Body Cultivation Hurts - Chapter 20

Nathan was able to return to his workouts as his body processed the last few poisons that attacked his cardiovascular system. Just as with his kidneys, liver, and digestive system, it had been tempered to the point that the poisons had lost much of their effectiveness.

Not to worry, the most dangerous poisons were coming up next. Working out would not be necessary. Poisons that attacked the nervous system often set the body quivering uncontrollably. His muscles would get plenty of stimulus during the process.

As so he injected himself with black widow venom.

The cramps came all at once. His stomach, shoulders, back, and chest knotted up against his wishes. The pain was immense. The only positive was that he didn’t grow nauseous. His internal systems were already too strong for that.

His breathing became labored, but not to the extent he’d feared. It was the inconsistency in his breathing that gave him the worst problems. Thankfully, his lungs were the first thing that came in contact with the qi in the air he sucked in.

Black Mamba venom he found the most violent. He’d thrown himself into the middle of his matted training area as the spasms grew worse. He feared he’d bash into something and knock himself out. He wasn’t sure he’d survive if something like that happened.

Mercury and nerve gas were terrible, but nicotine and caffeine at toxic levels were even worse. When there were only a few poisons remaining, it finally happened. He’d continued through the night and into the next morning when his breakthrough into the seventh stage, or large success, had finally begun.

He sprinted across the room even though his muscles were randomly flexing against his will and grabbed a qi-rich minor recovery pill before throwing his head back and swallowing it without any water. With the same urgency, he ran toward the qi ventilator. His spasms were more controlled than with earlier poisons, so he did his best to sit down and focus on his breathing.

Just as with his breakthrough to small success in the icy pool cavern, this one was much more intense than his minor-stage breakthroughs. His body slurped in all the qi in his immediate area. So much so it felt more like he was breaking through to the Blood Realm than just large success.

His body pulled from the pill he had just swallowed as well as his surroundings. It didn’t immediately eject the qi after absorbing so much either but held it there so his body could grow further accustomed to it. Many minutes had passed when he finally released it, sending a wave of energy throughout his room.

Any side effects he’d been experiencing were already gone. What wasn’t was the dark stick substance being expelled from his body.

He hurried over and began to shower. For good measure, he injected himself with the last couple poisons, only to feel his body fight them off over the next couple minutes. Even together, they weren’t enough. Was it possible for him to up the dose of a poison to still endanger him? Absolutely. Would it now take many times what it would’ve before? Oh heavens, yes. And even if he came across something dangerous, he’d recover at a remarkable rate.

Looking at the date and time, he realized he had completed his early and mid-stage cultivation more than a day faster than he thought he would. That meant…

He took out his transmission jade and saw Yuma’s reply. Not only was her family interested, Jun was hoping to bring the entire clan. Nathan had known there were many of them, but those with children still hadn’t entered the tower and there were seventeen already. It looked like he’d be unlocking the Contact System early.

Only then did he take in his surroundings and notice how much of a mess it was. He didn’t just have one heavy bag in the training area, but they lined the wall. Each and every one of them was covered in blood and phlegm expelled during his excess vomiting while he had an empty stomach.

Knowing he’d already spent too many points on things he shouldn’t, he gave the system one last command to clean his Personal Chambers and another 100 points were gone as quickly as the place was cleaned. He looked and found he’d spent just over 20,000 points on other such small requests during his poison tempering the last few days. Still, the convenience was worth it. He had more than enough to rent the training facility, even if there’d be many times the number of people he'd originally planned for.

Might as well get the Contact System trial out of the way. It’s not like it was difficult. He was simply keeping it as a reward for himself after he’d accomplished everything he’d sat out to do in the first week. Before that though, he walked over to the fridge and prepared some food. As soon as he saw the door shelves filled with condiments, dressings and specialty sauces, he grinned like a blood-starved vampire.

After his belly was full, he called out to Mr. Text Wall. “Send me to the contact system trials.”

The word trials should cause one to think of a contest, or something challenging. These trials? Not so much. If this was his first initiation and he’d done it the first day, that might have been different, but when it asked him to face off with a single, slow-moving zombie, he struck it so hard in the chest with a straight right that it collapsed inward, shattering every bone in its ribcage.

There were other basic physical tests, but the 60-, 100-, and 400-meter dash weren’t exactly a challenge for anyone that had already evolved. Decent athletes before initiation would’ve been able to exceed those times.

The best part about the trial was seeing the highlight vid the system made of your time since entering the system. Seeing his fight with the Putrid Undead Cannibal was humorous in a gross kind of way. Seeing his body spasm uncontrollably under the Black Moomba venom, not so much. His favorite was his superman punch to the boss zombie’s head.

He ported back to his room with the Contact System fully unlocked. The first thing he did was send Yuma Takao a friend request. It was accepted a few seconds later.

Next, he checked on Kyle. As he thought, his friend was following his instructions and hadn’t yet bothered. After that, he began to search for the athletes and martial artists he wouldn’t mind inviting to his training camp. Most of them had already unlocked the Contact System, so he wrote up a formal request, not being shy about borrowing the Takao Clan’s credentials to help entice some to join them.

After that, he contacted a few of the guys and girls he trained with back home. Many of them he hadn’t spoken to for years if he counted his first life into the mix. Mostly because they had died before the final battle. It was an emotional time for him, so he kept the communications the writing. Voice channels were easy enough once the system was unlocked, but both parties would have to be next to a system terminal for that. Text could be sent directly to a transmission jade. Jades with more features would come later.

By the time he was done reaching out to his old training buddies, he had seven names to add to his list. He also was surprised to find a reply from the Franco brothers. They ran one of the top MMA gyms in the states and were near the top of the world in grappling. He’d met them once, but the last thing he’d expected was for them to reply with an affirmative. He hadn’t even mentioned anything about time dilation yet. It seemed they remembered him and thought highly of his gym.

He was quick to do follow up messages with others that mentioned they’d also be attending. When he received a request from a pro boxer he’d messaged asking if he could bring his family, Nathan knew it was on.

Only then did Nathan reach out to his family still outside the tower. Mother was first, of course. It worked just like a phone call, though the tower’s system was capable of far more. When his mother screamed when picking up the phone, he could only laugh.

He didn’t just check in with his mom and dad but answered all of their questions. It was an hour and a half later when he got his sister on the phone.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re, okay?”

It was unlike her before initiation, but once she’d entered the tower in his first life, they had grown incredibly close. She was still a brat. Just one that would grow into an incredible person. It was because of her, and mom, that he had never felt rushed to look for a girlfriend. She’d nursed him during his most life-threatening injuries, kept him in line when he was growing an arm back, and even dragged him from the frontlines of a battle where his voice box had been all but crushed. That had been a fun recovery…

Even more than his parents, he made sure she understood every little detail of what she needed to do with her cultivation before her eighteen birthday. She was annoyed by the end of the call, but what little sister respects her older brother? A little prodding, flattery, and straight up bribery got her to listen until he was finished.

As soon as he disconnected the call, he found himself beginning to shake, and tears streamed down his face. Her death in his first life had hit him the hardest. It was in a battle on the mid-floors where it happened. She had become a healer in his first life and knew there was nothing he could do to stop her from making the same choice this time. Instead, he’d direct her to become a cultivator-healer hybrid that could both fight, and save human lives.

Turning back to the messages he’d sent earlier, he saw the responses were beginning to pile up. This wasn’t what he’d been planning, but it couldn’t have been a better turn of events. It was a good thing he’d finished early. He reached out to Yuma Takao and told her to invite others as long as they seemed promising. Then he started to revise his plan.

There was another very real problem. If he didn’t establish his expertise in the minds of the people that showed up, then it was unlikely they’d follow his training regimen to the fullest extent—if at all.

Against his desire to remain mostly anonymous, he permitted the system to release his highlight video and more detailed clips of everything he’d done since initiation.

Even though the social media platforms were a thing of the past in the tower, the Monarch had seen the wisdom in implementing similar features into the Contact System. Long and short form videos were a thing, as were group and clan, or guild, forums where people could connect.

Nathan relied on the system to post most of his stuff, but he also requested training specific videos to be cut together based on what he’d already done. After watching them, there was only one thing missing. Any decent training montage needed a good before and after comparison.

Exiting the eastern gate, Nathan was met with canopy of trees and the largest mix of ethnic diversity he’d seen of any gate was waiting for him. There was no surprise. Since the Monarch had to spread the peoples of the world out to make the Staging Facility feasible, it had to happen eventually. West, Central, North Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe had their porting stations by the eastern gate. For many of them, this was the first gate they’d visit. The forests of the eastern area varied greatly. The north was wet and cold. Further south became temperate, and heading straight out of the gate would place you in a subtropical climate. Then if you headed south, you’d end up in a tropical rainforest.

With the climate so varied, the plant life and monster type were as well. He was heading to a certain area just before the tropical rainforest where it was fairly dry. It was there that the earth golems dwelled. Also considered to be the toughest general monster on the first floor.

Not only had Nathan’s body grown in survivability toward poisons and temperature, but so had his strength grown.

Status

Name: Nathaniel Kane

Age: 19

Cultivation: Seventh Stage of the Body Realm (Large Success)

Focus: Body (Toughness)

Talent: S

Physique: D+

Strength: D

Agility: D

Stamina: C

Energy: G+

Spirit: G

His rankings were actually better than he thought they’d be. With a D+ physique, he could likely tank a high-caliber rifle round. Not that he’d want to anytime soon.

He hadn’t come here for the sake of his cultivation. He’d come here to show off. He didn’t have to depend upon a camera man. The system observed him itself.

When he finally ran across his first earth golem, he was alone. It was a dry, dusty area with tall thin trees and little underbrush. The golems themselves were humanoid in shape but made out of packed dirt. They weren’t fast, but incredibly durable. In a one on one fight, most people could probably defeat one. It would just take a while.

There were three in the vicinity. Fighting them together was normally the wrong call. High numbers would make them dangerous.

He strolled up to the first one with his hands in his pockets then took a deep breath.

It took it a second to turn to face him, but when it did, its featureless face moaned. It threw a blocky straight from where it stood a head taller than he was, looking to crush him in one punch.

He slipped to the side, countering with a hook to where its bicep would be if it were human. His fist flashed. His entire bodyweight followed through with his unnaturally explosive movement. Not only did his counter land, but its upper arm exploded under the force of his punch.

Ducking under another straight, he jammed even more force into a hook to its head. The packed dirt and rock shattered.

Even without a head it wasn’t done. Sweeping its arm low, Nathan bounced back before launching a spinning side kick to its torso. The thing buckled in half.

It kept coming without the upper part of its body, so he finished it with a shin kick that crumbled its knee.

When the next one stepped up to try its luck, Nathan focused his breathing then launched his forehead right for its incoming fist. Dirt and gravel flew in every direction while his head remained unscathed.

Then he really started to move. A combination of hooks to the body sent the second one crashing to the ground in pieces. The final golem didn’t get a chance to move before an overhand right hit it low on the gut. His hand went straight through the creature’s torso. It fell into pieces as he ripped out his arm.

He was as surprised as anyone at his performance. He’d known he’d be strong enough to take a hit and defeat them easily enough, but this was more like fighting gingerbread men than earth golems. It seemed having rank S talent was far more beneficial than he thought.

He’d planned on heading back to his room to stay on top of communications after he’d busted a few golems, but now he thought better of it. He might as well have some fun.

Picking up the pace, he began to search for the next group.