Chapter 5: Fake Cultivation 101
Garion opened the first book. The title was [Secret Tiger Fist].
It seemed fierce, but when he read it, he quickly frowned and snorted.
"What the hell is this?"
Inside the book, he could see a crude drawing of stick figures, doing some weird movements.
Below the pictures were also some strange chants written in big, bold letters.
Garion squinted and tried to read it.
"Roar like the heavens, claw like the earth, unleash the secret of the tiger..."
He closed the book immediately and sighed.
"Just what the hell is that chant. I know that this is the cultivation world, but how can the chant be like that?"
He tossed the book aside and picked up the next one. The title was [The Great Sword Manual].
He opened and read it. The first page had only one instruction.
Stand still for three hours with a sword on your head. If fate accepts you, the sword will become your sword spirit.
Garion stared at the words before quickly closing the book.
"Damn it, another stupid book. What do you mean by letting fate accept you? Just what the hell is this talking about?"
He sighed as he threw the book aside like the first one.
"These manuals are already starting to feel like a stupid fake martial art book."
Still, he picked up another one, hoping for better results. The next one he picked was called [Flowing Mana Diagrams].
The book showed him a crude drawing of a human body with dozens of parts that were mark with dots.
The text below explained that when you punctured these points with needles, it would strengthen your flow of mana.
Garion frowned, directly knew the mistakes.
"This... looks like acupuncture, but what the hell with these points. They were all wrong."
Back in his old world, he had also studied basic anatomy and even tried acupuncture out of curiosity.
He knew enough to tell that the dots were completely misplaced.
One was literally drawn on the knee cap, and another one was drawn in the middle of the forehead.
"If one really stabbed these points with needles... they will be fortunate enough if they don’t die right away."
He sighed as he tossed it aside, too.
One by one, he began to dig through the pile.
This time, he decided that if the contents were stupid enough, he would quickly toss them aside to save time.
Manuals like [Iron Ox Breathing], [Heavenly Goose Kicks], and even something called [The Twelve Frog Jumps] were all tossed aside.
Each one felt faker than the last, and when he read the contents, he was right.
He soon rubbed his temples, already exhausted.
"Damn, just why do all of the manuals I read sound like a scam?"
"Is it just me that feels like this, or should manuals be like this, stupid and unreadable?"
Just as he was about to give up, he noticed an interesting book at the bottom of the stack.
The cover was quite plain and titled [Cultivation Secrets Vol. 1].
Garion raised his brow, smirking.
"This should be interesting."
He opened it and read the content. Instantly, he knew that this book was different.
The writing was clearer and also not as dramatic just other books.
This book only explained one thing. The first realm of mana cultivation, [Mana Refinement Realm].
It basically told him that the first realm was where the cultivator should absorb mana from the air, store it in the lower abdomen, and circulate it through their body.
The book also told him that the [Mana Refinement Realm] had five stages in it.
The first stage was [Initial Stage]. You need to sense the mana in the air to reach this stage.
The second stage was [Accumulation Stage]. You need to inhale mana and gather it into your lower abdomen.
The more you inhale and the more you gather, a virtual storage or [Mana Pool] will be formed, and you have officially reached this stage.
The third stage was [Circulation Stage]
. You need to refine mana in the mana pool into liquid form.After refining it, you began to circulate it around the body until [Mana Meridians] began to form, unlocking energy channels around the body.
This was also the stage where you could finally able to use mana to coat certain parts of your body to fight.
The fourth stage was [Tempering Stage].
In this stage, you need to absorb, store, circulate, and fuse the liquid mana into your body to strengthen both flesh and meridians.
Finally, after you managed to strengthen the body to where it was easy to handle your mana, smooth circulation around the meridian.
And when your mana pool size had already reached its peak and was filled with the liquid mana, you have officially reached the fifth stage, [Saturation Stage].
This was also the stage where you would be getting ready to reach the second realm, which was called the [Mana Core Realm].
Not much was known about this realm except that your liquid mana began to crystallize slowly.
Garion then closed the book and smiled, thinking about the contents.
"Interesting. So this is the mana cultivation in this world, huh? It was basically the program of building the body to handle mana."
He then smirked, impressed for once.
"Alright, this world mana cultivation seemed not too bad when I read it, but I still need to see if I can do it. Let’s see other cultivation books."
He then began to read the rest of the pile. He tossed aside the martial arts book and only read the cultivation ones.
The more he read it, the more he understood about the cultivation.
The [Cultivation Secrets Vol. 1] he read only gave him the basic knowledge about the first realm, not how to cultivate it.
These cultivation books he was reading were the methods on how to reach each stage.
There were various stances, tricks, or even conditions of cultivation that needed to be used to maximize the potential.
After reading through all of them, he lost interest.
"They were just too many variations. Let’s just ignore it for the moment and see if I can actually sense mana."
He began to close his eyes and sat cross-legged. He wanted to see if he could reach the [Initial Stage] before thinking further.