Starlight Life Of The Sage

Cara's skin blossomed into jade-colored flowers. It felt like she had been submerged in acid, the very air around her burned her body like white-hot fire. Still, she persevered.

The overflowing Mana began to swirl around her, enriching her environment even more. Greedily, she s.u.c.k.e.d it all up and let it rotate about her like a thundering whirlpool.

Her skin began to change; it hardened beyond any reasonable degree. She could feel her body swelling with power. Still, the Mana stream continued to flow. She yelled out as she grit her teeth. The tree around her swelled and pulled back with her every breath, as if they were connected. Her muscles constantly flexed and trembled, growing through a massive exertion of influxing energy.

It took nearly ten hours to refine Cara's skin. The entire world around her seemed devoid of Mana, but her eyes glowed with energy. A layer of black filth was caked onto her skin; when she stood it shattered like stone and fell to the ground in chunks, clinking like hard ceramic. She held up her hand and marveled at the back of it. The skin was pure without a single blemish on it. It shined like a mirror, far too glossy for her tastes. Her body felt taller and more robust. She walked over towards her doorway and set her back against it. Using the nails on her hand, she etched a mark into the wood, measuring her growth in height. If she had to guess, she'd say she was nearing 5' 3''. She had gained over a full inch.

"Status," she said, an odd smile coming to her face.

-

[Name: Cara

Age: 12

Occupation: None

Titles: None

Level: 24

Health Points: 11924/12000

Mana: 41607/50000

Strength: 2374

Speed: 2248

Accuracy: 2504

Stamina: 2452

Skills:

Spoken Language (Common): 4

Read/Write Language (Common): 3

Stealthed Movements: MAX

Mana Manipulation: 8

Jade-Dragon Body Cultivation Technique: 1X

NEW ------ Jade Skin: 1

Celestial Steps: MAX

Heaven's-Light Boxing Style Martial Arts: MAX

Mana Impulse Palm: MAX

Monkey-Style Staff and Spear Combat: MAX

Craftsmanship: 6

Cooking: 3

Animal Husbandry: 1

Mana Splitting: 1

NEW - Dragon's Fire Breath: 6]

-

Cara's gains were incredible. She laughed for a moment, nearly giddy with her work. She was as powerful as a Core Formation cultivator while still in the Xantian First Rung.

Her level had also increased drastically from her defeat of the Wyvern. Though the levels gained granted pathetically few stats, she could still feel the difference. She realized the total of her stats with pure levels wouldn't even match a tenth of the stats she gained from breaking even the First Houtian Rung.

Still, this strength wasn't enough.

Unlike the skin, her knowledge of human anatomy didn't extend to the ligaments, tendons, or muscles. She had some knowledge of them, of course, but she had never bothered to focus on them. In her second life she only ever took a Biology class in highschool, after all. She knew about the heart and its chambers, though. This meant that the Second, Third, and Fourth Rungs were going to be rather difficult and take a bit of time.

She extended her fingers and counted out… It would take about 170 weeks to reach the Fifth Rung. A bit over three years. That estimate was, of course, assuming she cultivated for about five hours a day. Anything more than that would leave her too little progress on other aspects, such as exploring the other Six Paths. That and she couldn't really stand to sit still for longer. Isolated Cultivation was always a boring and lonely affair for her.

-

In her first world it was considered common sense that cultivators would walk down several of the Six Paths to Power. Rogue Cultivators would often walk one or two paths. Powerful, Sect-raised Cultivators would usually walk at least three of the paths.

Of her disciples, only 2 of them didn't walk down at least five paths of Power.

One of her disciples, Aria, walked down all Six Paths. Walking down all Six Paths earned one the title of Paragon. That child's talent was unrivaled in all the world. Even when The Sage died, Aria still hadn't reached half of her full potential.

Of course, Aria wasn't The Sage's strongest disciple when it came to raw battle prowess. Ironically, The Sage's most powerful Disciple was also the only one that walked a single Path. The boy simply walked that Path beyond even The Sage's own comprehension. His Weapon Cultivation was so staggering that he could cut down any other cultivator on the planet with a thought. Of course if you took his sword away he was literally weaker than a damned mortal, but that was beside the point. He was an outlier. Most who walked a single path proved far weaker than those who walked multiple. Each Path had advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. Walking only one meant your weaknesses were more pronounced.

In this world Internal Dantian Cultivation couldn't be done. Outer Cultivation could work. From Cara's previous studies, Weapon Cultivation would probably work too. She still needed to run tests, though, to confirm. She'd need to get some quality materials to make a proper sword if she wanted to start down the path of Weapon Cultivation.

Of the remaining three Paths, Bloodline Refining seemed the most possible. Based on how the Wyvern utilized its breath, it seemed Bloodline Refining could be a truly formidable path… But that path also required the blood of incredibly powerful beasts. Cara could have used the blood of the Wyvern to start down that Path, but such a bloodline would probably prove useless to her in the future. The Wyvern was far too weak. She doubted she'd gain much strength from it. She needed to find stronger monsters if she wanted to go down the path of a Bloodline Refiner.

The Formation/Alchemical Path was basically a given. Cara had been a grandmaster on this Path when she was The Sage in her first life. She would certainly go down this route if possible, but she needed to confirm the effects Mana had on her potions and pill furnaces. She also still needed glassware.

The last path, Elemental Cultivation, though, didn't seem possible. While Mana had elemental affinities inside of it, they didn't seem like things you could willingly store inside your body. If the Meridians couldn't hold Mana, she doubted that the Inner Palaces (which were a few hundred times more brittle) could either.

This left Cara with 3 distinct paths: Outer Cultivation, Weapon Cultivation, and Alchemy. She also would keep on the lookout for Desolate Beasts that met her standards for Bloodline Refining whenever possible.

Not only that, perhaps her greatest boon would be discovering this world's 'Paths to Power'. This body held memories of magicians and warriors who did battle with demons and monsters. There were legends and fables stored in this body's memories about men and women who, with the turn of their hands, could upend cities and destroy mountains. If such formidable people existed, Cara certainly didn't want to face them until she had enough methods to defend herself!

-

With her Paths set, she could focus in on developing a routine. She decided to spend the mornings cultivating, using the Dawn Energies to accelerate her Outer Cultivation. She'd hunt, train her martial techniques, and look for weapon crafting resources during the afternoon. Lastly, she'd spend her evenings advancing her understanding of this world's Alchemy.

She had decided that, for now, she'd avoid civilization as much as possible until she stepped into the Zong realm for her Outer Cultivation… Or at least the Fifth Xantian Rung. Cultivating for long stretches of time always bored her, so she needed to lower her standards a little bit. Boredom was why she started raising disciples as The Sage in the first place.