ken was too annoyed by the sheer size of this city and his weak body . he had to walk for more than 3 hours now till his home in the sect since leaving the administration building.
of course ken only had to rent a small house for himself so he could have found it in at most half an hour as the office where they introduced houses or mansions was on the 5th floor in the administration building. it was much decorated with various expensive looking crafting and jades but ken couldn't care less about those things . simply because he only loved nature and a simple architecture is enough for him . he was an explorer who spent most of the year with nature so of course his mindset was different from others.
Many others from his profession liked to enjoy life by eating expensive food and playing with women but ken was different from them . he was an orphan who loved in poverty mostly by himself till 12 years of age so he was not the one for extravagance. it's not like he didn't like those things but simply his instincts of being poor had changed his personality . he was fine with enough simple food and a simple house to stay comfortably.
the reason ken took 3 hours to reach his house was very simple . he just wanted an house far away from others attention . his house was rented for just 1 sect point for a month while even the most simple house which even had a courtyard even though it's the worst cost 6 sect points a month to rent .
Ken's house was located closest to the entrance to the forest which was only separated from the city by spell formations and thick and huge wall . there was no house in kilometers radius around Ken's house so he could practice his alchemy and cultivation in peace without alerting anyone else .
Ken's house was only a 2 story house with a small courtyard which had a tree planted in it. his house had no back as it was constructed with touching the city wall . simply it could be said the house lacked space, elegance etc so nobody bothered renting it after the disciple who rented it died during a mission some years ago . this was perfect for ken so he immediately paid the rent for 10 months which cost him 10 points . ken had enquired that the outer sect examination was scheduled after 10 months and there were no events that required his attention as a new outer sect disciple so he could cultivate here with peace .
all the houses regardless of the cost had been installed with basic formations so his house was clean and ken immediately entered the only small room for cultivation which had a worst grade spirit gathering formation installed. it didnt require any resources to maintain the formation so only the basic runes were inscribed on the walls inside the room . it could only increase the energy flow 2 times than normal but ken wasn't bothered in the slightest.
of course he wasn't because he just had to reach first level of qi condensation realm and with his knowledge which was too high level for spell formations , he could make a new formation which will be many times useful than the one right now or just rewrite the runes to increase the efficiency.
ken sat cross legged on the small circle stone platform which was located in the center and closed his eyes. he wasn't going to cultivate now because he was concentrating now to quickly analyse the cultivation manuals inside his mind and find the best one for him .
an hour , 2 , 3 ... 6 hours passed and finally ken opened his eyes and his face had a smile. he had finally chosen the manual which he deemed best. there were more than 30,000 manuals inside his head that he could cultivate from the qi condensation realm and only some hundreds were the ones he could cultivate till he reached the highest realm in the divine realm . ken just looked once at the ones that he could cultivate till lower realms and he focused on the rest fully .
ken didnt realise this first as he hadn't read the knowledge about cultivation manuals properly , there were actually 2 main divisions of cultivation . one was the energy cultivation and other was body cultivation which focused on refining the body much more . it was extremely difficult to cultivate body manuals because to progress one needs constant suply of pills and natural treasures to absorb their essence and temper the body slowly .
so the ones who cultivate both body and energy cultivation manuals together are very very rare and ken just planned to do so too .
he contemplated a lot but after finding the devouring dragon art , he changed his mind. well ken was a little different from others so when he learnt that he could transform into a dragon after reaching much higher realms by cultivating this art he became excited about it. the best thing was that he didnt need to absorb any dragon's bloodline and only change his body slowly really slowly . the devouring dragon art was found by an elder who discovered it inside an ancient ruin by coincidence . according to the elder , the devouring dragon was extinct since ancient times now so there was no blood essence in existence . so one had to slowly transform his body and the art was designed so that a mutated bloodline would form which would contain the properties of a devouring dragon .
like the name the devouring dragon could devour anything and absorb it easily so ken was excited because he could just eat pills and the essence would be absorbed quickly . ken knew that consuming many pills could damage the foundation of a cultivator and the pill poison will accumulate as not ever pill can be perfect . this would be not a problem for ken as he didnt bother about how much time he would take to advance as he only wanted steady pace . after cultivating the devouring dragon art ones organs would be tempered and their functions would become like that of the dragon so pill poison could also become energy for ken .
the devouring dragon art is an unconventional art which is very rare as the cultivation manual for body and energy is the same for every realm . this means that ken would take much more time to advance than others as his talent is shit and the energy would be divided to body cultivation too .
ken would not need any medicinal baths frequently as his body would be tempered according to the art with 70 some percent of the energy he absorbs everytime till he reaches heaven realm . after that the energy which is only for body tempering will decrease slowly with advancing realms and reach 50 percent when he ascends to the divine realm and the rate will remain the same afterwards. this was because the body would be tempered to awaken the mutated bloodline which would retain Ken's human bloodline properties and the devouring dragon's bloodline . ken can gain other bloodlines too but only their properties as the devouring bloodline will devour them and evolve faster.
ken could transform into a dragon or human easily anytime after he ascends to the divine realm as his bloodline will be that of an infant dragon at that time . the one more best fact was that nobody could tell if ken possessed a dragon's bloodline in him if he didnt show them personally even if any powerful cultivator scans his body throughout . maybe that's why it's called mutated bloodline , ken doesn't care as long as its beneficial to him .
Ken's energy wont change to dragon's energy but will contain its properties fully . so ken who didnt care about time , pills , natural treasures etc would definitely chose to cultivate this art because of the benefits. everything a devouring dragon devours is converted into energy so ken could simply absorb the essence of anything after his bloodlins becomes strong enough .
ken's organs would be tempered straight from the first level of the qi condensation realm so he can start devouring pills from the 2nd level when his organs can absorb the pill poison from pills after being tempered. Ken cannot devour any pills that are above his level for many future realms but purest treasures are a different case . he could absorb them completely just by reaching the 2nd level but if they are really potent then ken would have to endure the pain but he doesn't care about that as his base pain resistance has increased too much already after the golden book shit scared the helll out of him two times .
so ken after reviewing the art once more released his mental power completely to attract more energy towards his body . even though qi condensation realm cultivators can only absorb the energy that touches their body , ken would be an idiot if he doesn't use his cheat like mental power to attract more energy till it touches his body . after reaching the foundation establishment realm which is next major realm Ken's cultivation pace will soar because he could attract energy only near the radius where his body can absorb the energy . so his spirit roots which will not change in size now but will become much tougher because they would also transforming into that of a dragon from now on will absorb energy at much fast pace .
the golden energy was naked in front of his mind eye . ken started absorbing the energy that touched his body according to the sutra of devouring dragon art and it was absorbed by his cells without managing to complete a full cycle . ken was speechless with the hungry dragon art and concentrated more mental power to attract more energy . he didn't want to do this because his mental power would be exhausted quickly and he doesn't know when he will reach the 2nd level because he wants to cultivate till the second level in just one session. but now he has no choice because the energy is being absorbed in his body really quickly and at this rate it wont reach his internal organs and it would take forever to temper them successfully and reach the 2nd level ....