“Hm… I think this one will be fine…”

“I knew the junior disciple has a good eye for quality!”

“Junior disciple Dai… why don’t you reconsider, I’m sure I could…”

“Enough with your babbling, the young one has made his decision!”

The three elders that were responsible for the trial disciples were arguing once more. Zhang Dong was now inside a cultivation cave. It was a somewhat spacious cavern drilled into the side of the mountain.

There were several others like this one scattered all over the place where elders and seniors could cultivate in peace. On the ground, there was a guard building that would watch over the cultivators and not let anyone disturb them while they cultivated.

He didn’t really care much about which one it was but this elder Yusheng seemed desperate in grooming him into a personal disciple. He felt that he could talk him into lending him this place temporarily.

The other cultivation abodes didn’t look much different than this one. The three were quite equal in all regards, this was also probably why they were so serious about nabbing him as a disciple. Not like he would go through the master-disciple ceremony with any of them.

Zhang Dong’s plan was to stay here for a few days before the competition started without even mentioning that he would be participating. If he mentioned his plan he feared that the elders would try to block him from entering it.

They would either fear him getting injured during it, thus they would lose the golden ticket out of the outer sect. Then if he achieved greatness he would just be pulled away by one of the higher ranking elders instead.

“Yes Elder Yusheng, I must thank you for letting me stay here, I think I must consolidate my cultivation for at least a week. I also must thank the other elders for keeping up with my selfishness.”

He clasped his hands and bowed before the two. It was best to at least let them have some face even when he was refusing their proposal.

“Tsk…”

Both of them clicked their tongues before turning away and leaving. Yusheng just watched at the backs of these two long-time rivals while cackling.

“Young disciple, take your time, stay in there for a month if you have to, reaching the Martial Master realm is not an easy feat! You must slowly reinforce your crystal mountain so it doesn’t show any cracks. After it is fortified you may begin the process of condensation.”

This process of condensation or compression was a part of going further beyond the Martial Master realm. In this empire instead of producing more and more foundation pillars, the cultivators would compress their crystal mountain into a smaller size.

It was a forceful process that required a lot of spiritual energy. The mountain would go through two stages of condensation, then at the third stage it would be shattered and the crystal palace would be created in its place.

This was quite a unique construction, it was similar to a core formation expert's core. If he was cultivating in this empire he would probably fashion a giant golden castle that exuded lightning energies.

Even when the Martial Grandmaster created their crystal palace successfully, they would not be able to enter it. They would need to shatter its gates before being able to fully utilize it. The further they could get into this castle the closer they would get to the Martial Saint’s level.

That was all of the knowledge that he was able to gather from the clan libraries. What would be created to enter the Supreme Saint and the Saint Emperor realm was unclear to him. If it was easier to reach those levels instead of core formation and nascent soul was unknown to him.

Saint Emperor's started out at the level above an early stage nascent soul cultivator so it probably wasn’t. But the Supreme Saint level late stage might have been easier on the other hand which was interesting.

“I will then consolidate my cultivation Elder.”

“Yes, take your time, when you are done meet me at my private home. I will lend you some of my personal cultivation methods so you can soar above the competition!”

“Thank you Elder, I will Elder.”

Yusheng smiled widely while showing off his large front teeth. The old man looked like he had won a million spirit stones. He probably expected Zhang Dong to become his official disciple after he accepted those cultivation materials.

Taking personal techniques from anyone, was already a sign of accepting them as a half-master. Then afterward there was also a ceremony of kowtowing before him, this his own disciples had done a long time ago.

‘Finally, I’m alone…’

The cultivation cave had a large thick wooden door made from some kind of spirit wood. It was sturdy and would not break even if a Martial Master kicked it with all of their might.

This door slammed behind him while he inserted some spiritual energy into a little crystal above. It started glowing in a somewhat dim light that could be adjusted.

There was a bamboo mat on the floor and some shelves here and there., not really much to help him cultivate. The only thing that was here was space for when he needed to practice some techniques.

Next to a wall was a thick metal plate with some cracks in it. It was clear that someone was practicing some palming and punching techniques on it. If he compared this to the vast facilities of his own sect, it was rather shabby.

“Well… better than nothing…”

He finally had some time to sit down and remove the contents of those spatial rings. After making sure that Yusheng went away he started taking everything out.

One pile had all the spirit stones he ‘borrowed’, another one had all the weapons and metallic treasures he could use for absorption. Then he tossed the cultivation books to the side as he didn’t have much use for them.

After leaving this place he would try to sell them off at some auction house. He could very well improve on the techniques to get a better price. The first time he tried utilizing that White Tiger Palm he made a blunder but now he had figured out his mistake.

Now he could safely inject his own slightly different spiritual energy into the new techniques and not have them kill the lower realm cultivators. Though now on the other hand he wanted to stand out, he would need to show off some flashy moves during the competition.

He deliberated on trying to get the second or third spot instead of going for the top. This would be the safer option, all things considered, he would get one of the side's high-ranking elder’s attention while not being taken as the top prospect.

‘Yeah, that’s probably not going to work…’

Another sigh escaped his mouth as he grasped one of the weapons and started to absorb it into his body. After trying so many times not to stand out, he realized that it might be impossible.

During the fights, he feared that he would fail to control his might once more and still end up the one on top. It would save him some time to just go for the number one spot right from the start. He would just prepare himself for that and not be surprised when his big plan of not standing out crumbled into dust as many times before.

The weapons he was taking in didn’t add that much to his body refining skill. It had also evolved and required more. Still, there was a large pile of them, he at least hoped to enter the late stage of his silver body after taking them all in. If he was able to get into the great circle, then that would be even better.

With that amount of body refining, he would be immune to all Martial Grandmaster attacks. Even when facing a Martial Saint he would still be hard to kill in a close-ranged brawl. His body refining didn’t only offer him more resistance, it also raised his all-around strength and agility during hand-to-hand combat.

Most fights between high-level cultivators didn’t happen at close range though. Most of them produced some grand techniques that clashed against each other. Body refinement was mostly seen as a side technique, that was used by mostly stupid brutes.

While he absorbed the metallic objects with one hand he touched the pile of spirit stones with the other.

Spiritual energy detected, do you wish to absorb it Y/N?

The system message popped up as it used to. Even back in his sect days, he didn’t use this option as much after his system changed. Without the old shop, he had lost the use for most of these points.

For now, he took in a chunk of the spirit stone hill till he had enough points to fiddle around with.

‘The conversion rate is abysmal as always…’

The first thing he did was try to raise his cultivation with the spirit points. Even while being at this lower realm the requirement was huge. The whole pile that he had here would probably at most push him into the middle foundation establishment realm.

‘Not that great with cultivation… how about…’

He picked up a pill from the side that he took from the White Tiger Clan. It was a thunder Qi pill that gave a cultivator a small amount of energy to cultivate their techniques.

While grasping it in his hand he looked at his system screen. He was pleasantly surprised that even without the crafting abode he could somewhat use his spirit stones to upgrade this pill. This would also be better than directly absorbing the points into his cultivation.

Thunder Qi pill [ Common, Middle Grade ] Do you wish to upgrade it? [ 100 spirit points ]

‘Nice…’

He gave up some of the points that he received to upgrade this pill to the higher grade. After a moment he had a perfect grade pill that was giving off a certain aura.

After popping it into his mouth he felt the electrical energies being injected and giving him some energy. It was not nearly enough for him to create a second perfect grade foundation pillar but if he upgraded some pills to a high enough mortal grade, then that could change.

‘I’ll cultivate for a day, then I must see when that competition is taking place.’

With resources in hand, he started to prepare. It would take him some time to stomach all these pills and weapons. After this was done, he needed to see how to join the competition.

From what the instructor told him, he already met the requirements as he had become a Martial Master. Now he just needed to see if there were some other requirements that he needed to meet. The competition was supposed to take place at the end of the week, which gave him a few days to prepare.