"Excellent job, both of you. Thorin, check out that half of the body for the monster core. The energy of an early intent materialization demonic beast is very useful and can help us break through." Kaelen appeared from the side and foraged the other half of the flaming horn Rhino to find its demonic core.
"Got it!" The very tall teenager rushed up to the other half and began to search.
After a few minutes, Kaelen was finally the one to find the core near the heart area of the beast.
"Rai, how was the battle? Do you believe you could've defeated the beast by yourself?" Kaelen turned to him and asked.
Raizel swung his dual blades, wiping away the blood on the edges. Then, he holstered them into his blade pouches on his waist. His slim and fit physique, was well showcased by his close fitted pants and sleeveless top.
He looked at Kaelen and said, "I don't think it would've been difficult to defeat it by myself. However, it's not even an earth-rank demonic beast like its stronger counterpart—the Violent Flame Demonic Rhino."
"What about you?" he asked back.
Kaelen thought for a second before answering. "I shouldn't have a problem now that I broke through the 8th stage, but as you say, to defeat a fifth-grade ranked demonic beast would be extremely difficult even for me. After I break through the extreme stages, however, my strength should see a drastic increase."
Indeed, Kaelen had noticed he had the greatest strength boost when breaking through extreme stages. Though it wasn't an increase brought by the realm as one would expect—it was from his bloodlines.
He didn't know why, but he felt his strength would explode once more when he reached the three extremes of Elemental Resonance. In fact, for someone like him who aimed for the extreme foundation, a breakthrough may be more impactful than a regular great realm breakthrough for others.
As such, Kaelen looked forward to his breakthroughs.
While Kaelen was using his intuition to gauge how much his power would grow with the next breakthroughs, he did not know that breakthroughs to extreme stages had additional benefits for cultivators with powerful bloodlines.
For one, it helps refine the purity of the bloodline.
For many people, beasts, and even the myriad races, their bloodlines descended from ancient beings. After countless generations, their lineage diluted into being barely existent.
Bloodline dilution follows the universal principles of entropy and degradation, which state that things go from an orderly state to a chaotic state (bloodline mixages) and things go from an optimal stage to a less-than-optimal stage over time. Those two principles are very similar but mean different things; as such, they are two different truths that go together.
Following those principles, bloodline ranks usually degrade and lose in purity over time (purity often means quality/strength). So an immortal bloodline, if diluted through generations, may become a stellar bloodline of a lower purity. Of course, the stronger the bloodline, the denser it is, and the more generations it takes for it to degrade. For an immortal bloodline, it would take countless generations for it to degrade even a tiny bit.
In Kaelen's case, his bloodline grade and purity are extremely high so, many of the additional benefits of the nine extremes were not useful to him. Instead, he benefits largely in the awakening aspect: by breaking through the nine extremes, he further awakens the sleeping bloodline power in him, which drastically boosts his strength, more so than others who would use the breakthrough to purify their bloodline and a little bit to grow their strength.
The extreme stages of elemental resonances are the most important for people with elemental bloodlines like Kaelen and Raizel because they must refine their vital body parts with elemental sources, which helps awaken their bloodlines' powers much earlier than normal; this can only be good for them, but more on that later.
Naturally, there are ways to continually keep a bloodline at its peak or even strengthen it through generations, which is the principle of evolution.
For nothing to be absolute, there have to be equally prevalent polar universal truths that compete; here it is the evolution principle that competes with degradation and entropy. Evolution is a bit more complex than the other two individually; in a sense, you would have to merge the two concepts together to equal the principle of evolution.
If a powerful being had descendants that eventually surpassed it, then the bloodline would become slightly more powerful. This naturally means that bloodline grades are not fixed and are even less of an indicator of absolute strength.
After all, it is inheritance from the blood, but there are other types of inheritance, not much weaker.
…
After grabbing the demonic core, the group all took some time to cultivate before proceeding further.
The next area of interest grew increasingly more dangerous. Since they were not just here to accomplish a mission but also to explore, Kaelen and the others felt like increasing their strength was very important.
And so, even the previous week, they had stopped after three days of running and floating about through the wilderness to cultivate, and Kaelen had broken through two stages during those three days. Today was their second stop.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Kaelen took out a dozen demonic cores of different colors, but mostly similar sizes, which were about the size of an apple.
There were four red ones, five yellow ones, three gold cores, two blue cores, one black and white, three purple and one blood red, and one black and red.
Beside him were all his friends who were looking at the cores in his hands with glistening eyes.
"Are those the cores of all the beasts you've defeated during your training?" Su Yao asked with surprise in her eyes.
There were so many, a total of nineteen. Each core was at least mid-fourth grade (Innate Spirit Realm equivalent) or upper and peak grade.
Specifically, there were five peak, ten upper, and four middle fourth grade.
"I didn't think you hadn't yet refined them." Thorin also said.
"Of course he hasn't, or do you think he would only be at the sixth stage after seven months?" Raizel added before reaching for a purple and gold core.
"Which beasts did those cores belong to?" He asked as he juggled the cores like balls.
Kaelen was caught off guard and furrowed his brow as he tried to respond. "Ah, those are from the Sword-winged Lightning Eagle and the Diamond-clawed Demonic Wolf, mid-fourth stage and upper fourth stage respectively. Since you have both thunder and gold elements, you can use them." That said, he took two more gold and purple cores and tossed them at him.
"Thanks, bro." Raizel caught the other two and said excitedly. These should allow him to complete the extreme stages.
He willed an object out of his treasure ring and took out a weird-shaped purple gold gem. It was only the size of a palm but exuded a terrible quantity of lightning energy.
Seeing the gem, everyone's eyes glowed in shock.
"That's a thunder attribute source crystal heart, a variant one at that. Heavens, where did you find that?" Tang Hao reacted first in pure astonishment.
Even Thorin was surprised. He did not think Raizel would have one so fast, but when he thought of Raizel's talent and his mysterious background, he didn't think it would be hard for him to get one.
Noticing everyone's obvious shock, Raizel simply laughed. "My master gave it to me. He said it was one of the most expensive treasures he owned, if not the most. Since he never wanted to sell it, he decided to keep it for his best student."
He stood up and hurriedly walked beside a lake nearby and sat to cultivate.
The day was nearing its end as the sun slowly receded into the background.
After throwing the cores to Raizel, Kaelen took the blood core, the rhino core he just dug up, as well as one red core and threw them to Thorin, who grabbed them enthusiastically. Thorin had a peculiar flame attribute that wasn't just a flame. Kaelen gave him a blood core and two flame cores nonetheless. The blood core was useful for everyone who had a bloodline, while the red cores could feed his flames.
"Thank you, Kaelen." He also gave his thanks. He truly needed those. His sister didn't give him many resources besides a few key items for specific breakthroughs, so he was in dire need of cultivation resources such as these, and these were all heaven or earthly beast cores, so it was very pure elemental energy. He nodded to Kaelen and left to go cultivate.
"By the way, Tang Hao, what is your attribute again?" Looking at the leftover cores, Kaelen took two blue cores and gave them to Xue Qing; those should allow her to advance and even break through to the Sun Spirit stage, the last of the two supreme stages of the Innate Spirit Realm.
As mentioned in the past, one can break through to Intent Materialization after the Profound Spirit stage, but some can use moon spiritual Qi and sun spiritual Qi to massively increase their innate spiritual Qi and even allow it to manifest into a solid shape if they're lucky and gifted.
Xue Qing accepted the blue cores and bowed in thanks, then left to cultivate beside Raizel, who had already begun to absorb the elemental energy within the cores.
The pretty boy sat peacefully near the lake with a purple and gold core in his left and right hands respectively.
The cores shone brilliantly as streams of elemental energy leaked out of the gems through his palms and entered his body.
Unnoticeable to himself, but very obvious to others, his purple hair turned half golden as a terrifying beastly gold aura shone on his right side, while a mysterious and mighty purple aura flowed on his left side.
Xue Qing watched him for a moment in awe and terror as she felt an instinctive fear from both of the auras released by him. Eventually, she sat and cultivated herself.
Back to the others.
Thorin looked at Kaelen in surprise. "You still don't know what my elemental affinity is?"
Seeing his face, Kaelen looked at him weirdly, "I've never seen you fight; how could I know?"
The latter scoffed. "I guess that makes sense. I just expected you to have guessed already since some geniuses can see the elemental affinities of others."
"Hm. Maybe after I refine the eyes of the elements, I will, but for now, that's not something I can do." Kaelen simply replied as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh- I have an affinity for sand, so I guess I can use gold and earth cores, earth primarily," Tang Hao said.
"Oh? Sand, that is a mystical attribute. I underestimated you, fatty." Kaelen said in a laughing tone. He then took three yellow cores and the last gold one and tossed them to him.
"Who are you calling fatty? This prince is not fat—I am big-boned. See how I beat you up after I break through with your gifts. Ah-ah-ah." Tang Hao awkwardly caught the cores and immediately glared at Kaelen before running away with a triumphant laugh.
Finally, it was only Su Yao and him left. Looking at the remaining cores, Kaelen only took the black and white core and handed it to her.
"I believe this is the only core that would be useful to you. Isn't it?" He said with a smile.
Su Yao grabbed the core from his hands as their hands touched. She looked up to his eyes, and time paused as their gazes met, just like that time... she quickly retracted her hand after a few moments softly said, "Yes, thank you." She then closed her eyes to cultivate.
At least she attempted to; she had to take a moment to calm down her racing heart, but she kept quiet, and her eyes remained closed.
"hm?' Looking at Su Yao's pink yet expressionless face, Kaelen couldn't know how she felt inside.
"Su Yao's attribute should be light and wind. Both are rare attributes. The wind attribute should come from her mother, while the light attribute should come from the divine Meng Clan—her mother's side..."
Putting other matters aside, he took the remaining cores and placed them in his lap.
Although everyone used cores aligned with their affinities, everyone could use other elemental cores as well, but the increase is very little. However, Kaelen was a bit different because of his mixed attributes.
For one, the Infinite Sun's energy is a mix of light, gold, and flame elements as well as another mysterious energy Kaelen can't name yet. It is that energy that separates his infinite suns flame from regular sun elemental energy, which is already an extremely rare attribute. Since most humans cannot withstand the flames of the sun, it is usually an attribute that can only be passed through a select few bloodlines and not other types of inheritances. Unless one is born with a special solar physique.
Because of the mix inside solar flames, Kaelen can use other cores, namely those with gold and fire cores at his disposal to increase his elemental energy.
As for his annihilation energy… that is even more of a cheat since it uses all other energy as a source.