After receiving his contribution points, Clifford returned to his residence to strengthen his dantian. Eventually, he abandoned the traditional techniques and decided to expand his dantian by enraging the Qi inside using the dark force. He saw no reason to follow conventional methods when he had a shortcut to enhance himself. For now, he considered the techniques merely as guidelines for advancing his cultivation, but he did not plan to rely on them.
Sitting in a meditation position, Clifford absorbed the atmospheric Qi, ensuring his dantian was filled to the brim. Once done, he carefully guided a wisp of dark force into his dantian, causing the Qi to shrink in size as if it were avoiding the dark force at all costs. However, the Qi supply in Clifford's dantian didn't feel diminished. Instead, he felt he could store more than before.
When Clifford retracted his dark force, the Qi surprisingly remained in the same state. This prompted him to collect more Qi and test his theory again. About five hours later, Clifford finished his eighth attempt. He felt the Qi supply in his dantian had increased to at least five times its original amount. However, this had a downside as he felt heavy and bloated with all this Qi in his dantian.
For the time being, he decided to perform this process only once or twice to avoid overloading himself. He called this process compression, something he believed was unique to him due to his dark force.
Moving on to the next step, Clifford retrieved a significant number of corpses to overload his dark force, anticipating the consequences of his upcoming actions. Using a quarter of his dark force supply, Clifford enraged his dantian Qi, causing it to crash repeatedly against his dantian walls like violent waves.
Unable to handle the intense pain, Clifford began to reduce the load on his dantian by infusing the Qi into the rest of his body. However, this made things worse as the pain spread to every part of his body. With no other choice, Clifford began pounding the ground beneath him, discarding the Qi. Soon, Clifford released all the Qi, finally relieving himself from the pain.
Breathing heavily, Clifford collapsed on the ground before attempting to recharge his Qi. However, the faint pain intensified the moment he tried to refuel his dantian, signaling that his dantian was severely damaged. Resolving to rest, Clifford closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. A couple of hours later, he awoke feeling better. Noticing that he didn't feel as bloated as before, Clifford decided to repeat the process a few more times until the sensation disappeared completely.
From the second attempt onward, Clifford held the raging Qi inside his dantian, determined to keep it all in until he passed out. Gradually, his condition worsened as his orifices started bleeding from the damage affecting his organs. Shortly after, his bones began cracking and crumbling, causing him to lose consciousness. Although he had passed out, the Qi continued raging for a couple more hours before calming down completely on its own.
Time passed slowly as Clifford's body continued to recover gradually. A day later, Credo, unable to hold himself back from checking on Clifford since he didn't meet him at the agreed time, found Clifford's rigid body lying on the ground. Sensing the same aura around Clifford once again, Credo lifted him and placed him on his bed before leaving to attend to his own matters. He knew Clifford's body was healing on its own just as it had during his trial, so he wasn't overly concerned.
Approximately four hours later, Clifford was stretching his body, curious to know how far he had progressed and wondering who had placed him on the bed. As far as he could guess, only Credo and Reymond came to mind since no one else could enter and leave residences as freely as they could. Remembering his appointment with Credo, Clifford left his residence. A few minutes later, he reached his destination. However, finding the office empty, Clifford decided to make his way to Reymond since he was ready to attune his dantian.
"Are you ready to leave?" Reymond asked upon seeing Clifford. Fortunately, he was not as busy as Credo.
"Yes, but I guess I'll have to delay the disciple thing for later. However, what should I do with these corpses first?" Clifford retrieved two corpses from the pile he had, dropping them in front of Reymond. Although he knew they were valuable, he didn't know where to send them or how much they were worth.
"Hmm," Reymond looked at the bodies with a frown, wondering how Clifford managed to get them. "How did you manage to get these?"
"Through a service mission," Clifford responded clearly, lying to hide the fact that he had raided an entire hideout. "A couple of them attacked a convoy I was protecting, and I had no choice but to kill them."
"I see," Reymond said, standing up from his seat. "Keep them for now. Don't exchange them until you are strong enough to handle the consequences of your actions." Pausing for a moment, Reymond sighed. "These rats flood the empire; they will come for you once they know what you did."
"Why doesn't the empire get rid of them if they are harmful?" Clifford asked, following behind Reymond and wondering why they were left alone instead of being hunted down.
"Because they are useful," Reymond replied, massaging his chin. "Why do you think the outer world is named that?"
"Eh, I don't care much about its name. However, I can't deny that I'm deeply curious about that world itself," Clifford responded after thinking deeply about how that world was different from the one he lived in.
"Hmm, I guess you will come to understand on your own later." With that, Reymond grabbed Clifford before disappearing from their place.
A few minutes later, they both appeared on the borders of the empire. Surprisingly, the scene around this place had changed dramatically compared to how it was before.