One of the reasons why External Cultivation was seen as more difficult than Internal Cultivation in some aspects was because it required much more resources than Internal Cultivation.

It could still be done without using large amounts of resources, but in order to keep up with an Internal Cultivator at the same talent level, one would need to use much more resources to train their body externally.

This is because, unlike internal cultivators, it is very hard for external to use the energy in the atmosphere and there was no way to directly absorb energy into one's muscles.

An Internal Cultivator would absorb energy from the atmosphere into their bodies through their pores. Upon entering the body through the pores, it would be streamed straight into the energy pathways around the body and used to cultivate internally.

However, an External Cultivator would only be able to absorb energy from the atmosphere through breathing, which had a much slower rate than that of absorbing energy through one's pores.

The talent grading of an individual didn't specify whether one was more suited to Internal or External Cultivation, but most would become External Cultivators as External Cultivators were known for being more powerful in combat.

Most internal cultivators became rune scribers, alchemists or mages that would fight from long distance, and those that fought like Damian as an Internal Cultivator were rare.

Both types of cultivation had their own share of advantages and disadvantages, but the only way to overcome all those disadvantages was to cultivate both types of cultivation for the perfect body.

There were breathing techniques that would increase the amount of energy an External Cultivator would breathe in to enhance their physical prowess and physical power while training, but the most effective method of external cultivation was still by tempering the body.

There were many different ways of tempering the body, but most of them were very painful and long processes that required many resources such as pills and medicinal creams to heal and enhance the body after a long training session.

However, Damian found that although he had called himself the Copy Mage, his body needed to be able to handle his power. While if his body was tougher, he would also be able to permanently copy more Soul Spirits.

He also knew that there weren't limitations on what the Copy Book was capable of so had many other ideas that he wanted to experiment with, but before that, he needed to train his body and become an Internal Academy Student.

After becoming an Internal Academy Student, not only was he more respected, he would be provided resources by the academy each month to assist his cultivation.

By becoming an Inner Academy Student, he became a valuable asset and part of the academy's power, as Outer Academy Students weren't truly accepted by the academy in most cases, so they would invest more time and resources into nurturing them.

Damian didn't want to stop there and wanted to even become a Core Student so that he would be given large amounts of resources and protected by the academy, until he was confident enough in his power to protect himself and those that he cared about.

After reading the Golden Flame Body Tempering Method, it stated a list of different things that would be beneficial to him, including a beast core from a beast that had an affinity with the Fire Element.

Beast cores were useful for many things and not only were they a good source of energy that Internal Cultivators could absorb, they could also be turned into a consumable form by alchemists so that External Cultivators can use them.

From Damian's viewpoint, although External Cultivation seemed much more arduous and expensive to sustain, the power and benefits were worth it, which was also what most others agreed with.

Another reason was because most humans without Soul Spirits or elemental affinities were suited to External Cultivation, which accounted for most of the population of the Gobe Country.

A skilled External Cultivator would almost always defeat an Internal Cultivator at the same level, but Damian was an anomaly to that observation with his combat prowess and power.

Damian had great potential, perceptivity, talent and growth potential. Matched with all the lucky encounters that he had, he was progressing at developing at an incredible rate.

Damian wanted to request some sort of pill or medicine from his mother to help him boost his External Cultivation, but he missed his mother and wanted to see her anyway.

He had a feeling that in his past life he was lonely, and although he was unsure why, his will was the same as the one from his past life. He had retained the knowledge that he was living a second life, and although he didn't have the memories of his past life, he had a rough idea of how it was.

It was clear to him that he had been lonely and depressed in his past life, which was why Damian cherished his mother and his friends so much, but was also his reason for not caring about those that tried to get in his way.

Damian reached a clear and stable mind where he went with whatever happened and overcame it without overthinking it too much, which was something that he knew was get in the way of his mental state, which was a key part of cultivation.

Reaching the western gate of the academy that was the only academy gate that he had used and was the one that he was most familiar with, he was greeted by the guards that recognised him.

They were relatively helpful and friendly academy helpers that were stationed as guards by the academy, so Damian smiled back and informed them that he would be leaving for around 6 hours.

After he became the direct disciple of the great elder, Damian didn't have much to worry about within the academy and he could leave and return as he pleased without suffering many consequences.

The guards didn't stop him and knew that they didn't have the authority to stop him even if they wanted to as they moved out of his way and bid him farewell.