46 - Choice

Su Tao stayed in the forest, cultivating quietly while many members of the Su family had been sent into the forest to find him.

But he could not care less about their efforts to find him since he knew that it was almost impossible for them to find him, like trying to find a single drop of water in a lake.

The Silver Springs Forest was simply massive, let alone the fact that he was on the border of an area where only elders - of which there were only ten - would dare to venture.

And there was also the factor of his eyes, which would allow him to see anyone that got close to him even if they somehow managed to coincidentally get close to him.

All he had done for a while now was work on cultivating, but he figured that it would be easiest to now try to improve his refinement method for his inner energies just like he had done for the lightning refinement technique.

Normal people wouldn't dare to do this, but he had already done so successfully, and it obviously wasn't impossible based on the fact that every skill they had was written by somebody at some point.

He then worked on improving the refinement techniques not only based on his own experimentation, but also based on the skills he knew and how they manipulated inner energy.

For example, the misty ripple body had information in it that he could convert into the refinement technique to make his inner energy flow smoother and have a better ability to spread inner energy better innately rather than in his control.

And the crackling palm, spark step, and flowing bolt arrow could all be used to increase the pure strength of his lightning inner energy as well as make it more compatible with those skills.

Of course, this was under the situation where he could actually transfer this information, and this would rely entirely on his skill and ingenuity.

He started to work on this with all his attention. He couldn't cultivate while working on this, so he made no progress in this time. However, he didn't care since he wasn't in any hurry to do anything.

He ended up spending a whole month just focusing on upgrading these skills. However, it was well worth it because he managed to get both of them up to top high tier techniques.

This meant that he had managed to increase the grade of these two skills simultaneously to a whole grade above what they were before.

Such a thing should be impossible, but when it came to Su Tao, nothing seemed impossible. His ability to learn and improve was something that was thought to be impossible, but he had broken that illusion many times already.

Su Tao figured that he could bring these techniques up to the peak tier if he wanted to, but he figured it would be faster to cultivate first before doing so so that he could have a higher understanding of how water and lightning worked before improving them.

Su Tao understood one thing very clearly though. The best skills to learn and use are skills that you create yourself.

This meant that, as perfectly suited as the flowing bolt arrow skill was for him, it would still end up being better if he could make his own skill since it would perfectly suit him down to the most minute detail.

This meant that because Su Tao had improved these skills himself, he had adjusted them to fit him specifically, and in that way, they might be able to exhibit just a little bit more effect compared to if someone else were to use them.

With this progress he had made, Su Tao then resumed his cultivation.

He was right away able to tell the difference, and the purity, quality, and density of his inner energy all received a significant boost in only a little while. On top of that, he felt the inner energy become more compatible with the power of his eyes, which was another thing that he was experimenting with.

He was extremely happy to see this, and he quickly used another month before breaking through to the peak tier one star silver rank.

From the fact that he had no resources to help him cultivate or anything to assist him, it was obvious what the effects of having the higher tier refinement technique that was self created.

After all, he couldn't call those skills the flowing essence technique and the basic lightning refinement technique anymore since they were only based off of them.

But he decided to not name them for now since he would undoubtedly improve them later, and their attributes might change slightly.

But for now, he received a significant boost in strength, and his inner energy was now comparable to a limit peak tier one star silver rank even though he was only at the beginning of the peak tier.

There was a big difference between the inner energy of a one star silver rank and a two star, and it was much more of a difference than the difference between a high tier one star and a peak tier one star.

As such, Su Tao's inner energy wouldn't be considered to be at the two star silver rank in terms of strength until he was actually at the two star silver rank himself.

At this point, Su Tao was likely almost invincible among those at the one star silver rank, and he was confident that he could escape even from a weaker two star silver rank if absolutely necessary.

By now, the power of his eyes was no longer that effective, and since the source of the power of his eyes within that dimension wasn't getting bigger or stronger, neither would his eyes.

At this point, the black blood was more useful to him than the power of his eyes was since it wasn't so limited in amount.

He didn't understand his eyes at all, but he figured that something might finally happen when he broke through to the two star silver rank since that was an increase in a rank rather than just a tier.

After all, he still felt that his eyes were something boundless and held infinite secrets, just like the black blood in his body.

But not just his eyes. He figured out that, although the black heart came from the power of his eyes, it was not part of the eyes themselves, but still part of the abomination.

There was also the matter of the weird particle sized white light in the dimension of his eyes between the two balls of eye power. He had yet to even figure out what that was, let alone the secrets that it held.

Su Tao was well aware that all of this started with his eyes, but he only recently started to think that maybe the eyes alone weren't what made him the abomination.

Perhaps it was the combination of the eyes, his black heart, and that weird white light which he still didn't understand that all came together to make the abomination.

He didn't know, but it didn't stop him from being curious.

But he put all this aside as he simply stood up.

He had been cultivating this whole time, and he was beginning to get tense.

He still got food and water every time he needed them, but that was barely any movement compared to sitting in an uncomfortable tree for a month with these being his only breaks.

He then just left. He didn't take the sled with him since there was no use for it anymore since he couldn't sell anything in the city.

As for the bag, he simply kept it hanging at his side since he still had stuff in it.

He ran with his hood up and a mask covering everything except his eyes. And even his eyes were hard to see under the shade of the hood.

He was going to go look for people. He wanted to know what had happened during the time when he had left.

He had also bought some different colored robes when he was in town previously, so he had already put on some pure black ones.

He ran as fast as he possibly could, and he found that his speed with only his running speed would surpass any peak tier unless they used a speed skill like spark step.

He then activated spark step, and he found that he was going one and a half times as fast as before, which was already incredible.

The reason that it was no longer doubling his speed was because if the user outranked the skill enough, the effect would not be as much due to certain differences.

This was why people didn't just use skills of lower level with their current level of strength. It just didn't have enough of an effect based on the way they were controlled and the overall power of the skills reaching a limit.

Su Tao then went straight towards the city, and he soon enough found a group of people. They all had tired expressions and annoyed faces.

In the hands of one of them was a rough portrait of Su Tao.

Su Tao silently approached this group, listening to what they were saying.

But he got no information this way.

Then, he silently made his way around to the front of the group, making sure that they couldn't see him.

This group was not strong, but they were bound to know something, and if they helped him, he would obviously let them go.

After all, although he didn't care about the people in the Su family, the only people he actually hated were the elders since he knew that they were behind his mother's death.

Plus, just killing them would only increase the pressure on him if he were to ever return to the city.

As soon as he appeared in front of them, they all jumped in fright since they didn't even see where he had come from.

But when they saw his eyes and the fact that he had no aura, they instantly became on guard as they knew exactly who he was.

Seeing their recognition just based on his eyes alone, Su Tao knew that there was no way to hide his identity while getting information, so he just took down the mask and hood since there was no longer any point to them.

On his face was a kind smile that made anyone who saw it instinctively want to trust him.

Before they even had a chance to speak, Su Tao interrupted their trains of thought.

"I am not bloodthirsty. I only kill those who wish me harm, so as long as you help me, I'll let you go. If you don't attack me but don't help me, I'll just knock you out before I leave.

But be warned, if you attack me, nobody can save you from your fate." As he said this with his kind smile, it seemed to become a creepy smile of death while not changing at all.