OP— 18

Title: Misinterpreted

‘Origin Cultivation is straightforward. We produce an origin and carve out skill runes of our choice until we rank-up. Unlike orthodox cultivation, we don’t have to put a specialized focus on our bodies, soul, and qi energy. In modern terms, we even call origin cultivation as Auto or Cheat cultivation. Of course, the disadvantages of such a passive method become relevant later but overall, the benefits and demerits are quite balanced… but similar to Orthodox Cultivation that has exceptional methods like bloodline cultivation, Origin Cultivation has… various rituals.’

Lilia’s gaze lingered on Mana as he continued his warm-up.

‘Unlike the infusion of the greater bloodline to temper physique, soul, and qi, which is relatively simple… rituals are too few to be a mainstream branch of origin cultivation. And those that benefit origin itself are quite rare in the category itself…’

While Lilia silently mused upon various concepts with an idle gaze, not even paying attention to other disciples of her section, a mischievous thought appeared in her mind.

‘I never did mess with this guy after yesterday’s events.’

Thinking till here, Lilia conjured her origin behind her back once again as a particular rune on her dark-green origin glowed while Mana continued to exercise.

---

“I can sense annoyance,” Chrome quietly pointed out while Mira performed her push-ups as she had to suffer through the hell of shameless disciples lamenting how their boobs weren't letting them go all the way down.

Naturally, Mira was affected by the blob named Sam who even went as far as to loudly calling his chest as a pair of man boobs just to get out of exercise and happily accepting the fact that he would be left a little behind by other physically capable disciples until his origin strengthened him enough.

“It’s nothing.” Sweat dripped down the chin of physically weak Mira as she counted her eleventh push-up.

“It surely must be something, Junior. Don’t feel shy now. I, your senior, am here to help you,” With nothing else to do, Chrome poked Mira again and again and only now Mira realized that the Modern side of the sect faced its own share of troubles.

She had heard that the Orthodox side of the sect was completely lawless, still encouraging the policy of the era Before Disaster— Might makes right. This has led to countless casualties but has also trained cultivators so mighty that the entire continent is aware of their glories.

While Seniors in that genre can openly bully juniors, the seniors of Origin Path can use the rules and laws of this side of the sect to discreetly make fools of and play around with their Juniors.

“Junior Mira, I feel there is a great fate between us. Please, if you don’t open up, how can I help you?”

Hearing this, Mira slowly adjusted her knees on the ground and sat up, her clothes sticking a little close to her body but she was many more times better than other girls who wore skirts and begrudgingly sat out of today’s physical check. No senior let their juniors leave and if they couldn’t perform the mentioned exercises for any reason, they asked the junior disciples to sit still and continue to observe those who did with a single intention.

To ignite the sense of competition.

After all, those who performed physical exercises without any enhancement from qi proved themselves superior to those who couldn’t and to these talented individuals who could make it to the Serene Heart Sect, what can be worse than being outperformed?

Meanwhile’ after regaining her bearings, Mira smiled coldly towards Chrome.

“Senior, we are origin cultivators. A concept like Fate no longer holds our reigns.”

Oddly enough, Chrome chuckled at the rebuttal.

“Junior, origins themselves are our personal source of Fate. They represent our future. And who can say with certainty that two individual globes of Fate can never reconnect? What can be cut can also be stitched. What can be destroyed can also be reforged.”

While Klyde almost barked in annoyance, his head still hurting by last night’s tea, Mira chuckled in return.

“As philosophical it sounds, these words do not hold real meaning. If what you said is true, then you must have seen someone ‘un-cooking’ a meal already cooked.”

Hearing her louder declaration, most of the experienced cultivators including Rogue sneered while the sweating Mana sighed.

“Yes, it is possible. I have not seen such a strange condition being fulfilled but I did witness a dead being revived.”

Chrome’s words finally silenced Mira as he restarted the words that led to this distracting argument.

“So, Junior Mira, what is distracting you?”

“I won’t tell.”

With that Mira began to perform push-ups until her arms soured.  As she did, Chrome felt a slightly pressurized stare befalling his side and turning his head to match his pale yellow pupils with Vedra’s dark brown one, he smiled softly and nodded kindly.

---

“Huh!” Despite his leaner body structure, Mana completed the first of three ordeals and sat up, his entire body soaked with sweat.

‘This is too much even for me…’ Mana realized that something strange was going on but couldn't really understand what.

“Heeh, who would have thought that you would complete your push-ups…” Lilia wondered.

Broken out of his thoughts, Mana nodded.

“Ah, that’s because my family fed me well… too well...” His gaze darkened for a moment but Lilia surprisingly understood the sentiment.

“Body strengthening medicines sure are bitter, right? I vomited till my 9th feed before getting used to them,” she sighed but her origin continued to revolve without any stop.

“Medicines? Bitter?” Despite Lilia’s recognition of the act of the rich families feeding their young bitter medicines for a better future, Mana was the one who shook his head.

“Nothing like that… My granny… and Mom fed me too many sweets and meat of spiritual feys. There was even a time where I couldn’t help but vomit whenever I went anywhere near sweet stuff…”

“You didn’t eat any medicines?” Lilia knew it for a fact that even with the meat of countless magical beasts, the enhancement of the body would have been brought by an increase in the size of the bodily mass. If she ate the medicines so that she could retain her figure for marital purposes by her family, her father actually took the carnivorous route and now had a massive size!

“Yeah. Why?” Mana inquired.

“Nothing. I felt that it is hard to retain such a thin body while having great strength without having an origin or using medicines.”

“This? You didn’t let me finish,” Mana shrugged, “My family fed me well and trained me even harder. My mother’s an orthodox cultivator, after all.”

“And she let you choose origin cultivation?” Lilia inquired with an amused expression.

“How would she? Hmm… it’s hard to articulate the situation without breaking some family rules… you could say that I hospitalized her? No… that sounds weird.”

Mana considered his words with a serious expression as his index traced his chin.

But it was at this moment that another wave of high temperature hit him. His vision went blank for a moment before he shook his head. His eyes felt hotter and his throat a little dryer.

‘Did I get sick?’

‘But all of this should be easily dealt with by my element. Wood element makes my body more inclined in self-healing and cleansing abilities meanwhile the metal element makes my overall physique sharper and this is just the basic theory. My origin combines the attributes of both the elements and even adds a few more attributes that both elements won’t attain separately. . If it isn’t natural then is it some form of skill? A skill that induces sickness and can counter my wood and metal compound is easily something related to fire element… hence, the high suspiciously high temperature…’

As he thought till here, Mana felt a little weirded out by Lilia’s surprisingly cheeky grin. As if she was enjoying the sight of him huffing and puffing.

‘Could it be…’ Mana thought of Lilia as the first suspect but couldn’t understand her motives.

‘Heh, I read about compound elements yesterday. A combination of metal and wood makes the cultivator resistant to water, earth, poison, and a few countering compound elements. But even if venom is not effective… a gas of poison filled with fire element… Heat poison is more than enough to irritate you.

The more you sweat, the more tired and frustrated you will get. Then, I will guide you slowly, gain your trust… and irritate Forest using you~’

Snickering internally due to her flawless plan, she couldn’t simply account for Mana’s personality.

‘She must be making me sweat for a reason. Till now, our most impressionable interaction should be… when I was naked. I had thought that she didn’t want to bring it up entirely and bury the matter but now I realize— Actions speak louder than words. My body shouldn’t get sick even if I’m exposed to the chill of the gymnasium, and Lilia must have known it, too. She is more experienced in cultivation, after all.’

Thinking till here, Mana took a deep breath. His expression somber as he glanced towards idle Rogue and struggling Dharma.

‘Boys, I’m gonna go ahead… catch up if you don’t wanna be left behind.’

Today, Mana wore a shirt over a tee with his shirt already placed aside before beginning his exercise.

Grasping his t-shirt that clung to his body, Mana acted instantly and pulled the article of clothing from the lower edges, pulling it over his head and ridding himself off the damnable item.

“W- what the hell?” Lilia shouted, attracting everybody’s attention to Mana’s slightly pale but glistening healthy body and as he rubbed his chin, his hair slightly disheveled and falling atop his forehead while his green eyes more spirited than ever, quite a few women looked away. Even the redhead Shera gulped slightly before gazing towards the huffing and puffing Sam lying on his back.

‘I swear that I’ll make you half as good as that dirty ape’s friend!’

With a renewed vigor, Shera began working Sam up.

“It’s too hot!” Mana complained as he began stretching his body while the chill of the gymnasium proved more effective topless.

“Ah… I feel sweaty, too…” Dharma mumbled.

“I will attack you.”

Vedra warned with a calm expression.

“Sweat? I don’t even have any pores!” Dharma smirked as he continued struggling.

“He’s got to have a death wish!” Chrome chuckled. Firstly sparring against the strongest rank 1 Origin Cultivator with a single rune skill and now exposing himself to the woman whose deviousness only knows a few bounds who also happens to be in a relationship with the Quest Manager of the Administrative Block…

‘If that isn’t a death wish still then… Lilia is still his master’s half-sister. Despite their strained relationship, I cannot imagine how Professor Forest would take such information.’

“Are you kidding me?” Such a reversal was something Lilia did not expect and not able to respond reasonably, she took the approach of a wild beast.

“No? Look at me,” Mana spread his arm to present his bare chest towards Lilia.

“I was soaked!” Mana emphasized.

---

As the duo began bickering, Rogue looked towards Drake with a kind smile, “Hey, do me a favor… tell your younger siblings that Mana stripped in front of another girl.”

Thinking deeply, Drake nodded.

‘Ah… sometimes, I just wanna watch the world burn!’

Rogue felt peace at heart.

---

As if feeling like a rider who jumped on a tiger, Lilia couldn’t decide if she should accept defeat and get down or continue to try and tame the beast.

‘All my poison runes are still rank 1. Right now, they can only show the most minimal effects. If it was any ordinary wooden origin cultivator, then I might have been able to cause more reactions using heat poison but…’

Not willing to back down, not to a newbie cultivator despite his talents, Lilia grew surprisingly quiet as she coldly observed Mana performing other exercises while sweating heavily. By now, the perceptive few within the group had already investigated the situation and found Lilia using her skill to haze the freshman only to have his clothes stripped in front of her.

‘I could have gotten the pretty boy down to his underwear…’ Shera thought with pride but when she recalled his reactions and how he managed to add more insults on top of Rogue’s verbal abuses, she focused her attention on sculpting the raw gem in front of her once again.

Victorious as if he had slain a mighty bull by holding it down by a horn, Mana continued his exercise with glee.

‘Honestly, people should be more honest. I knew that I’m not too bad without clothes!’

‘I miss Kynthra…’ Still depressed under the effects of Disheartened bloom, the sect master of the Serene Heart Sect acting as the professor of the first-year disciples, sighed deeply while thinking of his wife.

‘That’s why I dislike Orthodox Cultivation. Just a single cultivation session may end up taking years… I should have opted for orthodoxy alongside Kynthra when I had the chance…’