East Meet West

113- Peak of Awakening Stage

I took a look inside my ‘Sea of consciousness’.

“Hmm... not bad...not bad. The size of my current [Sea of consciousness] is at least 4-5 times bigger than when compared to a few years ago.“

At the center of ‘Sea of consciousness’, there was ‘Thousand-Petaled Lotus’.

The importance of the ‘Thousand-Petaled Lotus’ is that it acts as a connection between the soul of an individual and the ‘Sea of consciousness’. Also, the ‘Thousand-Petaled Lotus’ produces the ‘Soul nourishing dew’ that is extremely beneficial for the soul. The ‘Soul nourishing dew’ as its name implies, is an elixir that nourishes and makes the soul stronger. It is said, in the later stages of the cultivation, cultivating a strong soul is an important thing.

I checked the ‘Thousand-Petaled Lotus’ for few moments to check if everything is alright, and after checking it properly, I withdrew my consciousness and opened my eyes.

Surprisingly, my ‘Sense’ and ‘intelligence’ stats also increased after reaching the peak of the Awakening stage.

Actually, this was already within my expectations. I had a hypothesis that when I start cultivating, there should be some changes in my stats and the system’s notification has proved my hypothesis correct.

So, I opened the status window

.

Name: Orochi

Race: Human

Rank: G

Level: 46/100

Exp: 3650/4600

Title: Chef (Apprentice)

Condition: Poisoned, Bound by ‘Vishwa Saakshi’ Oath.

Stats: (Available Free Stats Points: 5365)

HP: 53012/54480 MP:5307/5805

Strength: 725

Agility: 725

Defense: 640

Resistance: 128

Sense: 640 [24]

Stamina: 640 ------ Fatigue: 70/8200

Intelligence: 332 [19]

Charm: 25 (can be increased with Free Stats Points, but won’t increase when leveling up)

Vitality: 7 (cannot be increased with Free Stats Points)

Luck: 8 (cannot be increased with Free Stats Points)

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Skills: Observation Level 7, Physical Enhancement and Modification (Level 3), Axe Slash (level 4), knife handling (Level 4).

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Jobs: Thief, Blacksmith (Level 1), Swordsmanship (Level 6), Spearman (Level 4), Martial Artist (Level 6), Archer (Level 4).

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.

“Oh...Look at that. In the ‘Sense’ and ‘intelligence’ stats, there are certain numbers within square brackets. Do the square brackets represent the stats (Improvement in my body) gained through cultivation? Well, not bad, it would be helpful for me to measure how many stats each cultivation level will have. It could provide me with valuable information. Also, it would show me the difference between system stats and cultivation stats. Good thing.”

I thought inwardly.

.

For a whole year, I have been exchanging MP for ‘Free stat points’, and more than 6000 ‘Free stat points’ have been generated from the exchange.

And I felt that increasing the ‘Sense’ stat should be the most logical and important thing that I should do because previously, I used to recover 1 MP per 25 seconds (which should have been 15 seconds but due to devils breathe, there it got increased to 25 seconds) and according to that speed, I used to generate about 6000 Mp in a single day. So, I thought if I increase the ‘Sense’ stat, then surely the MP recovery rate should increase and the MP recovery time should decrease.

And just as I thought after the ‘Sense’ stat crossed the 500 mark, the ‘Sense and MP’ hidden ability got upgraded and the system notification was like,

‘MP recovery time has decreased from 15 seconds to 5 seconds. But since the host is still affected by the poison, the host will recover 1 MP per 10 seconds.’

And due to a decrease in recovery time, the amount of MP that was generated every day was more than 13,000. And the number of times that I exchanged MP for ‘Free stat points’ increased. But I did not waste the complete 13000 MP generated for exchanging with ‘Free stat points’.

Every day, I kept on using skills like ‘Observation’, ‘Stealth’, ‘Sprint’, and other skills. And these skills required MP for activation. And as I was using these skills regularly; the skills have also Leveled up.

So, every day I exchanged about 6000-7000 MP with the system and got about 30-36 ‘Free stat points’. And the remaining MP was used by the skills.

[Author’s recap: In previous chapters, I have mentioned that 10% of MP can be exchanged for getting 1-3 ‘Free stat points’. So, the MP limit was around 4800, and 10% is 480 MP for getting 1-3 ‘Free stat points’.]

I hoped to upgrade the ‘Sense and MP’ hidden ability once again by increasing the ‘Sense’ stat but, once again the system issued a warning:

‘The [Sense] stat has reached the safety limit and any further increase might result in damaging the host’s body]’

So, once again due to the ‘Resistance’ stat being stuck at 128, I was only able to increase the ‘Sense’ stat up to only 640.

The reason ‘Resistant’ stat is still stuck at 128, even though the 2/3rd poison from my body has been removed is because of the damage that the poison has caused to all the organs, muscles, tissue, blood, etc. Have not been repaired. And there are only a few ways to repair all that:

I- Completely removing the poison from my body.

2- Getting higher grade pills that can repair all the damage done. (For this I have to go back to the human society and look for the pills or approach pill refiners.)

3- Search for medicines or potions in the system shop that can repair the damage, but from the looks of it, my rank is low and many high grade items are locked. And only when I reach a certain rank, more items will be available for purchase. This means, if my rank was high enough, I could have just bought a cure for the poison in my body.

4- Get vitality stat. But the vitality stats that I have gotten till now are the rewards from the quests and mission. And the system also issues missions randomly and I don’t know when will the next mission be issued. Also, the mission to get revenge on Lilly Connor and the three bastards is difficult, So, putting my hopes in vitality stat is the last thing that I will do.

5- Cultivation. In the Refinement stage, the blood, skin, bones, muscles, organs undergo a refinement process where they become stronger and all the impurities are removed. Damaged cells also come under the impurities category, so if I reach the ‘Refinement’ stage, then I might have a chance to increase the ‘Resistance’ stat. But there is only a chance, it is not guaranteed.

Now, I can only cultivate and hope to reach the ‘refinement’ stage soon.

Even other stats like ‘Defense’ and ‘Stamina’ Stats are stuck at 640, while the ‘Strength’ and ‘Agility’ stat is stuck at 725.

But there is one stat that I did not want to increase yet, that is the ‘Intelligence’ stat. The reason is, increasing the ‘Intelligence’ stat will result in an increase in the MP limit.

Now, some might say how is increasing the MP limit a bad thing?

The answer to that is- Since, I am exchanging 10% of the MP and for that, the system will only give me 1-3 ‘Free Stat points’.

Think about it, previously my MP limit was about 4800 and its 10% is 480.

So, after exchanging 480 MP, I am getting 1-3 ‘Free stat point’.

Now, if I increase the ‘Intelligence’ stat such that my MP limit reaches 6000.

And then if I am exchanging 10% of 6000 MP, that is 600 MP; then I will still receive 1-3 ‘Free stat points’ only.

Isn’t this a waste strategy?

Am I not making a loss here?

So, to prevent that and since I am also a miser, I decided not to invest any ‘free stat points’ in the ‘Intelligence’ stat.

But now because of the ‘Sorcerer’ job, my MP limit has been increased by 10% and after I reached the peak of the Awakening stage, 19 ‘Free stat points have been added to the ‘intelligence’ stat, which has resulted in my MP limit being increased once again.

“Sigh... such a big loss.”

I sighed inwardly.

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Author's Announcement:

Let's make a few goals.

Mass Release on Monday:

250 Power stones = 3 Chapters

300 Power stones = 4 Chapters

400 Power stones = 5 Chapters

(Only if I reach this goal, will I be Mass releasing the chapters. Because If I could see your support through this, I can reassure myself that ‘Yeah, I can still work on this novel and can also start new works’ for my readers. And I am a graduate who is required to find a job; hence your support can give encouragement. I hope you people understand and continue your support.)