64: Chapter 64 Ascetic Training

"Now that my strength has reached the high-tier, I urgently need a High-Tier Knight cultivation method. Do you have any ideas?"

Nie Ning sat on the sofa, took a sip of tea, and asked.

Although he could rely on crystal cores to strengthen his blood qi and enhance his combat qi, he still needed a cultivation method for purification.

After all, he wasn't a real mutated beast; the crystal cores merely saved him a vast amount of time. Furthermore, the use of combat qi still required a high-tier cultivation method to drive it for maximum power.

If simply increasing combat qi was all that mattered, old cultivation methods would have been obsolete long ago; their continued existence had its own logic.

"A high-tier cultivation method is truly hard to find."

This indeed stumped Borton.

Although he knew many people, he was just an ordinary person, unlike those great families with their inherited legacies.

Obtaining a Mid-level technique had already cost him much effort, let alone the fact that he never imagined he would one day need a high-tier cultivation method.

Nie Ning felt a bit distressed upon hearing this, inwardly grumbling that novels were all lies.

Normally, who would run around every day carrying secret techniques? One would be lucky to scavenge a few swords or some money from a corpse.

After all, people weren't fools; how could they make things easy for others? Even Nie Ning himself wouldn't carry such things on his person.

To hope to scavenge a secret technique from a corpse, unless something like a spatial pocket actually existed, it would be plausible.

"During the few days you were in Wantai Forest, Miss Ivy came looking for you again."

Borton glanced at Nie Ning and continued speaking.

"If you ask me, you might as well follow Miss Ivy. If she takes a liking to you, you won't have to worry about food or clothing for several lifetimes."

Nie Ning rolled his eyes as a response to Borton.

He was only missing a cultivation method right now; was it worth sucking up to Ivy for that?

At worst, he would just stop following the Knight path; it wasn't like there was only one way to become stronger.

"By the way, what did she want with me?"

Snapping back to reality, Nie Ning looked at Borton and asked curiously.

Hearing this, Borton thought back carefully.

"Last time, someone accompanied her. I vaguely heard something about wanting to explore something, but I couldn't hear clearly since I was too far away."

After all, she was a young lady of a great family; how could she tell him everything?

If it weren't for Nie Ning, Ivy might not have come to a place like this in her entire life.

After pondering for a moment, Nie Ning felt that the possibility of obtaining a cultivation method from Ivy was indeed extremely high, but it didn't necessarily mean he had to follow her.

"Ask her for me next time; perhaps I can get a high-tier cultivation method from her."

Borton nodded upon hearing this.

If he could form a connection with Ivy, it would also be very beneficial for him.

Immediately after, Nie Ning took out a portrait; it was precisely the High-Tier Knight from the abandoned building yesterday.

"Help me investigate him. No need to go deep; if you sense something is wrong, stop the investigation."

Nie Ning pointed at the portrait with a serious expression.

The fact that the other party could dispatch a High-Tier Knight meant they were clearly not ordinary bandits.

However, Nie Ning had no other channels; otherwise, he wouldn't have troubled Borton with such a dangerous task.

Borton did not decline; he took a look and put away the portrait.

After all, he had already received many benefits from Nie Ning and should show some appropriate initiative.

The two didn't chat much longer before Nie Ning got up and left the agency.

...

Walking out of the agency and looking at the brightly lit streets, Nie Ning's expression became slightly dazed.

Having been transmigrated for so long, he seemed to have never properly appreciated this world on his own.

But then Nie Ning shook his head, casting aside those messy thoughts.

To him, Lilith's life-saving grace outweighed everything else; at the very least, he had to settle Lilith in before talking about other things.

...

After returning to the Hervis Family, Nie Ning once again entered a phase of frantic cultivation.

Although his Knight cultivation couldn't be improved, he could still continue practicing his Meditation Technique.

And compared to Knight cultivation, Nie Ning had already begun to sense the formidable power of a Wizard.

Since merging several crystal cores, not only had the magic power capacity in his body increased several times over, but the magic power he could use had also multiplied.

Because of this, the power of skills like Fire Control had been strengthened.

Just like before, he could easily insta-kill an Elementary Knight and even cause damage to a High-Tier Knight.

According to Nie Ning's calculations, as long as his Spiritual Power was pushed to the limit of a Witch Apprentice, simply using Fire Control skills should also be able to kill a High-Tier Knight.

And these were just trait skills; the effect of using actual Wizardry would likely be even stronger.

Unfortunately, while he could modify the Meditation Technique, he was powerless when it came to Wizardry.

The hardest part wasn't the Wizardry itself, but the runes that constructed it.

After all this time, Nie Ning's understanding of runes was still superficial; let alone modifying Wizardry, it was already difficult enough just to understand them.

This was the downside of not having a teacher; many things were completely incomprehensible, and relying on those Wizard notes was ultimately lacking.

If he didn't understand, he could only guess, but Nie Ning couldn't bear the consequences of guessing wrong.

So, for now, there was only one path to take: to reach the level of a First-Ring Wizard as quickly as possible, so he could directly learn complete Wizardry.

...

Over the next two months, Nie Ning worried about Lilith's safety, so he almost never left the manor; his days were spent in nothing but cultivation.

And Norma did not disappoint; after he gave her the water cloud vine, she became a High-Tier Knight in just half a month.

Possessing such strong power at such an age was rare in all of Ska City.

The reason he said it was rare was that Nie Ning had indeed seen someone impressive.

Evie Waters.

When they met in Wantai Forest, she was already at the Mid-level; thinking about it now, even if she hadn't broken through, she probably wasn't far off.

Moreover, those nobles still had their foundations; although they might not be famous, there would certainly be some powerful characters among so many people.

After this period of bitter cultivation, Nie Ning's Spiritual Power was one step closer to the peak of a Witch Apprentice.

However, he also discovered a problem.

Although Wizard cultivation differed from Knight cultivation, it was confined within a certain framework.

Knight cultivation was aided by pills and various physical trait enhancements, so the speed of strength improvement had always been fast.

But on the Wizard side, it was somewhat lacking.

Furthermore, his recent cultivation speed was getting slower and slower.

Nie Ning didn't know how to make medicine, and the pharmacists Borton knew also didn't know how to refine pills that improved Spiritual Power.

Although he had an elemental talent, it was fine for magic power accumulation but left much to be desired in terms of improving Spiritual Power.

So, if he wanted to increase his cultivation speed, the best way was to obtain mental-type traits.

What felt strange to Nie Ning was that, logically, one should be able to obtain them from mutated beasts with elemental power.

Nie Ning didn't know if he was just too unlucky or if there was another issue, but after eating so much mutated beast meat, he hadn't obtained a single mental-type trait.

...