Bab 26: Parting Ways
Just as Bell was about to continue cultivating from where he left off, he landed on top of Sixth Void's shoulder before asking, "Hey, Sixth Void. Does it make any difference if we cultivate in any other place?"
This thought only occurred to him right now as he remembered that in the web novels he had read before, there were places where the main character's cultivation speed would increase by multiple degrees because of the density of energy in the area. Fortunately, the same idea still applied here as Sixth Void lightly nodded, telling him, "Yeah. There are places in the world where the qi is more dense than normal, allowing one to achieve twice the result at half the effort. Sometimes, the qi in those places would be so dense that it wouldn't be impossible to achieve ten times the result at one-tenth of the effort."
"So, is there any place like that in this area we're in?" Bell asked in response, to which Sixth Void went silent for a bit as a wave of energy soon radiated from his body. After a few seconds, Sixth Void shook his head as he told him, "Unfortunately, there are no such places in this area within a ten-kilometer radius. However, once you head to a town or a city, I'm sure there will be organizations there that have qi deposits under their land."
"Qi deposits?" Although this was the first time Bell had heard of the term, he had a feeling that it was similar to the qi veins he had read in those cultivation novels. Ignoring what Bell was thinking, Sixth Void then explained, "Qi deposits are basically large chunks of pure qi that could be mined to create qi crystals, or in the case of organizations, increase the density of qi in the area to speed up their cultivation speed."
"Do you have any other questions to ask me?" he continued, to which Bell replied that he had no more. With that, the two finally started cultivating, with Bell attuning himself to the qi in the surroundings before starting to absorb them. At first, he felt no difference while he was absorbing qi, thinking about how it would take him quite some time to form the 41st qi wisp and break through the 5th Stage of Qi Sensing. However, as time passed, he could not help but notice how his absorption speed was slightly faster than it was before.
"That's weird," Bell muttered to himself. "I'm pretty sure I didn't upgrade my Qi Root or the [Strengthened Qi Root] skill. Where did I gain this boost in absorption speed?"
Curious as to where it came from, Bell went ahead and commanded the system to show him the current rate at which he was absorbing qi from the surroundings. From there, the answer eventually became obvious to him as he muttered, "Ah, right. I almost forgot about the absorption speed boost from one of the new titles I got."
Ding!
________
Qi Root: Three-Branch Mortal Qi Root (7.8 Qi/min.)
________
Factoring in that his speed in absorbing qi was doubled thanks to the cultivation manual he had, the amount of qi he could pull in at once had already surpassed the person Sixth Void met, which had a Fifteen-Branch Immortal Qi Root. Although he wasn't certain as to what his qi root would be called, he was certain that it would definitely start with the word 'Sixteen-Branch'.
"What other titles can I collect from that set?" Bell asked himself not long after, pondering over the two titles he had received that had something to do with qi. "Could collecting more titles increase the speed at which I absorb qi even further, or would it have other effects that I wouldn't know of?"
With that, he allowed his mind to wander off and imagine the things he could pull off with greater qi absorption speed as he continued to cultivate, aiming to create the 41st qi wisp. Fortunately, after about 18 hours of continuous absorption of qi from the surroundings, the 41st qi wisp was created, allowing 4 circles of 10 qi wisps to rotate around the qi wisp that was just formed.
Naturally, after creating the 41st qi wisp, the system soon told him that he had broken through the 5th Stage of Qi Sensing, increasing his Constitution multiplier by a small amount, just like before. However, as he read through the notifications, he noticed that there was something slightly off.
[You have broken through to the 5th Stage of the Qi Sensing Realm!]
[Your constitution multiplier has now increased to 1.6x.]
Instead of the multiplier increasing by 0.1, just like how it increased for the fourth previous stages, the Constitution multiplier this time around increased by 0.2, double the original amount it increased by. With that in mind, Bell could not help but wonder if his Constitution multiplier would increase by 0.2 from now on until he reached the peak of Qi Sensing, which would put his Constitution multiplier at the peak of Qi Sensing at 2.4x, basically giving him slightly above the strength of two humans combined.
In the end, he placed these thoughts at the back of his head as he knew that the best way to find out if his hypothesis was correct was to just cultivate to the 6th Stage of Qi Sensing. With that in mind, he went ahead and continued to absorb more qi from the surroundings as each qi wisp he created needed more qi to be absorbed before it could form.
Eventually, once the three moons that lit up the night sky were at their peak, after about ten days of engrossed cultivation, Bell had formed his 50th qi wisp, increasing the amount of time he had been in this world from two weeks to just slightly above three weeks. Taking a small break after creating his 50th qi wisp, Bell looked at his surroundings, noticing that Sixth Void seemed to be like a statue at this moment, with the only sign of him being alive being the fact that he passively absorbed and released energy.
After making sure that Sixth Void wasn't going anywhere in the meantime, Bell took a small trip around the vicinity, wanting to get used to somewhat substantial increase in Constitution multiplier brought about by breaking through to the 5th Stage of the Qi Sensing Realm. While doing so, he took a look at the amount of qi he had to absorb before he would create the 51st qi wisp and break through to the 6th Stage of Qi Sensing, the realm he wanted to reach to prove his hypothesis.
Once a small screen appeared in front of his field of vision, telling him of the amount, Bell could not help inwardly suck in a bit of the night's cold air, somewhat left at a loss for words as the amount of qi he had to create the 41st wisp was 15,600 points. Now, that amount had ballooned to 34,200 points, over double of what it previously was.
As Bell thought about the amount of time he would take to create the 51st wisp, he could not help but notice that the amount of time it took was more or less double of what it took for him to create the 41st wisp. Of course, that fact would only stand if he did not upgrade his qi absorption speed. Nevertheless, Bell now had an idea of how long it would take him to reach the peak of the Qi Sensing Realm, muttering to himself, "At my current speed, it would take me close to 3 weeks to reach the peak of 6th Stage, over a month to reach the peak of 7th Stage, almost three months to reach the peak of 8th Stage, and slightly over 5 months to reach the peak of 9th Stage…if no mishaps occur."
"Adding all of that together, the amount of time I would have spent cultivating just to reach the peak of the Qi Sensing Realm would equal to just around 10 months," he muttered, instantly realizing that the 1 year lifespan given to him when he underwent his third bloodline awakening might not even be enough for him to enter the Qi Gathering Realm and become a human. "If I didn't upgrade my Qi Root and got a cultivation technique, I might have already died before even reaching the peak of Qi Sensing."
Shuddering at the fact, Bell made a note in his mind to find some time to siphon vitality from other beasts, reminding himself that although 10 years might be more than enough to a mosquito, to a mosquito like him that was cultivating, 10 years might not even be enough to reach a cultivation realm that actually made a difference to him.
With that, he wondered if he still had other methods available to him that would allow him to increase his cultivation speed. Fortunately, he remembered that he still had some Impure Blood Energy lying around after going on that killing spree. Although the amount of Impure Blood Energy he had left amounted to about 800 points or so, it was more than enough for him to do an upgrade, commanding the system, "System, upgrade my Qi Root."
Ding!
'Would you like to upgrade your Three-Branch Mortal Qi Root to Four-Branch Mortal Qi Root? This would cost you 600 Impure Blood Energy.' A few seconds later, the monotonous voice of the system asked him, prompting Bell to move slightly farther away from where Sixth Void was, fearing that he may disturb Sixth Void with his screams of pain.
After making sure that he was at a far enough distance, he then accepted the prompt, deducting 600 points of Impure Blood Energy from his blood storage as a large amount of qi started to coalesce around him, beginning the process. After a bit of screaming and cursing out of pain, a fourth branch was added to the Qi Root in Bell's mind, increasing the amount of qi he could absorb at once from 3 points to 4 points.
Adding in the effects of [Strengthened Qi Root], the effect of the title, and his cultivation technique, his current cultivation speed was now equivalent to someone that had 22 branches in their root. At this point, he did not know if a person with that kind of qi root in the world or in the immortal plane mentioned by Sixth Void. In any case, the time he would spend cultivating from here onwards was now significantly shorter than before.
With that, he landed back on Sixth Void's shoulder before aiming for the 6th Stage of Qi Sensing. Eventually, once the three moons revolving around the planet he was in showed itself once more, Bell had created his 51st qi wisp, officially making him a 6th Stage Qi Sensing mosquito.
"So, I guess the doubled increase in Constitution multiplier was only for the 5th Stage?" Bell muttered as the notification that appeared in front of him showed that his Constitution multiplier had increased to 1.7 instead of 1.8. Although he was curious of the pattern after this stage, he decided to not care about it that much anymore, continuing to amass qi as he created more and more qi wisps.
By the time he had created his 55th qi wisp, a change to the monotonous routine Bell was doing had appeared. In the midst of him cultivating to create the 56th qi wisp, he felt that Sixth Void started to move, prompting him to stop as he noticed that about a week has passed since he broke through the 6th Stage of Qi Sensing.
Seeing Sixth Void standing up, Bell started to fly off his shoulder as he soon noticed that a solemn expression could be seen on Sixth Void's face. With that, he asked him, "Is there anything wrong, Sixth Void?"
"There's nothing wrong," Sixth Void replied as he shook his head. Though, there was an awkward smile behind his mask, which Bell barely noticed. "It's just that I've received an order to head back to the Void Dagger Pavilion. I guess I've overstayed my welcome."
"So…that means you're heading back to where you came from?" Bell asked in response, slightly feeling gloomy at the fact. With a light sigh, Sixth Void responded, "Unfortunately, yes. But knowing you, I'm pretty sure we'll meet each other sometime in the future. I don't know how long it'll take, but we'll definitely meet."
Turning around as he circulated energy around his feet, Sixth Void left Bell a few parting words before starting to fly off into the distance.
"It's been nice knowing you, Bell. Make sure to remember our promise a thousand years from now!"
Whoosh!
And with that, a few seconds later, Sixth Void had disappeared from Bell's point of view, prompting the latter to let out a light sigh as he was now alone again. Of course, he did not let Sixth Void's departure get to him as he now had a few more goals to aim for thanks to Sixth Void.
"Now then."
"What should I do next?"
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
TrueDawn
TrueDawn And with that, Bell is off on his own again. I wonder what he'll do next.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did, please vote for the novel with your power stones. I'd highly appreciate it.
Written on: 10/19/21
Status Power Mingguan
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