'Time to start forming my nascent soul.'
Ken returned to his training after returning from Fernando's place. A few things happened during this week. First, Emrys's situation was much better now and Ken expected him to wake up any moment. Second, Elder Zadkiel agreed to be his teacher without a master-disciple relationship. Third, the same happened with Grand Elder Typhon.
He was sitting in his training room, enveloped by a triple sixth-rank Qi Gathering formation, and surrounded by a few Immortal Qi Stones in case he needed more energy during his training. Even if not, there was nothing wrong with replenishing the lost Godly Qi after using it.
'First, I need to sculpt a nascent soul out of my normal soul. Good thing the Godly Qi can already affect the soul, so I don't need to concoct pills with soul-affecting ingredients for that,' Ken mused.
He channeled his Godly Qi to the soul in his body, and once the Qi was wrapped around it, he gritted his teeth decisively and led the Qi to cut off a layer of his soul as if he were skinning himself.
"Argh." Ken groaned in pain without faltering in his Qi manipulation. He was left with a small hollow husk in the shape of his body. He then began channeling his special Qi from his core into the empty shape while using the Godly Qi to integrate the different types of Qi evenly.
There was a flux of different colored Qis – the bloody red of his Bloodlust Qi, the shiny silver of his Sword Qi, the fiery red of his Alchemical Qi, and the navy blue of his Runic Qi. All of them were soon swallowed by the golden Godly Qi and combined.
Ken was too engrossed in the task at hand to notice the changes going on. Once he saw that the Qi was successfully absorbed by the empty nascent soul, he stopped paying attention to it.
Unnoticed, The Godly Qi kept manipulating and integrating the different Qi types into one another, creating a single type of Qi instead that Ken would find out only later.
Slowly but surely, the nascent soul was filled with Qi, and once done, Ken pulled it into his core, letting it rest there. It was incomplete and unstable, thus if left alone, the Qi inside would escape and the nascent soul would 'deflate', forcing him to do the process all over again.
By storing it inside the core, the sucking force of the Qi kept it intact until he brings it back outside to work on it again.
'Good. I've finally taken the first step toward the next stage, creating some kind of a skeleton of the nascent soul. Now it's all about diligence in cultivation. I wonder how much time this process took me.'
Ken then relaxed himself and rested for a few hours. He did not know the time, but he knew he was awake for many days straight, which was thankfully possible thanks to his cultivation, but was still tiring.
When he got up, he inspected his core, searching for the nascent soul he had just formed earlier.
'Golden? What does it mean?' Ken exclaimed inwardly as he saw the surprising color of the Qi filling his new nascent soul. The manual led him to believe that the nascent soul would be colored by the different attributes of Qi filling it relatively to their strength. As Ken's affinity was equal to all his affinities, he believed the four colors would appear evenly.
'It must be the Godly Qi again. The Qi inside does not seem to lose to any of the four types separately, so I assume it has all four attributes combined. If anything, it should only benefit me in the future.'
Ken washed himself with a water technique and wore new robes, tossing the ones drenched with sweat to the side for Soleil to collect and wash later before heading to the maid's room.
"Prepare me some food and a hot bath to clean myself. How many days passed since I entered seclusion?" Ken asked the maid after opening her door without knocking as per usual.
"Young Master, you should knock on my door, or else you'll have to take responsibility if you see me naked," Soleil complained. Ken interrupted her cultivation, a thing every cultivator hated when happened.
"I'm only an innocent child, how could I defile you? Besides, it'd be your future partner's honor to have you after me," Ken said and laughed lightly in front of the gaping Soleil who did not get the inside joke.
"That's… Young Master must be joking. And it had been slightly over 8 days since you entered. I've also made sure to inform the three elders that you can't arrive this week." She decided to move on and answer Ken's question before something weirder happened.
"I see, thanks."
In the next weeks, Ken received a few types of rewards. The Alchemy division granted him full access to the library as a reward for his contribution, in addition to doubling his research funds. In response, Supreme Elder Zadkiel chose to give an equal reward for being the youngest fourth-rank formation master in the division's history despite Ken's lack of contribution to the Formation Mastery division.
Another reward he gained was one property from the Han clan in exchange for Ken and Henry's agreement to stop targeting their descendants in the ranking challenges.
As a gesture of goodwill, Dominic gave the property entirely to Ken, deducting only 20% of the monthly revenues to pay the subordinates who kept it running. The old man even gave up on the normal fees the clan took from all property owned by the members.
The clan did not want to lose their capable descendants, and it was the clan's way to compromise after the Sue clan found the archer who tried to assassinate Ken under the Han clan's commands.
Ken's revenues continued to grow further after he submitted another theory to the Alchemy division. This time it was his "Boundless Qi Instilling" theory which complemented his previous theory. His previous 'findings' allowed the sect's alchemists to learn how to draw Qi they did not have from objects.
Now, the complementing theory could aid them in learning how to instill Qi which is not a type of elemental Qi into their pills, allowing them to concoct many other types of pills now, opening a limitless variety of possibilities in front of the alchemists. Again, he did not mind giving this knowledge away since others in the world already had it, namely the Infinite Wisdom Sect.
This time, his theory was read by all the elders within days without differentiating between lower-ranked elders and higher-ranked ones, earning everyone's fervent admiration.
Next, he submitted his theory to the Formation Mastery division on how to create a few triple formations. He showed the method of creating triple formations for the Qi Gathering formation, the Concealing formation, and the Entrapment formation.
It contained double values – the first was the possibility of inscribing triple formations, which would allow the sect to work from there to find a way to create other triple formations. The second value was that to achieve that he had to increase the efficiency of the formations, meaning they got an improved version of the three fourth-rank formations.
Although it was only a fourth-rank formation, it was a good starting point for the elders' research, and they all anticipated great results in the long-term future, even without Ken's future contributions. Adding Ken's prospects, they all wished for a golden age for their divisions, believing it might help them get into the top 10 in a single millennium.
Ken also found out that Henry mingled with his new followers often. Adhering to Ken's instruction, he gathered many young masters and ladies as his followers from various clans, often to their ancestors' dismay. It earned him the support of many promising youths who held great influence in their elite clans.
Ken once again found his decision to recruit Henry as his subordinate, or more politically correct - companion, more and more right as he saw the monk's capabilities in their daily spars and missions. He only hoped that he did not misjudge the monk's personality.
Another surprising development came from the Runology division. The Geller clan also had great influence there, another reason for them to be part of the great clans like the Sue clan.
They offered Ken free access to the library up to the fourth floor and gave him a token of "honorary disciple", an invention they made just for him. It was easy to understand their motives; they were also hoping he would research their field and offer some breakthroughs that offer new approaches to Runology.
Ken was glad to receive the unexpected reward. He ignored his grandfather's and Fernando's advice not to bite more than he could chew and delved into mastering the basics of Runology.
Emrys had awakened from his long slumber and was surprised to see the changes in his body. He was still smaller than an adult wolf but grew to the size of an adult fox. His white fur now had many beautiful golden ornament-like spots, and two horns grew from his head. His claws and fangs also turned sharper and stronger.
Despite remaining at the top of the third rank, he was a few times stronger than before, and the excited wolf, who did not get to adjust to his strength ever since he broke through to the third rank, felt like the whole world was at the tip of his paw until Ken grabbed it and reminded it who was the boss.
His thoughtful master had invented a Bloodline Refining pill for it to have for its meals, a variation of the original one that would allow the pup to improve his new bloodline.
In the next months, he shifted his attention between cultivation, Runology, Emrys, and the daughters other clans kept sending his way.
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A/N: Just a reminder, I won't publish chapters between 1/9-7/9. (hint - it's 7 days, not 7 months.
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