.
Ethan wanted to take a moment to relax.
He wanted to stay in that position a little longer and savor the sensation of power coursing through every fiber of his being.
But as he inhaled to take a breath, he nearly choked, his expression contorting immediately, and his eyes almost tearing up.
"What the heck is this smell?"
He asked himself, pinching his nose with his hand and looking around for the source of the odor.
At that moment, he noticed that his entire room was in disarray, and the area around him was stained with a strange black liquid.
Ethan lowered his head and saw that the nauseating liquid covered his entire body.
He was momentarily confused and tried to figure out what had happened, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of knocking on his bedroom door.
"Hey, everything okay in there?"
From behind the door came Da Shu's voice.
"I heard a strange bang from inside—
Ah, what the heck is that smell?" he said, complaining.
Ethan, still confused, tried to come up with something to say, but was interrupted once more by Da Shu's voice.
"Wait, this smell..."
In the next moment, the locked door was violently opened, and a stunned Da Shu entered, looking at the mess inside.
As his gaze fell on the black liquid covering Ethan, he immediately understood what had happened, and his eyes lit up with joy.
"You finally awakened!" he said happily.
If it weren't for the black liquid, he would have jumped into the room and hugged his friend tightly.
Ethan, not knowing he had just narrowly avoided danger, asked,
"So this is a consequence of my awakening?" he said, pointing to the destroyed room and the black liquid.
"Yes, although I have to say it's not usually this destructive. I mean, you've practically turned the whole room upside down."
He said with a hint of surprise on his face.
Ethan couldn't help but laugh slightly as he thought about the cause of all this.
"Well, now that I've awakened, I don't have to worry as much about the end-of-year assessment." He said as he stood up.
Dusting himself off a bit, he looked around and then gave a bright smile to his friend.
"So, how about helping me clean up the room?"
And like magic, at the mention of those words, Da Shu disappeared from his spot, and then Ethan heard the door to his room close.
"Sorry, I can't. I just received some enlightenment, I need to go cultivate," his hurried voice echoed, followed by the sound of the lock clicking shut.
"Tch, what kind of friend runs away in a time of need?" he said, shaking his head, as he prepared to clean the room and take a quick shower to rid himself of the black liquid.
He couldn't stand the nauseating smell that enveloped his room any longer.
***
After some time, Ethan had finally finished tidying up his room and had cleaned himself up. He sat comfortably on his bed and started thinking.
Now that he had finally advanced to the first level of Body Refining, he could feel that his entire being had become stronger.
To check how much he had improved, he opened the status screen to see how much his stats had increased.
.
[------------------------------
Name: Ethan
Cultivation: Body Refining (Lvl. 1)
QI: 49/200
Physique: Heavenly Body of the Sacred Flames
Strength: 15
Agility: 11
Intelligence: 11
Soul Strength: 114
[Shop]
[Storage]
[System points]: 0
-------------------------------]
.
Seeing that his attributes had indeed gone up a bit, he was pleased.
He wasn't sure how his attributes compared to others, but for now, it was enough to know that he was no longer stuck and could grow stronger quickly.
Now that he had taken his first step into cultivation, he needed to think about the next ones.
He had noticed that his Qi bar had increased from 100 to 200, with only a quarter of the bar filled for now.
He thought that perhaps with each level, the requirements to level up would increase by 100, with the counter resetting each time the previous Qi requirement was met.
He wasn't certain about this, but it was the best he could deduce from the values shown on his status screen.
"If only there was a system consciousness," he thought, recalling that he had tried to speak with the system but received no response.
If the system had a consciousness that could talk to him, it would have been easier to understand the various functions, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
"Oh well, I'll learn over time." He said, then focused his attention on some functions of the system that he hadn't had a chance to try yet.
He looked down at the screen and saw the text labeled [Shop].
He pressed it, ready to see what miraculous items he would find inside.
As soon as he pressed it, a message appeared before him, saying:
[Currently, the shop is empty. Please check back later.]
"..."
His curiosity was stifled immediately, and he couldn't help but curse the system a bit.
"F*ck, let's see if storage works," he said and clicked below [Shop], where it said [Storage].
Another screen opened before him, but this time it wasn't a message, but a series of squares.
The series of squares were all empty, indicating to Ethan that his storage space seemed to be available.
"Hell yeah, at least I won't have to sell a kidney for a dimensional ring," he thought excitedly.
He looked around for something to put inside, and his gaze settled on his pillow.
He picked it up and paused for a moment, wondering how exactly to transfer things into the dimensional space.
"Let's try pushing it in," he thought, pushing his pillow against the status screen, but it didn't seem to work, as the pillow passed through the screen as if it weren't there.
Seeing that this didn't seem to work, he thought for a bit more and then came up with another method.
He held the pillow tightly in his hands and thought of transferring it to his dimensional space.
He wasn't sure if it would work, but he knew he could only try, so he did, and this time it seemed to work.
The pillow that was in his hand disappeared, and in the next moment, the first square on his screen changed, showing an image of his pillow.
"It worked," Ethan said, starting to experiment more with the dimensional storage function.
He tried to see if there was a maximum space capacity, which turned out to be 10 cubic meters per square.
He tried to see if moving items in and out worked without touch and discovered that they had to be touched the first time, but then they could be moved back and forth as long as they were within a meter of him.
He wondered if this would remain the same over time or if it would increase as he advanced to higher levels.
-------------------
FRANK_LEE_JUNIOR:
Here is today's chapter.
I hope you enjoyed it. S~eaʀᴄh the ηovёlFire .net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
As usual, don't hesitate to ask questions, and if you find any errors, let me know, and I'll correct them as soon as I can.
See you tomorrow.