Dual Realm Exchange System

The moment Damian began circulating the Five Elements Harmonization Art, he understood that merely knowing Valoria and Shengyuan possessed different energy environments was nothing compared to personally using one world’s cultivation system inside the other.

The difference was enormous.

In Shengyuan, cultivation had always possessed a subtle element of resistance.

Damian did not possess a literal Five Elements Spirit Root like the natives, so he could only theorize about what genuine Spirit Roots actually did inside a cultivator’s body.

However, judging by everything he had experienced, the specialized organ or spiritual structure likely functioned as an evolved bridge designed to sense, draw in and refine Spiritual Energy.

The important part was that the process never felt completely cooperative.

Spiritual Energy could be absorbed, refined and controlled, but there was always a faint sense that Damian was reaching outward, catching hold of something and pulling it toward himself.

Spellcasting there produced something similar.

When Damian first entered Shengyuan, his Mage abilities still functioned normally because mana and Spiritual Energy were fundamentally comparable supernatural energies. Neither was inherently superior to the other, nor did one possess some higher grade of existence.

They had the same fundamental qualities.

What differed were their characteristics.

Shengyuan’s Spiritual Energy seemed more resistant to being manipulated from the outside, whereas Valorian mana had always been remarkably cooperative.

That difference had become increasingly obvious as Damian’s <Arcane Knowledge> improved.

Casting a spell in Shengyuan was perfectly viable, and in certain circumstances the strange interaction even strengthened the final result, but constructing the spell itself always carried an almost imperceptible roughness.

Valoria was different.

Casting magic here felt smooth and natural as the mana almost seemed to understand what a Mage wanted from it and willingly flowed into the magical structure being formed.

The difference did not necessarily make every spell significantly faster, but the experience was more comfortable and reliable, which was one of the reasons Damian preferred gaining his combat experience through Adventurer work in Valoria rather than simply hunting Demon Beasts throughout Shengyuan.

And now that he was cultivating here?

Damian almost laughed.

If Shengyuan’s Spiritual Energy was a cat that stared suspiciously at you while deciding whether your lap deserved its presence, Valorian mana was an overexcited dog that had already jumped onto you before you finished calling its name.

The instant Damian established the Five Elements Harmonization Art’s circulation and reached toward the ambient mana, the surrounding energy rushed toward him.

There was no struggle, no reluctance, and no faint tug-of-war between his technique and the environment.

Mana flowed into the circulation route so freely that Damian almost lost control during the first few breaths.

’What the hell?!’

He hurriedly stabilized the Five Elements cycle.

Wood feeds Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal collects Water, and Water nourishes Wood.

The imported cultivation method still interpreted the energy according to its own elemental framework, but Valorian mana entered those pathways with almost insulting enthusiasm.

Damian felt as though he had opened a faucet expecting a thin stream and instead discovered himself standing beneath a waterfall.

That was when another difference between the worlds finally became obvious, energy density!

Shengyuan was a cultivation civilization.

For countless generations, living beings had cultivated by absorbing Spiritual Energy and permanently turning portions of that energy into themselves.

Every disciple, every rogue cultivator, every Sect Elder, and even every Demon Beast.

Generation after generation consumed part of the world’s supernatural resources simply by progressing.

That was probably why cultivation stories so often contained concepts like the End of the Dharma Era, where Spiritual Energy gradually became scarce, civilizations declined, and the world required centuries or even longer to recover what previous generations had consumed.

Damian had already personally seen those density differences.

The wilderness where he first encountered Jian Rui, Bo Wen, Lin Meiyu and Shen Lian possessed one level of Spiritual Energy, Green Leaf Town possessed two, Evergreen Immortal City was better at six, and the Evergreen Sect itself was significantly richer at nearly twenty.

And even inside the Evergreen Sect, the ordinary halls could not compare with Damian’s Guest Elder cultivation chamber built above a minor spiritual vein.

Location mattered enormously in Shengyuan because Spiritual Energy was neither equally distributed nor endlessly available.

Valoria seemed almost absurd by comparison.

The mana inside Damian’s bedroom was plentiful, the mana outside his cottage was plentiful, and the mana throughout the streets of Rosewood Town was plentiful.

Heck, even the area surrounding the Giant Feral Rat den near Otter Village had contained an ambient density comparable to the cultivation environment inside his expensive Guest Elder chamber!

Valoria’s entire supernatural civilization had developed around using ambient energy without permanently removing significant amounts of it from the cycle.

There were probably exceptional regions with unusually high or low mana concentrations, but the ordinary baseline was already outrageous by Shengyuan standards.

And now Damian was cultivating inside that environment.

Minutes disappeared as the Five Elements Harmonization Art circulated faster and more smoothly than Damian had ever experienced, each completed cycle drawing another flood of obedient mana through his body.

His flesh warmed, his breathing slowed, and every muscle seemed to rhythmically contract and relax while the technique gradually tempered him from the inside out.

Damian became intoxicated by the sensation.

By the time his awareness finally returned to the room, nearly an hour had passed.

He checked his progress.

"What?" Damian’s eyes widened.

Somehow, he was already standing at the edge of Body Tempering Level 2, which should have been impossible!

His cultivation speed had certainly improved since the first breakthrough.

When Damian originally went from an ordinary mortal foundation into Body Tempering Level 1, the process took approximately six hours.

Since then, <Arcane Knowledge> had advanced to Journeyman, raising his functional Five Elements compatibility from Low Grade to Medium Grade and effectively doubling his original cultivation speed.

<Cultivation Prodigy> had improved as well.

At ten Intelligence, it granted another one hundred percent increase to his base cultivation speed.

Using Damian’s rough calculations, those two advantages together made him approximately four times faster than when he first began.

If Body Tempering Level 1 required an imaginary one hundred units of cultivation progress, then Damian estimated Body Tempering Level 2 might require something closer to two hundred.

At his original speed, that should have taken approximately twelve hours.

Divide that by four and he arrived at roughly three hours.

That would already have been excellent.

Instead, it only took one hour!!

Damian stared around his perfectly ordinary bedroom, then his expression changed.

"Mana..."

That was the missing factor.

The environment itself was accelerating his cultivation by roughly another threefold compared to Shengyuan!

The realization hit Damian so hard that he immediately stopped cultivating.

His mind raced through everything he owned, then a particular item surfaced.

Mana Crystals!

Damian’s eyes widened.

Those Mana Crystals he had once dismissed as terrible arbitrage because Shengyuan already possessed Spirit Stones were not useless at all!

Quite the opposite, he had simply been evaluating them from the wrong direction!

A Spirit Stone was valuable because it contained concentrated Spiritual Energy, but it still possessed the same characteristics as the surrounding Spiritual Energy.

Mana Crystals contained Valorian mana, which was cooperative mana.

This was energy that apparently flowed into cultivation pathways with dramatically less resistance!

If that characteristic remained after crossing realms, then Damian had potentially discovered something terrifying.

A universal cultivation accelerator that was not limited to Body Tempering or Level 5, nor restricted by the diminishing returns of Qi Nourishing Pills!

Unless later experiments revealed some hidden ceiling, Mana Crystals could theoretically assist cultivators at any realm simply by providing an energy source that was vastly easier to absorb!

Damian’s excitement surged before immediately crashing into caution.

"No, hold on."

He forcibly calmed himself.

Shengyuan was not Valoria.

If Damian introduced Qi Nourishing Pills or Qi Acceleration Pills here, most legitimate organizations would first ask for a price.

Even kingdoms would probably prefer negotiation before violence because commerce, contracts and law actually meant something here in this world’s setting.

Shengyuan?

Damian imagined announcing that he possessed a foreign energy source capable of multiplying cultivation speed for everyone regardless of realm.

The Evergreen Sect ’might’ protect him because of their relationship, but the Azure Water Sect and the Nightmare Corpse Sect would want access by any means necessary.

Then stronger powers outside the Azure Water Sector would eventually hear about it.

At some point, everyone involved might reach the exact same conclusion.

Why buy the golden goose’s eggs when you could simply capture the goose?

Forget the current war, if the value was sufficiently outrageous, Damian could genuinely imagine the Evergreen Sect, Azure Water Sect and Nightmare Corpse Sect briefly forgetting they hated each other long enough to grab him first.

"Yeah... absolutely fucking not."

Fortunately, Damian had already stored most of his Mana Crystals inside his Evergreen commercial tower as reserve currency and experimental inventory.

He did not need to sell them.

Valorian goods like Healing Vials were already so profitable that obtaining Spirit Stones or Evergreen Contribution Points was hardly his greatest problem.

The Mana Crystals could remain hidden until Damian understood exactly what he had discovered.

With that decided, he returned his attention to the breakthrough waiting directly in front of him.

Damian resumed circulation, and the remaining barrier collapsed almost immediately.

Warm Qi surged through his body as the Five Elements Harmonization Art completed another stage of tempering, washing through his flesh, tendons, bones and organs before settling into his strengthened foundation.

[Body Tempering Level increased!]

[Body Tempering Level 1 → Body Tempering Level 2.]

[Five Elements Harmonization Art physical enhancement applied.]

[STR: 3.5 → 4.]

[DEX: 4.5 → 5.]

[AGI: 2.5 → 3.]

[CON: 3.5 → 4.]

Damian inhaled sharply.

This time, he definitely felt it.

The previous half-point improvements had strengthened him, but crossing those whole-number thresholds made the accumulated change vastly easier to recognize.

His arms felt firmer, his fingers responded more precisely, and his balance improved when he shifted his seated posture, while his chest and lungs seemed capable of drawing deeper breaths with less effort.

Dexterity reaching five was especially amusing.

Damian had finally reached the average adult Human standard in at least one physical Attribute!

Progress, ah!!

Then the familiar Feat opportunity appeared, but Damian already knew what he wanted.

If cultivation speed was proving this valuable, then there was little reason to become distracted by flashy combat Feats yet.

He opened the Shengyuan Qi Feat Pool and selected <Heaven-Devouring Circulation>.

[Feat Name: Heaven-Devouring Circulation

Feat Category: Qi

Effect: Increases the Host’s base cultivation speed by 10% per point of Constitution.

Current CON: 4.

Current Cultivation Speed Bonus: +40%.]

Damian grinned.

<Cultivation Prodigy> scaled with Intelligence whereas <Heaven-Devouring Circulation> scaled with Constitution.

One rewarded his Mage development while the other rewarded his Body Tempering advancement.

Both made him cultivate faster.

"Beautiful."

Having tasted sweetness, how could Damian possibly stop there?

He closed his eyes and began again.

With his improved body, Medium Grade functional compatibility, <Cultivation Prodigy>, <Heaven-Devouring Circulation> and Valoria’s ridiculously cooperative mana all stacking together, the next stage progressed at a frightening pace.

Just under two hours later, another barrier broke.

[Body Tempering Level increased!]

[Body Tempering Level 2 → Body Tempering Level 3.]

[STR: 4 → 4.5.]

[DEX: 5 → 5.5.]

[AGI: 3 → 3.5.]

[CON: 4 → 4.5.]

The physical change was subtler this time because none of the values crossed another whole-number threshold, but Damian could still sense the steady reinforcement beneath his skin.

More importantly, another Shengyuan Feat awaited him.

This time, Damian chose something with a cost.

<Purified Qi>.

[Feat Name: Purified Qi

Feat Category: Qi

Effect: Permanently increases the cultivation progress required for each realm by 100%. In exchange, the purity and stability of the Host’s cultivation foundation increase by 10% per point of Wisdom. Daoist Art attack power, casting speed, effectiveness and Qi efficiency scale by the same value.

Current WIS: 10.

Current Cultivation Requirement Increase: +100%.

Current Purified Qi Bonus: +100%.]

Damian stared at the description.

In simple terms, every future realm now required twice as much cultivation, which was painful, yes.

But his resulting foundation would become correspondingly denser and cleaner, while anything he eventually performed using cultivated Qi would become dramatically more efficient and effective.

This was exactly the kind of long-term investment Damian liked.

He possessed absurd cultivation-speed advantages already, so trading some of that speed for quality was hardly a loss.

Damian checked the time and saw that he still had around six hours before the contractors expected to finish the store.

"Again."

He returned to cultivation, and then immediately discovered why arrogance was dangerous.

Body Tempering Level 3 to Level 4 was not merely another linear increase, it represented a minor bottleneck!

On top of that, <Purified Qi> had just doubled his cultivation requirements.

The same mana that had previously poured through him like water now needed to be compressed, purified and integrated into a significantly denser foundation before each cycle truly counted as progress.

Hours passed and Damian’s initial confidence gradually became stubbornness.

His back grew stiff, his legs went numb, and sweat collected along his forehead despite his controlled breathing.

The contractors’ promised completion time came and went without Damian noticing.

Six hours became seven, then nearly eight.

Finally, something inside him gave way as the barrier shattered.

A wave of refined Qi surged through Damian’s body with enough force to make every muscle tense simultaneously.

[Body Tempering Level increased!]

[Body Tempering Level 3 → Body Tempering Level 4.]

[STR: 4.5 → 5.]

[DEX: 5.5 → 6.]

[AGI: 3.5 → 4.]

[CON: 4.5 → 5.]

Damian opened his eyes.

"Oh... damn."

Now he felt everything.

Strength and Constitution had finally reached the ordinary adult Human average and his Dexterity had climbed above it.

Even his miserable Agility had risen from the humiliating two he possessed upon arriving in Valoria to four.

Damian stood and flexed his hands.

His body felt fantastic!

He was certainly not superhuman yet, but he was also no longer sub-healthy.

He felt balanced and capable.

For a man whose original Character Sheet had essentially documented years of physical neglect and overwork, the sensation was intoxicating.

Unfortunately, the darkening light outside the window reminded him that he had thoroughly missed the contractors’ expected finishing time.

"Ah, shit."

Damian hurriedly washed his face, changed back into his Journeyman Mage robe and left the cottage.

He hailed the first available carriage heading toward Central Lane.

Only after sitting inside did Damian finally turn his attention toward the notifications he had postponed.

The third effect of <One Proof, Eternal Proof> had updated considerably after three consecutive breakthroughs, and Damian briefly called up the record before deciding to inspect it properly later.

For now, another Feat mattered more.

Body Tempering Level 4 had activated another <One Feat Per Level> selection.

Damian considered taking yet another cultivation-speed Feat before rejecting the idea.

At some point, he needed breadth.

He already possessed <Truesight> in Valoria, which gave him exceptional visual perception against illusions, disguises, invisibility and false forms.

Perhaps a Shengyuan Spirit Feat could complement it.

Damian opened the Spirit Pool and selected something he remembered seeing during his first cultivation breakthrough.

<Divine Sense>!

"If this overlaps properly with <Truesight>, that combination could become disgusting."

The selection completed, and a familiar panel appeared!

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