Grey bit down on his finger harshly emitting a small grunt in pain, opening a minor wound, before letting a drop of his blood fall on to the exquisite wooden box. A terrifying draconic roar rang out inside of his head resonating throughout before a burst of pain shot in to his head as it felt like his soul was being forcefully dragged out and in to the box.
He gripped his head in a meaningless attempt to reduce the pain as a loud crack rang through the air. The seal preventing Grey from accessing to the box shattered into tiny pieces before faded into nothingness.
Once he raised his head to look at the box he realised that his soul had truly been dragged in to another dimension. He looked at his arms and legs realising they were now ethereal and transparent. In a panic he quickly attempted to return to his body sitting on the outside before understanding he could simply enter and exit as he pleased simply with a thought before finally letting out a relieved sigh.
As he looked around the dimension, murals of majestic figures stood atop golden dragons layered the walls; simply looking towards them gave the urge to bow in reverence at their immense stature and grandeur. A staircase leading towards a chained door stood at the end of room with a large pedestal stood at the centre.
He naturally assumed this chained door was the entrance to the second layer that he could only open once his strength reached a certain degree.
As he gazed around the dimension he could see atop the pedestal were two relatively thin books labelled individually:
[Thrarion cultivation manual - Layer 1] and [The Netherworld Veil].
He first walked to the pedestal then began by opening 'The Netherworld Veil'. This was the technique his father prepared to hide his demonic energy. He guessed that it was an incredibly rare and difficult to find technique as it would definitely cause an outrage and be immediately destroyed by the major clans of the world even if it was easily distinguishable by anyone who had reached a certain cultivation level.
Inwardly exclaiming his appreciation to his father, he began to read through the technique. He was soon so immersed in the technique that he lost track of the time as many hours passed. Eventually after several hours of time, a thin veil of thin white light appeared on the outer layer of his dantian. His almost non-existent demonic energy, due to the fact he hadn't began his cultivation thus far, was transformed from containing a black glow to a near transparent state although still containing the Thrarion clans' unique scarlet sparks. This was the energy used by the human cultivators which they called 'Profound qi'.
Some people have profound qi that also has variations which he had long since seen when he was younger so he wasn't worried that the scarlet sparks would reveal his demonic nature.
As he finished creating the 'Netherworld Veil' using the methods stated, he closed the book before placing it back on top of the pedestal. He knew there were more applications to the technique but deemed them too difficult to learn at this moment leaving them to a later date.
Next, he turned to the first layer of the 'Thrarios cultivation manual' before opening the book and beginning to read its introduction.
First, one could only cultivate the manual using the bloodline of the Thrarios clan. Without it the body would inevitabely lose control before abrubtly imploding. Although he was not yet sure of why this would happen, he was sure that he would most likely find out with more knowledge about the abilities of his bloodline.
Besides this it also said that like most of the demonic cultivation techniques, the Thrarion cultivation manuals' speead of cultivation would be increased by following ones emotions and desires. Generally, there was a scale of how much this benefitted the cultivator but consequently the more it effected the speed of cultivation the more it would gradually give rise to a build up of impure negative emotions. This would mean the cultivators increase in strength would be dramatic but they would slowly become bedevilled commencing in slaughter or other horrific acts.
This was why demons generally had negative connotations to the people of the world and were treated so harshly although alot of the time these negative connotations were naturally correect.
The Thrarion clan naturally, being the royal clan of the demons, had one of the more extreme methods but fortunately these negative emotions would be refined by their bloodline making bedevillment to be practically impossible for the clan members. If a normal demon attempted to use the method, even before imploding, they would lose control becoming an uncontrollable bloodthirsty monster.
This reminded Grey of his fathers' words. 'A member of the demon race simply aims to follow their desires but a true demon is an agent of evil, harm, distress or ruin.'
'How could a member of the Thrarion clan be controlled by their emotions, hmphh ridiculous' He scoffed at the idea as he unknowingly showed the innate pride displayed by the members of the Thrarion clan.
Apparently there were several layers to the manual with each layer only accessible once you had reached a certain cultivation. Each layer contained several stages all with individual benefits to reaching them. At this point in time he could only access the first stage of the first layer. Only once he reached the first stage could he see the specifics of the second.
In the book he could see the words:
'Level 1 - Bloodline transformation'
Staring at the words he began to have doubts about its use. 'Will I even be able to use it with the Netherworld Veil transforming my energy?' He sighed showing a saddened expression. Although still a child he was naturally very pragmatic and quickly understood that it was useless to think about such things before even testing it so he soon returned to normal.
He returned to his body before sitting in the optimal posture described. His body began to absorb energy which was refined into his own before circulating as shown in the first stage. He could feel that slowly over time, although the difference was practically invisible, his energy was slowly increasing and becoming more compressed. This would allow him to store more and more energy inside his dantian increasing his overall strength.