The Innkeeper

The process of getting acquainted with casting arrays was a tedious one. After his initial 'Hello World' experiment, Lex no longer tried to cast any original arrays, and instead repeatedly cast the warming array he first tried. After successfully casting the array ten times, he paused to take note of his progress.

The first thing he noticed was that, for now, he was stuck being extremely slow at forming an array. If he tried to speed up writing a character even a little, the character would be disrupted and all the spiritual energy would disappear. That was only the case in this simple array, as for more complicated arrays, instead of disappearing, it may result in an adverse reaction.

The second thing he noticed was that, since he was taking so long in forming an array, large changes in the ambient spiritual energy could interfere with the array, causing it to fail. This was an issue he would need to address. He also learnt that if he ended up taking too long to form an array, that would also result in the array failing.

Fortunately, he had already taken a beginner's class for arrays and knew how to tackle many of these problems. All it would take now was the occasional adjustment and a lot of practice.

The next few days, all Lex did was practice his techniques or arrays, and met Amelia when she was free to get some rest and make sure he didn't burn out.

When his classes began, he had to reduce his practice time, but while it slowed down his progress with regards to his techniques, it helped him in other areas. Especially his class, that taught him more about cultivation in general. In fact, in the very first class, Lex was able to understand why his 'danger instincts' were so much keener than the surrounding people.

"Cultivation is different for different species, and they each have various barriers," the professor explained.

"However, we will only be focusing on human cultivation for now. Regardless of what kind of cultivation system you follow, human cultivation is divided into three basic categories, namely the soul, spirit and body.

"Spiritual cultivation is one of the most widespread, mainly because the resources required to follow this cultivation path are readily available. That does not, however, mean that it is stronger or weaker than the other paths. Each of them have unique benefits. For instance, it may seem like it is more difficult to defeat an enemy that cultivates the body, but that is only because most people are more used to fighting against spiritual cultivators.

"The truth of the matter is, the most ideal cultivation would be to cultivate all three at the same time, but that is extremely impractical because of how difficult it would be, time and resource consuming it would be, and lastly, finding three compatible techniques to cultivate at the same time borders on impossible. But, all is not lost, for even if you only cultivate a single path, as you progress across the cultivation levels, the other two will also gradually be affected.

"When talking about specific benefits, let's begin with spiritual cultivation. Following the spiritual cultivation path grants the cultivator a strong and precise control over spiritual energy. This control can then serve to benefit the cultivator through the use of various professions, such as weaponsmiths, array masters, formation masters, and more.

"Furthermore, at the Golden core stage, it grants the cultivator access to spiritual sense, a sixth sense that cultivators can not only use to observe the world around them but also interact with it. It can allow you to directly communicate with others, and makes you more sensitive to the change in spiritual energy in the world around you. Another benefit, one that is often overlooked, is how cultivating the spiritual path allows you to increase the capacity of your brain. This doesn't mean it directly makes you smarter, but increases your capacity for multitasking, extrapolating better, and in general refines your thought processes."

The professor didn't elaborate, but Lex got a general idea. It was like improving the processor as well as RAM in a computer. If the tasks you were performing with the computer were affected by a lack of those things, then you would suddenly notice a boost in performance. If, however, you weren't doing much to begin with, then no matter how much the computer improved, it would not affect things.

Or, a simpler way of putting it was that if you were smart to begin with, then you'd suddenly be able to do a lot more. If you were dumb, however, then an improvement in cultivation would still leave you dumb, but just faster at being dumb.

Lex snickered to himself before turning his attention back to the professor.

"The next most common form of cultivation is Body cultivation. It need not be said that the body is the foundation of our life, and cultivating your body makes you more resilient and harder to kill. A common misconception is that body cultivators are focused on great physical strength, and while that is true for many of them, it is not the essence of body cultivation.

"The essence of body cultivation is preserving life. At the same time, as a secondary effect, it drastically strengthens the subconscious mind. That means not only is your brain better at taking care of the various functions of your body, you become more sensitive to the minute details of what's happening around you.

"For example, if there is a person in front of you who suddenly decides to attack you, your body will automatically sense the miniscule changes his body would exhibit before he attacked and warn you about it. On a conscious level, you may not notice his change in stance, tightening of the muscles, his eyes scanning you for a weak point, but your brain would, and warn you in the form of instincts or gut feeling.

"But it goes beyond just that. Sometimes, the threat to your life is not coming from a person, but from some external factor outside of your current view. Since the focus of body cultivators is on preserving life, sometimes body cultivators are able to detect threats or danger from far off, with no apparent indication of the danger itself. The theory behind this is studied in a more advanced class, you only need to know that this is something they can do.

"We now know the individual benefits of cultivating two paths, but what if you cultivate both at the same time? Would the effects stay the same or possibly be even stronger? The answer is, not only would the effects remain, the growth in the effects would increase by an exponential amount. The cultivator would already have the energy sensitivity of a spiritual cultivator, but enhanced by the strength of the body cultivator's subconscious mind, the cultivator's control would quickly enter the levels of the most capable masters, and their precision would be exemplary as well. That is not to say, someone who does not cultivate both paths cannot reach this level, but just that it would require more work.

"The cultivators' sensitivity towards danger would also increase, and this time, the increase is even more ridiculous. It has been reported that dual cultivators can sometimes even sense the exact moment someone decided to harm them, even if in a minor way. Furthermore, due to the granted sensitivity towards energy, the cultivator could also possibly detect dangers from nature, or natural disasters. In summary, it takes the advantages of both and multiplies it manifold. Of course, I'm sure all of you are also familiar with the difficulty of following such a path. It is absolutely not something that can be done on a whim.

"This finally leaves the last path, that of the soul. In a way, soul cultivators are considered both the weakest and the strongest. They are the weakest, because their distinct lack of spiritual techniques as well as a strong body make them more vulnerable. However, they are also considered the strongest because it is incredibly difficult to defend against a soul attack. Most cultivators are completely incapable of defending their souls before the Nascent realm.

"It's not just a matter of being unable to defend. Soul techniques are so rare that even those who want to learn to defend their souls may not be able to. Soul cultivators are also adept at various fields, such as tracking, cursing, enchanting and the like. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to lie or deceive a soul cultivator in the same realm.

"This is because, while they lack the sensitivity towards energy or danger, they can easily detect any living being's intentions from the fluctuations of their soul. When soul cultivators reach the Golden core realm, they gain the ability to communicate with any living being directly through their soul, making their ability more versatile than spirit sense in this regard."