Sam looked at the destroyed city and his brother standing side by side with him. Turbulence waves rose within heart, he was happy, truly happy after a long time. A desire to protect this moment and his brother rose within him, he wouldn't lose them like he lost his master, he wouldn't be helpless and powerless anymore.
'I watched master slowly dying of illness before my eyes while I couldn't do anything for him, I was helpless as I watched him sink deeper and deeper towards death. But, this time I will be stronger, strong enough to never be in that helpless again in my life'.
He vowed to himself silently.
Sam grabbed little Titi from his shoulder and handed it to Dacre, marvyn wouldn't touch it even if he begged. "Brother Dacre, look after it for a while. I will be entering the city first and scout it. You guys wait here for my return then, we will enter together".
Dacre and Marvyn rejected immediately. "No, we can't do that. We have agreed to share the dangers together. We can't let you risk your life alone".
"You guys are thinking too much. Why would I risk my life? " Sam chuckled lightly. With a single though, he activated the runes ih his chest bones as his shadow clone appeared beside him. "See this? This is my shadow clone. I will leave my clone behind, that way I can just change my position with my clone if I am in danger".
He swapped his position with his clone to prove that he was saying the truth. After a while, Marvyn and Dacre were finally convinced aster Sam showed his shadow clone ability.
Dacre patted Sam on his shoulder as he said, "We will do as you say and wait outside. But you better take care of yourself and don't put yourself in any kind of danger. If any danger arises, just tell us through your clone and we will come running".
"I will". Sam smiled as he felt his heart warming to their concerns. marvyn did not say anything, he just showed his fist. This was all he needed to say that he was ready to fight any moment should Sam inform them.
Sam walked inside the destroyed city after saying goodbyes.
When he entered the city, he felt like he had entered a swamp, his spirit sense give him a sensation of drowning in wet mud when it came into contact with the death essence energy in the surrounding. It took him while to adjust to that feeling.
In fact, Sam didn't enter inside the city just to scout ahead. Sure, it was a part of his reason but it was not all. Sam wanted to try and absorb the death essence energy inside the city first before truly exploring it.
If he did it in front of Marvyn and Dacre, he would have to explain how he could do it. It was not that he wanted to keep it a secret but he felt like it was chore to do so.
Death essence energy was unique and dangerous to most of the cultivators as their life energy would be sucked out of them when they came in contact with death essence energy. But, Sam had the world devouring divine body, a body which could devour everything. Thus, he wanted to devour and absorb death essence energy to firm death essence cores inside his Dantian.
When Sam went far inside the city where Marvyn and Dacre couldnot see him, he took a deep breath. He gathered his courage as he slowly removed the essence block in armor from his body.
His body came in contact with the death essence energy. However, his body wasn't resistant to the death essence edgy like he had expected. As soon as the death essence energy touched his body, his body started to wither as his life energy was slowly being sucked out of him.
Awhhh...
Sam screamed in panic as he could feel his life slowly being sucked out of him. Wrinkles started to appear in his skin within a few second.
'Fuck! I have been duped big this time'.
Cursing under his breath, he hastily put on the essence blocking armor, which blocked the death essence energyfrom harming his body.
But his life energy was slowly depleting from his body. He scanned his body with his spirit sense, as he felt some remnant death essence energy still wreaking havoc inside his body.
"This is a opportunity. My body can't handle being exposed to a large amount of death essence energy but this amount can't deal me any damage. I should absorb them first". He said to himself as he started to channel the essence energy inside his body.
He isolated the death essence energy inside his body by covering it with his essence energy as he guided it slowly towards his dantian. Death essence energy was supreme inside the ruins of abyss due to its own law but it was different inside his body. His essence enrgy suprressed the death essence emrgy from harming his body.
After a few hours, he finally guided the remnant death essence energy inside his dantian. He was soaked in sweat, isolating death essence energy was a difficult task itself furthermore, he had to control his essence energy too.
Although, he was tired he still smiled cheerfully when he saw the small amount of death essence energy inside his dantian. When the death essence energy was absorbed into his Dantian, he felt a click inside his body like a lock was broken.
He had a feeling that his body could now endure the death essence energy channelled from his dantian as it was branded with his mark by his Dantian.
Sam tried channelling the small amount of death essence energy inside his Dantian to his body. It was as he had speculated, it could flow freely without doing any harm to his body.
"So, this is how my body works. It can only resist the essence energies after I absorb them and slowly develop my resistance against them. The first time will be painful, I guess".
"Now, I just need to slowly gather death essence energy like I did before. After I gather a sufficient amount inside my dantian, I can resist against the death essence energies using my own".
"First I need to recover my life energy before trying again".
Sam sat down cross-legged on the ground as he channelled life essence energy to his whole body. His body was covered in a green halo as he felt his life energy slowly being recovered. After an hour, Sam was back to being normal.
He took out a essence stone to recover the depleted life essence energy inside his Dantian. One of the function of the essence core was that it could convert normal essence energy into the type of essence energy, the essence core was made of.
For example, a life essence core could convert normal essence energy that Sam absorbs from essence stone into life essence energy.
Sam removed his armor again as his body came into contact with the death essence energy. Like before, his life energy started to be sucked out of him but he was calm this time. He wore his armor again as he started to refine the death essence energy inside his body.
Sam repeated this process again and again while increasing the amount of death essence energy he absorbed every time. Finally, after the tenth time, he had enough essence energy inside his Dantian to circulate through his whole body.
"Now, I can finally start the real cultivation. First, I must circulate death essence energy inside my whole body and absorb more using it as a link while transfering energies using it as a channel".
He said to himself, as he removed his armor. He still felt his life energy being sucked away but the process was slow this time. He could resist it for at least an hour this time. Thus, he closed his eyes as he activated his breathing technique.
He started to absorb the death essence energy, which would pass through the channel he had created inside his body using the death essence energies he refined before.
Due to the thick death essence energy, his Dantian was filled with death essence energies within half an hour.
"Time to form a death essence core". He put on his armor again as he formed hand seal and started the process to form his first death essence core.
BANG.
A loud bang resounded inside his body as he formed the first death essence core inside his Dantian.
"Everything will be easier now. With the help of this death essence core, I can finally start cultivating faster. I guess I will be completely resistant to death essence after I form at least ten essence core".
With that Sam started cultivating inside the destroyed city. Due to the dense death essence energy inside the city, his cultivation speed was the faster than it ever was.
After cultivating only for twelve hours, he had already formed fifty death essence cores. He could form at least four essence core in an hour which was almost unbelievable for Sam considering the size of his dantian and the amount of essence energy required to form essence core was unbelievably huge.
Sam was completely resistant to death essence energy by now as he could walk freely inside the city without wearing armour. Further more, he was much stronger inside the ruins of abyss than in outside world as death essence energy reign supreme here.
Sam had already informed Marvyn and Dacre that he found an opportunity inside the city and will be cultivating for two more days. Sam wanted to cultivate more death essence energy core so that he could use death essence energy to fight which could increase their chance of survival.
Sam started his cultivation inside the destroyed city. For the two day, he only cultivated as he focused to from more death essence core inside the Dantian without taking any rest.
After two days of cultivation, Sam had formed two hundreds and fifty more death essence core inside his Dantian. Sam could see a hundred colourless essence core, four hundreds emerald green essence core and three hundred pitch black essence core floating inside his Dantian.
Sam had refined the medicinal herbs he collected from the demonic peacock den and formed more colourless essence core making them hundred.
Sam now had eight hundred essence cores floating inside his Dantian. It was already enough for even a genius to make a breakthrough to the core formation realm but Sam could felt that he was just in the early stages of essence core realm. Even the most extraordinary genius could only form no more than fifteen hundreds essence core while two thousands would be a miracle. But, Sam knew that it would not be enough for him to reach the core formation realm.
He sighed as he stood up. Sam knew that his cultivation path was different from others, he would face more difficulties while progressing further but each minor progress would make him stronger than other cultivators. This was his fate, his destiny that would propel him to be stronger than the mass.