Flooding amounts of mana quickly gathered around Creed. At the center of the room Creed slowly started to absorb huge amounts of mana into the first layer of his skin. The huge absorption of mana resulted in the formation of a vortex above his head. Throughout his body one could see mana being absorbed by his pores that opened and closed which seemed rather instinctual. Creed slowly circulated his cultivation technique
With his guidance, the mana absorbed by Creed was only restricted to the outside of his body or rather the first layer of the skin, His skin slowly turned red as the amount of mana circulating within it started to temper and slowly expel all impurities, the temperature of his body increased to huge degrees though this was painful not a single scream escaped Creed's mouth. A single cycle was made only after nine revolutions ,and through all these it could be seen how thorough he wanted his Body Tempering to be and also the madness of technique.
A week passed by and during that time he had fully tempered all three layers of his skin achieving Body Tempering 9'th stage, only with his skin. It was truly shocking because many people at this stage would have fully tempered their whole bodies and preparing to enter RANK 2(Mana Absorption).
Though he had reached the ninth stage the huge essences of mana that gathered towards him did not recede rather intensified as he slowly prepared to temper his Meridians and Acupoints. Meridian and Acupuncture Point tempering did not take him a lot of time to fully achieve as it only involved their strengthening from the outside and not opening them. Taking a few days allowing him to reach Body Tempering 18'th stage.
Now that he reached the third stage he was naturally preparing to temper his marrow and bones. While all this was happening Creed had entered a selfless state as the concept of time was lost. The third stage was the most painful as it required one to break their bones and slowly rebuild them with the assistance of mana. Not forgetting the immense pain that would also be brought by refining his bone marrow.
He took a month to complete the third stage of his cultivation technique allowing him to reach Body Tempering 27'th stage. After a full refinement of his bones and bone marrow his skeletal structure greatly strengthened ,all the bones in his body were clear as ice and clean as jade. His bone marrow also improved by a qualitative leap as it now shone with a delicate golden luster.
The amount of mana gathering around him also started to decrease though at a very slow rate which showed that he was slowly starting to awaken from his selfless state.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Inside Creed's room nine continuous 'boom' sounds continuously rang out as he achieved yet another breakthrough. He had reached Body Tempering 36'th stage. He spent two full month's cultivating the fourth stage of his technique, Five Viscera and Six Bowels Tempering. Five distinct colors illuminated the whole room and surprisingly these lights overshadowed the light produced by all the mana in the room. If one paid attention they would see his heart shining in a fiery red color, liver in a refreshing green color, lungs in a shining silver color, kidney's in a soothing dark blue color and lastly his spleen in a warm yellow color.
On top of his five viscera a small formation could slowly be seen forming, this kind of phenomenon happened only when the five viscera were refined to completion. The formation formed was a Five Elements Formation with each element(wood, fire, earth, metal and water) each respective to the five viscera(liver, heart, spleen, lungs and kidney's).
As time passed the amount of mana inside his room increasingly decreased and Creed partly gained conscious. Zero who was guarding his Young Lord has long chased away any maids that took care of him becoming his sole caretaker whilst also avoiding any one of the maids seeing him cultivate. He was shocked when he saw a month pass by without Creed coming out of seclusion but when he saw that everything was fine with the Young Lord he continued with his job.
Creed walked out of his room a month later. He had successfully cultivated till the fifth stage ,Seven Orifice's Tempering. He reached the Body Tempering stage 45. This brought about a huge shock to Creed as all his senses have been heightened and now he no longer had to worry about physical needs i.e. bathing, eating and going to the toilet. Creed could see and hear things two kilometers away from him which was the range for those who had entered RANK 2(Mana Absorption).
"Congratulations Young Lord!" before Creed could adjust to the light outside he heard Zero's excited roars. With a warm smile Creed greeted him too as he walked to a recliner under a huge Magnolia tree. Zero watched Creed excitedly as he wanted to know which level his Young Lord has achieved but he was ignored as Creed wanted to tell him about his gains only when he had reached the limit of RANK 1(Body Tempering).
Creed sat down under the shade of the Magnolia tree accompanied by his voice as he said "Report", without waiting any time Zero spoke "During the time you have been in seclusion Young Lord's parents have been summoned to the border as recently there have been sighting's of large number's of Demonic Beasts gathering. They left a message that they will be back for the Young Lord's fifth birthday.
A sigh of relief escaped Creed's mouth as one of the issues bothering him have been solved. Now he was sure that his secret was safe because he too didn't know that he will enter seclusion for that long. "Young Lord during your retreat as I was scouring through the information that you asked me to collect about all the young heroes I came across the information of a rather interesting person. " he spoke while handing Creed a few pages.
"Interesting! Interesting!, remember to keep an eye on this person we will meet him in future and just the person for my cause." as a sly grin spread across Creed's face. He also signaled for Zero that he needed to be left alone.
Lost in his thoughts Creed was calculating the time it will take for him to fully reach completion of his cultivation technique. One thing he was sure of was that it will be before his fifth birthday that was four months later. The last remaining five stages were rather easy as they specified the polishing of all past refined parts of the body, to increase body fluidity and synchronization with the last stage Penta Refinement fully targeting the whole body. Dual Tempering targeted re-refining both the Skin and Meridians at the same and for subsequent stages the addition of the next stage.
Tightly squeezing his small hand could feel a powerful power course through his whole body ,with a light shove of his fist a large 'pop' sound rang out. A huge brilliant smile formed on his chubby little face but what he didn't know was his small action greatly shook Zero as what he did couldn't be achieved by someone at his cultivation, heck his age.
The remaining three month's were rather bland as he routinely cultivated, comprehended other cultivation and martial techniques, and read other books. He abandoned the Spells as he decided to walk the path of a Warrior. One morning continuous melodious chimes rang out throughout the royal palace ,startling everyone.
Boom! Boom!
Massive banging sounds rang inside Creeds head whom was sitting cross legged as he achieved the 81'th stage and the final limit of RANK 1(Body Tempering). A phenomenon of saintly music rang out accompanied by faint images of Saints and Emperors as they congratulated this achievement but they did not come empty handed as they accompanied a crystallized purple heaven and earth lotus that slowly sank into Creed's forehead.
When he saw the lotus flower that slowly sank into his forehead he couldn't help but be excited as he felt huge amounts of spiritual energy.
Zero was left standing there frozen, wide mouthed and eyes popping out of their sockets. The things that he had witnessed ever since following his Young Lord were truly that shocking.
Another drop silently fell into calm the rivers of destiny as another ripple spread out but this time larger than the first.