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The first thing Damian noticed was that the four Evergreen Sect disciples did not look frightened.
Jian Rui had already drawn his straight sword, Bo Wen lowered the tip of his spear, while Lin Meiyu and Shen Lian spread apart without needing to exchange more than a glance.
Whatever else they were, these teenagers were clearly accustomed to fighting.
Damian rubbed his chin.
Should he even interfere?
This was Shengyuan.
The Valorian Overworld System did not govern this realm, so defeating these Fierce Beasts would normally provide absolutely no Experience Points toward his Mage Class.
Using magic would therefore be little more than wasting Mental Energy.
Then again...
Damian glanced at the four youths preparing to fight while he stood comfortably behind them.
That sounded incredibly boring.
"What are your exact cultivation levels and specialties?" Damian casually asked.
Jian Rui immediately turned.
"This junior is at Body Tempering Level 8. I primarily practice the Evergreen Flowing Sword and focus on direct combat and defensive swordplay," Jian Rui answered respectfully.
Bo Wen enthusiastically followed. "Body Tempering Level 6, Senior! I use the spear! My strongest attacks focus on explosive penetration!"
"I am Body Tempering Level 5. Twin sabers and movement techniques," Lin Meiyu stated.
Shen Lian raised her bow slightly. "Body Tempering Level 5. I specialize in archery and perception."
Damian nodded.
Jian Rui was at Body Tempering Level 8, Bo Wen at Level 6, while Lin Meiyu and Shen Lian were both at Level 5, forming a small but noticeably uneven spread of cultivation strength within the group.
His eyes returned to the boars.
Three adult boars and four piglets lay scattered across the ground, enjoying their family time.
The simplest strategy immediately formed.
"Jian Rui, you take the front. Bo Wen stays slightly behind your right side and punishes anything that commits too heavily toward him. Meiyu, attack the flanks but never remain in front of the tusks. Shen Lian stays behind everyone and prioritizes anything that breaks formation," Damian instructed.
The four youths listened seriously as Damian raised his staff.
"And I will make sure our front line is difficult to move," he declared as he began chanting.
The teenagers immediately sensed spiritual energy gathering strangely around him.
Damian performed the necessary gestures, maintaining the spell formula while directing the target away from himself.
"Macte Virtute!"
Golden light erupted around Jian Rui, and the boy stiffened as a translucent layer of radiant magical energy spread over his martial robes, hugging his body before fading until only a faint golden sheen remained.
Jian Rui stared at his arms.
"This..."
He struck his sleeve lightly with two fingers, and the magical structure responded, causing his eyes to widen.
"Senior placed a defensive artifact upon Senior Brother without even touching him?!" Bo Wen exclaimed.
"It is a spell, not an artifact," Damian corrected.
Unfortunately, that explanation only confused them more.
Damian sighed internally.
Whatever.
"The spell should absorb much of the impact. Do not become reckless merely because you have it," Damian warned.
Jian Rui immediately cupped his hands. "This junior understands!"
The seven boars had finally noticed them.
One adult raised its enormous head, its nostrils flaring, while the second scraped a hoof against the ground.
Then the largest boar released a deep roar!
"GROOOH!"
The peaceful watering hole exploded into violence as the three adults charged!
Damian’s eyebrows rose.
’Holy hell, these things are fast!’ he thought with shock.
Yet still, Jian Rui moved faster.
The young cultivator stepped forward, spiritual energy surging through his legs despite his inability to actually store Qi within a Qi Sea.
His sword flashed.
CLANG!
Steel smashed against a tusk.
Jian Rui was pushed backward several meters, boots carving grooves through the dirt, but Mage Armor flashed brilliantly around him and absorbed much of the impact.
He grinned.
"Great stuff! Such powerful protection!"
Bo Wen appeared beside the boar, his spear thrusting forward.
"Piercing Mountain!"
BANG!
The spearhead struck beneath the beast’s shoulder, and blood burst outward.
Damian’s lips twitched.
Hey there... was this really the first realm of cultivation?
Lin Meiyu blurred past another boar, her twin sabers slicing twice across its flank before she twisted beneath a sweeping tusk and kicked against the beast’s side to launch herself away.
Meanwhile, Shen Lian had already fired three arrows.
One struck an adult boar near the eye while the other two forced the enormous piglets charging behind their parents to scatter.
Damian watched their combo speechlessly.
My brother in Christ, these were children!
Well, teenagers.
But still!
Body Tempering, huh?
Is this really your so-called beginner realm?!
And they were moving with enough speed to make professional athletes on Earth look sedentary.
"Good grief..."
Perhaps Shengyuan simply possessed a much higher average power scale than Valoria?
Cultivators did eventually become ridiculous, after all.
They had flying swords that could split mountains in a single arc, entire peaks erupting into dust and flame when cultivators clashed, and immortals who could cross the void between stars as easily as walking across a courtyard.
But Damian immediately rejected any firm conclusion.
He felt that he was comparing apples to oranges.
A Level 1 Valorian Fighter naturally possessed better combat Attributes than him.
As Roland had said, a dragon at Level 1 could possess thirty points of Strength, which could slap these fellows into paste.
Not to mention Classes, species, Feats, equipment and Specializations all mattered enormously.
He had no meaningful dataset yet.
Four talented sect disciples could hardly represent an entire world.
Damian pushed those thoughts aside as one boar broke away from Jian Rui and charged Lin Meiyu.
Damian raised his staff.
"Glacies!"
WHOOSH!
<Frost Ray> struck its front leg.
Ice spread rapidly around the joint, causing the charging boar to stumble.
Lin Meiyu’s eyes gleamed as she spun, both sabers crossing.
SHLICK!
A deep wound opened across the creature’s throat, and it collapsed.
Another piglet lunged toward Bo Wen from behind.
"Ignis!"
ZIU!
A Firebolt smashed into its shoulder, leaving the beast squealing and recoiling, allowing Shen Lian’s next arrow to enter beneath its jaw.
The four youths fought like they had trained together dozens of times, and Damian did not try to dominate the battle as he did not need to.
A Frost Ray slowed an enemy here.
A Firebolt disrupted a charge there.
Once, Jian Rui deliberately allowed an adult boar to ram him because Mage Armor transformed what should have been a dangerous collision into an uncomfortable shove.
The young swordsman immediately counterattacked and scored a great hit.
Damian watched his magical protection flicker, wincing internally at the Mental Energy drain.
’Easy there, kid. That thing isn’t free!’
Fortunately, the fight did not last long.
The final adult boar roared and charged Jian Rui, but Bo Wen struck first, his spear piercing its side.
Lin Meiyu severed a tendon while a Frost Ray from Damian froze part of its face.
Jian Rui stepped forward, his sword descending.
THUD!
The final beast collapsed, and silence returned to the watering hole.
Seven bodies lay scattered across the ground—three adults and four piglets—and not one of the youths had suffered a meaningful injury.
Hell, they had barely broken a sweat!
Damian slowly lowered his staff as the four disciples turned toward him, their eyes shining.
"Senior!"
Damian immediately recognized that expression.
Worship.
From their perspective, this had been an astonishingly perfect mission.
Sect assignments involving Fierce Beasts were not jokes to Outer Hall disciples. Even when missions were graded appropriately, mistakes happened.
People became injured, beasts acted unpredictably, and disciples overestimated themselves.
Outer Hall missions possessed a very real mortality rate.
Yet today?
All seven targets had died, with nobody injured or even placed in serious danger.
Jian Rui had fought directly against enormous boars while protected by an inexplicable golden defensive technique.
Whenever an enemy slipped through their formation, mysterious fire or ice immediately came from behind them.
A difficult mission had become almost comfortable.
To them, there was only one explanation.
Senior Damian!
Meanwhile, Damian was thinking something entirely different.
’These little monsters could butcher me like those piglets.’
His smile became slightly stiff.
Even with Mage Armor and Shield layered together, Damian was not particularly confident about receiving repeated direct attacks from Jian Rui.
Bo Wen’s spear technique looked like something that could punch through a human torso.
Lin Meiyu was fast enough that Damian doubted he could even track her properly at close range.
And Shen Lian?
He disliked the idea of discovering whether Mage Armor could stop an arrow aimed directly at his eye.
Damian’s opinion of Shengyuan immediately became more cautious.
Then a familiar blue interface appeared.
[Cross-Realm combat activity detected.]
Damian blinked.
The Dual-Realm Exchange System continued.
[Valorian Overworld System unavailable within current realm.]
[Beginning compatible Experience simulation...]
[Combat evaluation complete.]
[Encounter: Fierce Beast Boar Group.]
[Combatants: Host + Four Allied Cultivators.]
[Enemies Defeated: 7.]
[Approximate Valorian Challenge Classification: Group comprised primarily of CR 1-equivalent threats.]
[Host Contribution: Significant.]
[Experience Awarded: 1.]
Damian almost sighed.
One point!
Just one goddamn point!!
He opened the relevant portion of his Character Sheet.
[Experience Points: 3/10.]
Three points, huh?
Still, the fact that the Dual-Realm Exchange System could simulate Valoria’s Experience evaluation inside Shengyuan was enormously important.
It meant he could progress his Mage Class here!
However, the fundamental problem remained the same.
Experience gain was painfully stingy.
Damian suddenly understood something unpleasant.
If he stayed entirely within Valoria and simply completed ordinary quests day after day, progressing naturally might take years.
Perhaps that was normal for natives there given what he’d seen and heard.
Level 20 represented the peak of ordinary Classes, after all.
Masters of the world were not supposed to emerge after killing wolves for two weeks.
Yet Damian had absolutely no intention of waiting years.
His mother was still on Earth, his father was still dead, and his entire plan required achieving things normal people considered impossible.
Damian looked around himself, specifically at the world around him.
Hmmm, perhaps the breakthrough he needed was here, in Shengyuan!
His determination to establish a foothold in this realm grew stronger!
"Senior..."
Damian turned.
Jian Rui and the others looked very nervous.
His earlier amusement had disappeared while he contemplated Shengyuan’s danger and his own weakness, causing his expression to become more distant.
Unfortunately, the youths misunderstood completely.
Senior Damian was disappointed!
He had helped them so much, yet they had still relied upon him repeatedly.
Their talent must have seemed pathetic!
Jian Rui gritted his teeth before kneeling.
Damian’s eyes widened as the other three followed immediately.
"Senior Damian, this junior knows our talents are shallow, but today’s guidance has shown us how vast the world truly is! Please grant us further instruction!" Jian Rui pleaded.
Bo Wen slapped his forehead toward the ground.
"If Senior is willing, I would even take Senior as my Master!"
Damian nearly dropped his staff.
Master?!
He had been in Shengyuan for less than a day!
What exactly was he supposed to teach them?
Proper warehouse lifting technique?
Basic fire safety?
How to exploit magical arbitrage?
Damian looked at the four kneeling youths.
Still...
He was not entirely unmoved.
They were young, sincere, and useful, and more importantly, they belonged to the Evergreen Sect.
Damian needed cultivation knowledge, contacts, a city, and a path toward commerce; perhaps rejecting them outright would be foolish.
"There is no need to speak of becoming my disciples," Damian replied calmly.
"I have my own path and matters to handle. However, you mentioned belonging to the Evergreen Sect. Lead me to the nearest major city affiliated with your sect."
Jian Rui raised his head, and Damian smiled faintly.
"I intend to conduct some business in this region. If you can introduce me to suitable deacons or elders who handle external cooperation, then perhaps we will see one another regularly. If so, I can occasionally offer guidance when circumstances allow."
The four disciples practically glowed.
"Yes, Senior!"
"We will definitely arrange it!"
"Senior Brother Jian knows Deacon Mu!"
"We should return immediately!"
They started gathering their belongings with manic speed.
Damian laughed. "Calm down. Night is approaching."
The four froze, then immediately realized that the Senior was correct, as always.
They decided to camp beside the watering hole after moving a suitable distance away from the bloody battlefield.
Jian Rui produced a small metal disc and placed a cyan-blue crystal on it.
Damian immediately became interested as the young cultivator made several hand seals, causing the disc to flash and a faint transparent field to spread around their campsite.
"A formation?" Damian asked.
Jian Rui nodded proudly. "A Basic Beast-Repelling Formation, Senior. It is only an Outer Hall item, but ordinary Fierce Beasts dislike approaching its spiritual fluctuations."
Damian crouched beside the formation plate, his <Arcane Knowledge> activating almost instinctively.
Interesting!
Very interesting!
He only understood perhaps forty percent.
Energy entered through the crystals, the plate distributed it through predetermined pathways, and several symbols performed functions eerily similar to magical runes.
But others?
Completely foreign.
The underlying logic appeared familiar enough that Damian could recognize what sections were doing, yet the actual Shengyuan inscriptions contained principles his Valorian knowledge could not simply brute-force.
Magic and formations were related but not identical, a point worth investigating later.
Damian eventually retired to his own small travelling tent.
There, the problem of cultivation returned.
Tutorial Quest Three required him to acquire a cultivation technique and enter Body Tempering.
Since the System had issued the quest, Damian assumed he possessed some method of satisfying the requirements.
Perhaps he had a Spirit Root, or the Dual-Realm Exchange System would adapt one, or perhaps his ability to sense supernatural energy through <Arcane Knowledge> could substitute for whatever sensory function Spirit Roots normally provided.
He would discover that once he acquired a technique.
And that was the real problem.
Getting a cultivation technique seemed easy.
Damian could probably walk outside right now, ask Jian Rui for his Body Tempering method and receive it with both hands plus an apology for its low quality.
Once they reached a city, even more options would become available.
But Damian did not want just any technique, as foundation mattered.
Every cultivation story he had ever encountered agreed on that much.
A poor foundation could cripple future potential, while a superior cultivation technique could determine combat strength, breakthrough difficulty, longevity, and eventual limits.
As such, Damian wanted the best technique reasonably available.
Yet he had no intention of joining a sect.
His future organization needed to remain neutral and independent, capable of trading between factions rather than becoming subordinate to any one of them.
That eliminated the easiest method of obtaining top-tier inheritances.
Damian scratched his cheek.
"Man... Valoria really spoiled me."
Reach a milestone? Here, have Attribute Points!
Pick a Class? Here, have knowledge injected directly into your skull!
Otherworlder? Have equipment too!
But with Shengyuan?
Either you pay, fight, join a sect, steal an inheritance, kill someone, and probably kill his entire clan afterward!
No freebies allowed!
"Stingy world..." Damian muttered grumpily, going to sleep.
The night passed without incident, because apparently not every night in a cultivation world required assassins.
The next morning, they resumed travelling, and it was then that hiding Damian’s physical weakness became impossible.
The four disciples walked comfortably, but Damian did not.
Several miles of forest terrain gradually turned his breathing heavier.
Jian Rui began glancing backward, Bo Wen looked confused, and Lin Meiyu whispered something to Shen Lian.
They had witnessed Damian manipulate fire and ice without hand seals and seen him create defensive magic capable of helping Jian Rui withstand Fierce Beasts, so his power was unquestionable.
But his body?
It made no sense.
He moved like an unhealthy mortal.
The Body Tempering Realm existed specifically because a weak human body could not safely contain Qi.
Skipping directly into Qi Condensation should cause the cultivator’s meridians, organs and flesh to rupture from spiritual pressure, yet Senior Damian clearly wielded supernatural power.
Damian noticed their expressions and sighed internally before giving them the simplest explanation possible.
"I am injured."
Four pairs of eyes widened in silence.
Bo Wen gulped.
Injured?
This terrifying Senior had frozen and burned Fierce Beasts casually while suffering from injuries severe enough to reduce his body to mortal standards?
Then how strong was he normally?!
Jian Rui’s imagination immediately escaped all restraint.
Could Senior Damian actually be...
Foundation Establishment?!
The four youths became even more respectful.
Damian had no idea what kind of misunderstanding he had just caused.
He merely reached into the Dual-Realm Exchange Storage and a Vial of Vigor appeared in his hand.
The four disciples stopped walking, their expressions freezing.
Damian uncorked it and drank, warmth immediately spreading through his body as muscular exhaustion faded, his breathing stabilized, and the ache in his legs disappeared almost completely.
"Much better," Damian sighed with relief as he stored the empty vial away.
The disciples barely cared about the potion, though, as their eyes were fixed on his hand.
Something... something had just appeared from nothing!
Jian Rui’s pupils contracted.
’Storage treasure!’
Perhaps a legendary Storage Bag?
No, the item had appeared too smoothly.
Could Senior possess... a Storage Ring?!
The four disciples looked at Damian with renewed reverence.
Then, almost simultaneously, their gazes shifted toward the massive bundles strapped across their own backs.
They carried boar hides, tusks, bones, meat, and other mission materials.
It was heavy, very heavy, even for Body Tempering disciples.
Bo Wen adjusted the enormous sack against his shoulders, his expression becoming complicated.
Suddenly...
The weight felt much heavier than it had five seconds ago.
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