Damian returned to his Guest Elder residence without wasting any more time.
Whether the Nightmare Corpse Sect truly launched its all-out offensive tomorrow, next week or a month from now hardly changed what he needed to do.
He needed power.
That was one part of life which could not be negotiated, outsourced or solved by convincing someone else to accept favorable commercial terms.
Damian could hire subordinates, purchase resources and build organizations around himself, but if the person standing at the center remained weak, then eventually someone stronger would simply reach over everything he built and take it.
The Nightmare Corpse Sect’s ultimatum had merely made that old lesson considerably more immediate.
After informing Jian Rui that he would be cultivating and should not be disturbed unless something genuinely important occurred, Damian entered the private cultivation chamber and activated its formations.
The stone doors sealed behind him as silence descended.
Rather than immediately sitting down, however, Damian called upon the Shengyuan Proof Record generated through <One Proof, Eternal Proof>.
There were several changes he had barely examined the last time he cultivated.
A blue panel unfolded before him.
[Shengyuan Cultivation Record
Name: Damian Baines
Cultivation Realm: Body Tempering Level 4
Realm Progress: 0/1,000 Cultivation Base
Cultivation Method: Five Elements Harmonization Art (Human)
Technique Mastery: Great Success (57%)
Martial Skills: None
Daoist Arts: None
Special Cultivation Feats: Cultivation Prodigy, Heaven-Devouring Circulation, Purified Qi, Divine Sense.]
Damian’s gaze lingered upon the record.
Body Tempering Level 4 was expected, and his list of Feats were expected as well.
The numerical Cultivation Base requirement was new, but before Damian investigated that, another line captured his attention.
"Great Success... fifty-seven percent?"
He stared at the Technique Mastery field.
The last time Damian properly checked, the Five Elements Harmonization Art had only reached around three percent of the Entry realm.
Now, it stood at Great Success.
And he was not merely barely touching it either, but was already more than halfway through the stage!
Damian immediately searched the additional information provided through his Shengyuan Proof Record and quickly reconstructed what had happened.
Techniques, Daoist Arts and Martial Arts within Shengyuan were divided into five broad mastery realms.
Entry, Small Success, Great Success, Mastery, and Perfection.
Entry meant that the practitioner could properly perform the method without making fundamental mistakes.
Small Success represented genuine familiarity.
Great Success meant the technique had begun integrating deeply enough into the cultivator that its effects became considerably more efficient.
Mastery represented near-total command.
And Perfection was exactly what its name implied.
Damian had somehow gone from Entry to Great Success during the same long cultivation session that carried him to Body Tempering Level 4.
Except after thinking about it, the advancement was not actually mysterious.
He had several ridiculous advantages working simultaneously.
Firstly, his mental Attributes were absurdly high compared to what they had been when he first entered Valoria.
INT 10 improved his memory, learning and raw mental processing while WIS 10 contributed heavily toward comprehension and practical understanding.
Damian was not some heavenly genius who could glance at an ancient scripture and immediately comprehend the Grand Dao.
But he was still significantly smarter and more perceptive than an ordinary person.
Secondly, his cultivation speed had been outrageous.
Damian had not gently practiced the Five Elements Harmonization Art a few times every evening.
He had driven the technique like someone had attached a rocket engine to its backside.
His functional Medium-Grade Five Elements compatibility, <Cultivation Prodigy>, <Heaven-Devouring Circulation> and the cooperative nature of Valorian mana had allowed him to perform an enormous number of complete circulations within a relatively compressed period.
Quantity of correct practice always mattered, just as quality did.
And finally, there was <One Proof, Eternal Proof>.
Its most basic principle ensured that legitimate progress could not naturally regress, so every properly completed circulation advanced him, and every genuine insight remained.
Every small correction to his breathing, energy control, elemental sequencing or bodily rhythm became part of his permanent foundation rather than something he might forget after taking a break.
For an ordinary cultivator, ten thousand repetitions could contain periods of improvement, stagnation and even minor regression as bad habits emerged.
Damian’s graph only went upward.
"Oh, this is disgusting!" He tutted with a greedy chuckle.
Naturally, he meant that as the highest compliment imaginable.
The mastery itself also produced direct benefits.
At Great Success, the Five Elements Harmonization Art operated at roughly one and a half times its ordinary efficiency, and that increase was not limited to raw cultivation speed.
Spiritual Energy absorption efficiency improved, refinement of spiritual energy became cleaner, Qi recovery accelerated both during cultivation and outside it, and the purity produced through the technique improved.
Even the general efficiency with which the method circulated and supported his body rose alongside it.
From what Damian could determine, the progression appeared straightforward.
Entry provided the technique’s ordinary one-times efficiency.
Small Success raised that to around 1.2 times.
Great Success reached 1.5 times.
Mastery rose to 1.8 times.
Perfection doubled the technique’s ordinary effectiveness.
Damian nodded appreciatively.
"Alright. Let’s actually count all this."
Because at this point, his cultivation had accumulated enough modifiers that even he was beginning to lose track.
His functional Medium-Grade Five Elements compatibility effectively doubled the speed he possessed when he first cultivated.
<Cultivation Prodigy>, scaling from his INT of 10, provided another one hundred percent increase.
<Heaven-Devouring Circulation> scaled from Constitution, and with his current CON of 5, granted another fifty percent increase to base cultivation speed.
Great Success in the Five Elements Harmonization Art then overlaid another 1.5-times efficiency multiplier across the technique itself.
Those were the positive factors currently intrinsic to Damian.
Then came the cost.
<Purified Qi>.
It permanently doubled the Cultivation Base required for each realm.
That was why his progression requirement for Body Tempering Level 5 was not the ordinary five hundred Cultivation Base, but was one thousand.
The penalty was vicious, but the exchange remained worthwhile.
His foundation possessed dramatically greater purity and stability, while anything he eventually performed through refined Qi would inherit the bonuses created by his current WIS of 10.
Damian had essentially taken an enormous cultivation-speed advantage and voluntarily spent part of it purchasing quality.
A perfectly reasonable investment.
Then his gaze returned to the numerical progress display of one thousand Cultivation Base.
Now that was useful.
No vague sensations about being "close" to a breakthrough nor meditating for another three years because some old master claimed he could sense an opportunity.
Everything was presented in clean, trackable numbers for nerds like him.
He reached into his Exchange Storage and withdrew several Mana Crystals.
These were the same resources he had deliberately kept hidden after realizing what Valorian mana could potentially mean inside Shengyuan.
Now he finally intended to test the theory properly.
The last time, he had cultivated using ambient mana while physically inside Valoria.
That made it impossible to determine whether the advantage came primarily from Valoria’s environment or from mana itself.
A Mana Crystal inside Shengyuan would answer the question.
Damian settled cross-legged.
He placed the first crystal between his palms, closed his eyes and initiated the Five Elements Harmonization Art.
The reaction was immediate as mana flowed from the crystal, not Spiritual Energy altered by its surroundings nor some strange hybrid after entering Shengyuan, but pure mana.
It was the same cooperative supernatural energy Damian had grown accustomed to manipulating in Valoria.
It rushed into the circulation pathways of the cultivation technique with almost insulting ease.
Damian nearly smiled without opening his eyes.
There it was, the crucial characteristic survived!
The world around the crystal was filled with Shengyuan’s more resistant Spiritual Energy, but the energy already contained within the Mana Crystal did not suddenly adopt those properties simply because it had crossed realms.
It remained Valorian mana.
And compared to ordinary cultivation under Spiritual Energy, its absorption speed was monstrous.
Damian focused completely as one circulation became ten, and ten became hundreds.
The first Mana Crystal gradually dimmed until the last trace of usable mana disappeared from within, then Damian replaced it.
Time flowed almost unnoticed inside the sealed chamber.
According to Damian’s original cultivation model, the first hundred approximate units of progress had required around six hours before all his later advantages existed.
Now his Medium-Grade compatibility, <Cultivation Prodigy>, current <Heaven-Devouring Circulation>, Great Success mastery and the roughly threefold advantage of Valorian mana were all operating together.
Even after accounting for <Purified Qi> doubling his required Cultivation Base, his effective advancement speed compared to that original foundation was obscene.
A little over two hours later, Damian felt the barrier collapse as the final Mana Crystal in his hands dimmed.
Refined energy surged throughout his body.
[Body Tempering Level increased!]
[Body Tempering Level 4 → Body Tempering Level 5.]
[STR: 5 → 5.5.]
[DEX: 6 → 6.5.]
[AGI: 4 → 4.5.]
[CON: 5 → 5.5.]
Damian slowly opened his eyes.
"...Two hours and thirteen minutes."
Even knowing the numbers beforehand did not stop the result from being ridiculous.
Then the other discoveries began appearing.
First, Mana Crystals had worked without fail nor deviation.
The surrounding Spiritual Energy had not contaminated or altered their fundamental characteristics.
As far as Damian could determine, the cooperative absorption behavior of Valorian mana remained intact after entering Shengyuan.
Below Foundation Establishment, the resulting cultivation acceleration was at least around three times compared to ordinary Spiritual Energy under otherwise similar conditions.
Damian deliberately kept the qualification of ’below Foundation Establishment’ in mind as he had not tested anything beyond that.
He was not going to start mentally declaring Mana Crystals universal treasures capable of accelerating immortals because one Body Tempering cultivator had enjoyed good results.
Still, even the confirmed portion was outrageous.
Secondly, each Mana Crystal had yielded roughly one hundred Cultivation Base before becoming functionally depleted for his purposes.
So ten crystals had been equivalent to one thousand Cultivation Base, leading to his breakthrough.
And because ordinary cultivators did not possess <Purified Qi> doubling their requirements, a normal practitioner with sufficiently compatible circumstances would theoretically require fewer resources to achieve comparable progression.
Unfortunately, Mana Crystals were still classified under ’do not sell unless suicidal’.
Thirdly...
Damian reopened his Shengyuan Cultivation Record.
His eyebrows rose. "Twenty-four percent Mastery?"
The Five Elements Harmonization Art had crossed another threshold.
From Great Success at fifty-seven percent to Mastery at twenty-four percent.
That meant its efficiency had increased again, and the previous 1.5-times mastery bonus had become approximately 1.8 times.
His next cultivation session would therefore be even faster than this one.
Damian smiled.
Then the familiar notification arrived.
[Special Power: One Feat Per Level activated.]
[Body Tempering Level 5 advancement detected.]
[Select one Feat.]
Damian immediately opened the Shengyuan Feat Pool.
Normally, he might have spent considerably longer examining everything.
Today, however, war sat somewhere beyond the Evergreen Sect’s formations sharpening its knives.
Damian’s current development already possessed absurd cultivation speed, spiritual perception and foundation quality.
What he lacked was something that translated those advantages directly into combat.
His attention moved toward the Skill category.
One option quickly captured him.
<Perfect Combat Instinct>.
Damian read through it twice before smiling.
"Yeah. You’re coming with me."
[Selection Confirmed.]
[Feat Acquired: Perfect Combat Instinct.]
[Feat Name: Perfect Combat Instinct
Feat Category: Skill
Effect 1: Integrates perception, thought and bodily response during combat, allowing recognized threats and opportunities to trigger appropriate reactions with greatly reduced conscious deliberation.
Effect 2: Perception governs the quality and timing of detected combat information, while Intelligence governs the speed and quality with which that information is interpreted and translated into an appropriate response.
Effect 3: Perfect Combat Instinct cannot perceive information beyond the Host’s existing senses or force the body to perform actions beyond its current physical capabilities.
Current PER: 3.
Current INT: 10.]
Damian paused in surprise, and for several seconds, nothing happened.
Then, the fellow deliberately tossed the depleted Mana Crystal in his right hand upward.
It rotated once, then twice, and before Damian consciously decided to catch it, his hand had already moved.
His fingers closed around the crystal at precisely the easiest point in its descent.
Damian blinked in surprise at the bizarre feeling.
He tossed it again, this time deliberately looking away.
His perception registered the sound, his spatial awareness reconstructed its descent, and his arm shifted automatically.
Catch!
A slow grin appeared.
Hmm, while this was neither future sight nor invincibility, and certainly not some trick to magically make his body faster than it actually was, once sufficient information entered his awareness, there was almost no wasted effort between recognizing the situation and acting upon it.
If Damian wanted an Earth comparison...
This thing was basically a slightly weaker version of Perfected Ultra Instinct, without the white hair.
...probably.
"Okay."
Damian looked toward the remaining Mana Crystals.
While Body Tempering Level 5 was nice, it was not nearly enough.
His new quest demanded Qi Condensation Level 1, the Nightmare Corpse Sect wanted a war, and somewhere ahead waited <Supreme Synthesis>.
Damian replaced the depleted crystal with a fresh one and closed his eyes once again as the Five Elements Harmonization Art began circulating.
He had no intention of stopping at Level 5.
If Qi Condensation was the next destination, then Damian intended to reach it as quickly as humanly possible!
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