During the process Flynn noticed the size of his essence core had expanded. The Essence Core is the area in one’s body that holds the elemental essence once it has been absorbed. Along with the Quintessence Palace that houses and nourishes the soul, they are the foundation of a cultivator. The bigger and deeper one’s essence core, the more essence one can use and for a longer time. The Quintessence Palace, in the Element Domain, is unusable and only nourishes the soul passively. Only by entering the Territory Domain can one actively make use of it.

“Using my essence until the point of nearly exhausting it may also have caused the growth of my essence core, but since I have never drained myself to this degree I can’t be positive”

It seemed that using his essence until the point of it nearly drying caused it to increase slightly in size. He never heard that the size of a person’s essence core could grow without advancing to the next tier. It seems he got more out of the fight besides the essence core of that Gale Wolf that he will have to dig out later.

After completely restoring his essence, he decided to take a look at the books inside the ring his mother gave him. None of the books had a name and they were incredibly old, but one book had a sword technique, another had a dagger technique, another had a movement technique and the final one taught another way to absorb the elemental essence making the body stronger before it is purified and enters the essence core. Although he wanted to learn them all now to increase his strength, the sword and dagger techniques and absorption method could only be used once he entered the Knight domain. Only the beginning of the movement technique could be used now.

“Advancing to the Foundation Domain shouldn’t be too far away. I should make the best of my time and move steady.”

Placing the books back in the ring and took out the corpse of the wolf and the sword. He decided to improve the power of his mind by controlling the sword with it and carving a hole in the center of the wolf’s chest, to remove the core. The core was about the size of a baby’s fist and radiated a bright green color representing the wind element. Placing the core to the side, Flynn skinned the wolf and was able to cut it up place it back into the ring before feeling dizzy from using nearly all his essence.

His control increased a bit and the amount of essence needed to move the sword decreased slightly. He immediately started absorbing the essence again and noticed that his essence core did indeed grow slightly, but not as much as before.

“It seems simultaneously absorbing and using the essence and also draining one’s self completely can increase the size of my essence core.”

Once it was completely restored he picked up the core and began absorbing its essence hoping it would allow him to advance to the next tier. Normally when someone absorbs essence from a core, they only manage to absorb half of the essence because the core of others have a berserk element within and absorbing to much is the same as looking for death. As he started absorbing and purifying the essence, he noticed that the berserk element within the core started to vanish and a hint of joy flashed within his eyes.

“Without the berserk element I should be able to absorb all the essence without having to waste any.”

Absorbing the core took quite a while and although he didn’t enter the next tier he was now at the peak of the eighth tier and only needed a step to advance. The light of the core disappeared after absorbed what he could an now looked like an ordinary stone.

“It feels a little different than the essence of the world but it still gets the job done.”

He walked to the entrance of the cave with the sword floating behind him steadily increasing his control and power. Spreading his perception in the surroundings he noticed that no beast were in the vicinity. He started retracing his steps until he found the river then headed outside the forest. There were some essential things required that could only be obtained from people and not in the forest since there were very few, if any, people inside.

After leaving the forest he soon arrived at the village that was attacked and stood outside. It was noon and he could still smell the blood wafting through the air. Almost a hundred people were killed last night, only a dozen or so were villagers while the rest were bandits he ordered killed. He was surprised the village was basically empty, with all the villagers gone and a few bandits roaming around, going through every house one by one.

Using his perception he noticed that there were only seven all together and only was at the Foundation Domain, 2nd Tier at most, the others were all in the Element Domain. Unknown to him his eyes flashed purple momentarily due to his rage before he stamped it down.

“I need to be calm. Losing my cool will only make me make mistakes.” he remembered his mother's words.

He placed his sword back in the ring and focused, moving quickly towards the closest house with a bandit. It only took a few seconds before finding his target heading into a room. The opponent was only at the 7th Tier so he immediately made his move. Reaching around to crush his throat to stop any sound from escaping, Flynn thrust his dagger into the back of his heart.

There was no struggle. It was over immediately so Flynn continued to the next house. It wasn't his first time killing a man but it was different from killing prisoners of the family. He knew that once the adrenaline wore off he would need time to recover and doing that now was just stupid so he didn't waste his time. He only made a move when the bandits were on there own and in a house and avoided the Foundation Domain man at all costs.

Each kill became easier and allowed him to calm his nerves, no longer running on adrenaline. It didn't take long to finish off those in the Element Domain since the strongest was only at 8th Tier and there was no problem taking out someone of the same Tier.

Facing the last house with the Foundation Domain bandit he didn't try to sneak around anymore as it was of no use since the man finally noticed none of his comrades were responding. Taking out his sword he walked slowly towards the house making no attempt to be silent. It didn't take long before the bandit rushed out the house he was in.

“Was it you, little bastard, that took out my men” the man clenched his teeth and spoke, looking around for anyone else. Inside he was shocked. The person in front was only a young boy and he also noticed the boy was only at the 8th Tier of the Element Domain and now all his subordinates were dead. He also noticed there was no blood on him or the sword in his hand so he obviously thought someone else was here.

“Where are the people of this village” Flynn wholly ignored the question. Then he noticed the man looking around and smirked. “There is no one else here but you and me so you can stop looking”

The man was startled for a moment before revealing a fiendish smile. If it was only the boy then the man felt 100% confident in finishing this quickly. He took a step forward and prepared to charge at the boy. “Time to...” he didn't finish speaking when Flynn moved first but he didn't move towards the bandit. He actually used the strategy he used to handle the Gale Wolf and manipulated his shadow to go forward while he rushed to a small bird that was on a house close by.

By the time the man realized what happened the bird was already dead. He felt anger and humiliation. His opponent felt it was more important to kill a bird than to face him. He yelled in and charged at the boy at full speed but when he had only covered half the distance his pupils contracted as he felt pain in his back. He looked down and saw the blade of a short sword sticking out of his chest, but the pain was only half the problem. He felt his essence core shatter because of the sword. Looking behind himself he was shocked to see absolutely nobody there.

Flynn turned around and looked at him coldly. During the time he made his move against the bird and manipulated his shadow he also dropped a sword he picked up before leaving the last house. The moment the man charged at him his fate was already decided. As soon as he passed the sword Flynn used his mind to move it a destroyed his essence core. He was only still living because he wanted to know what happened to the villagers.

He moved towards the now crippled man who was still in shock. He picked him up by his hair and again asked about the villagers. It didn't take long to get it out of him. It turned out that when they arrived at the village it was already empty with only the corpses of the bandits from last night here. They started searching the village with the hope of finding anything of value and hopefully someone who knew what happened.

He also found out that although a group was absorbing all the others it was far from being under control so many groups still acted on their own and that it wasn't a bandit group but an official mercenary band. Those from last night were a mob but the ones today were sent for the group doing the absorbing, Red Star Mercenaries.

Done getting all the information he wanted he finished off the man and also took the Cosmos Ring from his finger. He found an empty house to have a rest and also check the ring. It had the same size as his own and inside the ring were about 1000 gold coins, a few weapons, and other miscellaneous things. What made him happiest was that the ring had a pile of elemental stones, almost 1500 of them of various elements.

Elemental stones were stones of concentrated elemental essence. They were like beast cores except that there was no berserk element and they can be used for things other than cultivating. Fire stones could be used to heat water or cook food and wind stones could give the user a boost in speed or allow one to levitate for a short time. Water, earth, light, darkness, and lightning elements all had stones. With these stones, making it to the Foundation Domain will be easier and so will staying alive in the forest.

He transferred all the items into his own ring the searched the house for some clothes his size. It didn't take long to find some then he left and searched all the other mercenarie. After taking the few things he found he rushed out out of the village and back into the forest.

Instead of heading directly to the cave he moved to the area where he killed the wolf. He had been busy all day and was quite hungry and if he cooked inside the cave it would draw the beasts there and that would cause unnecessary trouble. Taking out a piece of the Gale Wolf and a fire stone he cooked it while staying on alert. Just as he finished he detected a presence and turned around to see a fox that was a little more than half the size of the Gale Wolf he killed.

The fox had glossy black fur and purple eyes a shade darker than his own when he was angry. Although it was smaller than the Gale Wolf he felt that this fox was actually stronger than the wolf and if he had to fight it he would undoubtedly die. He truly felt unprecedented fear from the bottom of his soul. The fox looked like a Shadow Fox except that it had two tails and one had a purple tip and the other had a gray tip.

They just stared at each other as time continued. Flynn noticed that the fox seemed to be injured. It had large wound on its right side which he felt made it more dangerous instead of easier to deal with. He didn’t know why the fox hadn't attacked yet but he didn’t want to wait until it decided to.

He took the rest of the wolf out and tossed it to the fox. When it looked at the meat Flynn activated the wind stone he took out and fled as fast as he could without looking back. He rushed into the cover of the trees and covered himself it darkness and headed to the cave. Just before he made it to the cave he spread out his perception and when he was sure he wasn’t followed and no beasts were around he rushed directly inside. Only after covering the entrance with shadows did he let out a sigh of relief.

“Dammit that was dangerous.” he whispered to himself.

He turned after sealing the entrance and his heart skipped a beat. In front of him were two purple eyes glowing in the darkness.