The Phoenix Aspect

C0016: Market Exchange

Tapping on martial skills, Jayde was astonished by the number of items available. The martial arts section was broken down into further categories, such as fighting skills, swordsmanship, archery, assassins, axes, shooting, and a couple more that Jayde had never heard of.

Tapping on the fighting skills, Jayde found that under fighting skills, the powers were further broken down into attacking or defenses skills and there were over a hundred different types of skills, all with strange names such as Flood; Constrain; Morph; Shatter just to name a few.

The skills were broken down into different levels and cost anything from three points to hundreds of points.

When Jayde was informed that she had earned ten points from completing White's test, she had assumed that she had a lot of points, but now she realized that if she wanted to purchase something really valuable she would need a lot more points.

Coming to the realization of how precious her points were, Jayde decided that if she purchased anything, it would have to be something that she really needed. While she found some skills under the martial skills section that she was interested in, her experience on the prairie had given her the confidence that the skills she currently possessed were sufficient for her to survival — for now — at least until she had earned more points.

Returning to the main menu, Jayde tapped on the body modification section, with her experience in her previous life as a genetically enhanced human, Jayde was extremely interested in anything that would improve her physical body.

Jayde eye's widened, and her heart rate increased as she took note of the numerous different body modifications available. This is more like it, Jayde thought, as she started to read through the list of body modifications items available.

There were so many modifications she was interested in. A level one healing ability would increase her body's natural healing ability by twenty-five percent, while a level one speed enhancement, would increase her speed by fifteen percent, there were body strengthening modifications, meridians widening, skin hardening, while most were pretty easy to understand. There were some really disturbing modifications like dragon claws, hammer fists, and shark skin.

While Jayde was quite happy to upgrade her body, she didn't want to end up looking like some kind of freak. Browsing further through the body modifications, she also noticed that there were some pretty useless modifications, they were purely for physical beauty, from changing one's hair and eye color to increasing one's breast size, there were even modifications that would let your body give off different fragrances.

Under the magic spell section, Jayde found thousands of different spells for all the different types of elements. Looking at the different elemental spells available, made Jayde realize that she had no idea what her elemental affinity was.

Turning to Isha, Jayde asked: "Isha, now that my seal has been lifted, how do I find out about my elemental affinity and Qi pool?"

Slipping one of his hands into his pocket, Isha cleared his throat, his eyebrows furrowed as he responded.

"Ahem... Jayde, I meant to talk to you about that earlier. The first layer of the seal locked away your fire abilities, so right now you only have access to the fire element, as to your Qi pool, with your blo... er I mean .. body your potential should have been limitless, but with your magic being locked way, your dantian was damaged."

"Damaged?" Jayde interrupted, "How was it damaged, and how bad is it?"

"Well, from the moment a child is born on Doha, even though they can't cultivate, they still slowly absorb the Qi around them, which helps to nourish their dantian. But as your dantian was sealed away at birth, you were denied this opportunity, so your dantian has shrunk, think of it as if your dantian has been starved for the past thirteen years," Isha explained while looking distressed by this fact.

"But not to worry, it's not permanent, there are ways to fix it," he said hurriedly to reassure Jayde.

Jayde frowned, she had picked up Isha quick correction. Looks like Isha is hiding something about my body, she thought, this only underlined to Jayde that this Protoss artifact couldn't be trusted.

"So as I unlock more layers, I will gain more elemental abilities?" she probed.

"Uh huh," Isha nodded.

After a moment's reflection, Jayde said: "So when will you be able to unlock the rest of my layers?"

"I can't," Isha rubbed the back of his neck. "That is only something you can do," he stated.

"Only I can do?"

"Hmm, I have already bent the rules as far as I can, by releasing the first layer of your seal. I am only meant to guide you, not interfere with your destiny, but I had a little leeway as someone had already interfered by hijacking your soul and locking away your magic, but from now onwards, it is up to you to unlock the rest of your seal."

Jayde was quite surprised at Isha speech. "So can you at least tell me how do I go about releasing my seal and what I need to do to fix my dantian?"

Isha was quite happy that he could at least answer this question.

"Oh yes," smiling brightly Isha continued.

"For your seal, you will need to find pure elemental pearls. Only by absorbing the pure elemental Qi stored within the pearl, will you harness enough elemental power to break through the seal — there are other ways to unlock your seal, but you will have to discover those methods on your own."

Isha further went on to explain to Jayde that pure elemental pearls were created by emperor level spirit beasts, and it could only be formed by a spirit beast who was about to ascend to god level — a state that a majority of spirit beast yearned for as only by entering god level could they gain their human form.

Elemental pearls were formed when a spirit beast compressed all the Qi in their dantians.

Oh great, Jayde thought sarcastically, not only do I need to find one of these mythical beasts, I then have to somehow survive running into it (this was due to most spirit beasts hating humans, and they had a tendency to kill first and ask questions later). And then somehow convince it to give up all its cultivation to create one of these elemental pearls for me, putting it back thousands of years from gaining its human form.

Giving up on the idea of gaining more elemental abilities — at least for now, Jayde decided to concentrate on healing her dantian.

"Well then, what do I need to heal my dantian?" she asked Isha.

Producing a piece of parchment from thin air, Isha started writing down a list of items that Jayde needed to gather for him to help repair her dantian. Once finished he handed over the list to her.

Look through the list that Isha had written down, Jayde eyebrows shot up.

"I need to acquire all these items?" she asked dismayed at the long list of items that Isha had produced.

"Hmm," Isha confirmed. "But it not too serious."

"Most of these are common herbs and plants," he said pointing to a quite a few of the items written.

"And as for these spirit stones, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to find, as most of those beasts are in the Dark Forest."

Turning the parchment over he pointed to a small list, "but these are going to be difficult."

Jayde read the list out loud: "Mermaid's Tear, Dragon Scale, Branch from Tree of Life, Medusan Venom, Dwarven Black Gold and Blood of the Phoenix."

"Ah I forgot, you don't need the blood of the Phoenix, since ... well, we luckily have some on hand," Isha said hurriedly grabbing the parchment he looked quite flustered as he produced a piece of charcoal, then he scratched off Blood of the Phoenix of the list.

"..." Jayde's eyes narrowed as she looked at Isha, suspicious why he was so flustered.

"You have some blood of a phoenix available?" Jayde asked suspiciously.

"Uh huh," Isha said, nodding his head, looking at the parchment in his hand.

"Really, and just how did you manage to get your hands on some phoenix blood?"

Isha head jerked up, he could hear the suspicion in Jayde voice.

"Well, this artifact has been around for eons Jayde, there are many secrets locked away, which you will discover in due time."

Although not happy with Isha evasion, Jayde let the matter drop.

"I need ALL of these items to repair my dantian?" Jayde clarified as she pointed to the list in Isha hands.

"Well not all in one go," Isha stated.

"Right now, your Qi pool is at the stone level, I will need these items to create a potion to repair your dantian so that you can advance to the copper stage."

Marking some of the herbs, as well as the low-level spirit stones with a small cross mark, Isha handed back the parchment to Jayde.

Noticing the distressed look on Jayde's face, Isha tried to think of a way to cheer her up.

"Not all those items are difficult to find," he said, smiling sympathetically. "Dwarven black gold, shouldn't be that hard to acquire, you should be able to find at the auction house in Arvia."

Taking back the parchment, he then made a different mark against a list of herbs and spirit stones.

"These are the items that I will need for you to upgrade your Qi pool to the bronze stage."

"Although these high-grade spirit stones will be harder to get," he mumbled, tapping his nose, Isha pondered on how to help Jayde with this dilemma when he suddenly remembered something.

"Ah, I just remembered, in the cave, there was a pile of spirit stones."

Jayde cheered up recalling the pile of spirit stones, and there was that strange pile of metals as well, that she hadn't shown to Isha yet, maybe there was a piece of dwarven dark gold in there as well, she thought. Jayde had no desire to return to Arvia, not at her present strength. She couldn't afford for the Freehold clan to find her yet.

Although not happy that she had a long way to go, Jayde was at least satisfied that she had a plan to move forward, taking the parchment from Isha, Jayde turned back to the screen to continue browsing when she realized that she had no idea on how to cultivate.

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Quote of the day

"When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen."

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