After practicing the temperate body registration for half an hour, Noah easily reached temperate body rank 3, undergoing one more round of impurity expulsion.
Deciding to seclude himself in place until the next big event, he concentrated for the next two days on reaching temperate body rank 4.
Raising his head, he closed his eyes and pushed his perception to the limit, noticing how a special kind of energy flowed through every corner of the world.
"This is world energy...It is the same as the world origin energy described in the Night Elf records but thousands of times more diluted."
Normally, a cultivator of the fourth stage of the temperate body could barely begin to sense traces of this energy but due to Noah's natural talent coupled with his source condition that allowed him to better harmonize with the energies of the world, his perception managed to rival that of cultivators above him by two great stages.
Setting aside the analysis of this energy for the future, Noah focused on the incense burner, noting that he had few herbs left to burn.
Grabbing a sample of each plant, he went out into the forest and began searching.
Because he already had a sample, he found it easier to find the other plants.
Returning to his cave, he began training again.
At dusk, he decided to go for a wander, disguising himself as just another peasant.
As he passed the high sky pavilion, he noticed a mob at the outer entrance.
Curious, he approached a person in the crowd and asked him about what was going on when he suddenly saw him.
A young man who looked familiar, lying lifeless on the ground.
"Sigh... Protagonists, they're like house of cards, you take away one part of the structure and the whole castle collapses..."
Shaking his head, Noah turned without looking back.
Yang Kai may have had a bright future and he may have been destined to save this universe but he had no regrets about taking away his chance for advancement.
He knew that his path would entail the possible annihilation of entire universes and yet he continued on his way without hesitation.
Feeling no longer in the mood for further wandering, he returned to his cave to train.
A week later, he stood up from his meditative position and felt the golden aura emanating from his body.
"Seventh stage of body tempering..."
Noah threw a punch at a nearby rock, shattering it into pieces.
"Not bad. Now I can finally start cultivating my internal qi."
Summoning the black book, he opened the fourth page and injected his consciousness into it, causing a stream of information to enter his mind.
"The secret art of pure Yang..."
Noah transformed into an eagle and flew towards the coiling dragon stream before descending.
As he descended, he could feel more and more of the dense yang energy permeating the place.
The coiling dragon stream was a huge crack formed by the attack of an upper realm cultivator who came to this small lower realm to hunt an ancient demon.
Despite destroying the demon's soul, the cultivator could not destroy its body and was only able to seal it deep inside this crevice using a special chain that contained a powerful Yang qi inside.
Then, that cultivator set up the High Heaven Pabilion to guard the corpse.
The chain was responsible for slowly dispersing the demonic qi from the corpse, which filled the entire coiling dragon stream.
That is why the qi coming from the coiling dragon stream was so confusing as it possessed both demonic qi and pure yang qi.
As it descended to a certain limit, the eagle-turned-noah opened its mouth and launched a ball of energy at one of the cliff walls, forming a small gap which it began to expand using earth magic.
Five minutes later, the small gap had turned into a small cave.
Landing on the ground, Noah turned back into his original form before beginning to carve a concealment matrix.
Upon finishing, he sat in a meditative position and began to circulate the secret art of pure yang.
Normally, a being like him who did not possess dantian would find it impossible to cultivate because it was a natural organ that could not be formed artificially, but because of the demon god's golden skeleton, his body now had both a dantian and a meridian system.
"I wonder how both energies will react in my body.
I just hope they don't end up clashing."
The reason Noah came all the way to this place to begin his cultivation was because the secret art of pure yang required a place rich in yang energy to cultivate and this specific place was full of such energy.
Entering a deep state of meditation, Noah spent the next three days accumulating yang qi in his meridians until saturation.
Suddenly, all the qi yang coursing through Noah's meridians surged toward the dantian like a raging wave, condensing into a drop of golden liquid that floated into the dantian.
Sighing, Noah teleported to his lair and pulled out a small seed from his magic gourd, pouring the drop of qi yang he had just condensed into it.
Red veins protruded from the seed, making it resemble a fiery heart.
Noah planted the seed at the cave entrance before teleporting back to his cultivation cave, lighting the incense and continuing his previous cultivation.
Upon using the incense, Noah immediately noticed how his cultivation speed slowed down by about 20% but he didn't care and continued meditating.
Four days later, Noah again condensed a drop of qi yang, sending it to his dry dantian.
Another five days later, two more drops of qi yang formed again.
Stretching for a while, Noah teleported near where he had planted the seed, now finding a young tree with ripe fruit in its place.
Plucking the fruits and stuffing them in his pockets, Noah returned to cultivating.
Today he planned to move directly from the seventh to the ninth stage of body tempering.
Circulating the secret art of pure yang, Noah swallowed a fruit while simultaneously absorbing the yang qi in the environment.
As he ate more fruit, more and more drops of yang qi condensed in his dantian.
When he reached ten drops, he suddenly stopped eating the fruits and his body trembled.
The ten drops of yang essence floating in his dantian shot out and began to course through his body, burning away any trace of impurities before melting into his organs, blood and bones.
Feeling his dantian dry again with his consciousness, Noah sighed before focusing on his body.
His body was now free of impurities and shone with a slight golden glow.
"Ninth stage of body tempering, not bad but I think I should wait a little longer before coming out of seclusion."
Noah sat back down and continued to condense more drops of yang essence into his dantian with the help of the fruits.
Two days later, he had managed to condense ten drops of yang essence.
Teleporting back to his first lair, he transformed into an eagle again before flying off into the sky.
After flying for a while, he saw a group of young men in red robes.
Swooping down, he swooped down on the group, returning to his original form before casting a spell that paralyzed them all.
Drawing a potion from his magical gourd, he drank it before placing his hands on the head of the leader of this group of young men.
The paralyzed young man watched in horror as Noah's body writhed as if there were maggots under his skin before his height, face and even clothes began to transform into a copy of himself.
Finishing with the doppler transformation, Noah crushed the young man's head before tossing him aside.
He then turned his attention to the other four young men who stared at him in horror.
He implanted a slave seal on each of them before nullifying the spell blocking their movements.
Looking at his megic core inside his now 50% depleted heart, he could only sigh.
As there was neither mana nor any derivatives such as chaos energy to replenish his lost energy, he could only use his spells sparingly.
"Good thing I brought a few magic crystals with me otherwise my mana reserve would have been completely depleted before I left this world."
Frowning at this problem, he began to think of a possible solution.
"If I modify the cultivation techniques of this world so that the world energy I absorb is converted into mana instead of becoming qi, maybe it would work but that would require too much time."
At the moment the only two cultivation techniques he knew were the secret art of pure yang and the technique obtained from the young man he had just supplanted which compared to the art of pure yang, was just junk.
"I need to gather more data."
Shaking his head, Noah led his group back to their camp, a mining area that exuded a rich yang essence.
Noah dismissed his companions and walked to a wooden house and respectfully greeted an old man.
The old man nodded and asked him.
"How goes your progress with Mei'er?"
Noah sighed and put on a look of defeat as he said.
"She keeps rejecting me every time I approach her."
"You must do everything you can. The sect leader hasn't been able to have a male child and only has those two girls, Jiao'er and Mei'er.
If you and your elder brother succeed in conquering those two, the blood partnership will belong to our Long family in the future."
"You are right grandfather. Only our Long family is worthy of leading the blood society."
Noah bowed before leaving.
As night fell, he turned into a fly and infiltrated the main warehouse of the mines.
Pulling out his magic gourd, he sucked out everything inside before leaving.
A couple of hours later, all hell broke loose when it was learned that the warehouse had been completely emptied.
The old man in charge of the mining area went crazy when he heard this news, but his anger only increased when he heard that his grandson had disappeared.
Back in the cave in the forest, Noah sat in a meditative position.
Swallowing a few sun fruits and absorbing the yang essence from the inflamed yang stones he got from the mine, he began his breakthrough process.
A large amount of yang qi began to flood his body, wanting to move forward, but his golden skeleton reacted by releasing a sinister yin energy that began to fight the yang energy.
Noah frowned and was about to act when the mana in his heart joined the battle.
Three different energies, a blue, a gold and a dark violet energy began a battle inside his body for less than a second before the blue mana formed a barrier that separated the violet energy from the gold energy, giving him the breathing room he needed to continue the advance.
A 50m radius storm formed over his head but he ignored it and continued his advance.
Every muscle in his body swelled to its limit before contracting again.
A great current of world energy entered his body, splitting into two parts. One went to the dantian, strengthening and nourishing it.
The other half was absorbed by the golden skeleton.