Up ahead I could see a very thick black mist, the eagle did not hesitate and entered it.

The moment it did it was assaulted by a barrage of wind currents and dark blades, these attacks did not damage its body but went straight through it.

However, with every hit it absorbed, its body became smaller, it looked a like refinement process in which the eagle was using those pure wind and dark elements to remove all of the impurities and compress itself.

*Whoosh* *Whoosh* *Whoosh* *Whoosh* *Whoosh*

I could hear the sound they made as they got closer and got absorbed by it. After a while, its body became so small that it was almost invisible.

*BAMM!*

One final hit and everything went black.

...

I woke up feeling heavy and just overall weird...

I did not know how much time had passed since I was in that space or had that vision, or whatever that was.

I couldn't say for sure what happened, it was a very bizarre experience. I tried to stand up only to feel some resistance, opening my eyes I was shocked to find myself covered in filth!

My feathers were glued to the ground and there was a horrible smell. This is by far the most disgusting smell I've ever had the displeasure of smelling in my two lives.

I put an even stronger force and stood up, I managed to do so without losing any of my feathers, after all their strength was not just for show.

Examining my body I could feel a lot of changes. The most obvious one was the color, previously I had some light gold on my beak and talons.

Now, everything was pitch black including my feathers, and for some reason, the shade was even darker than it already was.

Other than the looks, I felt that I was even more sensitive to dark and wind elements. I could myself shrouded by the darkness and my agility increased without any active effort of my own.

As I was closing my eyes and observing my body, my mind was suddenly flooded by a wave of information, the majority of them being sealed!

I only managed to see a small part of this newly acquired knowledge.

[Stygian Tempest Heavenly Arts] Body Refinement Stage!

This was exactly what I had been working hard all those days for.

From the information I received, I didn't know how far can this Divine manual take me in terms of cultivation, I only know that once you break through to a new realm you'd have met the required condition to receive the cultivation technique for the said realm.

It took a while to process the cultivation technique and I immediately tried it.

I closed my eyes and focused my vision inwards. Originally, I could not see anything, however after waking up from that strange state I was able to envision the mana inside of my body.

There was another prerequisite to cultivating and it was not something you could give to others, even if I shared this information I had with other people they would not be able to cultivate it because they did not have 'it'. Even though I had no idea what it was, I only knew that it existed.

The mana looked strange, not really what I was expecting.

For lack of a better way to describe it, it looked like a handful of grains of rice. It felt like every single mana was a piece of its own, and now I had to control it to draw a strange arcane symbol that looked like a spiral with what appeared to be a mouth in the middle.

I moved my mana piece by piece until I managed to move around 30 of them, I was not able to move more than that. If I tried to, I lose my grip on all of them. It seemed like there is a threshold here, and 33 to be exact was my max.

Whenever I took control of one mana, its color changed to white from the previous transparent-like state. Slowly, I started to draw the spiral by putting one single mana in place, holding it in then moving to the next. After I finished the spiral I started drawing the mouth, everything looked crude and unaesthetic, just like something a three-year-old would draw.

The moment I managed to put the last single piece of mana thus completing a very unpolished version of the symbol I received in my mind, it started moving and slowly turning more refined and aesthetically pleasing, and its glow became even more radiant, almost blinding!

Suddenly! The mana around me started to swarm crazily in my direction, the symbol I drew acted like a suction force of sorts.

If I was able to gather around three Manas every second using my previous bloodline cultivation technique. Now, I was able to attract and pull towards me the equivalent of twenty Mana every second.

Of course, this did not mean that this mana was my own and I could add it to my pool, I was not able to handle it quite yet. The purpose of this mana is to simply refine my body as the title of the rank suggests Body Refinement.

Even the process of refinement was incomparable to how I used to do it because my bloodline cultivation technique used just normal unmutated mana for refinement. It worked but made my body even more mediocre and unsuited for higher realms of cultivation in my elements.

However, it was completely different now, because every bit of mana that gets absorbed into my body, immediately gets transformed into either dark or wind Mana, and my body was being constantly refined using the elements of my affinity.

I could not say for sure what the results would be long term for my knowledge about cultivation was very poor, but I could see myself getting even more sensitive to said elements which would make my ability to launch, learn, improve, and attack using those skills, even more, faster and powerful.

[Bird of Darkness(Passive): Soundless Flight and grants +30% Agility in the dark. |Advanced|]

[Mask Presence(Passive): Masks the presence of the user to a certain extent in the dark. |Mastery|]

These are the current passive skills that have their conditions met, thus currently working.

The feeling I felt earlier of being shrouded by the darkness and feeling lithe was exactly that, after waking up my skills became even more refined and powerful.

'System what changed after learning the divine manual?'

[Your affinity to both wind and darkness had increased by 10% each and your body is getting purified from the impurities it had gathered due to using your previous cultivation technique.]

The impurities should be the filth that was all over me upon waking up.

Affinities increased by 10%? I didn't even know they could be measured, nor was there any difference.

'What is my current degree of affinity?'

[Wind 41%, Darkness 49%]

Hm... I have always felt more comfortable using dark elemental skills, could this be the reason? ...Probably.

'What determines one's affinity and how can I raise them? and what are the benefits of doing so?'

[The degrees of affinity given are random, but the type of affinity isn't for demon beasts. For example, there could never be an Umbra Storm Eagle with fire or space affinity just wind and darkness due to the purity of their bloodline. Humans and other more intelligent races whose bloodlines are more thinned out can get all sorts of affinities void, space, time, poison, earth, wood, etc... The downside for them is that they have a probability of getting less than 10% or even 5% in affinity, whereas demon beasts have a limit. An Umbra Storm Eagle would never get an affinity with either wind or darkness that is below 18%. The Thunder Cuvine Tigers you saved would never get less than 30% in their lightning affinity but they were also limited to only lightning on birth

To raise your degree of affinity to a certain element you need to find and consume treasures of heaven and earth. They can be plants, fruits, animal parts sometimes, etc... You can also raise them through cultivating a divine cultivation manual, just like yours. Through constant refinement of the body, it'd become more and more in tune with said its elements thus raising your affinity towards it.

The benefits are endless, I will only mention a few. The speed of cultivation is entirely dependent on one's affinity, the more sensitive you are to your elements the more mana you'll be able to manipulate to refine your body thus strengthening it.

How far can you go on the road of cultivation is also dependent on it, with your current affinities you won't be able to reach the High stage Core Formation realm. With your previous affinities of 31 and 39, you wouldn't even be able to form a Core much less break-through. Plus the strength of your skills takes into consideration two factors, your affinity degree and the realm the skill had reached.

There is also the issue of the inability to learn strong spells because you don't have what it takes.

]

Oh, shit! That's a lot of information. After processing it for a while, I understood everything.

Most importantly I was able to raise both of my affinities, which was overpowered. Divine manual strikes once again!

There is also the matter of the Thunder Cuvine Tigers, I remembered the appraisal description mentioning 'extremely high potential', I should pay more attention to them. I already was, just not in the combat sense, they're just oversized kittens I enjoy playing with them. They were both males, I named one of them Rajah and the bigger one of the two Shere Khan.

I could also raise my affinity using treasures, there was nothing I could do with this information, for now, I'd look around the shop later.

That word appeared again spells.

'What are spells?'

[They're just skills that are actively acquired and learned, instead of the usual passive bloodline acquisition. I'll give you an example, let's say your skill wind blade. You did nothing to get it, it was given naturally as your bloodline awakening deepened. However, once upon a time, that skill was not available for your species, but then one of your ancestors created the skill and learned it to a very profound realm to the point that it became engraved in every fiber of their being, from then on their descendants were able to learn it naturally. Right now, you can create some spell, learn it to a very profound realm and your descendants would be able to unlock it.

Humans have it a bit more complicated but they hold a big advantage because their bloodline is so thinned out and a lot of people are mixed in it. They have a huge collection of bloodline skills, once certain conditions are met which are mostly psychological, emotional, physical, and affinity some skills can get unlocked thus bringing their holders to greater heights. A common person with a mere 4% Affinity is able through sheer luck plus the factors mentioned before to unlock godly skills.]

This makes a lot of sense, I always wondered how to get new skills and I didn't want to simply leave it to chance which skills I got and when I got them.

Now, I could actively play a part in choosing my skills, or rather my spells.

'You said, the issue of not being able to learn spells due to low affinity, elaborate.'

[Affinity simply refers to one's sensitivity towards a certain element, the more sensitive you are the more you can understand your elements, that's why your skills get more powerful and you cultivate faster because you understand them on a deeper level compared to others with lower affinity.

Some spells would require a simple 10% and you'd be able to understand them because fundamentally their premise does not require that much depth. Whereas others require 60% 70% or even more to begin learning them. Even if by some stroke of luck someone with a lower degree of affinity inherits a skill that originally requires one to have high affinity they won't be able to truly make use of it, because they would never be able to truly comprehend it deeply and truly unleash its full potential.]

I felt like even with all this information I got, I was still far off from truly understanding the importance of affinity. However, one thing is certain, the higher it is the better.

Thank god, I chose to use my first purchase discount to get a divine cultivation manual.

After trying the new cultivation technique, I was hooked! It was simply incomparable to the last one in every aspect, and the cultivation process was no longer passive and boring.

After creating the spiral arcane symbol that acts as a suction force, the world mana changes to wind and dark elements the moment it enters my body and that was when I could manipulate it and guide it to wherever I wanted.

It was also worth mentioning that there was a difference between one's innate mana and the foreign mana. For example, if I had less than 378 mana... I just noticed that my mana increased from 344 to 378, I'm sure it was thanks to that space and learning the divine manual.

If I had less than 378 any mana that I regenerate would immediately become my own, because my body was able to hold it to change its property. However, when my mana pool is already full and I could not hold it, that mana's property would not be able to change thus it'd remain foreign.

Foreign mana is very different compared to its other counterpart. Innate mana views my body as an ally, friend, or more like a home, whereas foreign mana's sole purpose is destruction when it enters an unfamiliar environment.

The whole cultivation process in this stage specifically relies on foreign mana's property of destruction.

It somehow resembled how humans work out their muscles, no it was exactly like that.

After you workout, your body repairs or replaces damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process where it fuses muscle fibers to form new muscle protein strands or myofibrils. These repaired myofibrils increase in thickness and number to create muscle hypertrophy and thus growth.

In the same vein, as I destroy my body in a very slow and sensible way, it grows stronger.

Thanks to my divine cultivation manual, I now was able to guide the mana to target a specific body part, thus a specific attribute.

Once I guide the mana towards my mind, I feel like there were these walls around my mind that get assaulted and damaged once the foreign mana makes contact with them, once those damaged walls regenerate my pool of spiritual energy grows by a small margin subsequently increasing my Spirit. If I guide the mana toward a strange place in my stomach, the same process happens thus increasing my overall mana pool and increasing my Intelligence. If I guide my mana towards the muscles of my body I gain strength and agility. If I target my blood and inner organs I increase Vitality.

I can also just let the mana spread over all of my body equally, thus cultivating every single attribute simultaneously including my resistance through working out my outer body parts.

Is this cultivation? Oh my god! I never knew it was this profound, beautiful, and artistic in a way, I've always approached it through numbers. That's why the system advised me before to not focus on numbers too much, I think I understood a bit its intentions.

However, this wasn't just what cultivation was all about. There were much more profound things waiting to be unearthed, just like spells affinities, and how your personality and psyche affect your way of cultivation, like what happened with the titles.

When I thought of profoundness, a skill immediately came to mind.

[Dao Field]

At first, I thought it was just something to accelerate my cultivation, but now I can see with absolute certainty that it was much more.

'Status Window'

[~Status Window~

Host: Zed - Umbra Storm Eagle.

Titles: {Blazing Heart}, {Truth Seeker}, {Dauntless Spirit}

Level: 31

Experience Points(Exp): 54650/65400

Rank: Body Refinement(High)

Health Points(HP): 285/285

Magic Power(MP/Mana): 378/378

Spiritual Power(SP): 391/391

Magical Resistance: 41(28)

Physical Resistance: 28(19)

Spiritual Resistance: 31(37)

Vitality: 57(85)

Strength: 48(72)

Stamina: 51(76)

Intelligence: 75(112)

Agility: 61(91), Dark: +18, Nearby Enemy: +15, Sky Dash: +18.

Spirit: 71(142)

Available Stat Points: 29

Available Skill Points: 12

Karma Points: 100

[Skills]

[Quests]

[Shop]

[Map]

[Inventory]

[Party(Locked)]

]

Looking at my Status Window, I saw some changes. Other than the boost in mana, my magical resistance also increased by 4. I had a whopping 29 free undistributed Stats points! But I decided to leave it for later. Now, my full focus was on...

[Dao Field(Passive): Creates a field of 20 meters with the user as the center in which the World Mana is attracted. |Intermediate|]

I did not really understand this skill at first, but now after I realized a bit of the depth of cultivation, I could see that this skill was simply unparalleled.

It was not just because of how wonderful it was and that it hastens one's cultivation, No. There was a very mysterious field around me, that I somehow missed before because I was too focused on numbers and could not penetrate its depth.

I had just taken the first step into truly what it means to cultivate.

So far, everything was given to me. The system, skills, stats, skill points, affinities, everything... This was not some speech about not earning what you have or some shit, not in the slightest. It was just about not fully understanding what was given thus not having the ability to appreciate it thus losing the essence. Just like someone not truly understanding the value of gold, he just likes it as a golden shiny mineral, not knowing that it can be traded and exchanged for unimaginable things.

I felt the same, I was missing out on a whole other world that could enable me to grow strong beyond comparison. However, it was not just about strength here, though that is a big factor. It was about something else, something more elusive and intangible.

The Dao!

That elusive mysticism has always been one of humanity's biggest romances. Just like in my previous world, how people were attracted to the occult, elves, dwarves, dragons, gods, and mythologies.

They represented something beyond the mere mundanity of the world, they represented an artistic expression of the world.

That was what it was all about, even now.

From now on, if I wanted to learn a new skill that would help me, I'd have to be active and look for the spell and learn it. The process of learning won't be as smooth as a skill being engraved in the deepest parts of my DNA and it takes zero effort to learn.

I started paying more attention to the wind and dark elements entering my body, I was not just crudely shoving them down my throat to grow stronger and be done with it. There was now an interest in every single mana that entered, slowly observing them and giving time to each and every one of them.

I started feeling like every one of them holds a message or a meaning. What was it? It could not be said. It was not something that could be put into words, for the simplest reasons, they were not fragmentary.

Thought works in fragments, for example, in thinking about sex, I was not able to think about the billions of other things in the world other than sex. It was exactly the same thing here, every bit of mana did not hold any specific message or meaning, they did not say kill, heal, run, hide, eat, grow, fly... Every one of them only carries the message of itself.

Wind and Darkness... simply!

I decisively put 10 Skill Points in Dao Field, raising it from Intermediate to Perfection.

[Dao Field(Passive): Creates a field of 200 meters with the user as the center in which the World Mana is abundant and Elemental Laws are easier to grasp. |Perfection|]

Elemental Laws!