Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Chapter 197: Making a choice

Sofia said with a smile "Congratulations for breaking through." Both Adams nodded, and Sofia continued "There a few things you need to know. First, you have to decide which version of you will go to Epoch and which will stay on Earth."

Adam didn't even have to think about it as he said "Yin goes to Epoch, Yang to Earth." It felt weird speaking through two bodies at the same time, but that would only be for some time.

Sofia nodded and said "Now that you have your own avatar, there will be no need for you to use the gaming cabin. Your Yin Half will become a true inhabitant of Epoch, you will become an NPC, and not be a player anymore."

Yin Adam nodded, that was to be expected, and it wasn't a bad thing.

Sofia said "You will still be different from the other members of this world though. From now on, you will no longer be dependant on the system. It will not completely disappear, but be severely limited. For example, you will not be able to level up using XP, only through cultivation. Same for ranking up."

Both Adams said at the same time "That means I won't need to go through any other Promotion Quests?"

Sofia nodded and said "Before the War of the Gods, everyone only had cultivation. However, to 'help' people on Epoch, the gods designed this system. While it allowed everyone to gain a class much more easily, and allow one to advance much quicker, it also completely blocks off access to Godhood. There is only one way to become a God, and that is through cultivation."

Adam shrugged, it wasn't bad to grow stronger through cultivation. Sure, it took away a part of the gaming aspect, but this had grown far from being just a simple 'game'.

Sofia then added "Your defence will become more realistic too, getting your throat slit open will do more than twice the damage of being slashed in the foot. However, your attack will still work in the same way since others are still protected by the system."

"As for the rest, you should be able to discover it by yourself. But before I let you go, you have another choice to make."

Adam raised an eyebrow, and Sofia said "You have two bodies, and their minds are linked. The Blood Tower, as a Divine Artefact, is capable of ignoring World Rules and transfer between your two minds. That mean you can make the Blood Tower appear on both Earth and Epoch. However, you may not take any item from either world to the other as it will be instantly destroyed by the world laws."

Adam was surprised his Blood Tower was capable of doing this, and although he felt it was a shame he wasn't able to bring items from one world to another, it did make sense.

Sofia said "However, one of the hidden functions of your Blood Tower is to split the floors. Normally it does not have much for someone with only a single body. However, for you, you can leave a few floors for your Yang Avatar while taking the major part of the Blood Tower with your Yin Avatar."

Adam frowned for a bit, before he his face cleared as he said "The choice you were talking about, you mean my Concepts, right?"

Sofia nodded and said "For now, you have 8 Concepts. The best thing for you to do is to split them between your two avatars, and give the appropriate floors to your Yang Avatar."

Yin Adam nodded and said "My Concepts are Water, Fire, Self, Sword, Gale, Spirit, Space and Slaughter. Of those, only Gale is Advanced while the rest is Sovereign Level. But Slaughter and Self don't need meditation, so I have to split Water, Fire, Gale, Sword, Spirit and Space."

Yang Adam continued "The logic thing to do is to split them three by three. Obviously, I take Fire and Yin takes Water. I think Yin should also take Sword, since it needs a lot of fighting, and he will be much more exposed to fighting than I will."

Yin nodded and finished "For now, our souls are weakened because of the split, so we also need to find powerful souls to heal our souls. Extracting and absorbing those souls will allow the Spirit Concept to advance."

Sofia clasped her hands and said "So it's decided. Yang will take the Fire, Gale and Space Concept to meditate on, while Yin will take Water, Sword and Spirit. Here, this is how you will split the floors."

As she said that, Adam felt a wave of information enter his mind, not unlike how he felt when Strith, the God of War, had imparted on him the title of Champion and information on meridians.

Adam quickly understood how he should do, and soon three floors of the Blood Tower entered Yang's mind while the rest went into Yin's mind.

Sofia then said "Before I send you back, there is also something you need to do, and which will be much more convenient if you do it here."

Adam titled his head so Sofia said "Now that you ranked up, you must have felt your body has become very different."

Adam nodded, apart from his Qi turning into fifteen liquid pillars, and his bones and muscles turning stronger, he also felt his meridians had multiplied in number.

Sofia said "Every time you rank up, your meridians will be multiplied in number. It is a good thing you had a complete understanding of your meridians during Bronze Rank as this will allow you to understand your new meridians much faster. And doing so is very important for your cultivation techniques."

Adam asked "Is that why my cultivation techniques couldn't move up from B Rank?"

She nodded and explained "Now that you have levelled up, a B Rank Cultivation technique isn't going to do it. While obtaining such a strong body allows you to cross ranks to fight, it also needs much more energy than any other body to level up. Using a B Rank Cultivation technique you would need hundreds of years to rank up."

She added "Using an A Rank cultivation technique will lower this to something around 10 years, which is a huge improvement."

Adam asked, a little shocked "You are telling me I will need ten years to rank up to Gold Rank?"

Sofia let out a laugh seeing his worried faces and said "Don't worry, that is if you only stick to cultivation for ten years. Qi is thicker in certain parts of the world, and since you cultivate using elemental techniques, cultivating in a place filled with water or fire elements will allow you to cultivate much faster."

Adam was relieved to hear this. In ten years, Adam expected himself to have already opened the 6th Gate and be on his way to the 7th. Opening the 6th Gate in Silver Rank was a little too weird, considering the fact even the most powerful people on Epoch only understood up to the 6th Gate.

Sofia turned back serious as she said "You time here is limited, we are inside my divine artefact and I am using it to slow down the time outside, but this takes a huge amount of divine energy to do so, so don't waste time and start."

Both Adams nodded and closed their eyes as they started exploring their inner bodies. Like that, time started to pass by quickly, or maybe slowly? Adam had no idea of how much time he spent cultivating because there were no sun or moon in this room, and he didn't really care either.

While he was cultivating, Adam had also try to meditate on his Concepts, but he found out that the elements here were very sparse, and he was making virtually no progress in any of them because of this. So he stuck to understanding his inner body.

Exploring his entire body's meridians took a lot of time, even when there were two of him, but as he went on he understood something that made him progress much faster than before. Every new meridians he had was connected to old ones, and so using them as reference he was able to find them all relatively quickly.

After an unknown amount of time passed, both Adams once again opened their eyes and said at the same time "I'm done."