It had officially been five months since John had entered the dungeon, and he had seen significant progress in all fronts. He had successfully snagged several more types of crops with the profits from selling his crops. He had finally got his cabin in proper living condition and he had finally formed his dantian.
He also received his knife back from the goddess and it was far more elaborate than it had been previously.
{Training dagger of Disciplina}
- A heavenly blade blessed by the god of discipline, boost training results and gains power with user.
+10% training speed for weapon related skills and titles
On an average night of training and tweaking the cultivation technique, he felt his lower waist start heating up and could sense the qi from the surrounds being pulled in to his waist. The energy coalescing on his skin was unable to pass through, he racked his brain and remembered what he had read in one of the intros to the cultivation techniques.
'...In order to begin cultivating, the body must be saturated with enough qi to trigger the formation of the dantian. Once this occurs the attraction from the dantian will draw in the qi, which must be refined and gain the individual's meanings to pass through the body and begin the dantians enlargement...'
As the pressure from the qi condensing on his skin rose he quickly activated his cultivation technique. Causing the meridians on his back sprung to life, glowing a welcoming green. Eight different vortexes began rotating together to pull in the energy, refining it through his will and adding meaning to the listless energy. Once full of energy the meridians began routing the qi through the series of blood vessels and meridians, which he had cleared during his regular testing. This caused his body to advance to the organ stage of refinement. (Body refinements initial teams are meridian, blood, organ, bones, skin, and muscle)
As the energy poured into his body it entered his dantian, becoming more pure and slightly enlarging the golf ball sized organ and passing through the rest of his body. The Qi's shined where ever is passed and enhanced the tissues, but the majority of the energy was focused on engraving runes onto the surface of his organs. The remaining qi was then getting sucked back into the dantian to store as energy.
This process took nearly no conscious effort by John and continued to circulate enhancing both his body and dantian. The rune from his mind was also perfected and made its way out of his mental sphere before traveling down his skin and halting just a few inches to the right of his belly button. This further empowered the qi coursing through his veins by shining a light on them. This let his dantian readily absorb the impurities in hopes to catch up to his other centers of power. The exterior of the dantian hardened and began glowing when the impurities merged with its fabric. His cultivation technique was a wonder as it took the key concepts of several powerful techniques and merged them with his unique meanings to further empower the body and spells/martial arts they're used in.
After two hours he saw negligible progress, but it was a start and he could fell the emended power that the tiny organ had packed into it. Breathing out a held breath, a cloud with a myriad of colors escaped his mouth. While shaking out the fatigue in his muscles from his training, he stood and noticed a system message had popped up at some point.
[Ding]
[Host has met the criteria for a new dagger training method in the training module]
"Sweet, it was getting boring just doing the same old training over and over. It only hit a bit harder each day cause they added some more stuff, but my skills have leveled up too much for it to be effective anymore". His fatigued muscles felt energy surge through them as his excitement grew, but he had set a schedule and was bound and determined to stick to it. So rather than jumping to immediately start his dagger training he went and gathered up food for dinner.
Even though he had long since ran out of his rations he still kept most of the containers, this was due to the outrageous pricing of such items in the shop. Suprisingly though learning that he had gotten a new training module wasn't even the best part of his night. He had done a trip through the field to pick some new crops for his dinner and saw something so beautiful that a tear ran down his cheek.
His rice had grown and was ready to be harvested, truly a great day for all gardeners. His favorite grain was grown and would be a main staple in his meals going forward. While harvesting the rice he hear another one of the iconic dings and felt power flowing through his body before settling in his heart.
[Host has ranked up]
[Newbie Gardener (rank h) -> Newbie Gardener (rank g+)]
"Wow I ranked and got a plus, what does that even mean?"
(Rank g+): Is a more powerful version of a (rank g), this could be due to numerous reasons, but this allows for the person to exert more power and improves the class skills exponentially with each level increase.
"So it's like a special version of a class, that's sweet. Now I should be able to get stronger much faster". John spoke to himself silently, a creeping feeling he tried to ignore jabbed at the edge of his mind. He had been basically completely alone, except for the goddess talking to him for over 6 months and he could feel the toll it had started to take on him. He could feel the weight of the loneliness that tried to grasp at his heart and break him down every time he slowed down or when he finished working and distracting himself.
Even still he felt strength and willpower welling up from deep within him. He had no lingering attachments to the idiotic society that fervently oppressed all whom dared to stumble in the face of adversity. He had been kicked out of even the orphanage that he grew up in once he turned 18 and had to figure things out on his own while grinding away at his last year of school and through all the training the guild provided. He was strong and he had done everything with his own strength and willpower, the only thing that could make him falter should be death.
He stood and proclaimed to the sky (not literally because he's in a cave) "I am John, fate may have dealt me bad cards, but I will only keep getting stronger. I who am trapped in the depths of the dungeon shall not despair but use this isolation as fuel for my strength. I shall become so strong that I can slay the strongest beast within this dungeon and save humanity from this dismal existence. This dungeon is mine and I shall dominate this unruly land". He clenched his fist already feeling his blood surge as his heart beat wildly, he had a goal, and we would make sure nothing could prevent him from accomplishing it.
A searing pain flared from his right hand and the usual ding of the system chimed, as an intricate sword burned into the top of his hand and most of the way up his forearm.
[The constellations Daemon God of Ruin Olethros, Hades ruler of the underworld and God of Destruction Perses have used their authority to bless user with the Sigil of Annihilation and Rune of Decimation]
"What is happening" he yelled as a pale flame spread out of the tattoo like sigil that had seared itself onto his arm. They emitted an intense heat which far surpassed even that of his forge setup, but he could feel no danger coming from the flames, as they danced across his arm.
{Ding}
{Sigil of Annihilation and Rune of Decimation}
- Users power is to low to access the full power of this formation
- Current usage released:
• Necrotic flames: as gods of death and destruction the gods have accumulated dominion over one of the most destructive forces, hellfire. At your current level the most you can handle are the beginning composition of the flames of purgatory. Power influenced by the amount of creatures killed by your hands, burn their souls and burn more intensely.
"Eh-????? WHAT THE HELL….!…?!?!" Excitement surged through him more intensely than before, he could see a path forward unlike ever before he had a strong desire to become extraordinary strong, he had the ambition and now he had the opportunity to have the strength for it as well.
Putting that aside he felt his stomach rumbling and knew he must whip up some food. When he reached his cabin and started getting everything ready, he noticed that he had no food left in his cabin. Sighing exasperatedly, he went to go gather up some food from the farm. He had been so busy cultivating and honing in on the completion of his technique that he had neglected his farm and gathering crops as much as he should have.
He started out at his pond, skewering through fish with his long dagger, there had only been three fish left in the little pond. It was still for a second before dozens of fish and crayfish exploded through the little tunnel at the far end of the pond.
"What the...., How did so many fish and crayfish coming out of that tiny tunnel. Is there a huge river connected to the back of this pond or what?" He through the fish into a basket he made using corn husks from his first harvest. He continued to go around the farm and gather the crops for his dinner, getting a surprise while he harvested.
[Dungeon Gardeners authority is influencing the crops. Influenced crops have become items and boost base stats]
As he has picking a carrot his vision was blacked with the translucent text box appearing right in front of his face. "Whoa, that's epic. This must be the perk from the [g+ rank] I got, let's see. Inspection mode"
[Unable to see detailed information, rank is too low]
"Damn, I might have unlocked it but it seems the effect is either super negligible or extremely overpowering. I'll have to wait and see"
Giving up on the pursuit of the knowledge of his new and strange ability he quickly went and cooked up his meal after having gathered the final ingredients. After having eaten and cleaning up he exhausted flopped on his bed and let sleep overtake him.
Without any knowledge of his own an unprecedented change was rampaging through his body. His organs shone with a golden luster and impurities in the form of a black smoke like gas seemed from his mouth only to get pulled into the vortexes on his back and enhance his meridians in those points even further.
His organs and half of his bones had almost instantly advanced and were refined as soon as the food digested. Meanwhile a minecule particle of water pullsed and grew as it drew closer to him before fusing into his lower waist. Energy poured into him from the surroundings as he peacefully slumbered.
An untold time later, beyond the tunnel.
——————————————————
"Krkreek". A massive centipede (about 70 ft long and 15ft wide) crawled along the celling of what appeared to be an infinite ocean in a colossal underground ravine. Massive roots spread in an ornate pattern across the ceiling, and grew in hexagonal patterns throughout the massive expanse of water. Large orbs of light acting like portals to infinite water sources within caves and tunnels were suspended in the water by the tips of roots and in the middle of certain larger roots.
Curiously the humongous insect sniffed around, having picked up on an absolutely delectable scent. It descended down one of the colossal roots until it found a portal with a large farm and log cabin inside an area seeped with mana. Leaping through the portal it noticed a man before it and began to clamp its pincers around his head.