In the lightly illuminated cave, John sat there for quite some time without moving. Everything that had just happened seemed unreal, like it had all been an illusion. But when John sent his divine sense back towards his dantian, he once again found the mysterious sphere revolving around his dantian.
While carefully observing the sphere, John started to slip into a trance. Several minutes later, John came back to his senses.
"What just happened? One second I was observing the sphere, and the next I was, well I don't know what I was doing." John couldn't explain the sudden lapse in his concentration. It felt almost as if he was falling into a meditative trance, but he wasn't trying to cultivate.
Sending his divine sense back over the sphere, John once more fell into a meditative trance. Snapping out of it a few minutes later, John gasped in shock.
"This sphere also acts as a perfect meditation enabler? What the fuck? Is there anything it can't do" thought John.
When he started to drift off into a trance, John realized that it was the same type of trance as when he was cultivating. Such a thing was too good to be true. From what John knew, falling into a perfect meditation state was something that only happened through pure chance. It was so rare that some cultivators went their entire lives without ever falling into a perfect state of enlightenment.
"What else can this sphere do?" thought John as he continued to observe it, but was unable to find any other uses.
"No matter. Just helping me fall into a perfect state of enlightenment is already beyond amazing. If nothing else, this will improve my cultivation and comprehension speed several fold." John had a look of pure excitement on his face. Something like this was exactly what he needed to be able to catch up with his peers quickly.
After observing the sphere for a bit more time, John stopped and thought about the books that he had found in the palace. He looked at his hands. Each hand held a book.
"These must be pretty amazing" thought John. "Other than the blood drops, I found nothing else inside the palace."
John looked at both books for a bit before deciding to open the pitch black one.
"Immortal Asura Body huh? Sure sounds impressive."
John brushed his fingers across the cover of the book, tracing each of the strange letters. Although he was still unsure of how it happened, John was now able to understand the language on the book cover.
John opened to the first page of the book, at which point a confused expression appeared on his face.
"What? No introduction or summary of the technique?"
The first page of the book didn't have a detailed description of the technique. Instead, it had various complex drawings etched on it.
"That's the translucent orb in the palace?" thought John. The very first picture at the top of the page depicted a translucent orb, with 10 revolving blood drops within.
After analyzing the first drawing for some time, John lowered his eyes to the second one on the page. It showed a person standing below the sphere, a blood drop hovering in front of them.
"This is exactly what's happened to me" thought John as his eyes continued downwards.
The next drawing showed a person, but unlike before, all the person's veins, arteries, meridians and acupoints were visible. Looking closely, John started to fall into a trance-like state. Although the picture was stationary, John could almost see the blood flowing through the body in the diagram. As he looked closer, there seemed to be two streams of blood. One was normal blood, while the other was a much darker red.
The normal blood seemed to flow throughout the body unimpeded, while the dark red blood flowed towards the dantian. After flowing into the dantian, what came out of the dantian was not blood, but something else. John couldn't' tell exactly what it was, but he could see it flow through certain meridians leading from the dantian to the rest of the body.
Still in his trance like state, John looked further down the page, but was shocked to find that there was nothing else.
"That's it?" thought John. He tried turning to the next page, but was shocked to find he was unable to budge the second page.
"What? Why won't it open?" exclaimed John as he put more power into his fingers. But no matter how much power John put into his fingers, he was unable to budge the page even slightly.
"Maybe I can only open it when I'm stronger" thought John. He stopped trying to open the book and focused once more on the contents of the first page. After studying the drawings for some time, an idea formed in John's mind.
John sent his divine sense into his body, specifically his veins and arteries.
"Ah!"
Although it was diffused, John was able to notice a darker blood intermixed with his own.
"This is the blood from the orb!" said John as he studied it. It had the same sinister aura as the blood drop within the palace.
John studied the blood flowing within him for some time before he took a deep breath and started using his new control over Qi to guide the dark blood towards his dantian.
"Gah!"
John cried out in pain as the blood came into contact with his dantian. He felt as if he was about to explode for an instant there.
"Whew, that was close. If I hadn't pulled it back so fast, I honestly think I might have died."
"What's going on, doesn't the diagram show to do this. Is it perhaps not actually referencing the sinister blood?" thought John as he tried to work out what went wrong.
"If the blood can't go to my dantian, does it go to the sphere instead? But why? Isn't the sphere just a giant storage ring"
Despite his speculations, John could only test his theory out to see if he was correct. Learning from his near fatal mistake last time, John slowly guided the tiniest portion of blood towards the sphere.
"Careful, careful."
The dark red blood carefully approached the sphere. Once it was almost there, it was suddenly sucked in. John's eyes brightened as the blood was rapidly sucked in.
"No pain! This must be what the diagram is depicting" exclaimed John. John guided more and more blood into the sphere, and after a few minutes, all the dark blood had been absorbed into the sphere.
Just as John was feeling happy about solving the riddle, a burst of energy escaped from the sphere and surged throughout his body. John gritted his teeth in pain as he did his best to suppress the surge of energy, but no matter how much he struggled, he found the energy growing more and more intense.
"I'll die at this pace. What can I do?" said John through gritted teeth. Wracking his brain for ideas, John glanced downwards and happened to spot the black book. Struck with understanding, John opened the book to the first page and carefully studied the last image.
After studying the page through the pain, John drew the surging energy back towards the sphere, at which point he started guiding the energy through the meridians depicted in the drawing.
The pain slowly started to fade from his body as John managed to get the energy under control. Slowly guiding the energy through his meridians, John was completely shocked. Wherever the energy was absorbed, John could feel that portion of his body strengthening.
Despite his shock, John continued to guide the energy through his meridians to various parts of his body. Several hours later, John had finally finished absorbing all the energy. Sending his divine sense throughout his body, John was beyond shocked.
"Every part of my body has been strengthened compared to before. Whatever the reason, I'll gladly welcome any increase in strength." John started celebrating before he suddenly came to a halt.
"Wait, does this mean I'm stuck as a body cultivator now?"
It was common knowledge in the world of cultivation that a cultivator either focused on cultivating the body or essence.
For essence cultivators, the cultivator would store their Qi in their dantian and release the Qi for devastating magical attacks. As such, while their attacks would be strong, their bodies would be weaker.
On the other hand, body cultivators focused on strengthening their bodies. By constantly nourishing their body with Qi from their dantian, body cultivators were able to strengthen their bodies to absurd levels. Not only would their defensive abilities increase, but so would their explosive power. The trade off for cultivating the body was that the Qi in the dantian would constantly be used by the body for body nourishment.
Thinking of Qi as food, the body would require a constant supply in order to be able to function properly. As the body grew stronger, more and more 'food' was required to function at peak levels. Since Qi was constantly used to nourish and power the body, body cultivators were unable to store vast amounts of Qi reserves in their dantian. Without large Qi reserves, any magical attacks would be underwhelming and ineffective.
Because of this, cultivators knew that they were to pick one aspect of cultivating, body or essence, and stick to it. There were genius cultivators that tried to defy the norm and cultivate both, but every single one of them ended up average in both categories instead of a genius in one. As such, no one bothered to cultivate both body and essence together anymore.
The Fenix clan was a clan of essence cultivators, and as such, John had always planned on following that path. Now however, he was unsure if he could
"Although I stepped onto the body cultivation path, I just started. If I stop now and focus on essence only, the harmful effects won't be too great" thought John as he slowly started to calm down.
Just as he calmed down, John once again was jolted by a sudden revelation.
"Wait a minute, the energy that strengthened my body came from the sphere, not my dantian."
John focused on his dantian and extracted some Qi from it, at which point he heaved a sigh of relief.
"It still works fine. Wait…" John's thoughts trailed off as a shocking idea came into his mind.
Focusing on the sphere again, John treated it as if it was his dantian, and focused on extracting energy from it.
"Ah!"
A surprised cry echoed throughout the cavern.
"The sphere...the sphere is a dantian?"