He pushed through the pain slowly but surely, but this time it would stop with just physical pain. The ki was running through him, but his negative thoughts were slowing it down, serving as bottlenecks. Three distinct places closed, loneliness, doubt, and disappointment.
He could feel the doubt in his heart, the disappointment in his chest, and the loneliness in his neck, all slowing down. He tried to force it through, but every time he did the ki would stop and burn him. He was pushing out mana and ki, slowly dissolving and absorbing it but he wasn't fast enough, causing him to run out of everything and faint.
After risking your life, your stats have improved.
Wisdom +1
Strength +1
Magic +1
[You are no longer overwhelmed, Ring Of Anubis is now in full effect.]
He woke up in a cold sweat, afraid of what had happened. He could normally ignore his mental problems and they wouldn't affect him too much, but it was clear that it wouldn't work this time.
'I guess a pause in cultivation is in order. At least I get another 50 magic from the ring'
He was even more disappointed in himself for this, but there was nothing he could do about it but work harder. His entire party went to the market that day, checking out all the crafts they could find. This included food, armor, weapons, and even some jewelry. Jake could only wear equipment above his rank if he made it, so there wasn't anything he could both appraise and wear that was any good.
He was still interested in getting some armor, and maybe a weapon with a built-in mastery skill but they were pretty rare, especially among lower ranks. He did see some interesting designs which he took note of, but in the first year area they were all impractical as they didn't worry about mana veins.
"Hey guys look at this cool necklace I found."
Ray said, wearing a light blue pendant with a classic chain.
It wasn't anything special, just making water orbs. The only thing Jake could think of was that he could do better. He could make something that the shark god would appreciate, just like Anubis did.
He couldn't say it, but he wanted to make something for his party members, just for them. Items for specific people were almost never made, but he could do it for them, just making sure that they were of peak uncommon grade, so that they could use them for a while.
Jake jotted down some ideas for some of his party members and continued on his way. Jake had state of the art tools and a mana rich spot to craft, but without that the materials he used couldn't make rare gear, so even after they entered the second year area there were barely any rare items. Some members of his group picked up some gear, but Jake only ended up getting food for the group, increasing everyones stats by just a little bit.
"I'm going to head off early, but you guys have fun. I have some other stuff to do, but I'll catch up with you tomorrow."
Jake knew that without cultivating the only ways to get stronger were to level up or craft, and he couldn't actually gain any useful skills from leveling up, so he began to craft.
He used his forge to start forming a pendant out of the black jade he got. He tried a variety of shapes, but after looking over the materials he had he settled on using the feather. The feather was about three inches long with a fairly delicate feel, but was still strong enough to support many pounds of weight if it had to.
The feather was placed inside of a circular piece of black jade that had rare amber in the center. The black jade was still shaped like a circle, but he carved it so it looked like a front facing phoenix with its wings half unfurled and a yellowish red stone in the center.
It took him around two hours to get this design done, but it cleared up his mind. He didn't have any aspects that would mix well with this pease, so he exited the training dimension and headed off to the library, hoping to find a magic circle to engrave onto it.
He had not been to the library before, but almost as soon as he entered he could see he wasn't missing much. The first year area was large, but at the same time was filled with useless spells. Hundreds of copies of "A beginners guide to magic" and other books that didn't actually give him any clue what kind of engraving to put on his craft.
"Im looking for a spell a phoenix bloodline would use. Do you keep bloodline spells around here?"
The librarian's glasses began to glow a light blue before he responded.
"We do, starting in the third year section. You can still read it, but you have to return it before you can leave."
He pulled a book out of his inventory and handed it to Jake before sitting down at his desk, where his glasses lit up again.
The book was called "Spells For The Youngling Phoenix"
Phoenix's were known to reincarnate in the same world they died, so the term baby or child would refer to their bodys age, but youngling meant that they were in their first few years of hatching for the first time.
[Spell Book Locked]
It was made clear that he couldn't use the book, but he could memorize one of the spells he liked and copy it onto the gemstone or jade. The first page had the circle for the spell "Phoenix Rush" which would cover one in fire, increase their speed, and on impact would explode everything nearby.
It was by no means a bad spell, but it didn't have a ton of practical applications so Jake moved to the next page.