caught his breath before attempting to stand, Aurora watched and if it seemed he would fall she would help he gain his balance
He managed to get on his feet without falling, he then took one step and fell, Aurora caught him, and as she looked down she found that he fell asleep in her arms.
The next day when Arc woke up he had a massive headache, and could barely see straight
"This sucks"
He spoke quietly as even his voice seemed to loud, Arc headed towards the kitchen to prepare some food, in hopes that it would make him feel better
He didn't feel like going through a complex process to cook a meal so he decided to go for a simple childhood favorite
Growing up as a kid one of his favorite meals was spaghetti and boiled eggs
After putting eggs to boil, and putting the pasta to boil he just waited, when they were done he rinsed the pasta with cold water, then removed the egg shells
He sliced the eggs up and mixed them into the spaghetti, and began eating it
Lately Arc has been feeling more nostalgic this wasn't a problem before, but since he knows that cultivator can and have traveled between various world he couldn't help but to think of his home
He has tried to distract himself, to tell himself to worry about that when he is stronger, but at those moments when he isnt working, or cultivating, he just feels disconnected
Eating food from his home and earth helped his spirits, but he could only hope that these feelings doesn't get in the way of his cultivation
He needed a way to vent this feeling or they would bubble until they caused a massive problem
Arc ate as he wondered what he would do next