When Kairos unlocked the method to use mana, he became silent with a frown etched on his brow. The others seeing this went back to their training leaving him with his thoughts. And, for a moment, Kairos did not notice what is happening before his eyes. He is thrilled with his success, but in his excitement, he did not forget what his disciple, Ah Pui, told him.

In the whole of Saint Empire, only the Emperor is rumoured to have both mana and Ki. The method to use magic is a highly guarded secret of the southern countries, and all others that discovered mana had mysteriously disappeared. Most assumed they are kidnapped by the South.

If Kairos teaches the way to unlock mana to his friends, it would only risk them all. The more of them that knows this skill, the easier it is to be found.

He assumes that the mage guilds must have a device to find those who have mana in them outside of the southern countries. If not, there wouldn't be so many sightings of strange occurrences happening around, like bright flashes of light and mysterious floating objects, just before someone alleged to have discovered mana disappeared.

Kairos contemplated for a while, weighing the risk of getting caught by the mage guilds versus their chances to survive right now.

After a while, he decided, that there is no need for them to take up this risk. He alone being is enough. The usage of the mana core could help him fight against even Syriong alone, and it would significantly improve their chances of escape.

Seeing everyone had already gone back to focus on their training, he wrote a message and left it on the grass, before he started as well.

"Change of plans, we will train here for 7 days and then break through the checkpoint."

Forcefully waking someone up from their cultivation-trance could be very dangerous to the person, especially if the individual reached a critical juncture during training.

Kairos' objective in training is to achieve B rank. He ate a few kinds of cultivation pills that supplement each order.

The Heavenly Scent pill, to enable to him increase Heavenly Energy absorption speed by 40%.

The whirlwind pill, an enhancement pill that helps quicken a practitioner's Ki rotation within their body, and thus speeding up cultivation process. Though it helps speed up a mere 10%, it requires expensive and rare spiritual herbs to concoct its pill.

To be able to improve Ki cycle within oneself, even by a little, is extremely hard to do and not many Pill Masters could do so. Among the supplements, a 10% increase is already considered at the top-tier, but in this circle which increases cultivation by 7 times would actually make the overall benefit more than 70%!

The 3rd and last pill he took, is the Demon Body pill which allows the user to withstand a greater amount of energy intake to help the person have a better chance of breaking through his rank.

It is an expensive pill, more than a hundred times the cost of a Heavenly Scent pill. Most people would only use it to get past a bottleneck that is too difficult. For Kairos' 15 disciples, it is likely that most of them would have crossed into A rank if they were given the demon body pill. But because they could not get past B rank after they already reached 40 years old, the Devilheart family judged them as inferior cultivation talents, and they were all trained to be death warriors.

However, in Kairos' eyes, they are far from discardable tools as they were made out to be. Trained with the Sealing martial arts of the Devilheart family that is not suitable for them, how could they display their real potentials?

Kairos' purpose when he took the demon body pill is not for breaking through bottlenecks. The pill's effect to withstand a higher amount of energy within oneself would also help speed up cultivation, though not many are willing to use it for this person.

Each of these pills costs a small fortune, especially the 3rd pill. They prepared the Heavenly Scent pill from Saint Empire, but the other 2 they are fortunate to find them in the space-time containers taken from the Phrixus' royal treasury.

Therefore, by now, all of Kairos' friends and his father have already consumed these cultivation pills. Not only that, they placed the 3 treasured plants in the middle to further help them improve their energy absorption speed. With these many supportive items and a high-level formation like this, if the immortal Old Ye is here, he would be able to tell them that this is already comparable to training within the Immortal Realms. Albeit only in an area with weaker spiritual energy.

Besides these items, Vouno surrounded himself with 3 artefacts, all items of high energy capacity. He drew from these objects of power into himself and cultivated with the others helping him by his side.

The higher amount of power present in an artefact usually means the more Heavenly Energy it could take in from the environment to recover its stores. Making use of this, Vouno had picked these 3 treasures with the highest capacities, along with the most types of elements, solely for the purpose of cultivation.

Perceiving that everyone's progress is going speedily, he couldn't let himself fall behind. In an instant, he closed his senses and entered into pseudo selfless cultivation.

In the trance of training, a few days soon passed. By now, Kairos' cultivation has risen from Mid C rank to Peak, and he is on the verge to break through into B rank.

The alteration of the seals within himself has been undone, but the natural bottleneck that appears before reaching the next rank obstinately kept him outside of the gate.

Kairos eyes fluttered open as he comes to terms that there is no more path for him to progress forward.

With a glance, he noticed that he had already been left behind. The others have all reached Entry B rank, or on the verge of entering the next grade, Mid B. None faced the same bottleneck as he did, and their cultivation talents are indeed stronger when compared.

Kairos had thought that his cultivation speed is already incredibly swift. After learning how to use mana, his new mana core had doubled his usual cultivation speed. But being twice as fast for a really slow carriage would only make it a carriage running at the average speed.

Vouno, who did not hide his aura, has improved the most and is clearly at Peak D by now. But the lower ranks are easier to cultivate than the higher ranks.

Jones, on the other hand, is already at Mid B rank and is in the middle of stabilising his Ki. His legendary constitution and his good fortune of entering True Selfless Cultivation previously had allowed him to far outstrip the others, breaking through repeatedly from Peak D rank.

Kairos once again lament the fact that he has to fulfil a cryptic requirement before he can enter another rank. But this time, he has the aid of the ability he recently unlocked.

His glowing golden eyes: Veritable Sight

With it, he searches within himself, for the thing that he lacked.

In an instant, he re-entered the whiteness that is his conscious. The mana core crystal shone as brightly as ever, larger in here than when he view it from outside.

Without any findings, his spirit moves to the next part. His heart. Here he could feel his soul core is hosted, but as before, nothing seemed out of place.

Finally, his spirit enters his Dantian, and it was here that he realised that he lacked power. The power needed to cross into the next rank.

It wasn't that his power is weak. With the demon body pill, it is, in fact, a larger amount of Ki energy than most other C rankers.

But, it was his bottleneck that is too tight to break through with this amount of energy.

His Veritable Sight observed the natural seals that exist in his Ki Centre looked a little similar to runic symbols, and an idea immediately formed. He quickly exited and took out the Thunder God's ring and the Lightning Core Fruit. The former is an artefact he picked up in the Black Forest, with a Great Wolf Spirit living within. The latter is a treasured fruit they took from Fritzgen's treasury back in Vox Shalua.

He could feel that what he lacked is a third element, and for that, he has chosen the swiftest training option available to him. Lightning.

However, when he held the fruit in his palm, he instantly felt a dangerous aura exuding from it.

"I can't use it yet," He judged instinctively, "Aisa, do you know why?"

Hehe, Kairos has been hasty. The fruit must be turned into a pill, and it will infuse lightning into your blood.

Hearing that in his mind, a frown appeared on his brow. He took this fruit to learn the lightning attribute, but at this point it can't be used. Fortunately, from Aisa's explanation, even consuming it later would be beneficial and it would not be wasted.

He kept it then beckoned the wolf spirit from the ring.

"Great one, what do you ask of me?" The great grey wolf that manifested, humbled itself before Kairos.

"Teach me to capture the lightning from the sky" Kairos replied. He knows that the lightning element is one of the most powerful attacking elements, and its practitioners are highly favoured everywhere they go.

Amongst the lightning cultivators, they consider the mastery of the element by what they could do. At the initiation stage, cultivators can only produce a spark of electricity, but what Kairos wish to master isn't party tricks. Therefore, he asked the wolf the way to wield lightning of the heavens as his own.

A stunned silence from the spirit wolf replied him. The great beast wanted to laugh at the ambition of the one before it, but since Kairos is its master, it could only give in.

"Great one, to catch the very lightning is..." it tried explaining. However, Kairos shook his head and interrupted him, "It's okay forest spirit, just show me the lightning rune I require," he said with his eyes glowing once again to emphasise his determination.

The great wolf instantly felt an immense pressure emitted from Kairos, and it turned its head away, feeling unworthy to match the boy's eyes.

It bowed its head lower than before.

Previously, it was respectful to Kairos, treating the boy as the master of the ring and thus, its master.

But now, it could feel in the depths of its soul that this boy is definitely a great being. It had once felt this majestic presence from Kairos and called him 'Great One' thereafter, but since then quite a while had past, and it had never felt that 'presence' again. It starts having doubts, but now saw the glowing golden eyes and felt that familiar pressure once again, it realised it was not mistaken.

"The Lord of ...," it mouthed silently, recognising the majestic aura but the others could not tell what it said.

Then as instructed, the Great Wolf Spirit drew the runic symbol for lightning for wielding the lightning from the heavens. The proficiency of using lightning are separated into Sparks, Electric Snake, Lightning Pillar, Heavenly Lightning, Lightning-form and Lightning Sea in ascending order. What Kairos wished to learn is already at the 4th stage of proficiency.

The grey wolf, living in the divine artefact for thousands of years, has seen all types of runic symbols, including this Heavenly Lightning rune within its structure for countless times.

If the artefact is lower ranked, Kairos could still send his soul perception into it and find the runes within, but a divine artefact like the Thunder God's ring presents too much of a challenge for his Veritable Eyes.

With the forest spirit near him to advise him on controlling the element, he daringly adjusted the lightning rune and cultivated it within his body.

A person's body holds as much Ki concentration points as the stars, and like before, Kairos drew out his internal energy from his Dantian, then sent it to different meridian points within his body, drawing out the symbol of the Heavenly Lightning rune.

After completing the runic cycle, his Ki once again returned to his Dantian, but now with a dark yellow spark unlike before.

He had created his first strand of lightning Ki within his body.

Kairos eagerly rotated his Ki within his body for several more cycles, allowing the strand to weave into a rope of energy. And, finally, on his hundredth cycle, he finally gained enough lightning Ki to summon a lightning dragon.

It was a beautiful dragon made of pure electric energy that roared into existence. Its body glowed darkly yellow, like a storm cloud. Its visage, fiercer than the two dragons already present within himself.

And instantly, the three dragons detected and flew to meet in his Ki centre with a joyful and elegant dance.

Then, just as they swirled together to form a helix, he felt a tremendous power released from them that dove into every part of his body.

All his cells felt renewed and empowered with energy, while a mighty stream of life force strengthened all the meridian channels within his body. A warm and gentle vigour embraced him and unclogged several Ki channels within himself that were previously infrequently used.

These 'new passages' are immediately filled with energy, and he felt like he had been reborn.

*Tssss*

Steam rolled off Kairos' body, like wispy curls of smoke. Then, he began to glow strangely in flashes of dark yellow before dimming again.

If one watches it carefully, they would realise he looks not much different from a thunder cloud.

Then, with a huge boom, a lightning pillar exploded outwards from his body and charged into the ground. The lightning did not reach high into the sky but spread deep underground.

Though Kairos could not see into the soil, he has no doubt that anything which was unfortunate enough to be burrowing in the earth beneath where he sat is now a charred mess.

Unfortunately, deep underground is where the land wyrm was sleeping.