Mixed Blessing System

Viktoria had been married to Lothur for over six months now. Although they had not lived together as a couple during such a period, this woman had learned about his personality.

So, she knew that although Lothur was a good-for-nothing arrogant guy who ran after women from all over the city, she also understood that his skills in this regard were lacking.

After all, even if he was extremely handsome, that was all he had!

Looks were important in attraction. But women were hardly attracted to men who did not know how to talk, to have even the slightest exciting ideas, in other words, content.

That was even more true in the cultivation world, where status and prestige could be considered even more critical than on Earth.

That was particularly true considering that many female cultivators abstained from sexual relations early in their lives. In fact, it was not unusual to find women over 100-years-old in this world who were still virgins!

But in this world, Lothur had no talent. His past could be considered shameful, given his position in House Frost. He was arrogant without even one quality beyond his appearance.

He was someone who gambled, lived without worrying about tomorrow, had no funds that could guarantee his future, and barely had a primary education by the standards of this world.

How could anyone be interested in a young man with no scope or prospects?

To be with him would be an absolute waste of time for the vast majority of women!

Moreover, no matter how good confidence was, being arrogant without any foundation only turned such a person into a stranger, something unappreciated by women. 𝘦𝘯.𝘰𝘳𝘨

Knowing all of this, Viktoria could not imagine a woman, nay, a Morning Star Academy student, giving herself to Lothur in the manner Annaliese described.

‘What kind of woman is this? Does she not care about her future? How can someone act so vulgarly with him?’ Viktoria wondered in disbelief, feeling that such a thing made no sense.

If the woman Annaliese described to her was at least some desperate mortal who was perhaps in search of something specific, Viktoria could understand the situation. But this was a student of the Morning Star Academy, probably a member of the local nobility.

She should be someone with sufficient means to understand the consequences of her decisions and not be influenced by his appearance.

So how could someone like that allow herself to be used by someone as low-level as Lothur?

That is, it’s not as if he had some magical skill of conquest to fool someone of nobility, someone presumably intelligent.

“Are you serious?” She asked her younger sister, looking at Annaliese with a slightly altered expression, something rarely seen on her.

Annaliese then exclaimed. “I saw it with my own eyes!”

“How can that be?”

“Are you telling me that this redhead gave herself to Lothur happily?”

“Are we truly talking about the same person? Anna, Lothur is not someone who is capable of holding an interesting conversation with a woman for more than 1 minute!”

“How can that be true?” She stood up from her chair as she asked that.

“I don’t know…” Annaliese finally realized that, indeed, Lothur should not have the necessary skills for this and began to wonder how he had managed that.

‘Come to think of it…’

“Sister, perhaps he is maturing.” She commented as she looked into Viktoria’s eyes. “I feel he is becoming different. At least the last few days, I have felt different when I am with him.”

“Maybe he managed to fool that brat somehow!”

‘To fool her? Lothur?’ Viktoria’s eyes sharpened, not thinking that could be possible.

“Anyway, sister, he truly was cheating on you with that redhead. What are you going to do about it? We can’t let this go on!”

“That…”

‘Indeed. Regardless of how he managed this feat, if Anna saw him doing it, then we need to have a serious talk!’

‘I don’t care what he does, but he has to talk about it with me first, and he can’t do these things in public.’ She made up her mind as her younger sister watched her in anticipation.

“All right, after dinner with our parents, I’ll go talk to him.”

“Hehe, that’s better, sister!”

…

Quickly more than 3 hours passed from the moment Lothur left his room to go to the northernmost area of the Frost estate.

In those three hours, this young man had spent most of his time practicing the Cross Walk, repeating the movements necessary for the technique to work while trying to understand it.

But as much as this was his first time training a technique of this world, and he did not have much knowledge regarding cultivation, Lothur quickly understood how to train.

That had not been something caused by luck or the system. But something instinctive in his body, as would be the case with an animal that knows it needs to eat, mate, and so on, even though it does not have the reason to think about why.

After performing the technique a few times, he felt something strange happening in his body, which led him to try to understand how it worked and what the connection was with the movement technique.

And by doing this for most of this time, Lothur finally managed to activate the Cross Walk technique for the first time!

While practicing that technique, he could barely do the basic steps at low speed, sometimes looking like a drunk person trying to move. But when he finally managed to activate it successfully, Lothur moved gracefully while expressing the characteristics of the first phase of it.

…

[Cross Walk] [Rank: Iron]

[Mastery level: Beginner]

[Effect: +10% AGI; +5% CON.]

…

He finally saw the system message appearing in front of him, as drops of sweat dripped down his face, down his neck, accumulating on his soaked clothes.

‘Hehe, finally!’ He celebrated as he saw this, feeling cramps in various parts of his body.

He then fell to his knees, just before he allowed himself to lie down on that grass in the servants’ area of this estate, finally able to breathe without caring about his training.

But as he did so, he soon saw new system warnings appearing in front of him.

[+0.1 in all physical attributes.]

[+0.1 in AGI.]

[+0.1 in WIL.]

[+0.2 in CON.]

…

[Name: Lothur Ritter]

[Physique: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger]

[Bloodline: ****]

[Cultivation: level 2]

[STR: 2.2] [CON: 1.5] [DEX: 2.2] [AGI: 3.1]

[INT: 30] [PER: 11] [WIL: 38.1]

…

“Oh?” He exclaimed in surprise upon seeing his status.

‘So training these techniques can increase my attributes, huh?’

‘Well, I guess that makes sense. After all, this training worked my body quite hard, so it should be normal for me to become stronger after this.’

‘On the other hand, besides affecting my Constitution and Agility more significantly, it also increased my Will…’ He silently pondered as he smelled the grass and looked up at the starry sky.

Peters City was not very bright during the nights, despite its considerable population. Therefore, it was possible to observe the night sky there without any problems.

And by observing that, Lothur felt the peace needed to understand better how cultivation in this world worked through the system’s data.

‘That’s perfect!’

‘I won’t have to be beaten up every time just to ensure my advancements!’

‘But what about those mental attributes? How will I improve?’

So far, Lothur had realized that the mental attributes seemed not to be affected as simply as the physical ones. And knowing that these attributes were in no way less important than the physical ones, he could not help but worry about raising their values as well.

For the moment, this was fine since his mental attributes were far above the physical ones. However, if he wanted to climb to the top of this place he was in, brute strength alone would not be enough.

Hence his concern!

‘Well, I have no way of finding that out for now. So, I’ll continue with my current plans and eventually figure out how to improve that.’

“Sigh…”

“Time to return and take a shower!” He stood up from where he was and then made his way in the direction of his room.