The Villain's Sword Is Sharp

Secluded cultivation was a very boring and repetitive thing, so not many details are needed to describe it. It was essentially cultivating over and over again, day after day. Although it was boring, it was very effective, so Isaac was more than happy to do it.

During each day of seclusion, his cultivation increased. At the end of the first day, his Qi Core was 10.5% full...

Day 2: 11.9%

Day 3: 13.2%

Day 5: 15.9%

Day 7: 18.6%

…....

On the evening of the 14th day, Isaac opened his eyes and exhaled sharply. He stood up and stretched his stiff body, then went to open the room's only window. The sect was sprawled before him, the lights of a hundred homes and sect buildings illuminating the night. As he observed all of it from the pagoda's 5th floor, his eyes glinted with newfound strength and brimming confidence.

Day 14: 27.9%

He was still stuck in Rank 1 lower stage, but his cultivation was 3 times higher than before. If he wanted to, he had the resources to rent this room for another month and make deep strides into middle stage... yet, he didn't. Middle stage had several benefits; he would obviously have more Qi, his Qi would become slightly purer, and this would amplify the effects of his Anima.

However, breaking through wouldn't fix Isaac's biggest problem: limited means of attacking, defending and dodging. A true fighting cultivator was somebody who could swiftly dodge an opponent's attack or tank it head on, then seamlessly combo Anima together into an attack. If they were injured, they could heal themselves, and if they lost their opponent, they could use Anima to search for them. In comparison, Isaac had a measly Spirit Sword Anima which he could use for simple attacking and defensive moves. His defence was lacklustre, his attacks lacked variety, and he had no way of dodging other than physically jumping out of the way. Healing, searching, tracking, and all the other things Anima could be used for went without saying. Isaac could do none of them.

A new Anima was the only thing Isaac needed even more than a breakthrough. That was why he decided not to use the last of his resources on reaching middle stage and saved some to buy an Anima.

The only unfortunate thing was that buying one might be difficult. At least, buying a good one would be.

Previously, Isaac and all the other newcomers had entered the one of the sect's Rank 1 Anima storages to pick their 1st Anima, but that wasn't somewhere anybody could enter. More often than not, your first Anima would determine your fighting style and the Anima you choose after that, so it was an incredibly important choice. Since it was so important, the sect gave newcomers a chance to pick from the wide variety of Anima in the storage facility. It was an opportunity for new disciples to take an Anima which really suited them, then build their future style around it.

Isaac had already used up this opportunity when he took the Spirit Sword Anima – he couldn't go back to the storage facility except in special circumstances. For example, he could spend a certain amount of time in the sect's one-star locations if he ranked top 10 in the upcoming tournament. However, the tournament was still months away and Isaac had no other way of gaining access to the storage facility. Obviously he couldn't wait months to get a new Anima, so he would have to acquire one commercially.

This was the world of cultivators, so Anima were frequently sold or exchanged. The market always had Anima up for sale, but they were mostly common and low-ranked Anima. Of course, common Anima were not useless. In fact, they were common because they were good and everybody used them. However, Isaac was looking for sword-style Anima, which were rare in Northern Tundra and probably couldn't be found in the market. He would obviously have a look for them, but finding one would be unlikely. He would probably need to settle for an ice, water, or beast-style Anima which complimented his sword techniques.

As Isaac looked down on the sect, he picked out the market. It was one of the brightest spots of the sect and shone like a lantern which lit up the night.

There were actually 3 separate markets in the Rank 1 district, but everyone used the biggest one. It sold a variety of useful tools, talismans, pills and Anima, which was why Isaac would pay it a visit tomorrow.

For now though, he had to leave. The room was rented until midnight today, after which he would be kicked out.

Being woken up and tossed onto the streets at midnight was not a favourable outcome, so Isaac made sure it wouldn't happen to him. It was about 7 pm, so he made a meal with the last of his food stockpile, ate it, then closed the window and left.

He still had a hoard of 65 reward points with him, and he didn't want to risk leaving them all at home. He had considered renting out a room just to leave his resources in there, but the sect had realised people might fill up all the rooms doing this, so they provided a better and cheaper alternative.

Instead of renting a room at 1 reward point per week, Isaac rented one of the nearby lockers at 5 iron pieces per week. He paid the person in charge 2 reward points and took a locker for 4 weeks. He dumped all of his reward points into it, then headed home.

Back at home, Isaac didn't want to stop grinning. Although he'd been stopped only 5 days after starting, his scheme had worked perfectly. It'd earnt him enough resources to triple his cultivation base and he still had more than enough left to buy an Anima; it was too perfect!

He was obviously in a very good mood that evening, but he was also exhausted. It had been extremely taxing for Isaac to push his will to the limit every day for 2 weeks, and he fell asleep within seconds of lying down.

*************************

He'd gone to sleep very early and still woke up late the next day. The long rest helped him recover from the mental exhaustion of overexerting his will. When he woke, he felt more refreshed and less sluggish than the day before. He only had his trip to the market planned for today, so it wasn't like he needed to wake up at 5 am anyway.

After Isaac got up, he stayed inside to practice some sword forms and stances. Then he ate lunch, and it was already gone midday by the time he left his house.

The sun had only risen 3 hours ago, and it would set in another 2. Northern Tundra didn't have much sunlight in summer, let alone the middle of winter. Isaac just enjoyed the faint sunshine on his skin while he walked. It should be the sunniest part of the day, but its rays barely penetrated the thick clouds overhead.

It didn't matter. He'd been inside for 2 weeks, so any sunshine was appreciated.

While thinking about how he'd catch up on missed swordsmanship practice, Isaac had already reached the market. There was a special section of the market dedicated to selling Anima, so he went there first.

Anima shops lined both sides of the street. On Isaac's left was 'Frostbite and Snow' while a shop called 'Hidden Claws of the Wolf' was to his right. This was the theme for most of the shops on the street; they either sold water, ice and snow Anima – which were highly popular across Northern Tundra – or they sold beast Anima – which popular across the continent as well as being the sect's specialty. Even after going into 4 shops, Isaac had only seen a few darkness, necromancy, and wind-style Anima on top of the usual ice, snow, water and beast Anima. He hadn't even seen any ghost Anima, since they were more popular near the forefront of the war.

Oh, did I not mention? Northern Tundra was embroiled in a huge war between Blood Path and Orthodox Path forces. Ghost Anima thrived on the spirits of the deceased, so they were very popular around where the war was taking place.

In fact, they had always been slightly popular around the continent – especially with Blood Path cultivators. The war had just made them even more prominent.

However, Isaac hadn't seen even one of those supposedly common Anima yet. He hadn't exactly done a proper search, and there was bound to be a few shops selling them along here, but the fact that even they weren't easily found here killed his confidence of finding a sword Anima. In fact, sword Anima were so niche that they weren't even a proper 'style'; they were one of many Anima collectively referred to as weapon-style Anima.

Of course, Isaac wouldn't give up on finding a sword Anima, so he searched all the shops on the street. But as he expected, there were none. As for other styles of Anima... darkness, star, wind and other styles of Anima weren't prioritised by shops, meaning there wasn't a wide selection to choose from and they weren't very high quality. Snow-style was also a bad choice since it was very similar to ice-style but was just less developed, meaning it had existed for less time and its Anima were typically worse than their ice-style equivalents.

That just left the usual suspects of ice, water or beast-style Anima. Isaac would probably be picking from one of these 3.

As for what type of Anima he wanted... he already had an offensive Anima so he didn't need another one for now. Defence and movement were both higher priorities than storage, searching or other purposes, but Isaac could already use his sword for some defence, so he favoured movement Anima over defensive ones.

When he'd narrowed it down, Isaac began to seriously think about the Anima he'd seen. He cast his mind back to all the Anima he'd studied or read about, then remembered what he'd seen stocked in shops.

After thinking for a minute, Isaac began to make his decision.