Darius first began cultivating his Qi over his body. The thin Spirit Energy in the atmosphere was galvanized under his mental power connecting to his Spirit Root to extend its tendrils to bring it over.
Now the process of cultivation, at least in the early stages, was simple. A person who was unawakened would receive a cultivation technique that would detail how they could use their Spirit Root to connect with the energy in the air and absorb it.
Then, based on two things, their Mind/Intellect stat and their Spirit Root's quality, they would use a varying amount of time to achieve this in two steps.
What affected the two steps the most was the Mind stat. In the first step, it was comprehension ability, as in how quickly you could understand the theories and directions in the cultivation technique and then actually connect with your Spirit Root.
Believe it or not, some fellows might have top-grade Spirit Roots but absolutely abysmal comprehension and could spend a long time - if not be stumped - by this first step.
As well all knew, the starting stats for the human race was 1-10 in all fields before awakening. Of course, there could be those like Darius who started out with high int stats and high Luck than average, but they were rare.
The so-called 'geniuses'.
To go on a tangent, the situation with pan and 'geniuses' was complex. On one hand, geniuses referred to those with top spirit rots, but it could also refer to those who had good comprehension, or those who had shitty achievements in both but had a lucky encounter and then suddenly became competent.
Geniuses also varied by cultivation stage. One could be labeled at the Qi Condensation stage because you absorbed energy faster than everyone else, but be called trash because you began to lag at Foundation Establishment.
One simple and unavoidable fact about geniuses in Pan that no one could deny was that the label could easily be given to you for showing the slightest bit of specialness, and also taken away just as easily for showing the slightest bit of difficulty.
Back to cultivation, the second step in 'Awakenings' under the cultivation system was to guide Spirit Energy into your Spirit Root where it automatically converts the neutral energy into your affiliated element.
This also relied on your Mind stat since the range of energy you could attract was dependent on that. Now since one had not awakened at this stage, obviously they did not have psychic power nor the ability to expand their sense.
However this was solved by the special organ the Spirit Root. What you had to do was imbue your mind into it and then based on the power of your Mind stat, it would stretch out and gather energy from a certain distance.
Pretty straightforward.
However one thing to note was the fact that 1 point of mind roughly equated 1 meter. So if one had the full 10 points of mind at the beginning stage, one could gather up to 10 meters of Spirit Energy at once.
This might sound banal hearing it, but it made a huge advantage and literally separated Qi Condensation cultivators from the get go, and might even affect the entirety of cultivation.
Picture you were watching a gatorade or mountain dew contest where two fellows must finish a 100 liters of mountain dew in one sitting - or whoever depletes the most faster wins - and the fellow on the left can open his mouth up to 10 meters while the fellow on the right can only open his mouth up to 5 meters.
Putting aside how bizarre that would look, who do you think you be able to suck in more mountain dew - especially faster - between them assuming they had the same stomach capacity?
This was the case for the average lad. He would then awaken after the first wisp of elemental Qi is born in his body, kept in his Spirit Root at this stage.
The rest of Qi Cultivation was split into 10 stages, and these 10 stages equated level 1 to level 10 of the Supreme System. At level 1, you must have one wisp of elemental Qi. At level 2, you must have two, and so on.
The power gap between Qi Condensation cultivators was very minuscule since this stage was not about fighting like a dumbass, but rather accumulating Qi to enter foundation building.
Just like Fallon, the stats range was 10 to 20 for Amateur, 20 to 50 for Journeyman, 50 to 100 for Adept, 100 to 200 for Master and 200+ for Grandmaster.
So whether Qi Condensation or Foundation Establishment, none of your stats are passing 20 points unless you are an abnormality. What are you doing fighting at that stage for?
Foundation Establishment ran by different rules which would be discussed later. For now, Darius' cultivation was similar, but vastly different to what was spoken of.
After all, all of the above was taking into account a young fellow around Darius' age when he first came into Faust who was now being inducted into the cultivation system.
With Darius' current stats, such an experience was not comparable at all.
In fact, it wasn't strange for it to be this way. Many Adepts, Masters and Grandmasters of other continents often migrated over to Pan to learn cultivation and acquire more power.
How could fellows with stats of that level flounder like newlings who had not yet grown pubic hair?
Step one, comprehension. Not a problem since it was a skill under the Supreme System, and its effectiveness was 100% + 1% due to the skills level.
Step two, absorption and conversion. With his Magic stat at 1500 points, that was directly converted to 1500 meters, or 1.5 kilometers. His top grade Lightning element Spirit Root spread out wantonly and grasped all the Spirit Energy in this range, sucking it into Darius' body.
Normally, there was a waste when neutral Spirit Energy was converted into elemental Qi, but the effects of the transmuted skill showed. There was a 100% efficiency and even 1 extra point, so if Darius absorbed 100 points of neutral Spirit Energy, he got 101 points of Elemental Qi.
With such a cultivation speed, how could it take a week? Shouldn't it take only a few hours to reach Foundation Establishment and even beyond?
Well, yes.
But firstly, that was in areas with more concentrated Spirit Energy, not a barren place like this.
Secondly, Darius was not the only one cultivating, there were almost 10 others doing so on this same airship. Each of them was sucking in the same Spirit Energy within the same rough range, so how much could each person get?
Thirdly, Darius was not in a rush. He wanted to feel out the stages of cultivation for himself and fully understand the physical, mental, and spiritual changes. Otherwise when he reached the peak, he would not be able to build further upon it.
And so the bitter cultivation atmosphere descended on the airship. Shanks and co who had less Mind stats were speechless as they wrestled with former mages like Nicholas and Elijah for Spirit Energy within their range, but how could they win?
And Nicholas and Elijah were flabbergasted when they were mentally beaten away by Luna or Gunner. Xela was usually kind and would even take the initiative to help them gather spirit energy using her own vast mind stat.
However, whenever Darius extended his range, everyone stopped what they were doing to respectfully allow him to work. It was fine too since Darius only occasionally extended himself out and would fall into pondering for a long while.
Naturally for those like Gunner and Luna, they blazed through the stages and reach the peak of Qi Condensation in 1 day. Xela was slightly slower at 2 days while the others took 3 days on average.
Darius was the last at 5 days, but then he shifted to refining the body.
Fortunately with this, he didn't need to research too much and could focus on empowering himself. After all, unlike Qi Cultivation which had potential for development, Body Refinement was hard capped.
That was a fact Darius knew thanks to the System Shop after he purchased some banal information. Naturally before coming to Pan, you could be sure that he made his research.
Body Refinement was just a side system, just like the illusive Soul Cultivation, but Faust did not have a power system for that. Vena had created the initial laws before creating the continents, and she couldn't be bothered to amend the fundamental laws after encountering problems.
Rather, she just squeezed what she could in and went back to her games. In her mind, whichever reincarnator was sent here would be given some of the best resources and assistance from her passively, so he could probably do something about it.
Of course, this was totally a 'not my job' mentality, but what were you going to do about it, criticize the Goddess who literally hosts your existence?
