Cultivating

"Looks like I'm back to being bored for an entire year. After just a few hours of something exciting happening, I'm instantly rewarded with an entire year in prison. Seems like having fun is illegal now and I got punished by the universe."

Luckily for Kael cultivation isn't actually boring. Feeling yourself getting stronger with every passing second is exhilarating and some cultivators can even get addicted. This is also the reason why cultivators are able to seclude themselves for years in the later realms. 

"But why did he say that I will be able to defeat the beast outside in a year? To do that I would need combat power of the 9th stage Energy Refinement realm. To achieve that I only have two options, either reaching the Jade Refinement Realm or breaking through into the next major realm."

"But both of these things should be impossible for me. With my A-Grade Body Refinement talent the Gold Refinement stage is my limit. And as long as I'm unable to condense a new set of meridians I can't break through into the Energy Refinement Realm either."

"Since the guy in my head did seem pretty optimistic, I might as well just reach the limit of what I'm able to achieve for now. If I'm not strong enough by then I can only wait for the egg to finally hatch."

Stepping into the Gold Refinement Realm and above is a qualitative change in a cultivators stage of being. Those are the realms that really lay a solid foundation for the future, bringing with them many benefits. The most obvious would be that in each realm above silver refinement the body will automatically expel impurities upon completion.

A body with less impurities can absorb and circulate spiritual energy better since there is less blockage. This also means that you can potentially increase your Cultivation Talent if it was low before.

In the Gold Refinement Realm you will expel 10% of the bodies impurities. In the Platinum Refinement 25%, 50% in the Diamond and 100% in the Jade Refinement Realm. Your bones will also take on the color of the material each realm is named after. So in the Gold Refinement Realm all the bones in your body will turn golden during the Bone Refinement stage. Even your blood, organs and muscles will take on a hint of golden color.

Due to the increase in quality you also need higher quality pills. Since your body is extremely hard already it can't be broken down by ordinary body strengthening powder. So from here on out you need a Body Strengthening Pill. 

Those are usually used for body Refinement in the Energy Refinement Realm for those with lesser talent, even though most cultivators with lesser talent won't even do body refinement after the first major realm. After all dual cultivation takes more time and talent, which is why most people focus on the aspect they have a higher talent in.

The problem that Kael has at the moment is that Body Strengthening Pills are about 30 times more expensive than powder of the same quality. The reason for that is that you need the upgraded versions of the ingredients you had to use for Body Strengthening Powder. Additionally it has to be refined by real alchemists who burn the impurities of the herbs and form pills with the help of a medicinal cauldron. 

This means that the ingredients, labor force and equipment all have a higher price and the time needed to refine the pills is even higher. Luckily for Kael, the father of his egg-buddy put a LOT of body strengthening pills into his soul ring. A lot means about a million. All with perfect quality which Kael didn't even know was possible.

But Kael's enthusiasm was quickly blown out by a note he found in the ring beside the pills.

'I got you a few Body Strengthening Pills to keep you company in the year you will spend completely alone inside of a cave. Even though I could have filled the soul ring with enough valuables to buy your planet a trillion times over, I wanted you to stay humble and work hard. Good Luck!' 

'Did he have to flex on me like this? Why take his wealth to his death, it would be way better off staying by my side.'

Even though Kael was somewhat mad, his mood went up upon taking a closer look at the inside of the ring, he noticed that it seemed completely empty. But even though that might seems like a bad thing, it was actually great. The pills filled about the space of a big room, but the space still seemed empty. If Kael had to estimate the size of this empty space, which was really hard at this size, he would guess that earth could easily fit inside and the moon could still orbit around it on the same route. Even this was only an estimate. It could very well be even bigger.

'Before I forget it, I better form a contract with the egg. It kind of excited to see what animal will come out, I hope it's an epic tiger or maybe even a dragon. A phoenix would also be okay.'

To form the contract Kael had to draw a complicated array on the ground with the help of a weird color he found inside the soul ring. He then had to place the egg inside the center of the array and then simply drop a bit of his blood on top of the egg. 

After he did that he felt a certain string forming that connected his soul with the egg. He even felt some intimacy and positive emotions toward it build up inside his soul. 

'I don't really like how this makes me feel as if I have no control over my emotions. But there's nothing I can do about it. Let me just start cultivating already.'

After taking a cross-legged position on the ground, Kael started cultivating. Due to the high amount of spiritual energy he instantly felt a boost in his cultivation speed that was double as effective as when he took the Body Strengthening Powder. This meant a four time increase in speed.After testing his normal speed, he popped a pill in his mouth. He would be eating these like candy in the next months since perfect pills don't leave any harmful impurities. After taking the pill he instantly felt his body refinement speed increasing by an additional 8 times. This exaggerated speed mostly came due to the fact that the Body Strengthening Pill was a higher level item compared to the Body Strengthening Powder. It's Perfect quality also added an additional large boost.

With this speed Kael only took two days to perfect the Gold Refinement. In this time he limited sleeping to the bare minimum and also only ate meals when really necessary. He got the food from the system market where you can even buy already cooked meals that arrive completely fresh and hot. After reaching this far his body excreted a large amount of disgusting smelling impurities. He even had to buy a bucket to wash them away. He didn't want to drink tainted water for the next 12 months after all.

Even though Kael should theoretically have reached the limit of his talent now, he still felt like he could go farther. Since the feeling came from deep within his soul and body, he simply trusted it and tried to break through further according to the Human Body Refinement Manual. To his surprise he broke through to the Skin tempering stage of the Platinum body refinement after just an hour. Afterwards he felt like his cultivation speed plummeted compared to before. It always felt like he had to fight against an invisible barrier that tried to hinder his progress. After cultivating this way for another 3 weeks he finally reached completion and once again excreted impurities through his entire skin. 

But once again he felt like he could go further. And just like before he broke through to Diamond Refinement after just a few hours and reached completion after 2 months.

'This is crazy!! According to my talent I should only be able to reach the completion of gold refinement but I went two whole realms above that already. And I still feel like I can keep going.'

'Since the voice in my head was pretty sure that I can reach this far, it's probably connected to either my soul or my special talent. If I had to bet I would rather say it's my special talents since it's pretty unrealistic that my soul somehow influences Body Refinement.'

'I'm not going to complain. Let's just keep cultivating for now and reach the top of Jade Refinement.'

Kael immediately sat down again and continued cultivating. This time it took him an whole day to simply break through to the next realm and it wasn't until 8 months later that he finally reached completion.

'Let's look at my status screen again' Kael said with a content expression.