Author's note: I hope you guys enjoy today's chapter!

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Upon logging in again Zaran quickly ate to sate his hunger and gathered enough firewood to last a week. After starting the pit fire again Zaran cleansed his body from the 75% purified ki. With the info that Isis had just given him he couldn't take the game with a laid-back attitude. From the start his foundation needed to be right. So he had already decided to keep using the ki refining technique he used earlier until his body could handle pure ki.

He seated down in a lotus position again and swiftly started condensing the nearby world ki in a golden cloud again. This time he condensed it until every single speck of ki was above 75% pure with some of it even being pure ki. He let the less pure parts course through his veins again and slowly made his way to the pure ki. A full day after he started his body could finally handle pure ki. He stored the remainder of the pure ki in his dantian and slowly opened his eyes. A small smile appeared on his face as he checked the status of his dantian. While there was barely a noticeable amount of ki present currently, it was the purest ki that one would have ever seen. A solemn message box greeted him once his eyes were fully opened. The message box had a slight tinge of red, making it seem like the message box itself was angry.

You have created a forbidden refinement technique. Please name it.

Zaran quickly named it "Heavenly cloud condensation" and another message box popped up.

Congratulations on creating the forbidden cultivation technique 'Heavenly cloud condensation'. Do you wish to publicize your name?

Zaran immediately pressed no as the message box appeared. He did not want anyone to know of this technique. It had been his most well-kept secret in all his lives. If he had been training in Virul, he would've never chosen this refining technique. It was too precious of a treasure to him. In his other lifetimes, if any other champion had seen it, even one of the same god, they all had met a quick demise before they could figure out it's intricacies. There had been a few who had been able to somewhat reproduce the technique but none of them had ever succeeded in it, causing them to give up on it.

Still the system announced that a forbidden refinement technique had been created, causing Zaran to frown. He had clearly pressed the no button so why did the system even mention that one had been created. He muttered a few curses under his breath but then decided that not much harm had been done. Nobody knew that it was him that had created the technique and even if they had the name, unless they were a cultivating genius they couldn't figure out the intricacies even if they saw the technique being used.

Zaran quickly checked the new skill that had been created. Upon checking it he was very pleased with the additional effects it had given him, as they would allow him to drastically increase his training speed.

Heavenly cloud condensation (advanced)Level1Experience0%DescriptionA ki refinement technique in which one condenses the nearby ki before allowing it to enter one's body.

Through careful and continues condensation one can create pure ki that can be immediately absorbed in the body.

This bypasses the usual way of refining the ki within the body and allows one to absorb pure ki at a far faster rate

than usual. However an incredible amount of concentration is needed to condense the ki and a temporary lapse in

concentration can cause death or the destruction of one's dantian.Level effectsKi condensing speed+100%Concentration needed-25%

Good. At this rate I will have a good base amount of ki in a few days. Initially I planned on not putting in as much effort but... With this being the battlefield of the gods taking it easy is just not going to cut it. So no time to waste. Let's quickly eat something and start cultivating more.

Zaran stuffed some of the onigiris in his face and did a minor workout to relax his muscles. He had been in the lotus position for two full days so unless he took some time to stretch, his muscles would soon begin to feel the effects. After feeding and petting Kirin and talking with Cindarrah and stroking her during their conversation Zaran started cultivating again.

A few days passed until Zaran finally decided that he had gathered enough ki for the time being. He quickly checked his status screen to confirm the amount of ki he had gotten.

Character infoRaceZunoProfessionN/ASub-profession 1Hellbeast masterSub-profession 2N/ALevel6Unspent stat points20StatsHealth160/160ManaN/AKi300/300Racial ??????/??Strength40Flexibility8Agility18Stamina15Vitality8Focus25Intelligence10Wisdom10Perception10Luck5Charm2Willpower5ReputationHonour5Fame50God's merit1

He nodded upon seeing the number as it confirmted the situation in his dantian. His focus had grown by a large amount over the past days and it had even surpassed his agility making it his number 2 stat at the moment. He frowned as he saw that a few question marks had taken the slot of a stat point next to his newly gained ki stat. The only word he could make from it was 'Racial' the other words were all blanked out by question marks. Zaran guessed it had to do something with his racial skill that had awakened recently but he wasn't sure if that was the case. He decided to heed it no mind and forget about it for now, as there were more urgent matters that required his attention... such as mana cultivation.

He took out the book on mana cultivation that he had received earlier. It was called "the mysteries of mana" and was about three times as thick as the book on ki. Zaran started earnestly reading it and frowned at some parts while nodding at other parts. He felt that unlike the ki refining book, this one hadn't been written by an expert as it showed in the explanations. The author would often beat around the bush about a subject instead of explaining it further. This made it so that Zaran read wall upon wall of texts in this book without learning anything new. After reading it for an hour Zaran dropped the book to the side and sighed.

"I'm not sure I am going to be learning the truth about mana cultivation this way..." Zaran muttered. He stretched a little more before returning to the book. Once he started reading again much to his surprise he found that the next few chapters were much clearer compared to the first few chapters of the book, almost as if these were written by a completely different individual. He quickly went back to the earlier chapters and found that his suspicions had been true. The first few chapters had a different writing style from the current ones and the difference was almost as big as the difference between heaven and earth.

He quickly read the new chapters and found that the first chapters of the book quickly got obsolete once he read through these chapters. He now understood that like most worlds mana existed all around oneself. While people didn't necessary start out with something called a 'mana seed', which allowed the body to store mana, everyone had the ability to command the surrounding mana elements. How much one could command without a mana seed was barely enough to start a campfire but there had been some supreme experts who had never created a mana seed in their body who still had gotten the power to shake even the heavens. Zaran put the book down again to let all the newly gained knowledge sink in.

He had a fairly good idea of how to use the nearby elements but the amount of nearby elements that one could command was generally in proportion as the size of one's mana seed. He didn't know if he could command a large amount of nearby elements without a mana seed so he decided to create one whatever the costs. It wasn't a new concept to him but he still wanted to know if the book had a technique he hadn't heard of.

He started reading again and the book started to explain the creation of a mana seed. The general technique was to fill every cell of one's body with mana, until a mana seed was naturally created. There were other techniques to create them but they were only lightly touched upon in this book and weren't even worth mentioning without a deeper explanation. Zaran immediately thought of a few techniques but discarded them as they took too much time.

I am sure there was one where it could be done in a short amount of time! Zaran thought as he wracked his brain over the technique. He had only needed to use it once and had never used it since then. Therefore the name and the workings of the technique had been pushed to a far away corner of his mind, to be left there until he needed it again. Zaran slowly started searching through his mind for this technique but after an hour he still had not found it. He sighed as he realized that he shouldn't have pushed the technique to the back of his mind. Even when he had only been reincarnated for a few hundred times he had cursed himself for pushing things to the back of his mind. Now after a few thousand times, how could he so quickly remember a technique he had made himself forget about?

Zaran quickly read the rest of the book and took some more time to think about the technique. After not remembering it for another hour he decided to give up on it and use another one. Before starting to use another technique he learned about he took a break of half an hour and let himself relax a little, allowing himself to briefly forget about it all. Suddenly when he wasn't really thinking of anything the name and workings of the technique dawned upon him.

Nature's gift of the elements! One condenses the four great elements in a single cell causing a mana seed to be created instantly. Four things are needed for this. A single pellet each of air, fire, water and earth. As to how to create pellets it is to command the nearby elements to condense into them.

"Let's start instantly!" Zaran said in an extremely happy and excited tone.