Silas sat down in a lotus position next to the elder's lifeless body, his breath slowing as he closed his eyes and allowed his senses to focus inward. The energy from the fierce battle still coursed through his veins, but now that the immediate danger had passed, it was time to advance. His body had long since broken through to the Transcendent stage, and now his Qi cultivation was finally ready to follow suit.
He felt the qi within his dantian, surging and roiling like a storm. For years, he had been at the peak of the Mortal stage, his qi growing denser and more powerful, waiting for the right moment to condense and take him to the next level. After the battle with the elder, he could sense that the moment had finally arrived.
His dantian, the core of his qi cultivation, began to tremble, and Silas smiled faintly.
"So, it's time."
Silas's qi, which had always flowed like a strong river, suddenly began to shift. The powerful threads of qi within him started to coil tighter and tighter, condensing inward, as if a great force was pulling them together. The qi spiraled in his dantian, spinning with increasing intensity.
His body began to draw in the ambient energy around him, the natural qi of the world rushing toward him like a flood, enveloping him in a faint mist that swirled around his form. The very air around him seemed to hum with energy, vibrating with the raw power of his breakthrough.
The transformation began deep within his dantian. The spiraling threads of qi compressed further, and under the immense pressure, the first drop of liquid qi began to form, shining brightly in the dark void of his core. This liquid qi was purer, more potent than anything he had experienced before. It pulsed with the energy of death and destruction, ready to transform him from within.
As more droplets of liquid qi condensed within his dantian, Silas could feel his entire body responding. His meridians, long tempered and strengthened by his body cultivation, now expanded to accommodate this newfound power. The qi flowed through his meridians like a raging torrent, purifying and strengthening them with each pass. His body, already refined to the Transcendent level through the Grim Reaper King Fiendgod Body Refinement method, now welcomed the transformative energy of qi refinement that he had learned from his inherited memories.
The mist around him grew thicker, drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and as the qi from the world infused his body, his dantian underwent a complete transformation. The swirling mist in his dantian solidified further, condensing until it formed a small, spinning orb of liquid qi. This was the mark of the Transcendent level in qi cultivation.
Suddenly, Silas felt a strange sensation ripple through his body. His meridians, now wide and perfect, pulsed with an eerie, cold energy. He could feel the essence of death that he had long cultivated with his body now merging with his qi. The energy of death and destruction, once only part of his physical body, now permeated his qi cultivation as well.
His body was being reforged, not just by the deathly energies of the Grim Reaper King method but now by the power of his qi cultivation. His dantian, surrounded by the qi of destruction, began to resonate with the deathly aura, further refining the liquid qi until it was no longer just pure energy—it was infused with the essence of decay, of destruction itself.
His qi now carried the same deadly power as his physical strikes. Any who faced him would not only feel the force of his body's strength but the cold embrace of death from his very qi. The two powers, body and qi, were no longer separate forces within him—they were one and the same, intertwined like the threads of a noose.
Silas's breathing deepened as the transformation within his dantian completed. The liquid qi, dense and potent, flowed smoothly through his newly strengthened meridians, filling every corner of his body with the deadly energy of the Grim Reaper King. His qi cultivation had finally reached the early Transcendent stage.
He opened his eyes, and the mist around him dissipated instantly. His eyes, sharp and cold, gleamed with an eerie light as the last traces of the transformation settled into place. He could feel the immense difference in his power now, his qi cultivation no longer a step behind his body refinement. The two forces were now aligned, both fueled by the same deathly energy.
Silas first looked down at the Riverstone elder's corpse and, with a bit of his qi infused with the Lesser Dao of Rot, he destroyed the elder's corpse, getting rid of any evidence of his involvement.
While the Riverstone clan wasn't much stronger than the Armstrong clan, he still didn't want a problem to be started because of him.
Silas then looked down at Kai, who was still messing with the elder's spatial ring.
"Kai, can I see that?" he asked.
"Sure," Kai said with a shrug of his shoulders as he tossed the ring over.
Silas quickly caught it, and for the first time, he bound the ranked (Rank 2) spatial ring to himself.
It was large. Much larger than his unranked spatial ring, and it had several valuable items inside that the Riverstone elder had likely accumulated over his long life.
There were several Dao seals inside, some for movement, others for small bursts of power. There was even one defensive talisman remaining.
'What is this?' Silas thought as he saw two weapons laying inside the ring.
He quickly pulled them out and was now holding two sickles that were each ranked magic treasures.
"Hmm…"
'I think I could use these,' Silas thought. In his inherited memories, he knew that the weapon of the first Grim Reaper King was a scythe, and sickles were in the same family. That's why previously when he had used his Dao, he had created it in the form of four sickles.
"Whoosh!" He then used his newly acquired divine will to control the sickles, guiding them through the air.
"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" After messing around with them for a little while, he nodded his head and placed them back inside his new and upgraded spatial ring. He also transferred all his other items from his old spatial ring to the new one.
After that, he looked down at the Spiritual grade sword that the elder had used. He bent down and picked it up.
'I have no need for this, but I can give it to the clan,' he thought. While the weapon was higher ranked than his own, his path was that of the scythe, and he had no plans to change. Not only was the scythe the path of the Grim Reaper King, but it was his Armstrong clan's path as well. It seemed to be fate pushing him down the path of the scythe, and he saw no reason to stray off course now.
Besides, in his inherited memories, he had just the thing for his scythe and his armor. But first, he went around and picked up all the formation flags that were now out and open for all to see since they were no longer being provided any qi.
"Come on, Kai, let's go let Red know we're ok," Silas said. Then they made their way back over to Red and soon let him know they had made it.
After going through the peak Transcendent qi cultivator's things that were more or less just lesser versions of his master's items, Silas sat down and began to start the Fiendgod weapon refinement from his inherited memories.