"I advanced? My sphere dantian advanced to middle Mist Creation already? Isn't this cultivation speed a little exaggerated?"
When John investigated his sphere dantian and pulled some Qi out of it, he was shocked to find that the nature of the Qi had transformed. If before it was wispy and barely noticeable, now it was much thicker, like a thick fog in the early morning. This was clearly a sign of advancing to the middle Mist Creation realm.
"I advanced!" John shouted out in excitement.
"Wait a minute, shouldn't there be a bottleneck? Father mentioned that every realm increase has an associated bottleneck. Why didn't I experience one?" John thought about the issue, but could only surmise that due to the mysterious nature of the sphere, he wasn't faced with a bottleneck when advancing.
"The Qi that comes out of the sphere is already quite strange. Maybe I won't follow the cultivation norms when cultivating my sphere dantian. No matter, no bottleneck means I can advance even faster. It's just too bad that I can't use the Qi from my sphere dantian for essence attacks. I've tried to use it for essence attacks, but for some reason it refuses to obey my command when I use it for anything but cultivation of the Immortal Asura Body or using it for physical attacks. It seems that it can only be used for body cultivation."
John once again focused on his sphere dantian, and focused on extracting Qi from it and guiding it throughout his body according to the Immortal Asura Body diagrams. A little while later, John opened his eyes in excitement.
"I can feel my body strengthening even faster than before." A smile appeared on John's face as he stood up. Instead of using Qi to nourish and strengthen his body, John focused on using it explosively to augment his body.
For body cultivators, Qi was used in two ways. The first way was to send a steady and gentle supply of nourishing Qi throughout the body. The body would slowly absorb the Qi, growing stronger in the process. This was the main way body cultivators strengthened their body. Each body cultivation art refined a different Qi essence based on the body cultivation art, and each art had different meridian channel pathways it utilized during the nourishment process.
The second way body cultivators used Qi was using it explosively for powerful attacks. By supplying a powerful burst of Qi to the body, body cultivators were able to stimulate their body to their peak and unleash powerful physical attacks. The stronger their body, the more Qi they would be able to handle, and the more powerful their attacks would become.
What John was doing now was sending Qi from his sphere dantian explosively outwards towards his fist. Unfortunately, the Immortal Asura Body art had no techniques provided, and so John could only guide his Qi in the most simple pathways towards his fist.
John stood in front of a boulder and punched out.
"Boom!"
Large cracks appeared on the boulder, before it eventually started to crumble and fall apart. John smiled as he looked at his fist.
"Even such a simple attack is so powerful. I can only imagine how strong it will be once I learn some body cultivation battle techniques. I need to get one as soon as I can." John had not picked up a body cultivation technique when he was in the Fenix clan. One reason was that the Fenix Clan was a clan of essence cultivators. The other was that John had only started body cultivation after he had left the clan.
"Still, it's not all bad. By explosively increasing my physical strength during battle, my Mountain Crushing Sword attack will become even stronger. Having two dantians really is amazing" thought John with a smile on his face.
No matter how he thought about it, his current situation really was heaven defying. Cultivators could only dream of being both body and essence cultivators. Although John had just stepped on the pathway of cultivating both, he could already see all the amazing advantages that it would bring to him. Not only would all his attacks be stronger, but his physical defense would also be stronger.
Essence cultivators were known for their amazingly complicated and powerful Qi attacks, but had weak physical defenses. Although they could use techniques that focused on defense to make up for this deficiency, that would take away from their explosive power.
On the other hand, body cultivators didn't have many complicated attacks, but they were equally feared. They could withstand attacks with their physical body that would kill a normal essence cultivator, and could also unleash devastatingly powerful physical attacks. However, their attacks were normally more straightforward and easier to deal with.
"By combining both body and essence cultivation, I'll practically have no weakness. Even my soul is being passively strengthened by the holy aura in the palace. Although I won't become an amazing soul cultivator, I'll at least be able to strengthen my soul to the level that I won't have to fear most soul cultivators."
John tested out his newfound strength a bit more before sitting back down.
"My own dantian is still at the early Mist Creation realm, while my sphere dantian is at the middle Mist Creation realm. I wonder if I can keep pushing my sphere dantian into higher realms quicker. Wouldn't I be able to become a Qi Condensation body cultivator in no time?"
John once more focused on absorbing blood essence and using it to cultivate the Immortal Asura Body art. Things progressed smoothly for some time before John suddenly clutched his head.
"Ahh!"
Murmurs similar to the ones he experienced in the hellish room inside the palace started to appear in his mind.
Murder! Pillage! Defile! Destroy! Evil thoughts crept into John's mind as he did his best to suppress them. He felt like something was trying to take over his soul and guide him to commit these heinous acts. John forcibly struggled against the murmurs.
Several minutes later, John was finally able to focus his mind and erase the vile thoughts from them.
"What just happened?" John was still breathing heavily as he slowly recovered.
"As soon as I focused on cultivating the Immortal Asura Body art, the murmurs started and I felt like a thousand needles were stabbing into my soul!"
After composing himself, John once more tried cultivating the Immortal Asura Body art to see if the same thing would happen.
"Guh!"
John once again clutched his head in pain as the murmurs and intrusive thoughts welled up again. He spent the next several minutes calming down and washing the lingering thoughts out of his mind.
"I'm not sure why, but I guess I can't continue to cultivate the Immortal Asura Body art for now." John wracked his mind for solutions to this problem, but couldn't think of any way to remedy it.
"Although it is quite unfortunate that I can't cultivate the Immortal Asura Body right now,it's already a nice surprise that I was able to advance to middle Mist Creation so quickly. I need to work on my essence cultivation now."
John spent the rest of the night cultivating his own dantian before falling asleep.
Several days later, John was walking through the Skycleave forest when it suddenly opened up into a large open area.
"Hmm? Is that a town?"