The next morning, Daniel and his parents went to the bookstore in town. The store was relatively small, only about 100 square meters and one floor. What the store lacked in size, it made up with the amount of books. The shelves covered every wall from floor to ceiling which was about 8 feet tall. There was a circulation desk in the center of the room and was surrounded with bookshelves.
Daniel and his parents walked up to the desk were a middle-aged woman with short brown hair and rounded glasses that gave off the classic librarian vibe was working. They paid 4 silver for 2 hours to start and could only stay for a maximum of 5 hours. No books were allowed to leave the store. Not that anyone would want to steal books in the first place, but even if they did, they wouldn't be able to. The seemingly normal librarian was actually one of the strongest cultivators in the entire town with a peak 9th level Qi Gathering realm cultivation base.
The shelves were very orderly and the contents of each section of shelves was clearly marked. The first section that Daniel went to read was the section of demonic beasts and legendary beasts. Some of the books had rather vague information and some books had some more specific information about what the beasts look like, characteristics, strength, and environment they are typically found in. As this world is severely lacking in technology, obviously no one knows how to dissect an animal or what information can be gathered from dissecting the animal. For the purpose Daniel is gathering information for, while it would've been helpful to have more information, it was not necessarily needed.
After spending close to 2 hours reading everything he could about the demonic beast that exist in this world, he paid 3 silver coins for the remaining 3 hours. Then he spent 1 hour reading the basic information on cultivation, and the remaining 2 hours reading what he could about alchemy and formations. The recipes and specific formation resources and how to make the formation was not included, he did find out the names of known pills and formations as well as the properties of each. These were no where near encompassing every pill or formation ever known, but the pills and formations known that this small, poor town could gather.
Once his time limit was up, Daniel left the bookstore with his parents and asked if they could explore the town a bit. They walked around the town for a little while, visiting some stores and eating at a restaurant. While they ate at the restaurant, they talked about different topics.
"So, what did you learn from your reading at the bookstore?" Stella asked. Rick and her were skimming a few books while waiting for Daniel to finish reading what he wanted to know. Surprisingly they actually found out about a few events that they have never heard of happen in the kingdom. One such event was that there was a unique unknown demonic beast that was at the early soul formation realm in the forest near the capital, and the kingdom had to dispatch over 200 troops to finally kill the beast. Even the late stage Soul Formation realm generals had trouble dealing with it.
"I learned that the mountain range a few kilometers from here, has mainly wolf demonic beasts that range from the early Body Refining realm to the earl Qi Gathering realm. The strongest beast that is at the top of the mountain range is a lion demonic beast with a middle Qi Condensation realm cultivation base."
"Wow! I never knew about that. When I was younger, I used to train every once in a while, on the outskirts of the mountain range. Who knew that there were such formidable beasts on the mountain?" Rick was truly shocked about the levels of the beasts that occupied the nearby mountain range. As the genius of the Li Clan, he rarely left the clan to train, and was always cultivating.
About an hour later, after discussing many different topics that they learned while at the bookstore, Daniel and his family went back to the clan. Once back at the clan, Daniel went to his room and took out a pen and paper. He went through all the techniques he read and memorized from the previous day, all the information on cultivation, and all the information on the demonic beasts. Once he brushed up on all the knowledge he had, Daniel started to create a brand-new technique.
To start, Daniel decided to use the Hard-Shell Rhino as the basis for the Body Refining realm. The best has extremely tough skin as well as a personality that protects the young and defends its' territory. The Rhino has a extremely tough and sharp horn that can pierce through boulders that are 6 meters thick. He then recalled the different meridian pathways that the different techniques transferred spirit energy to the dantian. Unlike other techniques, Daniel decided to use all 12 principle meridian pathways to transfer spirit energy through his body at the same time. This not only increased the rate of absorption of spirit energy by also strengthened his body and organs much faster than any other techniques. In order to make his skin as tough as the Hard-Shell Rhino, Daniel leak miniscule amounts of spirit energy to his skin, tissue, and organs. It was be a slightly painful and irritating process feeling like needles were probing ever square inch of his body, but in the end nobody would be able to pierce his skin at the same level or even one whole realm higher than his own.
He then created his own pneumonic that went along with the technique. If anyone saw him writing this technique or even saw the technique he was creating their eyes would surely pop out of their skulls and would try to kill him to take the technique for themselves as fast as possible. The problem was that the technique would be too profound for anyone in this kingdom or perhaps the continent to even comprehend the technique even slightly.
Once he was done with the first level of the technique, Daniel kept going to create the second level or the level that would complete the Qi Gathering Realm. The demonic beast the second level was based on was the Leather-skinned Saber-Tooth Tiger. The tiger had rough, thick skin that was tough to penetrate without an earth-grade weapon or one and a half realms of prowess above the tiger. Razor sharp teeth, and a vicious attitude that when provoked, the provoker would not remain in one piece if they couldn't kill the tiger.
He continued until he finished the third level of the technique since he didn't have enough information to continue creating the technique. Once done, Daniel memorized the technique and burned the technique to ensure no one will ever find out about the technique. Daniel then sat down and began cultivating. He was absorbing spirit energy at an extremely fast rate, and he first experienced a lot of pain until it started to numb his body. As this point any small distraction or error could end his life. Daniel knew he was already absorbing spirit energy faster than even stated on the Earth-grade technique he read, but he felt he was absorbing too many impurities and wasn't absorbing quick enough.
That is when Daniel decided to put his knowledge about how molecules move and vibrate to the test. Cultivators are supposed to use not only their own qi and outside spirit energy to use martial techniques, but to also use the air and chemicals around them. Therefore, Daniel started to visualize all the particles in the air, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, water, etc. and imagine them colliding with each other and avoid hitting him. Now, this may seem impossible, but when factoring in the angles at which they collide with each other (like in billiards or pool), the task was accomplishable. Obviously, he wasn't perfect and uncertainties occur, so he was still hit and absorbed impurities but for the most part, he only absorbed spirit energy.
After one night of cultivation, Daniel actually entered the 2nd level of Body Refining realm. His parents were so shocked when they found out, they thought they were hallucinating.
"How did you reach the 2nd level of Body Refining in one night?! Did you take some kind of miracle pill?!"
"No, I guess I just found a really good technique."
Thus, Daniel's parents forbade him from leaving the courtyard for one week. If news got out that he wasn't only five years-old, but that he entered the 2nd level of Body Refining in a single night, all hell would break lose. He was naturally aware of the consequences and knew that he wasn't strong enough at this point to defend himself, so he was fine for being "grounded." He also wanted to train his body and martial arts anyway to not only get used to his newfound strength and body but also speed up the process of cultivating and strengthening his body. Therefore, over the course of the next week, Daniel trained as hard as he could, cultivate, and try to figure out recipes for pills and how to build formations through the limited knowledge that he had.