Cara ran through the woods at an incredible pace, nearly tripling her natural speed through the use of a step technique. she had spent nearly two weeks in the forest now and her Jade-Dragon Body had finally reached the peak of the Houtian Rungs, the 15th Rung.

Her stats had tripled, with each one being around 1000, and the increase was absurd. Her body was as strong as a Mid-Stage Xantian fighter's, but she was still in the Houtian Rungs! Her Jade-Dragon Body technique seemed to be twice as powerful when fueled by Mana rather than with spirit energy.

She had managed to level up a few times, but the level ups didn't give her anything other than about 1 to 3 stat points in each stat.. Truly a pittance. Perhaps she needed to have an occupation or title to get better gains?

"Status," she said with a grin.

-

[Name: Cara

Age: 12

Occupation: None

Titles: None

Level: 4

Health Points: 1987/2000

Mana: 4607/5000

Strength: 998

Speed: 1057

Accuracy: 1004

Stamina: 1241

Skills:

Spoken Language (Common): 4

Read/Write Language (Common): 3

Stealthed Movements: MAX

Mana Manipulation: 7

Jade-Dragon Body Cultivation Technique: 15H

Celestial Steps Starlight Dance: MAX

Heaven's-Light Boxing Style: MAX

Mana Impulse Palm: MAX

Monkey-Style Staff and Spear Combat: MAX

Craftsmanship: 6

Cooking: 3

Animal Husbandry: 1

Mana Splitting: 1]

-

Jumping from branch to branch, Cara noticed a flickering shadow ahead. Immediately, she changed her direction as a powerful ball of fire detonated in her original path. She grabbed hold of a tree and used it like a pole, swinging around it to maintain her momentum. Her eyes worked overtime as she made out the appearance of—what she could only assume was—a wyvern.

The monster looked like a dragon from her first world, but it was far too small. It could have passed for a youngling, but it held an air of maturity that belied its small size. The beast wore black scales like mail and Mana surged like blue lightning along its skin. It snorted out two stacks of smoke and its eyes shined with a lust for battle.

The Wyvern was, by far, the strongest monster she had encountered so far. It managed to fire an accurate magic-based attack at her while she was moving at about half-speed. Most of the other beasts couldn't even make her use 10% of her current power.

A feral grin crossed her face. The air itself seemed to grow heavy between the two of them. This was the first time she had seen an application of magic that wasn't simple physical enhancement or an outburst of raw magic power.

After two weeks she had finally found the perfect test subject! Best of all, the beast seemed to have some intelligence to it.

Cara cracked her knuckles and jumped down from the trees into the small clearing. The creature mimicked her and stood on the opposite end of the field. An odd feeling of nostalgia overwhelmed her. It had been a long time since she faced an opponent that caught her interest.

With a burst of speed, she leaned forward and dashed at the wyvern. The creature reacted slowly, but it still managed to duck under her first punch. The burst of air coming off her fist shook the trees on the far side. Rocks crumbled beneath their feet whenever they stepped down.

"Good," said Cara, her eyes wild and unruly.

The beast used its ducking motion to twist its body, keeping its momentum up. It swung its tail at Cara expecting her to dodge, but she didn't move.

With a roar, Cara executed the most basic strike from the Heaven's-Light Boxing system, the Dawnbreaking Fist. Her knuckles began to glow as she threw her fist forward, meeting the monster's tail head on!

The air exploded from the sheer force of the collision. Her feet dug into the earth shooting rock and loam hundreds of meters into the air, her aura unyielding. The Wyvern wasn't quite so stable as it tumbled backwards from the exchange; its tail was burnt and steaming at the point of contact. The beast crashed into the treeline and several tall pines snapped like twigs. The land shivered and groaned. A flock of birds escaped into the sky. A harsh sun glared down on the combatants, twisting the air with its heat.

Cara watched the beast carefully as its Mana surged. The pathways the Mana followed within the beast's body didn't touch a single meridian, instead the mana followed along its bloodstream and lymphatic system. A mass of raw energy discharged into the monster's throat like a thundering inferno, boiling over like a steaming kettle.

Cara's eyes glittered as she memorized the process and then emulated it herself. Mana rushed under her skin and runic lines formed on her jade-like body that resembled a dragon's scales. All at once, she poured every ounce of the mana into her throat and exhaled. A great plume of fire erupted from her nose and mouth, and everything in front of her turned from orange to white. The earth rumbled and her feet tore deep into the rock from the backdraft. A cone of fire sheared through the earth like a meteor strike, the heat alone bursting several of her blood-vessels.

-

[Skill Gained - Dragon's Fire Breath

Dragon's Fire Breath: 6]

-

After three seconds she cut off the mana flow and the fire faded, revealing a charred landscape that stretched just short of a mile. Of the wyvern only ash remained.

With her foe defeated and a fun new application of mana learned, Cara decided to cut her losses and return to her makeshift shelter. It was a shame she couldn't collect the beast's scales. She had wanted to start crafting a proper weapon so she could go down one of the other Six Paths, the Path of Weapon Cultivation. After studying Mana for a bit she was certain Weapon Cultivator techniques would work well with it.

She skipped atop rocks and root systems to avoid the mud on the forest floor. The method for using Dragon's Breath was something she had never seen before. She needed to return to her base to quickly begin studying it in detail.

A massive tree, the tallest in all the forest, came into view. Carefully she circled around it and then touched the bark in a specific spot, opening a hidden doorway. With one motion she jumped inside her shelter and re-hid the entrance.

The inside of the hollowed out tree was simple and rustic. Her craftsmanship skill had been incredibly useful and she leveled it up several times while making her home base.

She walked over and sat on a pile of monster pelts that covered her makeshift bed, and she started thinking deeply about the Dragon Breath technique. The way the mana came together almost seemed like an Array. It mimicked internal dantian techniques without using the meridians to purify the energy first, which went against every grain of common sense she had from her first world.. Cara shook her head. She needed to throw away the 'logic' she knew. This was a different world with different rules. Just like how she couldn't cultivate on Earth, this world had its own laws she needed to learn.

Somehow, the 'Mana' seemed to be completely harmless to the human body when she had it follow the Wyvern's pattern, as if the energy were made to permeate the flesh— with the sole exception being her meridians. It was almost as if this world was explicitly designed to prevent cultivators from taking it over.

She shook her head again, trying to clear her thoughts. She recognized the patterns for 'Fire' in the internal mana formations. She wondered, for a moment, if she could change up the patterns and create a Dragon Breath of any element..

Immediately Cara began to work on a concept for a Frost Dragon Breath. She simulated thousands of runes and mana paths in her mind, and she also imagined the fallout from each one alongside its presumed effect on her body. Eventually she arrived at about ten possible configurations, but testing them would be dangerous..

She needed a sample of 'ice' or 'frost' dragon breath to be certain. If she could obtain one, then that information—in cross reference with the fire dragon breath data—would allow her to infer the exact procedure for creating any element through Formations and Array techniques while using Mana.

-

Cara cleared her mind of all thoughts. She stopped thinking about the Dragon's Breath and instead focused on her cultivation. Now that she had reached the peak of the Houtian 15th Rung, she could attempt to break through into the Xantian realm. Such a breakthrough would provide a qualitative difference in her physique, and it was necessary. The wyvern she battled earlier possessed enough firepower with its breath attack to potentially injure her. Clearly such a beast, a subspecies of dragon at best, wasn't anywhere near the top of the totem pole in this world. If a lowly wyvern posed a risk to her, then she wasn't anywhere near strong enough to re-enter civilization. At least, not as a woman. She had seen her own reflection in a pool of water, and after cultivating the Jade-Dragon body technique she could qualify as a world-class beauty. If she ran into someone particularly powerful and equally as perverted, it would spell trouble.

Cara sat down on her bed and crossed her legs, putting her body in a posture to better absorb ambient Mana. Her current home had been constructed upon one of the most Mana-dense locations she could find in the forest. She needed to kill a few Magic Beasts in order to take over this spot, but it wasn't all that difficult to do.

She focused inwards. Entering the Xantian Realm for an Outer-Cultivation method was vastly different from the Xantian Realm for an Inner-Cultivation method. Inner Cultivators needed to compress the spirit energy within them and refine it, replacing it with Zhen-Qi, a thicker and more powerful version of their normal Qi.

Outer Cultivators needed to refine their bodies instead, starting from the skin and working inwards. To enter the First Rung of the Xantian Realm, one needed to refine the entire surface of their skin. The Second Rung involved the tendons. The Third Rung the ligaments. The Fourth Rung the muscles. The Fifth Rung the organs.. And the Sixth and final Rung of the Xantian realm was the refining of the heart. It was the most dangerous but also the most rewarding Rung.

Cara focused on her skin and greedily sucked in Mana from the environment. Her skin began to fizzle and burn. Pain surged through her, but she didn't flinch. She focused on kneading layers of Mana into her epidermis. The knowledge gained from her second life proved useful in this stage. In her first life, to refine the skin was a difficult step due to a lack of understanding on just how a human body's skin actually worked.. But in her second world, such knowledge was not only commonplace, it was even taught to high school students! Everything she thought she knew about cultivation and the human body in her first life seemed so wrong to her now.

What would normally take a cultivator weeks of agonizing torment happened in mere minutes for her.

She could feel her physicality evolving as she poured more and more Mana into her skin. Black liquid began to ooze from her pores. Her body felt like a cup filled to the brim and—as she sucked in more Mana—it began to overflow.