105 Chapter 105 (1/2)

Matt had spent the bulk of those two years relearning his crafting techniques. He had to actually do it manually but the gained knowledge opened up new ways and opportunities. There was one particular nifty perk of the new system, he could reverse engineer weapons and treasures that other people made. He had a chance of receiving crafting points through that but also the schematics for that item. It mostly depended on the ranking of the items and how the system rated his current skills.

For instance, while being a Novice Blacksmith, he couldn't really earn anything from items that were above the common grade. He gained those schematics by depositing the item in question into a special smelter, it would burn the item up and then signal him if he received something back. He could also use it to gain a percentage of resources that the item was made from in return, so it wasn't a total waste even if he failed.

So came the grudging task to work himself to a semi-reliable craftsman. There was a difference between having the knowledge in your brain and actually doing things with your hands. He fumbled around constantly, hammered items into unrecognizable lumps and atrocities pulling his hair out at night as he burned through the resources.

The system ranking was self-explanatory it started from the Novice rank, then went Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster at the end. He thought that the ranking names would be more eastern styled but they were exactly like ones from a certain RPG game he used to spend countless hours on back in the day.

There were also separate occupations for each crafting classes like Blacksmith, Apothecary, Alchemist, Armorer. For instance, Alchemist was more geared towards making liquid elixirs while Apothecary was your usual pill maker, the former was more popular around this world than the later both had their good and bad parts.

The Alchemist's elixirs were harder to brew, even small deviations and mistakes would turn your elixir into black sludge but when you made it right you received something special. In response, pill making was more lenient you just ended up with a pill of a lower grading that had a certain level of toxicity to it. If you took too many of those toxic pills your cultivation would suffer later on and without some special cleansing pills, you might even remain stuck at a realm with no way of progressing in the future.

But time is what Matt had plenty, he couldn't reach the Nascent Soul level without gathering ten million points and regular cultivation would just take far too long. He also feard that he could blunder while breaking through such an important realm and suffer some consequences if he did it. The system only updated his cultivation method after he upgraded it, so he didn't have the nascent soul version of his method in his brain just yet.

He spent those two years on crafting, due to having many manuals geared towards healing and forging he was able to increase his knowledge in certain Daos. He couldn't tell if there was a bonus in the system to having multiple Daos anymore, he could see his progress in his status screen. It was always nice to have a tangible number attached, it showed him if he progressed or if he was stuck in a rut. After the two years, his Status window looked something like this.

[ Name: Zhang Dong

Affiliation: Zhang Clan

Spirit Points: 8973267

Cultivation Base Qi : Core Formation [Great Circle 100%] (Devine Golden Lightning Core)

Cultivation Base Body : Core Formation [Great Circle 100 %] (Golden Body)

Techniques: Devine Lightning Path Cultivation Art, Golden Body Arts, Thunderlight Sword, Thunder Movement Art...

Dao: Dao of Heavenly Lightning, Dao of Smithing and Crafting...

Other: Senior Aura, Impartation of Knowledge, Mentor's Eyes, Apprisal... ]

When he went into his Dao section you would see :

[ Name: Proficiency:

Heavenly Lightning (Greater) :100%

Smithing and Crafting (Greater): 100%

Pill Making (Greater): 20%

Alchemy (Greater): 16%

Holy (Greater): 50%

Water (Greater): 25%]

The interesting thing about the status screen was, that it only showed him the greater Daos, so, for instance, he could click the Water Dao section and it would show him all the lesser Daos that he learned. He was part of the Zhang Clan so in his free time he decided to learn some of their techniques. So you would see the Dao of Rainwater in that section, ice-related Daos would also be featured in there.

He earned the Holy element Dao knowledge thanks to his upgrade of the cultivation technique. His elemental affinities were also going upwards the more he immersed himself into the Daos, the only thing holding him back was the lack of time. Thanks to the various manuals of the heaven grade he could progress at a fast rate, but even then it wasn't that easy. He couldn't just absorb the knowledge from the manual and be a Grandmaster at it from the start.

Just like with his crafting skills, he had to make his body and soul experience the various spiritual energies from the Daos. Take his time to digest and contemplate before reaching an epiphany. But after grasping that essence of the Dao he was able to process and learn the skills from it at a rapid rate.

After immersing himself in the techniques he also noticed that there was a difference in rankings to them. The system gave him the bare-bones knowledge letting him move into the novice level without problems. There were various ways that people in this world rated the level of their proficiency in skills like minor success stage and greater success stage. Matt preferred the grading of the system gave him, the RPG like mechanics were much easier to digest.