"Alrighty, good night folks." Jin waved goodbye to Rei and the System as he started to yawn even though his cultivation would allow him to stay awake for another week or so before he would just pass out.
"So Jin, care to tell me what your current cultivation grade actually is?" Rei questioned as he started to pick up the headgear, ensuring that it was turned off before he returned to the research labs. The other party didn't answer and when Rei looked over he found the Dungeon Supplier having fallen asleep on the same chair he had been bound to, with no form or stance of cultivation at all.
"… Can he cultivate at this particular position?" Rei now turned to the System for answers.
"As long as he is able to fall asleep, his cultivation style allows him to grow stronger. System also believes that User had advanced to the stage where he could fall asleep at will to further cultivate himself."
"So, you mean, he could actually cultivate when he is resting in a taxi or train ride too?" Rei was shocked how Jin could do that so effortlessly. If the Mecha World Engineer was not wrong, cultivation of oneself should not be that easy at all!
It required mental preparation, mindfulness of the body and in some cases, strict mediation procedures to clear the mind and body for them to cultivate. That was the main reason why cultivators used to seclude themselves in caves and isolated areas in the past. Those were the best places for them to cleanse their mind, soul and body before preparing for a long cultivation process so they could achieve enlightenment and reach the next grade.
While there were many instances where cultivators could instantly increase their grade to the next level through fighting or a change in thought process during their fights, it was not as easy as one would think once one left the Advanced levels (6-9). It was as if the human bodies were acclimated to reach a certain grade and stay that way.
Maybe it was due to the minor change in genetics where the past generations of cultivators had always broken through their cultivation, allowing the current modern generation of humans to have a simpler time reaching a certain Grade. Or perhaps, the current generation was doing activities that they unknowingly knew could aid them in their cultivation process. (After all, the people in modern society had way too many things on their agenda to clear.)
But that 'easy cultivation grade up' came with a cost too.
As society had progressed, the spots for cultivation had reduced drastically, making cultivation in isolation almost impossible. And to top it off, there were increasingly more distractions for the modern cultivators to stay focused, as well as laws to prevent actual cultivators from fighting monsters. (With how much humanity had multiplied, monsters and animals would go extinct if every human had decided to strive for the maximum cultivation grade.)
This made Dungeon Supplier stores the next best method to get their fill of cultivation and even that had been modernised to accommodate the cultivators. In doing so, the product had been less than stellar with the exception of Jin's Dungeons and Pandas. The rumours and word of mouth did not fail when they found out that Jin's Dungeon Supplier store was able to allow the cultivators to break through their stagnant grade 2 and 3 cultivation, moving them up the ladder.
It had proved to be exceptionally useful for many of the modern cultivators since their breakthroughs allowed them to last longer in their work, completing what they need without getting tired. But the concerns of a growing cultivator population could possibly work against Jin's favour and he had already been padding the dungeon instances even when he knew that the exponential growth of the cultivators would gradually plateau when they reached higher grades. He continued to make it harder for them to grow further by increasing their accessibility with better weapons and accessories.
As ironic as it sounded, those weapons and accessories like offensive inscription charms were reducing their potential in growth because of their assistance in fighting the monsters. The cultivators were not 'dying' as much as they should be because the content was technically made easier by the means he provided them with.
There was little to no growth for them compared to Jin who had access to fighting even stronger monsters from other worlds and the absurd cultivation stance that he had. People would fight to get that particular manual of his to try and achieve his cultivation stance (If he was living in a more archaic world, female cultivators might even throw their bodies to him in hopes that their children would be able to achieve the very same ability too.)
This was made worse when those cultivation areas or commonly known as power spots had been coveted by only the rich and powerful. One good example would be the Royal Zodiac Dragon family that had established the main branch clan's location under a network of leylines, giving them almost unlimited power when it came to cultivation.
Jin had no idea how powerful his cultivation method was and the System kept everything quiet to keep him as ignorant as possible. Aside from that, it also seemed that the sleeping cultivation method had somehow evolved and been integrated into his fighting stance too. The System noticed every time Jin fell purposely to evade an attack, his cultivation stance would kick in momentarily before he activated his astral abilities to counter attack.
However, given that Jin was still holding back his powers in the previous fights, there was no way to calculate the true extent of his enhanced fighting capabilities. The momentary kick in of the cultivation stance got even more apparent in these two weeks where he tried to slip in a snooze or two before the default alarm went off.
It was to the point, Jin was practically cultivating as he performed his work duties and it frightened the System since it had no information on this considering such a possibility had never been mentioned in the manual. It could only deduce that the Ming which Jin spoke of was helping him tremendously in the subconscious training of his cultivation.
That being said, when Jin said twenty years had passed in the last two weeks, it was no doubt an exaggeration but not entirely an understatement. The time dilation would have been equivalent to two years. In short, Jin had technically been cultivating on and off for two years and that was why the System demanded Jin go into full cultivation mode to consolidate his chi and power.
So that he could potentially Grade Up once more to face the real world with confidence and strength.
