Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Ray sized him up carefully, wondering if this student would be any good. After a while, he replied in a high and mighty tone, "I will begin instructing you from tomorrow. My teaching methods are strict, so you better prepare yourself!"

"Haha!" laughed Holt. "Mr Dragmoor is an esteemed guest of our family. Until you finish your education, he will be staying in our best guest room and all his needs will be taken care of. Everyone, please welcome Mr Dragmoor!" Holt said to the rest of the family, still overflowing with joy.

Holt was becoming old, so he wanted to prepare an heir to take over as the chief of the village. As the eldest, he preferred Elwin. Elwin was very talented, strong, and kind-hearted, but he was also quite naïve and wasn't a mage. Though he tried to meet his father's expectations, Holt couldn't help but worry about what kind of a chief he would be.

However, with the appearance of Drake's extraordinary talent, as long as he supported his brother, he knew that the family would do very well in the future. Along with joy, Holt also felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

A servant immediately walked to the front and politely led Ray to his room. As he left, his siblings continued congratulating Drake. Like Holt, they all also felt relieved. Having another mage would finally secure their family's status within the village, as well as increase the entire village's military strength, helping them resist the demons and onis in the Beast Woods, and giving them more negotiating power with the other villages.

Drake thanked them, but he wasn't really in the mood. He was tired after the long party, and slightly disappointed with his aptitude. However, that didn't reduce his excitement for being able to learn magic.

He just wanted to sleep and rest now, so that he could start learning magic as soon as possible.

The next morning.

"Hiiiiya! Hiya! Hiyaaa!" Drake repeatedly shouted as he swung his mini sword left and right.

There was more than one way to fight, and the sword was a common weapon. From the age of five, Holt assigned the top swordsmen of the village to instruct all his children on swordsmanship.

Zhao Gaumond was the chief of the village's hunters. Most of his time was spent organising hunting parties and actually hunting demons and onis in the Beast Woods.

Every morning, he would spend an hour instructing Drake on his swordsmanship. Then Zhao would leave to attend his normal duties while Drake continued his practice. Zhao would later return at the end of the day to evaluate Drake's progress.

Drake was now doing practice swings and occasionally, Zhao would give a comment about posture, footwork, etc.

Drake hated this part of the morning. He hated physical activity in his previous life and that carried over now as well. Though he understood the importance of maintaining your physical health, now that he knew he could use magic, shouldn't he try his best to improve in that instead?

As if reading his thoughts, Zhao Gaumond shouted a response.

"Don't get distracted! Even though you have formed a mana core, you must still be physically strong. What if you run out of mana? Will you leave yourself completely vulnerable?" he asked.

Zhao Gaumond could tell that Drake was putting in less effort than normal and it wasn't hard to guess the reason.

Drake nodded. He agreed with him, but he still couldn't bring himself to care much. He wanted to begin his magic training.

Zhao sighed, "That's enough Drake. You can stop for today. Have a break, eat some breakfast, and go meet Master Dragmoor. He's waiting for you in the back garden."

Drake excitedly dropped his sword and sprinted to the garden.

Zhao looked at Drake's receding figure and sighed exasperatedly.

'He'll understand one day,' he thought, before leaving Drake to start his first magic lesson.

Drake quickly had his breakfast before meeting up with Ray.

The young-looking boy was still dressed in that same brown robe. He was sitting in a chair placed next to a table underneath a garden umbrella while reading a book. Upon hearing Drake's footsteps, Ray glanced up at him with his deep blue eyes. A gentle breeze made his long white hair dance in the wind, making him appear wise and profound.

"Drake… huh," he whispered to himself. "At least he's excited to learn."

Drake gave Ray a deep bow before standing respectfully.

Ray was pleased with his demeanour and gestured for Drake to sit. As soon as he sat down, Ray went straight to the point.

"Do you know anything about cultivation?"

Drake thought for a moment about what he had read in books. He collected his thoughts and answered earnestly.

"I know that a mage cultivates magic power. They collect the world's mana, refine it into their own unique mana, and store it in their inner realm. Then-"

"What is the inner realm?" Ray interrupted during his explanation.

"The inner realm… is like a small dimension that exists within a person's soul. It houses the mana core and the mana it produces," Drake answered.

'Not bad…' Ray thought to himself. He nodded in response, looking pleased, before saying, "Good! Continue."

"Once you have formed a mana core, you need to cultivate it," Drake began. "The basis of any cultivation technique is simple. You need to use your own unique mana to slowly chip away at your mana core. The core will soon reform and be more powerful than before. Once the entire core has been reformed, the mage achieves a qualitative breakthrough and their cultivation advances through a minor stage. The minor stages are early, middle, late, and perfect."

Ray nodded with a slight smile and Drake continued.

"After crossing the perfect stage, the mage's cultivation advances by an entire realm. The realms start with a rogue mage which is a person who has just formed a mana core. The mana core in that case cannot produce its own mana, making them a mage in name only. After that is the true mage realm, which is when the mana core starts producing its own unique mana. Then we have warrior mage, grand mage, mage king, and mage emperor realms."

"That's all correct," Ray said. Realising that Drake had learnt so much on his own, improved his opinion of Drake a lot. He then added, "The only exception to the above is the rogue mage realm, which has no minor stages. As soon as you temper and reform your core once at the rogue mage realm, you will reach the true mage realm."

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"Yes, that's true," Drake agreed. The rogue mage realm was slightly unique as the mana core couldn't produce any mana on its own, so it was weak and easy to temper, without any minor stages to cross.

"Do you know what happens when you cross a realm?" Ray asked, wondering how much Drake had read up.

Drake thought for a moment and then replied. "Breaking through each realm increases the amount of mana one can store and the speed of production of mana. However, the mana core would also become stronger, making it harder to temper, and therefore, making cultivation slower."

"Good, good," Ray replied, smiling even more. "Do you have any questions on cultivation then?"

Drake thought for a moment. "What cultivation realm are you at, master?" he asked curiously.

"I am a perfect-stage warrior mage," Ray replied matter-of-factly.

Same as father… although he is only middle stage and mainly learnt martial arts instead, Drake thought.

Then Ray's expression changed, and he added, "There is only one grand mage in our surroundings, and that is my master Myra Wan. The greatest elf!"

Ray's eyes shone brightly as he thought of his master. Given his young appearance, he looked like a little boy who was excited after just seeing some celebrity.

Drake found the sudden change quite amusing, but he still responded respectfully.

"She sounds amazing, Master Dragmoor!"

Ray looked quite pleased with himself as he repeatedly nodded in agreement with a wide grin. But he soon changed his expression and turned serious again.

"Very well, I will show you a few different cultivation techniques. You can try to see which one is suitable and begin cultivating".

As Drake described, cultivation just involved the repeated tempering of the mana core. The process of absorbing the world's mana, refining it, and tempering the core, can be approached in a myriad of ways. These different ways were called cultivation techniques.

Ray took out several scrolls and asked Drake to see which one suited him. Drake wasn't sure how to decide but he just picked a scroll at random and opened it.

A huge amount of information entered his head, but none of it made sense. Within a few seconds, it turned painful, and Drake slapped his hands against his ears and screamed.

'Hmph. Looks like he couldn't handle that,' Ray thought to himself.

Whilst some cultivation techniques were better and could help a mage cultivate faster than others, not all would be suitable for everyone. If a mage tried to use a technique that wasn't suitable for them, then cultivation would be incredibly slow, if not impossible for them, even if it was a really good cultivation technique.

Hence, one had to find a balance between a good cultivation technique and a suitable one.

Ray closed the scroll and spoke with a slightly condescending tone again, "That was the best cultivation technique I had at hand. But it seems to be too much for you, so don't worry about it. Since this wasn't suitable, then…" Ray hesitated and picked out three scrolls and handed them to him.

Drake opened the first one. Although it wasn't as bad as the previous technique, this one also rejected him.

Ray was at a loss as well; he didn't think his disciple's aptitude would be so bad.

Drake reached out for the last scroll.

'If this one doesn't work as well, I can only try those cultivation techniques. However, they are really poor quality so I hope this works,' Ray thought to himself.

When Drake opened this scroll, a huge amount of information flowed into his mind again. However, this time, it was soothing and pleasant, like he was drinking water, but the water was actually information.

After some time, Drake learned the basics of this cultivation technique.

It was called 'Return of Spring Arts', and this was clearly the one most suitable for him.

"Thank you, master Ray, this one seems great!" Drake said cheerfully.

Ray nodded and took the rest of the scrolls back.

"Okay. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me."

Drake thought about the cultivation technique and asked some more questions which Ray patiently answered. After instructing him for a while, Ray left him alone and closed his eyes, forgetting all about Drake.

Cultivation was a long and lonely path. It mostly came down to Drake's own efforts. Ray's main role was to instruct him on his cultivation technique and answer questions.

However, it was still a little early for that. Now, Drake had just formed his mana core. He was not even in the true mage realm yet.

Drake was silent as he reminisced over everything he learned.

Taking a deep breath, Drake sat cross-legged on the grass and closed his eyes to enter a meditative state. His attention focused on a tiny spot above his navel where the mana core was.

After that ceremony yesterday when the mana core was revealed, he felt a searing hot pain in that spot. Once the mana core stopped shining that pain also went away. However, he could now use the memory of that pain to locate his mana core.

As Drake focused, his consciousness was drawn into another space. It was completely dark as if he was in the vacuum of space. There was absolutely nothing here except a small crystal-like object - his mana core.

This was his inner realm where the mana core was located. When he gathered mana, it would also be stored here.

Drake took deep breaths again, trying to calm his mind and stop thinking about everything else. It was not easy to calm his thoughts, it took him about an hour before he got into a good enough state of mind to begin cultivation.

Finally, he activated the Return of Spring Arts that Ray taught him and began to use his mana core to gather mana into his inner realm and refine it.

Unexpectedly, Drake was extremely slow at first.

He could hardly 'feel' the mana around him, which made it hard to collect. Once he did collect it, most of it would just return to the environment on its own refusing to stay in the inner realm. Only less than one per cent of the mana he collected would stay in the inner realm.

Drake kept trying and trying but soon became very frustrated. His frustration made him lose concentration and break his cultivation technique. This made him suffer backlash and he started coughing.

Backlash occurred when a mage's mana is disrupted abruptly. This would cause the mana that was being used to suddenly go out of control and cause internal damage, creating a backlash.

Luckily, he wasn't using any advanced techniques, so the backlash wasn't too great.

Drake looked at the sky. Unknowingly, a few hours had passed.

Ray was sitting behind him reading a book. He saw Drake suffer backlash, but he didn't mind it as if it was something he expected.

Drake was very annoyed with himself for losing concentration, but it was very difficult to build the focus again.

So, he instead asked Ray, "Master Dragmoor, when I gather mana, most of the energy escapes back into the environment. Is this normal?"

Ray looked up at him and laughed, "Of course! Your mana will naturally repel the world's mana you collect until you refine it. How could cultivation be so easy? Haha"

Ray laughed heartily as he remembered the day when he encountered the same problem. He too was frustrated. Then the figure of a middle-aged woman appeared in his mind, and he broke into a smile.

"Only a genius like my master will be able to cultivate with no backlashes from the very beginning." Ray nodded repeatedly as if he was agreeing with himself.

'What's up with him and his master?' thought Drake, but then decided to ask something else.

"Master, are there realms beyond the mage emperor realm?"

Ray didn't respond immediately. After a few seconds, he sighed.

"Yes." Ray stared at the horizon. He paused for a moment and continued slowly, "Once a person reaches the peak of the mage emperor realm, they can ascend to become an immortal."

"What is an immortal?" Drake asked excitedly. He didn't read much about them.

"Something that you will never become," Ray replied coldly, turning back.

Drake immediately lost his smile.

Ray sighed.

"I just want you to accept the truth. You need a minimum of five mana cores to be able to attempt immortal ascension. The vast majority of people are not born with so many mana cores, so they can never become immortals. Immortals also rarely interact with mortals so there is not much that is known about them. All we know is that they are incredibly powerful beings."

"If you work very hard, you can become a warrior mage, and there's a chance that you'll become a grand mage near the end of your life, so that's all you need to worry about."

Drake hung his head, feeling helpless, but the figure of a middle-aged man in an infinite-sized room flashed before his eyes. That man, the Orion Immortal, clearly used magic to forcibly reincarnate Drake into the world.

However, he didn't summon any spirits – could he have been an immortal mage?

Orion Immortals…

They were clearly an organisation of some sort, but just who were they? An organisation whose members had control over life, death and reincarnation, spanning over multiple worlds - they had to be immortals at least. What do they want with Drake? Even if Drake somehow passed this 'test', was it a good idea for him to try to join them?

Drake was silent for a long time.

Ray gave him time to accept his reality, the sooner he came to terms with his aptitude, the better. It was easier to face the harsh reality than live in a fantasy dream.

A few minutes later, Drake recovered and decided to ask a different question. "Master, it's not that I'm being impatient, but for curiosity's sake, I want to know. When do you think I will be ready to learn my first summoning?"

Ray stopped laughing and his expression became serious.