Chapter 186: Cultivation Chambers

The castle had more than a handful of cultivation chambers, mainly for two purposes, those meant for long-term use and those for short term use.

The one Ezra fought his vassals in was for short term use, having only space and weapons for practicing and cultivating.

Those for long term use were built with self sustenance in mind.

Simply put, they had beds, cooking space, areas to ease oneself, and still had more than enough space to practice.

These chambers were twice as big as the first type and, because of that, a whole floor was dedicated to them, located beneath the last floor, which contained the cellars.

Before that, Ezra visited the kitchen to take enough food to sustain a two year stay, putting them into his space ring, with his vassals doing the same.

After that, they descended. With a prince leading the way, they faced no obstruction from the guards.

Following the stairs, they passed the cellars floor, arriving at the underground chambers floor.

Two guards stood at the entrance, and another two marched through the passage.

Crystals lay embedded in the ceiling, illuminating the surroundings.

From walls to pillars to floors, all were jade green.

Strategically placed pillars held up the ceiling.

Ezra turned to the guards.

"Sirs, I have come to begin close door cultivation, it is the same for the entourage behind me. Might you be willing to enlighten us on the workings of this place?"

"Of course your highness"

"We have fifteen chambers in total, ten for Experts and five for Masters"

"The difference?"

"Master chambers are twice as large as those of experts and are built with far a more endurable material"

The guard continued, pointing to the furthest chamber.

"That chamber is unallowed, as it is his Majesty's exclusive use"

"Oh" nodded Ezra, turning to those behind him.

He addresses the adventurers.

"You will stay here for the duration of this mission. Pay the kitchen staff to deliver food or buy and cook yourselves"

They furrowed brows, but it was a small inconvenience compared to the amount they were to be paid.

"I'll be taking an Expert chamber. Decide amongst yourselves which one each of you will use by tonight. As for training my vassals, let me say it again, you are to only develop their physique, weapon mastery, and battle sense through rigorous training. Do not teach mana usage and do not teach them cultivation, else be written off as sabotage"

He turned to his vassals.

"For the time being, you are to only develop your body and fighting skills. Cultivation comes after"

They wondered why he didn't want them cultivating, especially after buying refined blood from the Missionary, but kept their inquisitiveness to themselves and nodded.

"If you're still weak when I come out, then I'd have no choice but to throw you back into slavery"

They quivered.

"Just you wait, this time next year, I'll be free after beating you up!" Johan burst out.

Ezra chuckled. "We'll see"

Picking a room wasn't difficult, and he just chose the farthest one.

The guard handed him its key.

Taking one last look at his vassals, he entered his new abode.

'Hmm' he swiped his finger at the wall.

Rubbing his fingers revealed the lack of dust.

'They must've cleaned it regularly'

Contrasting the outer, the inner walls were light gray, while white crystals illuminated its interior.

Within was a bed of hay, not shoddy, but definitely shabby, a wooden barrel with a water flowing pipe above it, kitchen area and other necessities.

What? Close door training wasn't supposed to be relaxing.

'This will do nicely' he thought.

'Many things will have changed by the time I'm done'

Firstly, he planned his day.

The room had an hourglass, so he need not worry about losing track of time.

Raw food was deposited into separate barrels.

Looking around, he yawned.

'I begin training tomorrow, let's rest for now'

He took his pillow from his space ring and slept.

The night passed by in a flash.

The hired adventurers fought to decide rooms while the vassals settled into theirs.

The next morning, Ezra cleaned up and set his plan in place.

'Right now, my experience, physique and cultivation gives me the prowess of an Intermediate. My cultivation alone is at Adept-rank'

He set his goal.

'Before I leave here, I'll reach Expert-rank'

'Now, let's be realistic, trying to master my five affinities in five years or less will end in average results. I have sufficient prowess with Darkness, but the other four...I can only pick two more'

'Lightning, Blood, Fire and Ice'

'Definitely Blood. Its healing ability is too good to pass up. Lightning allow for faster attacks, fire allow for powerful attacks, ice is more versatile, though...so is Blood, and I have poison blood'

A minute passed.

'I'll be mastering Darkness, Lightning and Blood'

'Ice is good, but Blood does it better'

'Darkness and Lightning would pretty much match Fire in destructiveness. Not too mention that's not my style'

In a way, Fire was too attention grabbing because it can act as a light source.

So was Lightning, but he felt Lightning connected to him better.

Of course, this didn't mean he would abandon his Fire and Ice affinity completely, but that the time he'd use to practice them would be minimal, about forty five minutes while using both at the same time.

Then, you had weapon training.

From his space ring, he removed four swords.

Two he took from the royal vault, the other two from the Missionary.

Two Epic Gold, two Gold.

Afterwards, he took out a staff of Gold-rank.

Then he took a scythe-like pin from his clothings and infused mana into it.

Instantly the item enlarged, revealing itself as Skyfall, the Diamond-rank scythe.

'And that makes eight'

Looking at it now, he might've been a bit too greedy, since he couldn't possibly practice with all four swords.

Two were silver, single edged and hiltless, a pair. The other two were double edged, all short swords.

Lastly, he took out combat manuals, sixteen of them.

For staff wielding, he took only the fundamentals to build a foundation, as it would help him with scythe wielding.

The manuals for dual wielding and swords were aplenty, his aim being to achieve his former mastery and surpass it as fast as possible.

Then he took out mana techniques, ten of them.

He was no guru, so he chose what was - in his perspective - just enough to create a unique technique that took all his affinities into account.

Mana techniques catering to dual affinities were rare, those of triple affinities even rarer.

Those of quadruple and quintuple? Basically nonexistent.

Luckily, he found three catering to trifinities and more than ten catering to dual affinities.

'Now...where do I begin?'

He snapped his fingers.

"Oh, I forgot about that"

He fished out iron braces from his space ring, encasing one on each limb.

Ezra flexed his limbs.

"Thankfully it's not too heavy"

"Now..." he picked up the scythe.

As the weapon with the highest rank, mastering it was his top priority.

To have an easier time mastering it, he'd figure he'd first master the staff.

'So...I'll sleep from midnight to dawn. From dawn to noon, I'll train with my staff. From noon to dusk, I'll train with the swords. And from dusk to midnight, I'll work on creating my own mana technique'

So began Ezra's close door training.