Chapter 132 - A Crossing Point Between Two Roads
After a few minutes from the upgrading of the spiritual connection from partial, to a complete one, people started to explore the changes in their bodies. Amongst these people was Alesia.. Which gifted by the knowledge of spiritual essence she had inherited by her father, she was the first to discover that, under this conditions, a martial cultivator's spirit could be cultivated.
This discovery had caused her to miss the reapparition of Daniel.
She was now sitting in her room, with a seventh rank core in her hand. She was currently absorbing its essence, along with the natural essence in the surrounding.
At first, she didn't notice the changes in the surrounding essence as it entered her body, but after it entered her body, she noticed that the essence was not behaving like it was supposed to.
While before it was similar to a large wolf that desperately tried to leave a cage and roam free, now, it was a calm and domesticated dog, which patiently waited within her body until its owner decided to feed it, or let it out.
Another thing she noticed, was that no matter how much she directed the natural essence into her body.. the majority would always move toward her spirit and refine it.
The seventh rank beast core contained an extremely large amount of beast essence within, and while a good portion of it still followed her directions, the majority of the essence was forced on her spirit.
In Daniel's original world, martial cultivators would not be able to cultivate the spirit past the third rank of cultivation. The reason for this, was that the body of a martial cultivator at the fourth rank was too strong to allow their weak spirit to feel the partial connection to the spiritual plain.
But now, that connection was omnipresent. The presence of the natural spiritual essence in the air, which could be absorbed regardless of how powerful one's body was and could be used to refine the spirit, allowed to remedy for this.
In the span of time Daniel had discussed with his group members, Alesia's spiritual cultivation had increased from the second rank, to the fourth rank.
Once she reached the fourth rank of spiritual cultivation, she immediately dashed out of her room, and looked for her parents.
She left her family manor, dashed towards the castle, but as she entered it, she saw no one in the otherwise busy building.
Slightly confused, she immediately stopped one of the people which were in charge with keeping the castle clean, and asked "Where is everybody?"
"They are all in the mess hall. Daniel is back." Responded the middle aged lady.
A smile appeared on Alesia's beautiful face as she nodded in gratitude to the lady, and dashed towards the mess hall.
She suddenly opened the doors, causing everyone to look at her.
Each and every spiritual cultivator within the hall, Daniel included, opened their eyes wide in shock.
They had, of course, noticed the progression in Alesia's spiritual cultivation.
The first to speak was Daniel, which looked at her and said "Alesia.. How did y-" But before he could finish speaking, the girl had already approached him, and hugged him.
The hug wasn't really an intimate one, more like the kind of hug that someone would give to someone they hadn't seen for awhile, and for which they had felt worry.
There was a reason why Alesia was that happy to see Daniel.
The last time she had seen him, he had decided to let her go back into the pocket dimension as he feared that she could get hurt by the death essence, or by the worshippers of death.
She had heard the stories of how Daniel had stayed outside in the company of a strong monster more, while he had forced the rest in to protect them, more than once.
For three months, they had absolutely no news of him.
Despite what her father had told her about Daniel's mysterious power, she knew that even he wasn't sure of what he was talking about. There was absolutely no guarantee that, in case Daniel died, they would lose the power they had been granted by their allegiance to him.
For all they knew, Daniel could have already been dead.
The hug went on for a few embarrassing moments, until finally, Edmund cleared his throat loudly, and reminding her daughter that she was causing a scene.
Alesia quickly stepped back, and said "Father, Daniel.. I seem to be able to cultivate the spiritual path now.."
-----
After hearing Alesia's description of what had happened, Daniel had more or less guess what had happened.
It was ever since he had met the dragon that he had wondered what it meant to live in a spiritual world.
The dragon had asked him 'why his immortal essence was split', before mentioning about the partial connection that Daniel's world of origin had with the spiritual plain.
Now, in Daniel's head, everything was much more clear.
According to Daniel's guess, there was a very real possibility that people that came from spiritual world did not use two different types of essence, and that instead, ki and spiritual essence had been separated into two paths because of the poor condition of the spiritual connection of their world.
If cultivating in a world with natural spiritual essence allowed to cultivate both paths at the same time, then, it was possible to assume that, by practicing martial cultivation in the future, martial cultivators would inadvertently end up refining their spirit as well.
Daniel's guess was right. That was exactly what had happened to Alesia.
This was a great news for Daniel. It was long since he had considered talking to Heimart, Edmund, and Imblen about letting their children cultivate both paths of cultivation through his way of becoming a dual cultivator.. But now, it wasn't necessary anymore.
As the group discussed about how many possibilities were opened thanks to the change regarding the spiritual essence, all through the city, various spiritual cultivators found themselves being able to cultivate the body.
Daniel did not want to make the tribe wait for too long, so, he tasked a few of his group members to gather as many spiritual cultivators adept in healing essence as he could, and lead a small party out of the ring, and into the tribe's castle.
A group of around ten people appeared right in front of the slightly worried triumvirate, which in reaction, was scared out of their wits.
Being the well trained warrior that he was, the strongest of warriors immediately grabbed his bone greatsword and pointed it at the 'invaders' in a matter of instants, but as he noticed Daniel amongst the group, he immediately lowered hi weapon.
"Daniel.. You're back.. I was starting to worry" Said the old man while passing the ring back to Daniel, as if lending a sacred object over.
"Yes, and I bring allies. These people are the leaders of my group. They will help us in the first part of the plan." Said Daniel to the three members of the triumvirate.
The three of them politely welcomed Edmund, Roley and the rest of them.
Then, the head scholar turned to look at Daniel and said "We appreciate all the help that we can take, but even with ten people.. It will be hard.. We only have six months."
"Oh, they are not the only ones." Said Daniel with a reassuring tone.
After a few minutes of presentation, Daniel waved his hand, and created a portal in the middle of the room. As this portal opened, about two hundred people came out of it. These, were all the spiritual cultivators which were adept in healing essence.
-----
For the following four months, Daniel and the other members of his group were treated with great respect, as they spent all their time purifying the warrior's bodies day and night.
The method they used was simple. The corruption would be pushed out from healing essence in the most simple way possible, and that, was through the bloodstream.
Daniel and the others had built a large camp hospital within the territory of the tribe, there, they would make a small cut on the skin of a corrupted person, and heal them until they were completely cleaned from corruption.
Sometimes that required multiple cuts, as the cut itself would regenerate way before the corruption would be fully expelled. Fortunately, the first people they had decided to treat were the powerful warriors which could handle the pain.
Along with freeing them from the corruption, they would also give them a method to cultivate the spirit, and in exchange of contaminated meat, clean and uncontaminated food.
The population would surely be able to avoid contamination by simply reaching a reasonably high level of spiritual cultivation, but the reason why they would come back over and over to exchange meat of powerful monsters for clean and uncontaminated food, was the taste.
The meat was meat, but the wasteland world did not possess fruit, or vegetables. Sugar, chocolate, tea, and many other delicacies which were cheap in Daniel's world, were new here.
While they exchanged resources and clean food, for the contaminated meat of the powerful beasts these leader, and chief-level warriors had killed, the triumvirate was leading a campaign of information about the incoming war, asking to each tribe to take part in it.
They had started by informing their allied tribes about the success of the mission, then, they asked them to spread the news to all the other surrounding tribes.
For months, groups of warriors arrived one after the other.
Daniel did not worry too much about purifying young kids or weak warriors right now.
All of that would be superfluous, as in case they won the war, the corruption would be removed from the world, and the inhabiting race of the wasteland world would slowly go back to their original state by themselves.
What they needed, were powerful warriors that could aid in the war.
If that wasn't enough, if they were to win the war and the world became a full fledged spiritual world, there would not be any chance for the corruption to come back, even if a world scale war were to happen, and people died in large numbers.
The amount of warriors that arrived were so many, that they had filled dozens of Daniel's fairly large spiritual rings with contaminated meat.
The number of purified warriors had reached the twenty-five thousand people.
Of course, Daniel would split the meat with his group, and the independent parties that had participated in the war efforts.
Now that everyone could become a spiritual cultivator, he wasn't even worried that someone within his pocket dimension might end up being contaminated.
As it was now, this meat was the strongest source of power that Daniel had encountered, and he wasn't sure when he would be able to find a similar, or better one in the future. Especially if he wanted to go back to his world, where cultivating past the ninth rank was impossible, and therefore, there was no cultivation resource past that level.
After being healed, the tribal warriors would be sent in a second section of the tribe, where Jerigh and Emelnie would teach them how to fight.
Daniel had allowed Scholar Lucious, and Scholar Lara, to meet with a few professional figures which inhabited his pocket dimension, and from them, they learned useful jobs like smithing, agriculture, alchemy, cooking, and a few others.
These encounters didn't happen within the pocket dimension, but within the wasteland world, so that the various scholars could come to learn these jobs, transcribe them into manuals, and spread them through their world.. Causing the technological advancement of their race to go back to their ancient times.
At the same time.. Within the prohibited land.. A mind boggling amount of monsters was amassing all through the territory, and on their way to join, many more armies commanded by humanoid monsters at the peak of the chief level were on their way.
After five of the six agreed months had passed, Daniel stopped personally healing people, and decided to start cultivating instead.
His cultivation would lead him past the third stage of cultivation, so, not knowing if a third vortex would form or not, he decided to open a portal, and reappear thousands of kilometers away from the tribe's territory.
The only difference between this and his past breakthroughs, was how he intended on attempting it.
This time, he would not be using any form of unique power like the monster's essence contained in the meat, or the beast essence contained in the beast core.. He wanted to break through by absorbing the natural essence of the wasteland world.