The energy entered his lungs with each of his breaths. From there, it would descend toward his abdomen, where it would enter his dantian.

From the insides, the energy would push all the impurities outside. But at this point, it could freely flow through the whole organ without encountering anything until it. Only at its deepest point would be any waste left.

Xan spat black liquid once more as the energy guided the impurities outside his body for the last time.

As soon as this happened, he felt something changing in his body.

'Is it finally done?' Xan asked himself.

As he focused on his abdomen, he realized his dantian had come to life, and it was slowly gathering energy from its surroundings. As the seconds passed, its gathering power increased.

Once it neared the limit of its capacities, the energy began to flow toward each area of Xan's body, fueling them with energy and enhancing its properties.

Even though it wasn't by a large margin, Xan could feel his strength, senses, and resistance had increased.

'This feels weird, but it also feels great.' he thought, unable to stop a smile from appearing.

After two days of recluding himself in his room, Xan had finally managed to clean his dantian. Thanks to that, he could stop using the breathing technique to cultivate and use his dantian, allowing him to gather much more energy in less time than before.

Not only that, but as his dantian was fueling energy to his body, he wouldn't exhaust himself as much as before while cultivating.

Also, Rad had said they would start their battle training outside the fortress once he managed to get his dantian clean, so his battle capacities would also increase by a large margin in a short time.

In the end, they were all good news for him.

As he was a bit tired, he decided to sleep and eat before testing what he could do with his dantian.

At that point, he had already finished the food Rad had brought him, so he had to settle with regular food.

He woke up a few hours later from his nap, and without leaving his bed, he sat crosslegged and focussed on his dantian.

He instinctively knew how to use it to draw the energy toward him, so Xan gathered every single bit inside the room but soon found a problem. His dantian's pace fueling his body was lower than the speed at which he was getting energy.

That meant that, at a point, his dantian would be full, making it impossible for him to continue cultivating.

'If my dantian is fueling my body to make it better, I should be able to use more energy if I focus on it, right?' Xan thought.

Focusing on his abdomen, he made a part of the energy inside his dantian flow across his body, feeding and making every cell found on its path stronger.

Comparing the amount of energy he was dealing with right now with what he got from the breathing technique was like comparing a pool with a glass of water. Because of this, it was much harder for Xan to precisely control it as he did before, causing some energy to escape his body through his pores.

According to what Rad had told him, he would increase his control over energy as he cultivated, so Xan didn't worry even if he wasn't as efficient as before.

Little by little, the energy inside his dantian diminished until there was almost nothing. At that point, Xan felt his head become light, and an intense sense of fatigue filled his whole body.

Realizing what was happening, Xan cut the energy flow across his body and focused on increasing his dantian's reserves. Doing that helped him feel less tired, but the feeling didn't disappear completely, so he decided to take another short nap.

'Do all cultivators sleep this much? I should ask Rad the next time I see him,' Xan thought as he lay on his bed again.

After waking, he wasn't sure what day or hour was, but he stood still for a few minutes while thinking about what to do.

He would go and visit Rad to ask him some questions.

His dantian opened tons of new possibilities, and he wanted to learn about them as soon as possible not to waste time. After he had a mental list, he changed clothes and left his room toward Rad's ones.