"It's important for disciples of the Elders to meet each other and exchange pointers, young lady." Elder Yang scolded, but she didn't understand.

"No, it's like…nothing good happens when I join tournaments." I said, looking to Rin, begging with my eyes to help me not sound paranoid.

"Elder Vale, I think Astra may have some…bad memories related to tournaments considering what happened in the inter-continental sect competition?" She suggested. Elder Hazeon's eyes widened before he closed them, a grimace on his face.

"Ah, sorry. That's my mistake. I hadn't thought of that being an issue. Astra is exempt from having to compete in the direct disciple tournament this year." He said, an apologetic look on his face.

"It wouldn't matter even if she competed. Miss…Everwood will win this year regardless." Elder Yang said, to which Rin shook her head.

"Actually, Master, I can't hold a candle to Astra at this point. Maybe before the trial I would have had a chance? After the trial her cultivation increased quite a lot. At this point, based on everything I've seen, I might last a few minutes? If she fights all out from the start, she'll overwhelm me quickly. I wouldn't be able to keep up." She said. Her analysis putting me ahead was honestly surprising, though I had never considered fighting her to begin with. It just seemed…wrong? to fight against Rin outside of a simple spar. Fighting any of my friends seemed far-fetched as well, and made me feel…weird.

"I don't know about-" I started before Rin gave me a dry smile.

"Astra, it's fine. My goal was never to be the strongest cultivator, and nothing has changed. Besides, I'm not a body cultivator, so you being stronger than I am is to be expected in some ways. Not to mention that sword that would make all of my attacks imbued with fire qi less effective. I have a different goal now, though I'm not going to stop improving." She said, giving me a cheeky smile at the end that I returned. I had forgotten that fact

"Miss Everwood, your status in the sect hinges on your performance in the disciple tournament. If you don't perform well it will reflect badly upon both you, and I as your master." Elder Yang said, her tone growing short.

Rin shrugged.

"Without Astra in the tournament, I'm confident I'll be able to win, so it'll be fine, master." Rin replied, seeming to mollify the older woman. I wasn't going to say anything, but the reverence Rin showed toward Alexis was nowhere to be found in her words to Elder Yang.

"Then it's settled. Young lady Everwood will compete, and Astra can skip the tournament if she so chooses." Elder Hazeon stated. We all seemed to be in agreement on that point and I wanted to get out of here before anyone could change their mind. Then I looked to Alice.

"Ah! What about Alice? I need to look after her, can she join the sect?" I asked the assembled elders, hoping they'd be able to approve of her joining, though they didn't have a reason to say no.

Elder Hazeon nodded.

"That should be no problem. I've lost many disciples through the recent years due to my declining health. All but little Fu moved on to other masters under my orders. I have plenty of spots for disciples. I can feel that you're somewhere around the middle of the core formation realm miss…?" Elder Hazeon said, pausing and looking between Alice and I after trailing off. I realized Alice probably didn't have a last name. I thought for a few moments before deciding asking Alice would be the simplest solution.

"Alice, what do you want us to use as your last name?" I asked the girl..

"I'm not sure I understand the purpose of having a last name, Head researcher Astra. Will it help with the completion of Project Eden?" She asked. I expected this response and responded immediately.

"Yes, Alice. It is imperative to the completion of the project for you to choose a last name for yourself." I told her, only somewhat lying. She paused and thought for a moment before nodding.

"Very well. To preserve the integrity of the project, I will select Eden as my last name." She said. I blinked a few times. That was…actually a good name. I wasn't sure why I assumed she was going to choose something strange, but I was pleasantly surprised. I smiled.

"That's a wonderful name!" I told her, looking back to Elder Hazeon and giving him a meaningful look. He looked between Alice and I and nodded before coughing.

"A-ahem. Very well, young miss Eden, can you give us a short explanation of your cultivation and fighting style? It will be best if we can pair you with the proper instructors to aid in your growth.

Alice looked back to me and I nodded. She looked back to Elder Hazeon as she answered.

"Understood. I am 53.223% of the way through the upper stage of the core formation realm. My elemental affinity is metal, allowing the most symbiosis between my cultivation and biomechanical composition. As per cultivation standards, my body cultivation is on track nearing 66% completion of the muscle forging realm. My predominant combat style is hand to hand combat, though I've been trained on, and had knowledge implanted within me of, combat styles involving most traditional weapons.

I combine body cultivation with my close combat and direct contact techniques as well as my movement techniques. My spiritual cultivation assists my less directly combat focused techniques and it provides me the ability to malleate various metals into various forms and change their elasticity and density at will.

I have some limited ferro-kinetic abilities as well, but project research deemed ferro-malleation a preferable ability for a weapon designed to slay demons, whose inherent qi resistance — outside of the qi of the Divine Elements — is markedly high." Alice finished, completing the entire info-dump on her abilities in a single breath from what I could tell. Then something she had said hit me.

"Wait…what do you mean cultivation standards involve combining body cultivation and spiritual cultivation together?" I asked, though thinking about it, it was a silly question. Text had been the one to explain I should body cultivate and he was left behind by the very sect responsible for creating Alice. But that meant…

"My records indicate that it is common knowledge throughout the universe that the most powerful paths involve joining spirit and body cultivation together, each helping nourish the other on the cultivator's path. This is only feasible for those with single or dual branch spirit roots as the time investment required for those with sub-par talent and cultivation methods to cultivate both their spirit and body is already massive after reaching the core formation and Forging realms." Alice helpfully explained. I looked around the room again, seeing complicated expressions from everyone.

Surprisingly, the sect leader was the one who spoke first.

"From all of my knowledge, the idea of cultivating both ones body and spirit has been deemed taboo. I was taught that doing so would cripple your foundation, the idea being that the mortal body was unable to handle multiple paths. I did hear that somewhere on the eastern continent a year or two ago knowledge contradicting this well established truth began circulating. But until now I hadn't taken it seriously. Though I suppose lady Everwood's words about Astra's cultivation would indicate that rumor may indeed more than just a rumor." He said, raising an eye at me.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The traitor, Shimmer, made a noise that sounded distinctly like a little foxy chuckle in my lap, drawing the rest of the room's attention over to me. Elder Hazeon chuckled at the little fox's antics before saving me the embarrassment of explaining.

"Part of the reason I accepted Astra as my disciple is due to her unique constitution. She suffered from the same ailment I have my entire life." Elder Hazeon started, garnering frowns from both the sect leader and Elder Yang.

"Due to circumstances that I will not explain as they are her secrets to tell, she recovered from this…defect…and began cultivating both her body and spirit. She rose up through the cultivation realms and is likely the impetus behind the rumors you've heard, sect leader. As you can see, her foundation has been unaffected by cultivating both her body and spirit. Though I suppose any talk of side effects may be moot considering miss Eden has confirmed that dual spirit and body cultivation is most likely perfectly safe." He finished.

"Wow Astra, that's awesome! I knew you had both spiritual and body cultivation, but everything was happening so fast that I never got to ask about it, and thought it might've been dangerous. Now I'm jealous, is it possible for me to still catch up and do body cultivation?" Rin asked and I frowned, shaking my head, and feeling bad about having to shoot down her hopes on the subject.

"No, sorry. Once you reach a certain cultivation level, it becomes impossible to begin the other path. I'm sorry, Rin." I said, feeling awful for having to shoot her down.

"Hmm…that's alright I suppose! It's not like it's impossible to reach the highest realm of cultivation on a singular path, right?" She asked, much more chipper than I expected. I didn't know the answer so I looked to the others in the room and they all nodded. Perhaps being her master spurred her on, as Elder Yang spoke up.

"That's true, miss Everwood. With enough hard work and time invested, anyone can reach the pinnacle of power. Though that is simplifying the major goal of most people in the universe down to something that amounts to 'work hard and you'll be rewarded'." She said, sounding a lot like a teacher in that moment.

Rin nodded.

"Then it's fine, though If no one in the universe except for Astra and Alice have this combined cultivation, and a bunch of people back in Alice's time did do this more powerful type of cultivation, how are we going to fight off the demons they couldn't beat?" she asked, cutting right to the heart of the pit that had been growing in my stomach.

The room was silent for seconds, a somber veil falling over all of us as we all thought through the implications of Rin's words. Then the sect leader spoke up.

"Can you both flare your body cultivations for me?" he asked.

I did so, then noticed Alice wasn't and told her to do so as well. I flooded my body with qi, feeling it reinforce each part of me, strengthening me from within. It helped me feel more energized and I immediately perked up despite not getting a real rest period since the last time I was at the sect.

The sect leader nodded.

"I can feel both of your body cultivations and I don't sense any issues with either of your spirit cultivations either. This is quite convincing. Though I'm not the one you have to worry about convincing. The rest of the universe is unlikely to believe you two are more than just outliers or exceptions to the rules we've long held as absolute. It will likely take decades if not centuries or millennia to convince others of this new path, and I fear we don't have that kind of time." He said, and as if that wasn't dour enough of a thought already, he added onto the sour mood.

"This revelation also begs the question of why this knowledge was lost over the countless millennia. If this knowledge truly was so common in miss Eden's time, I find it difficult to believe that sentiment toward it would be so twisted over the years as to actively dissuade cultivators from that path for fear of disrupting their cultivation. Without outside interference that is." He said, his words dripping with meaning.

I thought about what he said and I felt shivers run up my spine, a matching sinking feeling coursed through my stomach.

If what he was suggesting was the case, and something or someone had purposefully steered humanity away from a more powerful cultivation path, why had they done so? And where were they now? Were there still people alive out there conspiring to sabotage humanity's chances of fighting off the demons? Spinning off that thought. If they had messed with information on cultivation paths, what other information had they meddled with? A niggling feeling in the back of my brain sprang forth then. Something I had always been confused about was now sticking out as something that might be akin to the dangers of cultivating both paths.

"Alice, what do you know about alchemy and pills for spirit cultivation?" I asked the girl. All eyes in the room turned from me to her, looks of confusion on most faces except for the sect leader and Rin who seemed to have clocked what I was getting at.

Alice turned to me and answered diligently.

"I am unable to consume pills of any kind as my biomechanical nature precludes the proper digestion and incorporation of their effects. I have been taught and given cursory knowledge of pills in order to accurately identify them for use during combat and in warzones. Using spirit cultivation pills to improve one's cultivation is a common method of reducing the amount of time needed to reach the next realm. It is common for cultivators at or below the core formation realm to use them after ensuring their foundation is strong enough to reduce the effect of any impurities. Though more complex pills are needed at higher realms to effectuate any kind of marked change." She explained which made my heart start beating faster.

"Does that mean that those pills won't hurt your foundation if you take them to grow stronger?" I asked Alice, but before she could answer Rin interjected, a frown on her face.

"But according to Alexis's story, she consumed many spirit cultivation pills and those did harm her foundation enough that she was unable to grow any stronger than she was when we met her, didn't she?" She argued which…was totally right. Alexis had said something about harming her foundation with pills. I looked to Alice who nodded.

"Ingesting a large amount of low quality spirit cultivation pills or particularly volatile pills can affect a cultivator's foundation. The more complex the recipe for a pill is, the higher the chance of the alchemist creating a low quality version of the pill with impurities. Willfully bringing impurities into your body can affect a cultivator's foundation if they don't reach a certain level in body cultivation first or take a similarly ranked spirit cleansing pill. Pills concocted using high quality ingredients and natural treasures by a highly skilled alchemist are almost completely safe to use as the amount of impurities allowed to gather within them is stymied by the relative purity of the ingredients used.

The process and tools used to create pills also affect the quality of the finished product, but these things are minor inconveniences at most for a skilled alchemist." She finished, but my mind barely registered any words after 'body cultivation'

I grabbed her by the shoulders, gripping her tightly, but it felt like I was grabbing a block of the hardest iron.

"Body cultivation can prevent the negative side effects of taking spirit cultivation pills??" I asked, incredulous, but hopeful. Alice nodded.

"Yes, Head Researcher Astra. This is one of the primary reasons that combined spirit and body cultivation path cultivators are some of the strongest in the universe. They are able to grow stronger somewhat faster than their single path counterparts despite the need to cultivate two paths at once. That is only if they are able to obtain high quality spirit cultivation pills, though. High quality spirit cultivation pills, even for the core formation realm, aren't common enough for many cultivators to use them regularly. They were often used as rewards for winning tournaments and other competitions." She said. I looked over to the sect leader.

"'I haven't heard of spirit cultivation pills that don't guarantee your foundation is harmed, have any of you?" I asked the room, being met with shaking heads across the board. Then I looked back to Alice, hope and fear blooming within me.

"Alice, if we showed you some pill recipes used by alchemists, could you tell us if there's anything wrong with them?" I asked the girl. To my dismay, she shook her head.

"My knowledge of pill recipes is non-existent." She told me, dashing my hopes away like ash beneath a cauldron.

"The Aurion sect research ship should have the capability to analyze pill recipes. It's a standard issue ship built by the sect, so it comes with intermediate knowledge of various topics of research in case they are needed. The Aurion sect's guiding ethos is the spreading of knowledge and power as far as possible after all." She continued. To which I perked up.

The ship! If the ship can analyze some pill recipes then maybe…I looked to the sect leader, excitement building in my heart.

"Does the Radiant Halo sect have a pill hall?" I asked, a smile growing on my lips.

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