"Hah, hah, hah...

Your glance tell me that they truly important for you.

Strange..."

Ma Shang Feng looked suspiciously at Dio.

Truthfully he had already made some guesses about his current condition, and circumstances.

For example his name, even though seemed made-up, he specifically asked during the contents of the alliance that he revealed his 'true name', yet, he said the same one and nothing passed to him.

He also, without Dio realizing when he made his little 'joke' also took a bit of his hair and a drop of blood to find his family inheritance.

Yet, it didn't seem to relate to the Huang Jin family on the slightest, not even to the other families!

That and his absurdly dense 'killing aura' which is proof that he has killed countless on his life made him feel slightly threatened.

But, because of the help he gave to his niece Ma Shan Hu he decided to let go of his suspicions for now.

"Very well, you deserve it.

Zhou Lin.

Go to the treasure and tell them to bring the two Gu's he asked under my name..."

...

The minutes passed, finally after around a quarter of an hour he took those Gu's and left calmly, not before he received Ma Shang Feng's words that the trial would begin on the next week.

Dio is of course delighted by this, at the end, if he wasn't making the pretenses he'd simply ignore altogether that trial and practice on seclusion inside of a Gu house.

Thus, without much hesitation, he left, then, he went to various marketplaces to buy Relic Gu's.

He bought 3 Commoner Green Copper Relics and 3 Noble Red Steel Relics.

Those Relic Gu's could be used to skip one 'stage' of their particular Realm, Commoner Green Relics were used on a rank 1 aperture and Noble Red Relics were used on a rank 2 aperture.

Naturally, due to their high power on their respective ranks, they're exceptionally expensive.

The Commoner Green Relic has a cost of 100 Primeval Stones each, whilst the Noble Red Relic has a cost of 2,500 Primeval Stones each.

Together they had a cost of 7,800 Primeval Stones.

...

After leaving the market, he went to the Reinforced Big Lizard Gu House of Ma Shan Hu, where he inspected one of the two Gu's.

It was the Vital Condenser Gu.

This Gu looked like a drop of a pinkish blood, which held right at its center a reddish tiny blood drop, and then at its center of the reddish blood drop there was yet another blood drop, this time of a crimson tone.

This repeated a few times, up to a certain dark 'particle', where the blood condensed to its very limit.

That represented the nature of the Gu which could be used over 10 times!

Of course, Dio wasn't really too interested on its potential, rather on its instantaneous effect.

Dio grabbed the Gu and squashed it, the Gu broke down and its pinky aura surged around Dio.

The breath of Dio eased, he sighed happily.

"It feels so fresh..."

Then, he closed his eyes and inspected the other Gu.

This was the most important one, he had to ensure that there were no mistakes, no wounds or cracks in it, the Gu couldn't also be a 'fake one', if it was, its effect and overall strength would decrease and his plan may fail.

That couldn't be allowed so he inspected all its contents meticulously over a dozen times.

The Gu looked like a full bulged arm of a body builder, which held on its center a tiny peck of dust, which was of course the aperture.

Dio grabbed the aperture, and hence, the body vanished into a pile of dust.

On that moment he felt a reddish energy crossing through his body.

He began to lose his fat, muscle mass, blood and even bone tissue at an incredible speed.

Dio gritted his teeth, he endured the grand pulses of energy surging close to his stomach with some difficulty, after all, such a pure light was still harmful to his Vampiric body.

Greenish sprouts of light surged, they slowly began to grant shape to the emergent sphere which was getting progressively denser, but thinner at the same time.

"Huh?"

But contrary to Dio's expectation, at some point the greenish sphere split on two.

A tiny gap on his aperture surged, Dio did his best to suppress it, but still, it 'opened' partially.

Dio had cold sweat on his forehead, a green pulse surged through his aperture and through his body and mind shaking Dio's brain and organs.

He tossed a bit of blood, still it was worth it at the end.

As he realized that he not only had awakened 'one' aperture but two.

One to his body, to his Stand.

The body's aperture held and released a continuous pulse of a reddish substance, whilst the Stand aperture had mixed together with the light green substance tiny green-golden sparkles of light.

Each time that those green-golden sparkles collided with another, the aperture shook and altered itself, sometimes the surrounding 'tides' of Primeval Essence would froze, sometimes they'd accelerate, sometimes they'd rewind back.

All this made Dio realize something.

"Those greenish-golden sprouts are at the end the crystallization of my Stand's prowess...

And I assume that the same applies to my body's aperture, which represents the 'blood nature' of my Vampiric body...

Heh, heh..."

Dio began to laugh heartily, noticing something else.

He had an Extreme Physique, and not just one, but two at once!

What are Extreme Physiques?

To comprehend their meaning you must first know about the 'aptitude' of a Gu master, which refers to their grade of completion of their aperture.

An D aptitude could at most hold a 20-39% of the aperture's full potential of Primeval Essence, a C aptitude a 40-59%, B aptitude a 60-79%, A aptitude a 80-99% aptitude.

Those 'levels' of Primeval Essence refer to the maximum limit of aperture, which the user can hold.

The higher the degree of 'aptitude' the more peculiarities the aperture may 'hold', hence, the tiny little differences of the aperture on itself and the Gu master become clearer and clearer.

For example, some may awaken an extremely sharp mind or an absurdly good luck after awakening their apertures, this quality becomes more abundant the higher their Cultivation grade.

But, on a 'complete' aperture, there are some other differences.

For starters, as there's no 'Void', which dissolves and diminishes the power of the Primeval Essence over the whole aperture, its effect grows and slowly reshapes the aperture.

Depending on the own's user circumstances, an specific Extreme Physique is acquired.

Those with a sharp mind awaken; A Carefree Wisdom Heart Physique, those with a huge fighting desire with a Great Strength, True Martial Physique.

And so on.

But, all have an specific quality that makes them too dangerous, even for its own user.

Which is that they become progressively stronger over time, and on each rank.

For example, someone who holds an Extreme Physique and holds a rank 3 aperture can use a rank 2 Gu of their respective path to elevate it to an equivalent of a rank 3 Gu!

Whilst someone with an Extreme Physique aperture with a rank 4 aperture and a rank 4 Gu may use them to surpass the power of a rank 5 Gu!

Similarly, the difficulty on Cultivating becomes lower and lower, as their 'Extreme Essence' is purified and more, to the extent that it begins to nourish the aperture gradually, the difficulty on increasing their Cultivation actually decreases as the time goes on!

This may lead to an over-nourishing of an aperture which can lead to yet another effect.

When an aperture is overnourished for a long period and the Gu master hits its breaking point, their apertures 'evolve' to a completely new state.

Here, they're simply invincible, at least momentarily.

Someone with a Blazing Glory Lighting Brilliance become like a mini-sun whilst those with a Boundless Forest Samsara become into a whole forest, before their aperture explode.

Overall, each Extreme Physique holds its own peculiarities and types of death, and overburdening.

Of course, their Fate remains the same all-together.

Then, why is Dio so overjoyed by this discovery?

Is simple, even though Extreme Physiques tend to explode and be overburdened they can also be suppressed.

With certain Gu's and techniques is possible to limit their power to a certain extent, and as long as he's careful, he can prevent the destruction of his aperture.

Another thing that ensures Dio's safety is his Vampiric power, at difference from most Gu masters he feels confident on surviving the 'removal' or harm of his aperture.

Due to his regeneration and resilience.

That and his overwhelming confidence on himself made him laugh once more!

...

Without Dio realizing there was someone scouting him from the skies.

He was a Gu master flying expert sent by Ma Shang Feng personally.

Obviously, as the old fox Ma Shang Feng is, he didn't put his trust on Dio so easily, but, he wouldn't do anything to him, at least not without a reason.

Thus, he sent many of his scouting experts to constantly look for clues on his actions and behaviors.

The 'week' before the trial begun was also his fail-safe after all, as long as Dio remained within a weak inside HIS city and HIS tribe, with all his subordinates and arrangements he'd naturally decipher all of Dio's secrets, or at least the most important ones.

Dio, oblivious of this, used his first Commoner Green Relic Gu, to nourish his initial stage aperture.

Due to his exceptional 100% aperture, the little difficulty of the breakthrough and due to the usage of Green Relic Gu, Dio managed to breakthrough on a matter of an hour.

At that point, the ratio of 'production' of his reddish essence inside his body aperture had doubled, for the moment, he was planning to focus on his body, instead of his Stand's aperture.

As that could be detrimental to its recovery.

Besides, the strength improvement of a middle stage aperture to an upper stage aperture was higher than the one from an initial stage aperture to the middle stage.

Thus, Dio decided to take another Commoner Green Relic Gu and immediately apply it to his body aperture.

The liquid 'walls' that had yet to fully solidify were slowly absorbing and taking the Primeval Energy, those Primeval walls which were thinner than water slowly became thicker like honey, and thus, when they're solid enough, they're shattered by the constant tides of Primeval energy surging through Dio's body like a tornado.

After elevating his aperture further on an hour and half, Dio felt slightly different.

He exhaled a breath of fresh air and noticed that one of the red sprouts had vanished.

Dio closed his eyes, with all his effort he began to move the Primeval tides of energy, and he managed to exhale, those red sprouts of energy, which immediately fell on his body.

The expression of Dio changed slightly, he felt, even if lightly 'nourished', somehow, it felt that the aperture could produce an even purer 'Vampiric essence' than humans on some regards!

After his short break Dio once more glanced at his aperture.

This time, his aperture had 10 layers of walls, which had to be 'refined' on its edges, slowly cleansing away them away, and shattering them.

The process was long and tedious, it required patience and effort, to slowly refine one by one those Primeval walls.

For those with a high aptitude, this was generally the hardest stage...

Dio injected the Commoner Green Relic Gu inside his aperture.

The hard walls began to melt and purify due to the 'mini-sun' that was at its center, whilst Dio moved madly like a whirlwind all his Primeval Energy.

Through sheer force and by relying on Commoner Green Relic Gu Dio slowly refined multiple of those layers.

By the time Commoner Green Relic Gu had vanished completely there were only 1 layer and half remaining.

Thus, Dio spent the following six days and nights refining the remaining layers, to finally breakthrough to the peak stage.

Because Dio was constantly being nourished by his aperture, and because he rarely went to eat, because he used three Relic Gu's in a row and due to his high aperture.

He managed to reach the peak stage on less than a week!