Chapter 96: Realisations

Looking at his phone it was Elizabeth and Adam was excited to answer, hoping that his motorcycle was finally ready.

"Hello" greeted Adam as he answered the phone.

"Hi, it has been a while. I have sent a car over to your building that is waiting outside to bring you over" stated Elizabeth.

"Is it ready?" asked Adam, but before he could receive an answer, Elizabeth ended the call.

Elizabeth would always speak directly and make sure what she had to say was concise over the phone as she ended the call before Adam could speak.

"So annoying, always ending the call on me" mumbled Adam frustratedly.

Walking out of his room, his aunt seemed to be already out and looking on the table he found a large plate of food and a note.

Adam hadn't seen much of his aunt over the past few days, as he was completely focused on hunting in the dungeon, and also hadn't seen Sarah in a while.

Reading the note it stated that she was out for the day and probably wouldn't be back until late, so she left him a large meal and he could feed himself for the rest of the day.

Adam was happy that his aunt was busying herself and had something to do the entire day, but he felt slightly worried about her and was curious about what she was doing.

Suppressing his curiosity and paranoid nature, Adam ate the meal slowly, to annoy Elizabeth who had a car waiting for him outside his building, and after getting changed into a set of casual clothing and tying up his hair, Adam was ready to leave.

He felt much safer with the sabre, that increased his overall stats by 7 points, with him all the time, stored within his inventory, and was excited to see what Elizabeth needed him for.

There was a completely blacked out car waiting outside his building with tinted windows, and Adam who was wearing his contact lenses wasn't planning to reveal himself as the masked ally of the Auction House, but merely as a young friend of Elizabeth.

Getting into the back of the car, the driver began driving without saying a word as he drove towards their destination.

Adam recognised the direction that the car was driving towards as the direction of the Silver Moon Auction House and wasn't worried about his safety with Elizabeth's subordinate.

And even if there was danger, he felt much more confident in his capabilities with the C- Rank Sabre in his inventory and his increased strength that was already equivalent to a rank 2 cultivator.

Looking at his status, Adam decided to spend all 3 of the stat points that he had on speed, increasing it to 31 points, making it equivalent to an early rank 2.

Adam knew that it was a long drive to the Silver Moon Auction House, from the time that he had went with Cole. Adam and Cole lived on the edge of Brooklyn, while the Silver Moon Auction House was situated on the edge of the inner areas of Brooklyn, which were quite far away from each other.

With the time he had until he reached his destination, Adam decided he would ask the system anything that he was curious about or wanted to know about.

He was not only passing the time, but also receiving answers to any questions that he might have, as he began thinking about anything that he was unsure about.

After thinking about it for a while, he finally found something that he wanted to request from the system.

[System is there another way to represent an opponents strength rather than looking at their status, as going over an entire status takes too long and is distracting in the middle of a battle] asked Adam.

{Combat Power is another way that the strength of a being can be represented. If the host wishes to use this measurement, the system will begin to use it} offered the system.

[How does it work] asked Adam before making his decision.

{It will give the host an average rating of the opponent's stats and will specify whether the opponent is an Internal Cultivator, External Cultivator or both, giving the host an idea of their cultivation level. For example, the host's current Combat Power would be: IE29.9} explained the system.

It showed him the average of all his stats, revealed whether the opponent was an Internal Cultivator, External Cultivator or both, and was a quick way to gauge the strength of an opponent.

Although it didn't show the opponents weakest stats, which the full status displayed, it was enough to gauge the power level of an opponent and was much faster to look at.

Seeing that, Adam decided that he would keep both the status and Combat Power measurement and use them interchangeably depending on the situation.

Adam had come to realise that most stats were the same for the cultivation level of both Internal and External Cultivators but the difference was that Internal Cultivators had IESP while External Cultivators had EESP.

However, External Cultivators constantly displayed their strength level and had a physically powerful body, while Internal Cultivators had to reinforce their bodies with their internal energy in order to display as much physical power as an External Cultivator.

Although Internal Cultivators were disadvantaged in that sense, they had the capability of using more skills that required Internal Energy, which also gave them other advantages over External Cultivators such as ranged attacks.

Adam wasn't completely sure about which stats were designated to each cultivator as he was yet to see the stats of both an External Cultivator and Internal Cultivator, but he had a rough idea of how the system differentiated them.

Overall he had come to realise that External and Internal Cultivators both were very similar in terms of power, but both had their advantages and traits that made them different.

Luckily he was blessed to be able to cultivate both Internally and Externally at the same time, allowing him to display more strength than anybody at the same cultivation level as him and allowing him to have the advantages of both types of cultivators.

However so far he had only come across one other cultivator that was an Internal Cultivator, which was his master, and even with his master, he wasn't really sure whether he really was and what he was capable of.

With the new way of represented the strength level of cultivators, Adam's mind was still thinking about any other realisations or things that he wanted to clarify with the system.

Without much else to do, Adam was collecting all his thoughts and assumptions, then after confirming them with the system, forming a storage of useful and factual information.

[System my summoned beasts can take damage without using my IESP right?] asked Adam within his mind.

Adam was becoming more in tune with the use of his Internal Energy and was understanding it more, despite it being automatically used through the system.

He had gathered after using his Collector Skill many times, that the initial energy was used to form the body of the summon, which was formed into existence with his energy, then for each minute it was summoned for, it would use his Internal Energy to sustain its energy form.

However, the damage that the summon took wouldn't require him to use his IESP to recover it and that was something that the system would do automatically to keep the summon in its peak state.

If Adam's summons could sustain damage without Adam's IESP being used up, it would greatly increase the length that he could use his summons for.

However knowing that his summons were intelligent, they may hate him for it and he needed to gain some information from the system before making any decisions.

{The host is correct. After summoning a beast, the host is using an auto-recovery feature of the Collector Skill in order to keep the summons at their peak state, which made it so that they sustain damage at the cost of the host's Internal Energy} confirmed the system.

{Would the host like to deactivate this feature of the Collector Skill} asked the system.

[Before I decide, explain to me the pros and cons of doing so] stated Adam.

{If the host does do so, the host will save energy and won't be affected when the host's summons take damage. However the summons will be weakened during the battle and after they have been damaged, the host can no longer recover them. If the host retracts his summons, their recovery speed is 10 minutes for every 10 HP, 1 EESP or 1 IESP lost during the battle. The host will still be able to summon the weakened and damaged beasts, but they will be of less use} summarised the system.

[What happens if they die] asked Adam.

{If the summons die, then they will lose all memories that they have gained, which included all their experiences that made up their combat prowess. They would also be locked for use until their bodies had recovered twice over in order to be reformed from death, then recover to their peak state} answered the system.

Despite knowing that his summons would probably hate him for doing so, Adam knew it was a necessary sacrifice in order to preserve his IESP while in battle.

[Deacitvte the auto-recovery feature of the Collector Skill] ordered Adam as he finally reached his destination.