After the blade had been sucked into the system screen, everything went quiet, other than the methodic drip of water from the numerous stalactites littered throughout the cavern. Putting that aside it was still quite early in the evening, he continued the ever-increasing tasks that were involved when building a shelter. There were numerous tasks he was required to do to ensure the safety and longevity of the structure, along with the insulation, bedding, storage, functionality of the fireplace/stove, drying racks, planting set ups for the new crops and storage for building materials and firewood (stationed in a little awning attached to the structure), plus many more things that required his constant attention. Though he felt free, he had the time and availability to do numerous different tasks, and he could feel himself leaving the restraints of his status as an orphan.
John had been training hard; he tried his best to get any sort of progress with his cultivation and failed tremendously. The techniques were created with the purpose of allowing for the user to best utilize their skills with no previous techniques used, or were the more advanced forms of the prior techniques, meaning that if he had no basis in the previous technique his body wouldn't have the correct meridian pathways cleared and connected or he wouldn't be able to draw in the qi due to incompatible/non-existent blood vessels to the dantian. His of course not having developed alongside the restructuring of his body to withstand the immense pressure of the mana on the dungeons lower floors and him practicing the imperial technique before and during his time in the dungeon meant that none of the techniques were able to properly function. The brute force method he had been using up to that point had been showing little to no advancements, so he decided to broaden his horizons and attempt to read more of the books after his training and body cultivation (this is what I'll be calling the cultivation of one's body, going forward we will also be ditching point values for the stats and I'll be rearranging his status window. Still though as a basis the point in stat system will be used for most, but because of his cultivation and advancement in existence has unlocked the new evaluation method of his strength, although for ease of story telling the status of their systems of powers will be the main evaluation of strength with little mentioning of numerical evaluations of power as you'll see, he and the story will be dealing mostly with people who have transcended such methods of evaluations. The level system will still remain, but it is going to be dealing with the advancements of the classes rather than based on beating monsters though due to John's class, and his constellation he will get exp and levels from the survival and cultivation aspects of his time in the dungeon. hope this makes sense).
By switching his train to certain days of the week he freed up more time, doing the knife training and combat training on one day and cultivation and technique research on the other he was able to best use the limited time that he had. The slow growth of his crops also helped in this way, as he was able to spend a few hours harvesting and watering, then the rest of the day on his training and research, still he managed to fit in a non-related book to work through progressively and take notes on in the evening after dinner and before bed. The research progressed slowly but surely over that week, but that wasn't the only thing he had focused on in the duration of the week, through the progress was slow with this method, it was because he needed a minimum of 5 hours of sleep to stay fully functioning. On days he was practiced his knife training he also focused on crop harvesting and working on his cabin, which was far from complete. This allowed him all sorts of progress on side projects and daily convinces, such as finally being able to set up a bathtub and properly design an attachment to his fireplace for cooking and a more tunnel like chimney for smoking fish and other foods.
He slowly worked away at the cabin with about two to three hours every other day, he made decent progress as the weeks passed. Thus, enhancing his daily life comfort and allowing for more proper research to be accomplished. He learned lots from the diverse studies and ideologies within the library he had discovered, with it he had created his first minor artifact as a craftsman and cultivator. The first successful contraption was a book which had been carefully crafted out of leather and refined from the sturdiest trees he could find for the paper, with three interconnecting formations engraved on its cover he was able to create his most essential item as of yet. An ever-expanding book which compressed its size and mass by making use of a miniature dimension to store the multitude of pages he had amassed and compressed within its form. To go along with it he crafted a ring using his qi to excite a fire he stored outside in a small cave not far from his dwelling, this allowed for the heat to increase enough to melt the raw ores and minerals he had discovered with his increasing affinity with earth. The connection to the earth element allowed him to, with some strain alter the melted metal to the diameter of his finger, using a mana crystal, an excato knife and a branch enhance with mana he formed a knife to carve the formation channels into the exterior of the thick and slightly crude ring. (Btw qi is used for the cultivation of the dantian, and is used in martial arts. While mana is used in magic and converted by mana circles located around the heart. The strength of martial arts depends on the techniques level and on the strength of the body + dantian, while the strength of magic is determined by the level of dantian and the strength of the mind aka level of the mage, sorry for the info dump more exposition will be provided in a better way latter).
Through much strain and research he had completed his first work, which qualified as a queso artifact due to the formations bound to both book and ring. Due to the store he had plenty of coins from selling half of his harvest each time, this let him focus on other tasks to improve his daily life and bolster his strength in hopes of at least being able to run from any mister he encountered.
His research had progressed steadily and his ring allowed him to better test as he continued to build up the base of the technique. He channeled the qi into his heart and infused it into the only mana circle he had formed at that point and poured it into the ring, causing it to light up and glowed as the formation activated. He felt his mind jolt and a slight tug at his consciousness as his mental sphere became fully able to control the vast information he had stored within the simple formation residing in the ring. As per usual his nightly routine of doing research had arrived smoothly and he could already tell that his progress wasn't insignificant. After all literally no-one would develop there own technique before even starting their cultivation. This caused him to feel the limits of his centers of power and understand them more deeply which allowed his continual development of his technique.
It is common knowledge that cultivation can never be done properly in the dungeon, though the mana was much higher quality and quantity than that of the surface. This was due to the myriads of diverse and deadly creatures and afflictions, along with the danger of breaking concentration and causing mana overflow. This made it all the more bizarre what was happening in the depths of the dungeon, in a small hollowed out cave with numerous crops growing a man sat on a small boulder deep in meditation. Mana dripped from his brow like it was sweat and condensed on the boulder beneath him, showing the power of his technique and its advanced applications. This man was of course none other than John, as no one was crazy enough to continually cultivate, much less do so solitarily in the twisted and deadly depths. In this era with the lackluster progress in the dungeon, the lowest cleared floor was only the 100th and to the knowledge of the masses there was far more past that. With that said the deepest stronghold that could be reasonably protected was on the 65th floor. Any deeper than that would require immense resources and for the strongest humans from each factions to all come together in order to protect it. No one knew exactly how deep the dungeon was, the only who might have an idea would be the constellations, but it required far too much karma to that thoroughly probe the dungeon and even more to tell the conscripted individuals that information as well. Though perhaps there was others who might also know, those old monsters who survived in the dungeon after its last immergence, bound to the depths and ever-increasing complexities that be the lower floors of the dungeon.
Nevertheless, John continued to refine and enhance his cultivation technique, finding that as the days passed the more complex the rune he required to engrave into his mind and supply with ever increasing mental power to use. As he had no dantian nor training technique for his mental realm he was forced to use his mental energy as the lines and concentration to hold together the incomplete rune, whilst drawing it into his body during training and using the qi he held within his body to enforce the magic circle present in the rune. This was the most primitive and quick method he had discovered through countless failures and attempts at using the cultivation techniques. He had come across it whilst doing his nightly reading, having more time than usual with the development of his body and mental realm decreasing the time required for rest. This was in one of the mana manuscripts about techniques, it regarded creating runes in the mental realm using small bits of qi pulled into the realm as the base and then using the mental energy to wash over it. This infused the intent into the rune by picturing the required effect and fully concentrating it into the qi. Then with the same method one would go line by line and Though this was very difficult and presented a few challenges, it was far more efficient than using the mental energy itself as the base.
As the day's past, John grew stronger, his body more toned and his training a bit easier, even though he knew he had a long way to go, he knew that the more effort he exerted towards his training, the more powerful and refined he became. Along with that the more time he spent in the dungeon, the more he felt his sense growing sharper, his cognitive functions more efficient and faster, and his comprehension and computation more natural and advanced. Showing that even without a typical training technique for his mind he still was experiencing explosive growth due to his rune work and storing bits of qi in his mind to better firm up the rune.
"Huuuuuuuuu". He exhaled deeply before opening his eyes, a glow now present behind his brilliant hazel-green eyes. "The progress is slow, but evident even with the technique lacking I still can feel my concentration and compression of energy gathering in my lower abdomen. I finally have grasped the strand of fate destined to lead me out of the desperate and pitiful life peasants know all too well".