[After the second year, you start to focus entirely on the unnamed method.]
[Without some kind of excuse, you don't want to start practicing the techniques from the All Consuming Sect. You also don't want to start practicing the Core Consuming technique or Blood Essence Absorption technique while you are inside the Perch villa.]
[If you were to get caught practicing a Demonic technique, who knows what kind of ending you would face.]
[Soon, in the face of your relentless practice and comprehension, five more years go by. In the past few years, your cultivation has ceased entirely. At first, your father thought that it was a natural bottleneck that you should have no difficulty surpassing. After all, he was providing you with a plethora of resources and treasures that should ensure you advance to the Meridian Establishment realm.]
[What your father didn't know, however, was that you were purposely delaying your cultivation. He had thought that your unattributed Minor Core had caused your cultivation to stagnate. You didn't correct him. If your father were to find out that you had purposefully delayed your cultivation in the pursuit of the unnamed method, who knows what he would do to you.
[Still, without cultivating, your comprehension of the unnamed method increased exponentially. At some point during the past five years you had had the epiphany to comprehend the method with your Dao Seed in mind, and after that your speed of comprehension seemed to go beyond common sense.]
[Now, after five patient years, you finally comprehended the unnamed method to an initial level.]
[You discover that the method is divided into 11 levels. Your initial comprehension only covers the first two: Essence Refinement and Meridian Establishment.]
Aron took a deep breath in, his eyes slightly bulging in shock.
Thinking about what the 'him' of the simulation had done, Aron couldn't even begin to imagine what it meant.
If there were 11 levels and the first 2 were meant for the first 2 realms of cultivation, that would mean that there are at least 11 realms of cultivation. Up to now, he had only known that there were realms beyond Soul-Body. As for how many, that was something that he hadn't been taught.
On top of that, there was the fact that after thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of years, he had been the first to glean enough insights into this unnamed method that he would be able to cultivate it.
After so many generations, not a single patriarch or ancestor had reached a stage where they could practice this method. Now he, a mere Essence Refinement ant, would be able to practice what was in this method.
[As you read through the unnamed methods first and second levels, you discover the name that had eluded your family. The method is called the "Dao Essence Breathing" method.]
[Continuing through the first level, you discover why the first person to decode the method was you. In order to cultivate this method, a cultivator must have a Dao Seed. But nobody had been able to cultivate this method, because they would have had to break through to the Dao Seed realm with the method.]
[As far as you know, generating a Dao Seed in the Essence Refinement realm is something based only on luck and fate. Let alone the Essence Refinement realm, generating a Dao Seed before even making it to the Dao Seed realm is something that is unheard of.]
[If there were ever anyone who had done so, it would have been in a bygone era, millions of years in the past.]
[To cultivate the Dao Essence Breathing method, a cultivator in the Essence Refinement realm must absorb the world Essence, much like other Essence Refinement cultivators, and then they must circulate and flood that Essence into their hearts. With the Essence in their heart, eventually some few strands of it will make their way to the Dao Seed where they will be purified.]
[In this way, the method completely ignores all other necessary parameters of cultivation. The level of Core is irrelevant, the attribute doesn't matter.]
[In the end, the Essence that will make it to the cultivators Core will be several times more pure than if the cultivator had used any other method.]
[Only the top powers would have methods of that level. Even then they would be reserved for cultivators with the most potential.]
[After reading through the method, you begin to empty out your Core. Minute by minute, hour by hour, your cultivation slowly falls back to the very start of Essence Refinement.]
[Finally, after 7 hours of expelling the Essence from your body you have returned to the beginning of Essence Refinement.]
[Typically, such measures don't need to be taken when switching the cultivation method. For the Dao Essence Breathing, however, which will purify the Essence through the Dao Seed, it is beneficial to start from the very beginning.]
[After all, you would be much more powerful if you purify your Essence from the very beginning rather than from the middle stages of Essence Refinement. The difference in power that it will bring is immense.]
[Having comprehended the second level of Meridian establishment as well, you know that having a fully purified Essence Core will have effects that carry over.]
[Before you get the chance to continue cultivating, your father comes in and sees that your cultivation has fallen back to the very start.]
[When he looks at you, you can see the anger and displeasure in his eyes. Even deeper still, is the resentment that he holds towards you. He has given you resources for the past 7 years, yet you have given nothing in return. Not even your cultivation.]
[Before saying anything, he huffs in displeasure and leaves you in your room.]
[Though your face remains stoic as you watch him leave, on the inside you are panicking. You feel that after burning through so many resources and showing no results, your father will no longer have any use for you. It is just a matter of time before he'll kill you, or find some way to make use of your Dao Seed for his own use.]
[Still, you know you can't run away. Not this time. Whether or not he is watching you, someone is. And they definitely aren't weak.]
[Not knowing what to do, you leave your room and make your way to the training grounds. You think that a quick walk will help to clear your mind.]
[After an hour and no thoughts as to how to survive this calamity, you collapse at the big oak tree that you had rested at before. Slowly, your mind goes blank and you fall asleep.]
[As you wake up, you hear a pair of voices talking. One voice seems to belong to some kind of Elder. The wisdom in his voice is ever present. The second voice seems to belong to a girl.]
[As you open your eyes, you look in the direction of the two voices. The girl you recognize to be your half-sister, Julia. The Elder is someone you don't recognize, the clothes don't belong to your family either. From the green and gray emblem on their robes over their heart, you think of the Variant Earth Sect.]
"Indeed, this seems about the time that Julia would be recruited into the Variant Earth Sect. It seems they wanted to recruit her before she reached the Meridian Establishment realm. Though, it seems like she has been sitting at the peak of Essence Refinement for several years now. I suppose the family wanted her to wait and be recruited into a Sect."
Indeed, many cultivator families wished for their children to enter the Sects of the region.
Not only was it a sign of power, but those that entered a Sect were always the most promising. It was a sign of their potential.
Most promising children would start their paths of cultivation within the family, getting their Essence Refinement to the highest level they could before they were recruited. If a Sect wanted the, all they would have to do was switch their cultivating method. If they didn't get recruited, they would just continue down the same path.
As for why it took so long for Julia to be recruited? It takes time for the Sects to send out recruiters. The Variant Earth Sect governs so many empires and kingdoms, that it could take years to get to every single one.
That is part of the reason why the Sects only have Disciple Examinations every 15 years.
Elders will bring promising disciples from every province that the Sect controls to the Sect's main mortal city. There the disciple will wait until the examination and compete to enter the Sect.
15 years is the necessary amount of time needed for the Elders to go to and from every single province in their control and then return to the sect.
It didn't take Aron too long to figure out that this would be why Julia was still present at the Perch family and still in the Essence Refinement realm. It also probably meant that the Sect's examination was coming up soon. After all, in the previous simulation, another 7 years would be all that was needed for Julia to join the Sect, reach the Meridian Establishment realm, travel to the small town he had visited to investigate and then kill him.
For her to be recruited now, though a little late, seemed just about right.
Aron turned his attention back to the simulation.
[The pair were too far away for you to overhear, but your presence was still noted by the Elder.]
[As the Elder turned to glare at you, his eyes widened in realization.]
[Turning to ask Julia a question, he closed his eyes in thought for a moment. As his eyes opened, he flashed away, leaving Julia where she was.]
[When the Elder reappeared, he wasn't next to you, but 30 meters behind you instead. You heard a thump, only to turn around and see a body fall to the ground. The Elder flashed again, reappeared next to you, and grabbed your arm.]
[After grabbing you, the Elder grabbed Julia and flew out of the Perch villa. Launching himself at exceedingly fast speeds, the movement soon knocked you out.]
"This seems oddly familiar." Aron said, thinking back to the previous simulation.
"Is it my fate to be whisked away by some powerful Elder?"
[As you wake up, you notice that you can't recognize where you are.]
[Standing up, you start to walk around the room that you are in. As you stretch your limbs, you notice that, besides the bed and a table, there is nothing else in the room.]
"At least this time there's a table." Aron said. "Last time it was just a bed and a half-broken roof."
[After regaining some clarity as to your situation, you approach the door and enter a hallway. From what you can tell, you are in a small inn.]
[You walk in the direction of laughter and shouting, which also happens to be the same direction as the smell of food.]
[With the sounds of your stomach, you pick up your pace.]
[As you reach the dining area, you see a large crowd of people on one half of the room, and a lone silhouette on the other half.]
[As you approach the silhouette, the other half of the dining area seems to go quiet. You stop to turn and look at them, only to see them giving you a weird stare. You feel a little scared.]
[Still, you persist and approach the figure. As you get closer, they look up from their meal with a glare, seemingly ready to pounce. Upon seeing your face, however, the glare disappears and their face becomes indifferent.]
[You take that as an invitation to sit. After ordering food, the lone figure, who happens to be Julia, begins to fill you in on what happened.]
[Though she had also fallen unconscious as the Elder flew off, she had woken much earlier because of her higher cultivation. She was also much more familiar with the current situation because of what the Elder and the family had told her before she left.]
[According to Julia, you were in a city called Thalli. This was the closest city to the Variant Earth Sect, and had been developed by them solely as a depot for all promising and prospective cultivators. This is where the Elders of the Sect would bring those that they had chosen to take the Disciple Examination, and where those that were chosen would stay and practice until the time of the examination.]
[From what your half-sister said, there was only a single year for disciples to prepare before the examination started.]
[As Julia told you more and more about the examination and of the large city called Thalli, you grew more and more excited on the inside, though you did not show it. After you both finished eating, Julia had grown a new perspective on you, admiring your disposition and thinking you to be a very serious person.]
"I thought that this was going to be a dead end back at the Perch villa, but it seems this simulation may be successful after all."