Dual Realm Exchange System

With everything finally settled in Shengyuan, Damian did not linger.

A thought summoned the familiar Realm Passage before him, the spatial doorway opening silently within the cultivation chamber before Damian stepped through and crossed between worlds.

The shift was instantaneous.

One moment, dense Spiritual Energy surrounded him within his Evergreen Sect residence, and the next, Damian stood inside the bedroom of his Rosewood cottage beneath the familiar mana-rich atmosphere of Valoria.

Not even a full day had passed since he left, although it was already late evening.

Damian glanced around the quiet room, smiled faintly at the strangely comforting sight of his furniture, then immediately felt his body remind him of an unfortunate truth.

Mage or cultivator, he was still human.

He still needed sleep, and he also needed food.

Fortunately, one of those problems had recently become considerably easier.

Damian retrieved a Grain Avoidance Pill from Exchange Storage and tossed the small brown pill into his mouth, only to pause when an unexpectedly savory flavor spread across his tongue.

”Chicken?”

Some unknown Shengyuan alchemist had apparently possessed both culinary standards and basic human compassion.

The pill dropped into his stomach with a soft, almost tangible ’thunk’, then gradually began releasing nutrients throughout his body.

Hunger disappeared within seconds.

Satisfied, Damian stripped off his clothing, collapsed onto the ridiculously comfortable bed he had barely enjoyed since renting the place, and was unconscious before he could finish arranging the pillow beneath his head.

Eight peaceful hours later, his eyes opened naturally, with morning sunlight streaming through the curtains.

Damian checked the time using the magietech clock in the residence and found that it was now seven in the morning.

There was no bedside alarm, no warehouse supervisor calling him, no hospital payment notification waiting on his phone, and no monster trying to eat him.

For several seconds, Damian simply lay there enjoying the novelty.

Then he noticed something else.

After a full night of sleep, he wasn’t hungry, not even in the slightest.

In fact, he felt comfortably full.

The Grain Avoidance Pill was rated to sustain an ordinary mortal for around seven days, while strenuous physical activity and enhanced physiques shortened the duration.

Damian had the opposite problem.

With STR 3, AGI 2, CON 3 and the general physical magnificence of a particularly overworked office chair, his body consumed fewer resources than the average Valorian adult.

At this rate, one pill might comfortably sustain him for longer than a week!

”Being weak finally has benefits,” Damian muttered dryly.

He rose, enjoyed a long bath without any cultivator trying to discuss immortality with him, then dressed in his black Apprentice’s Arcane Robe with its dark-gold edging.

By the time he entered the garden, morning had fully settled across Rosewood.

Birds chirped among the trees while the miniature enchanted fountain near the garden path poured clear water continuously into its shallow basin.

Damian lowered himself into a comfortable chair and took a moment to appreciate the scene.

Today, he had three objectives.

First, reach Level 6, and preferably in one sitting.

Even if he had to choke on cultivation pills until his stomach developed a personal grudge against Shengyuan, he would do it.

Second, register his advancement with the Mage Association once he officially became a Journeyman Mage and collect whatever institutional benefits came with the new rank.

Third, visit the Trade and Commerce Guild, properly register his business and obtain the licenses required to begin selling his imported products legally.

Everything else could wait.

First things first, it was time to pump those levels!

What?

You thought Damian was going to slowly progress through quests day after day, experiencing hardships, developing his character, rescuing innocent villagers and winning the hearts of beautiful women through carefully paced slow-burn romance?

Buddy, that stuff only worked in fantasy fiction.

In real life, not one sensible person willingly chose the harder path when an easier path existed with no meaningful consequences attached!

Damian had already experienced enough character development during twenty-six years of being poor, so now, he only wanted cheap Experience Points!

He retrieved a Qi Acceleration Pill.

According to , its Valorian effect doubled EXP acquired from eligible activities for twelve hours, while its Shengyuan effect accelerated the absorption and utilization of Spiritual Energy during Body Tempering.

Jian Rui had also explained that cultivators frequently combined Qi Acceleration Pills with Qi Nourishing Pills, using one to improve efficiency while the other supplied the actual energy required for advancement.

So in his mind, though they were different worlds, the same principle should hold true.

Damian swallowed it.

Unlike the Grain Avoidance Pill, which settled inside his stomach and slowly released nutrients, the Qi Acceleration Pill almost immediately dissolved.

A concentrated stream of energy passed through his digestive system, entered the liver and rapidly dispersed throughout his body.

Damian’s eyes widened as his mana sensitivity... exploded!

And that was the simplest way to describe it.

The world had not suddenly gained more mana, but Damian’s ability to notice and interact with it had been given steroids, an energy drink and a caffeine injection simultaneously.

Ambient mana felt sharper, closer and way more responsive.

Even the weak magical currents moving through the enchanted fountain became ridiculously easy to distinguish.

Then the Dual-Realm Exchange System appeared.

[Dual-Realm consumable detected!]

[The Qi Acceleration Pill contains two valid adapted effects.]

[Select active adaptation:

A. Valoria Effect.

B. Shengyuan Effect.]

Damian smiled.

”Valoria.”

[Selection confirmed.]

That little prompt answered another question he had been considering.

So it turns out that cross-realm items possessed both adaptations regardless of where he physically consumed them, only that the governing effect merely had to be selected.

Meaning once Damian reached Level 6 and Qi Acceleration Pills stopped affecting his Valorian Experience gain, they would not suddenly become useless.

He could simply consume them using their Shengyuan effect and accelerate his cultivation instead.

Nothing wasted... how beautiful!

Damian immediately produced a Qi Nourishing Pill and tossed it into his mouth.

The pill dissolved even faster than the previous one, becoming a warm medicinal current that passed through his liver before spreading throughout his body.

Another prompt appeared.

[Qi Nourishing Pill detected.]

[Select active adaptation:

A. Valoria Effect.

B. Shengyuan Effect.]

”Valoria.”

The panel vanished, then the natural laws of Valoria responded.

[Eligible Experience Event Detected.]

[Consumed rare empowerment item: +1 EXP.]

[Beneficial Experience effect amplified by special empowerment item: +1 EXP.]

[Total Experience gained: +2 EXP.]

Damian glanced at the notification.

His Mage Class had been sitting at 7/10 EXP.

Now?

9/10.

He grinned. ”Again!!”

A second Qi Nourishing Pill disappeared down his throat.

Warmth spread through his body.

[+2 EXP.]

Immediately, another notification replaced it.

[Experience threshold reached!]

[Main Class: Mage has advanced from Level 1 → Level 2!]

[Overall Level increased to 2!]

[Experience: 1/20.]

[Level Advancement Reward: +1 Free Attribute Point.]

His Character Sheet opened automatically.

[Name: Damian Baines

Race: Human (Otherworlder)

Overall Level: 2

Main Class: Mage — Level 2

Subclass: None

Class Stage: Standard

Experience Points: 1/20

Attributes:

STR: 3.5

DEX: 4.5

AGI: 2.5

CON: 3.5

INT: 7

WIS: 8

SPI: 10

Free Attribute Points: 1]

Damian leaned back.

Now came a decision that would permanently alter his existence.

Strength? Useful, but no.

Dexterity? Also useful, especially because spell gestures depended somewhat upon precise physical control.

Agility desperately needed help simply because possessing an AGI of 2 felt like a personal insult from the universe.

Constitution was arguably even more valuable, considering health, stamina, physical defense and lifespan.

Yet Damian crossed all four physical Attributes from consideration.

After all, he had cultivation now.

The Five Elements Harmonization Art specifically strengthened his entire physical foundation and, under its Valorian adaptation, every level improved STR, DEX, AGI and CON.

Not to mention that Body Feats from Shengyuan could further transform his physique.

Even certain Valorian Feats could do the same.

Dumping his rare free Attribute Points into weaknesses that another progression system naturally covered would be inefficient.

Damian had spent too much of his first life trying to repair weaknesses while never having enough resources to develop strengths.

He would not make that mistake now.

Wisdom was tempting.

At eight points, it affected his control, magical defense, Mental Energy recovery and comprehension.

Spirit at ten was even more absurdly important now that Damian possessed both magic and cultivation.

But Intelligence sat at seven.

It was the lowest of his three supernatural Attributes, directly benefited his Mage Class, increased his Mental Energy capacity and now possessed an entirely new synergy.

.

Every point of INT increased his base cultivation speed by ten percent, so the final decision became laughably easy.

”Intelligence.”

[Allocate 1 Free Attribute Point to INT?]

”Yes.”

[Confirmed.]

[INT: 7 → 8.]

The effect was immediate.

Damian sucked in a breath.

There was no burst of divine light, no thunder from the heavens, and no mysterious old man appearing to congratulate him upon becoming enlightened.

Instead, something far more intimate occurred.

His thoughts became clearer, not necessarily faster, but cleaner.

A faint mental resistance Damian had never consciously noticed simply disappeared.

Memories became easier to retrieve.

Several ideas he had been holding separately regarding the Mage Association, his new shop and Shengyuan inventory suddenly arranged themselves into a cleaner chain of priorities without conscious effort.

The birds in the garden did not look different, yet Damian found himself processing their movement, the fountain, the System screens and his own thoughts simultaneously with noticeably less strain.

He had not gained knowledge nor did he suddenly understand advanced mathematics or awaken memories of books he had never read.

His brain had simply become objectively better at being... well, being a brain.

For any ordinary person on Earth, such an improvement would have been priceless.

Students would murder for it during examination season, and researchers would likely sell whole sets of organs to have it.

Damian himself would probably have signed away several years of his old salary for one permanent Intelligence point if someone had offered it to him back then.

And that was before the magical benefits.

His working estimate placed his Mental Energy pool at roughly INT multiplied by ten.

If that model remained accurate, he had effectively increased his approximate capacity from seventy to eighty in an instant.

Then another notification appeared.

[Cultivation Prodigy updated.]

[Current INT: 8.]

[Base Cultivation Speed Bonus: +80%.]

Damian smiled broadly.

”Yeah, definitely Intelligence.”

Unfortunately for his decision-making peace, the System was not finished.

[Special Power: One Feat Per Level activated.]

[Valorian Level Increase detected.]

[Select one Feat.]

A list unfolded.

Damian’s smile immediately disappeared.

”Oh, come on!”

Once again, too many good choices.

would greatly improve the effective reach and precision of offensive magic, something incredibly useful for a Mage whose continued survival often depended upon enemies dying before reaching him.

was equally tempting, especially after seeing firsthand how elemental relationships mattered in Shengyuan.

However, choosing one element felt unnecessarily restrictive when Damian had literally just acquired a Five Elements cultivation path.

appealed deeply to his practical side.

Ritual magic converted preparation, materials and time into effects that might otherwise require immediate magical expenditure.

For someone planning businesses, warehouses, defenses and eventually an organization, ritual utility could become ridiculous.

Especially when paired with Shengyuan’s Arrays.

was even more shameless, essentially allowing Damian to ignore the racial foundation normally required to access a package of innate Drow magic.

Useful? Absolutely.

But Damian was already a Mage, so Spells were something he could acquire eventually.

was also excellent for a spellcaster, particularly as his repertoire expanded, but already guaranteed that genuine mastery and knowledge could not naturally regress.

There was overlap.

offered powerful supernatural intimidation capable of turning Damian’s presence itself into a weapon.

The problem was that walking into negotiations while unconsciously reminding everyone of an apex predator was not exactly ideal for a neutral merchant.

Great for an emperor, or sovereign, and for a leader or military deterrent, but not so much a merchant.

Then Damian reached the final serious contender.

.

He opened its description.

The Feat enhanced his eyes to perceive through ordinary disguises, invisibility, magical illusions, false forms and other methods of visual deception within the limits of his perception.

Hmm, while it was neither omniscience nor some ridiculous ability to stare through every secret in existence, it did resolve one of Damian’s most dangerous weaknesses.

Supernatural Perception.

The corpse puppet that had attacked him in the Evergreen Sect had perfectly imitated Ning Ruomei.

Shengyuan already possessed Bewilderment Arrays, strange cultivation methods, corpse techniques and God knew how many transformation arts Damian had yet to encounter.

Valoria certainly had illusion magic, invisible monsters, shapeshifters and magical disguises of its own.

could not solve that problem as it worked upon tradeable items.

But its current form did not let Damian stare at a suspicious stranger and receive a convenient biography through a system screen.

, meanwhile, required no Mental Energy, no spell preparation and no decision to activate a detection spell before danger appeared.

And unlike pure combat power, information remained useful whether Damian was fighting, trading, negotiating or simply walking down the street.

Damian’s experience in logistics had taught him something painfully simple.

You could recover from lacking power and you could compensate for lacking money.

But making decisions using false information?

That could destroy an entire operation before anyone realized something was wrong.

He tapped the option.

”Truesight.”

[Feat selected: Truesight.]

A faint warmth passed through Damian’s eyes, and for a moment, the garden blurred.

Then everything returned to normal... well, almost.

The enchanted fountain now possessed faintly visible structures of mana woven through the flowing water.

The hidden enchantments inside his robe were easier to distinguish when he glanced downward, while tiny distortions created by magical residue around several household objects stood out in ways he had never noticed before.

Damian slowly smiled.

”Definitely worth it.”

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, as he still had leveling to do.

Eight more Qi Nourishing Pills appeared in his palm and one after another, Damian swallowed them.

[+2 EXP.]

[+2 EXP.]

[+2 EXP.]

The process became almost comically efficient.

By the time the eighth disappeared, Damian had gained another sixteen Experience Points.

[Experience Points: 17/20.]

More importantly, he had now consumed exactly ten Qi Nourishing Pills.

The System immediately issued a warning.

[Qi Nourishing Pill adaptation threshold reached! Host has consumed 10 doses!]

[Accumulated medicinal resistance detected! Accumulated low-grade pill toxins detected!]

[Future Qi Nourishing Pill conversion efficiency reduced!]

Damian breathed out deeply.

There it was, the wall.

Or rather, the first wall.

He could simply continue, as, after all, he had ten thousand five hundred pills.

Even with diminishing returns dropping all the way to 0.1 EXP each, brute force would still work.

However, Damian was not stupid.

There was a difference between breadth and depth.

There was also a difference between possessing many individually excellent resources and understanding how those resources interacted.

A person could eat plain boiled rice, which was perfectly functional.

But add fried chicken and spicy tomato stew, however, and suddenly the meal became considerably better in taste, nutrition and overall value because separate ingredients complemented one another.

Why should magical drugs be any different?

Qi Acceleration Pills already proved that two cultivation medicines could work together.

So who said that was the limit?

Damian reached into Exchange Storage and removed another familiar pill, the Marrow Cleansing Pill!

Its Valorian effect removed accumulated organic residue, medicinal toxins and low-grade foreign contaminants from the body.

Meanwhile, Qi Nourishing Pill resistance was explicitly caused by repeated consumption, medicinal resistance and accumulated pill toxins.

Damian stared between both appraisal records, then grinned.

He could swallow all one thousand and fifty Qi Nourishing Pills required by his original calculation.

Or...

He could find combinations that reduced resistance, restored conversion efficiency and dramatically lowered the total amount required.

That was the difference between using resources and optimizing a system.

”Let’s see just how deep this rabbit hole goes.” Damian muttered to himself as he tossed the Marrow Cleansing Pill into his mouth.

It dissolved immediately like the other two before, and a cool medicinal current spread through his body, noticeably different from the warmth left behind by the Qi Nourishing Pills.

Then, the Dual Realm System appeared.

[Marrow Cleansing Pill detected! Accumulated foreign medicinal resistance identified!]

[Qi Nourishing Pill residue detected! Low-grade pill toxicity detected!]

[Evaluating Item Effect Success...]

Damian leaned forward, his breathing hitched until the next screen appeared.

And then, his eyes widened in shock!