Mixed Blessing System

After a while, Jacob was lying in the middle of that cultivation room, completely sweaty, breathing hurriedly due to the training he had just had with Lothur.

'What an animal!'

'How can he be so fast?' The young man wondered as he looked up at the ceiling of that room, shocked by Lothur's abilities.

Lothur had no extremely unusual moves or techniques, nor had he demonstrated outstanding fighting proficiency. But each of this individual's common blows had been extremely difficult for Jacob to defend, dodge, or counter.

Not because Lothur was much stronger than that young man, but because Elke's companion exactly knew how much of his force to use to press his opponent.

Lothur knew how much Jacob had in his attributes, so it had been easy for young Ritter to estimate how much he could use to pressure such a person.

That was not an estimate he had made ignorantly but something he had already realized during his previous training with Annaliese.

He had realized that a person with Constitution 'x' could usually deal with blows from someone with Strength of up to '1.2x' without suffering danger of death or severe injuries.

It hurt, of course, but not to the extent that such a person could be injured for days and thus not be able to continue training. In any case, these minor injuries were what could cause changes.

From Lothur's observations, he only had his body stimulated to the point of being able to undergo improvements when this difference was close to the limit. Only from that point on would he reap the best results from training with someone stronger!

Considering this and his advantage of having the data from the system, Lothur had applied his theory to that young man during the previous training and had pushed Jacob to the limit.

So, Jacob was in that current situation, his whole body sore, tired to the limit, but also satisfied with that training session.

'He's an animal while fighting. But I must say the guy truly knows what he's doing!' Jacob realized how different Lothur was from the other people he had trained with on other occasions.

Usually, what he had experienced had been opponents who took it too lightly, others too heavy, hurting him more than they should have. But, at the same time, some used their skills to boost their morale without passing on the teachings and difficulty required in situations like this.

In short, Jacob rarely felt so enlightened and exhausted, but without being seriously injured, after training. And because of this, he could not help but realize what a great ability Lothur had in training others.

"Thank you for the teachings, Mister Lothur," Jacob said amid his breath as he looked to the side, where the silver-haired man stood, with Elke combing his long hair.

"Mister Lothur is truly good at teaching through his fists. I had doubted it before, but now I see what a fool I was for allowing myself to be fooled by appearances." He said sincerely.

"Appearances, huh?" Lothur closed his eyes and smiled. But he did not mind the fact that he looked weak. Quite the opposite, he was pleased to hear that his theories indeed seemed correct.

'Well, I just need to use other people as guinea pigs. Eventually, I will have a training protocol for my women...' He looked at Elke, already planning to help her get stronger once he had his method a little more refined.

On the other hand, while he was thinking about these things, Elke was smiling in satisfaction at the compliment Jacob had paid Lothur. 'It seems he truly does hide a lot of his qualities...' She bit her lower lip as she combed his hair.

'I wonder if I am the only one who knows his secrets? I hope his wife doesn't know anything...'

"Well, I just did my job. Anyway, try to recover as quickly as possible before we go out to eat and stop by the place you had talked about earlier."

"Oh? All right..." Jacob sat down and retrieved some potions from his spatial ring, quickly beginning to drink those items.

And while he was recovering, Elke continued to look after Lothur but took the opportunity to ask that client of theirs. "Jacob, do you have any questions? I can explain a few more things while we still have time here."

"Well, I do have a question." He looked at Lothur since his question was precisely about this fellow. "What reasons can justify the inability of someone to sense another person's cultivation?"

Lothur realized the reason for that question but said nothing. Instead, he just looked at Elke to see if she had something to say that he did not already know.

She smiled and started. "Well, there are several ways in which one's strength can be hidden that justify one's inability to sense the cultivation of another person of the same stage."

"That could be an external item, such as, for example, a formation that contains the cultivator's spiritual energy inside his body, preventing others from feeling its remaining fluctuations. Another could be a Soul Bone with an ability related to energy control."

"But Soul Bones are extremely rare, and finding one with that kind of ability is even more difficult."

"There are also cultivation techniques that have that effect. Some innate abilities of Physiques can do the same. And of course, some bloodlines also have the potential to cause such a thing."

"All that?" That young man was surprised to learn that there were so many methods to hide one's cultivation level.

"There's more. Besides the obvious fact that you can't estimate the cultivation of someone from an entire stage above you, there are two types of cultivation in our world."

"One, the most common of all, is soul cultivation. But there is also body cultivation." She looked at Lothur, figuring only the second option could explain his case.

Other people could not tell if Lothur was hiding his cultivation with something or not, but Elke, who had seen him naked, knew there was nothing like that on him.

On the other hand, awakening the Bloodline or Physique was something so complex and unusual to happen that she had no hope of that being the justification.

Furthermore, she did not consider the other possibilities because of how he fought and how muscular his body looked.

"Body cultivation? I've never heard of it. What's the difference between that to soul cultivation?" That young man asked with a curious expression on his face.

"In the first stage, there is almost no difference. The two are focused on strengthening the fleshy body at that point. But they are quite different, and further on in their cultivation journey, that becomes obvious."

"In short, soul cultivation eventually focuses on the soul, which makes it possible to manipulate spiritual energy outside your body. For example, with this type of cultivation, you can eventually use a technique that creates a spiritual energy avatar."

"Body cultivation, on the other hand, cannot do the same, no matter what level the cultivator is. Such cultivation constantly increases the person's physical power and stimulates his Physique abilities. But it is not useful for techniques that involve using spiritual energy external to the body."

"Uh? So, that kind of cultivation isn't a waste of time?" Jacob said with a smile on his face as Lothur more or less learned something new.

"That depends. If a cultivator can awaken his Physique, then he has to cultivate that second alternative to improve his results. Otherwise, that kind of cultivation truly can be a waste of time since it takes away a lot of possibilities from the cultivator."

"With a powerful soul, someone can travel through space, fly, teleport, etc. There's no way someone with only brute strength can overcome that."

"In any case, if someone cultivates his own body but not the soul, then it's basically impossible to sense that person's level using your spiritual sense. Only by fighting with him will you be able to estimate his power." She finished explaining the basics to that young man.

'So, what I have must be body cultivation...' Lothur pondered about that.

But he was not sure if that was the case. That was because, Lothur had already realized that he did not feel the cultivation pressure of other cultivators, which escaped the rules he knew.

And as much as this did not mean much regarding the question of his cultivation not being felt by others, this opened up the possibility that the system or another of his characteristics was behind this.

Anyway, now that Lothur knew a little more about what Elke had taught Jacob, a curiosity arose in his mind. 'Should I try to cultivate my soul?'

...