As far as he knew from what he learned on earth and from Itroth's soul, the mutation known as heart of mana was the natural occurrence of what humans called flow, and before him it had never been artificially created in an already born person. Making him a much higher priority target than he originally thought.
"The guild master must have not understood how truly powerful flow is and how profound it is that I manage to not only theorize its existence, but fully remake it on my own. I was curious as to why her elders reacted like that, but now I understand. I would have behaved the exact same way." He may sound a little arrogant, but everything that he said was true.
When someone had a heart of mana, they would have absolutely no roadblocks when it comes to mana. Everything from absorption, to usage, to control and even detection comes naturally to them. And since it cannot exist in a body with any impurities, those who are born with it will also have no major roadblocks physically and any bottlenecks in their cultivation would be significantly weakened. Impurities might build up in the body after birth, but with a 100% purity head start, it wasn't difficult to keep up at least 90%, even more so for him since his talent was always purifying not only his body, but his mind and soul.
Besides not being born with it, all of this applied to Ray. At first it wasn't exactly the same but over the months since he created his heart of mana his body was slowly adapting. Now there was no detectable difference from someone who was born with it besides the amount of mana he had.
They would have had a 16 year head start if they were born at the same time and the only way he could possibly overcome such a gap was special cultivation techniques, which was Itroth's specialty. One of the major reasons that Itroth seemed to be always creating cultivation methods was because someone who was born with a heart of mana or created one after the fact would have trouble cultivating normal cultivation methods.
These often times were built for a mana core or rarely a mana pool, and while a heart of mana could serve as a substitute, it was never really the same thing. Not only that but a properly crafted cultivation method made around a heart of mana is like giving wings to a tiger, so much so that a normal cultivation method is more of a waste of time than anything else.
But even with all of these benefits Itroth wasn't satisfied. He thought that if one's circulatory system could serve as a host for mana, then why couldn't the rest of their body. And the existence of body refining techniques only served to solidify his beliefs.
The hundred flowers cultivation technique is the brainchild of this line of thinking and with it the concept of 'one with mana' where one's entire body serves as a host for mana was born.
But Ray wasn't anywhere close to that level, when he achieved 'one with mana', Itroth was 500 years old. While Ray would certainly achieve it much faster due to having both Itroth's understanding and instructions, and also his mistakes, it would still take a long time.
He wasn't going to achieve this tomorrow.
"With the amount of food that I have I could stay here and cultivate for 50 years at least." He glanced over to the massive pile of meat and corrected his statement. "Make that a few hundred. But I wouldn't be caught dead staying here for that long. Because my body is free of impurities, I age slowly but I might die of boredom before I get to that point."
He got up from his sitting position and planted the 6 seeds that he formed earlier. "Plus I have a lot of things to do, I still don't know where the Black Sands mountain range is. Itroth had no knowledge of it so either it was discovered or formed after his death or it is such an obscure place that it was part of the little that got decayed."
With the 6 seeds planted in his soul sea they would absorb the mana from the air and grow at their own pace, this was undeniably slower but he didn't want to continue cultivating flowers that he had no need of currently. Plus unlike when Itroth had started off with the hundred flowers cultivation technique, he didn't have to sit in one place and wait for a particularly large batch of flowers to grow. He carried his garden with him wherever he went so he had some more freedom with how many flowers he could have growing naturally.
After cooking a bit of the meat from the first one he exited from his soul sea and reappeared in the desert, he didn't have the proper ingredients to properly extract the nutrients from the properly cut meat so he didn't bother trying.
It was day time when he reappeared and if his timer was correct then he should have most of the day left.
"If I am right then that goblin fucker and his followers would have already left by now. And I doubt that they would have the time to properly pack up everything, especially in such a dangerous forest."
He looked in the direction that the camp should have been and disappeared. But instead of teleporting over to it, he was simply moving so fast that it was difficult to see, even the sand under him was unaffected.
"I really want to teleport to it, but I have no way of knowing what is there when I do so. Unless I have to or find a way to monitor every single place that I have been, I can only teleport if I know it is safe or if that's the only option."
With no reason to slow down and almost no obstacles to stop him he covered the vast distance from the center of the desert to the edge of the forest in a few seconds and without slowing down he used his powerful legs to clear the hundred meter trees and run on top of them.
Using the same strategy he used to run on the sand without sinking into it, he could run on the little leaves and branches at the very top of the trees. The mana platform was more than enough to support his weight and he only needed something to form it on.
"If I refine this technique more, then I could theoretically walk on air. Though flying is still out of the question. I didn't expect flying to be so complicated."
From what he understood from Itroth, flying was more complicated that just levitating your body, and while it was easier for those with a heart of mana, that didn't mean that it was a walk in the park.
Unless one had an exceptional amount of mana then they would have to use their minds to control the surrounding mana to propel them forward. Not only that but the speed, direction and most importantly stability of their flight was completely dependent on their control over it.
Increasing control over mana for a normal person is extremely difficult, so only those who reached a certain stage would have the privilege, which is why flying mounts are so popular.
For humans this stage is known as the ascended, which is in reference to their ability to fly, and while it is rather early on in the chain of power, any and every step up on this chain is difficult.
From lowest to highest the stages went: apprentice, practitioner, ascended, master, grand master, saint, extremity, supremacy, and lastly deity with each having a corresponding number on the CR scale. 1 being the lowest and 9 being the highest.
Even Itroth followed this method of flight, even though he was known to create solutions to even the most insignificant problems. By the time he was ready to start flying, a combination of factors allowed it to come easily to him, so he found no issue and subsequently didn't find a solution to a problem that wasn't there.
"If I manage to find a method to walk on air, then flying would come soon after. There is no reason for me to follow the method that everyone else does. Especially since it seems so inefficient."
With the knowledge that he knew from Itroth, flying in the way that he wanted to was definitely possible, but he had to fix a few things.
First was his throughput, the more dense the mana in the air is, the more difficult it was to fly. If he could use his own method then that wouldn't be as major of a factor, but it would still be an important part. If he wanted consistent flying no matter where he went then the amount of mana that he could use at any given time needed to be much higher than it is now.
There were many ways to do this, with achieving one with mana being the most effective. Naturally this wasn't an option, not because he couldn't do it, but because it would take too long. If he dedicated all of his time to nothing but cultivating the hundred flowers cultivation method then by the time he achieved one with mana he would long be able to fly the normal method.
He wanted to gain the ability to fly much faster than that so that would be a last resort, and it's not like he wasn't going to cultivate any way, it would just be a little bit slower.
Thankfully increasing his throughput lines up with another one of his goals, gaining the ancient behemoth body, and hopefully go beyond even Itroth himself and evolve it to the ancient behemoth physique!
In his experiments to recreate the ancient behemoth body, Itroth realized that instead of just trying to get it right in one go, it would be better to recreate easier parts of it and add them up.
One of these parts was the Divine Devouring Body, which evolved from the Devouring Body. It in and of itself is also an amalgamation of other lesser parts and among other things it increased the throughput of mana.
Unfortunately for him Itroth was born with the Devouring Body, meaning that he had to find a way to create it on his own.
"What was that bastard not born with, I'm surprised he wasn't royalty or something."
The next and final part of his plan needed him to increase the efficiency of his use. Right now, any time he used mana a lot would be wasted, and while it wasn't a problem now, if he tried to fly in this state then he would quickly run out of mana.
"That I will have to figure out myself, technically on the way to the ancient behemoth body the efficiency would increase, but that's later on. I am not even going to attempt to look at that part, gives me a headache every time I do."
ROOAAR!!!!!!
While he was pondering to himself, he heard the cry of a powerful beast and a wave of uncomfortable energy hit him, clearly the same that he felt earlier.
With no hesitation he readjusted his path and headed in that direction.
The beast was obviously injured for it to sound like that, and if there was one thing that he wasn't going to miss out on was such powerful prey.
"I don't like how it makes me feel, but I would live in regret not checking out what is going on. And it's not like the camp is going anywhere, with how close I am I would have detected if someone is there and there is no one."