Chapter 53: A different approach with the same results

Yun Jhin was flying steadily towards the nearby city, but he stopped in a nearby mountain range and entered a naturally created cave.

The cave was pretty spacious so besides putting some formations around it he didn't dig further, he let the baby dragon out of his cloak and observed its body more closely.

The baby dragon's scales had some strange patterns on it but they were very small to the point that Yun Jhin had to enhance his eyesight with ki to see them.

The patterns looked like clouds and waves at the same time, but they were a deep purple color with a sun-like proportion in the middle of them.

The dragon was sleeping soundly as Yun Jhin observed it with his eyes, then he used his soul willpower to directly enter into his consciousness space, his consciousness was currently sleeping so nothing happened when he entered his mind.

Yun Jhin looked around and finally identified his soul body, he looked at it for a while and shook his head he couldn't identify anything from it like this.

He left the dragon's mind space and created a scalpel with his ki, he started operating on him cutting his chest open and looking inside him, the dragon was still sleeping soundly unless his soul was damaged Yun Jhin could patch him right back up, even though his body wasn't immortal such a weak type of injury won't do anything to him.

He looked at his internal organs and realized that they were quite different compared to what the theories said, Yun Jhin couldn't put it in words but he realized the dragon was special, and not in a good way.

As he observed the patterns in which the organs were arranged he realized that they were arranged in a formation, a strange formation per se, he used his formation knowledge to see what it could do and his eyes widened.

The formation was supposed to liberate his soul in the future, this was quite strange considering how he was created. Yun Jhin took a better look at the organs as he poked them with his scalpel which made the young dragon start to thrash around.

His organs started to glow with dark energy that radiated hatred, it was the residual soul willpower of Mijil!

This woman was of dragon descent and she should have known about the peculiarities of an artificial dragon, after all, Yun Jhin got this skill from killing an azure dragon from the evil faction.

It seemed the evil faction was disbanded and the skill was kept by the imperial family then it was shared with every pure dragon. Since a pure dragon was Mijil's father that meant that she got her hands on the technique one way or another.

There was a formation to free the artificial dragon's soul in the scriptures that he read, that's why Yun Jhin recognized the formation rather quickly, it seemed with her last grasp of spiritual power she entered the body of the little dragon while her own body was eaten alive and altered his internal organs into this formation.

Maybe she thought that the dragon would betray Yun Jhin in the future and be his demise, but she severely underestimated Yun Jhin due to her lack of knowledge.

Yun Jhin smirked as he looked at the formation and used his scalpel to rearrange the organs on how they were supposed to be, using the knowledge of the technique he made a different formation using the organs.

A self-destruction one, with one thought of his the dragon, would self destruct and even take out peak King Realm experts after he broke through to the 1st stage of said realm.

He patched up the baby dragon using a ki sewing needle and then he cauterized the wounds, after a short while the wounds started healing by themselves as the ki circulation in the dragon's body restored.

Yun Jhin put the baby dragon back into his cloak, destroyed the formations that he laid around the cave, and left towards the nearby city.

After he went to the city he walked into a restaurant where he ordered some food and tea, he was currently in the biggest restaurant in the city, where the latest gossip was talked about.

"Have you heard? The giant tribe and the Zither sect almost killed each other!"

"Well that's half right, the giant tribe only lost their main chieftain along with most of their soldiers and hunters, I also heard the new prodigy from the dragon clan also fell at the Zither Sect!"

"The one who won the bloodline tournament? Wow, I'm sure that her father won't be happy, isn't he an outer general in the imperial army? Isn't he a 3rd stage Emperor realm expert?"

"Yeah, I heard he killed 20 subordinates who were dumb enough to enter his tent after he heard the news."

"I wonder who killed them, did the Zither sect patriarch and sect master ended their closed-door cultivation?"

"Maybe, who knows? What we know is that Kong Luo is extremely angry for the death of his daughter."

"Aren't you a little too presumptuous to use his name?"

The man who said the outer general's name started sweating as he looked around, but then he shook his head and left the restaurant.

Yun Jhin ate the food and drank the tea then paid, afterward he left the restaurant and the city, he knew that from what these people said, Mijil's father would come to investigate about what happened!

Fortunately, he didn't leave anyone alive that saw his face or sensed his aura, at most they would think that the one who attacked was the sect master or patriarch of the Zither sect who exited closed-door cultivation to save the sect but was too late, so he unleashed his anger on all of the giants and the general's daughter without thinking about the consequences.

Yun Jhin decided to ignore whatever happened next, after all if he was just a bystander that did his job there was a lower chance of them thinking that he had anything to do with what happened.

He needed to find a sect that specialized in body refinement and either take over it or steal some resources that could help him finish his body refinement, he wanted to get to the maximum rank of 7500 so in the future, he wouldn't come across such cultivation bottlenecks as he did now.

Yun Jhin started to think about the sect's information that he memorized and knew there was one such sect in the middle continent that focused on body refinement, it was one of the middle-ranked sects with a patriarch at the 5th or 6th level of the King Realm, but he had a higher battle power due to his extremely tough body so he could fight 7th King Realm experts.

Taking over the sect would be impossible with the patriarch not being in closed-door cultivation, and unfortunately for Yun Jhin the man was extremely active when it came to sect activities, it was also because body cultivation didn't require much time to practice and only lot's of resources, the stronger the body the more ki it could accumulate and of higher purity as well, the higher the purity the bigger the density of ki.

The denser the ki the more output, in conclusion, if two people clashed the one with denser ki would surely win, and not by little, more like by a landslide, body refinement also increased lifespan but not as much as ki cultivation, just like cultivation beasts the human body could reach 10,000 in rank, cultivation beasts innately cultivated their body along with their ki.

This was why they had way tougher bodies than human's naturally, but that didn't mean humans couldn't train their bodies, it was a more expensive thing for them to do, it was also very painful.

Yun Jhin left the city behind him as he flew towards the sect grounds of the Stone Body sect, the sect was named after their main body refining technique that everyone could get their hands on regardless if they joined the sect, or not, it was a free technique that anyone who was interested in body refining could get their hands on.

This was how the sect was attracting youths to join it, they thought that a free technique meant that everyone could cultivate but the thing was, body cultivation was extremely painful and only those with high willpower could withstand it if their body wasn't of a high rank nor did it have a good constitution they wouldn't be able to go far on this cultivation path either.

As long as their body was good for refinement they would also have a good talent for ki cultivation.

Most of the time bodies that ranked between 5000-7000 would reach the Emperor realm, things were different for Yun Jhin as his body needed to be refined first before he could breakthrough, while the others could train ki normally and breakthrough without body refining, however, Yun Jhin's body started as a normal caterpillar and he was a special case.

The rank his body was at was where he could breakthrough with his ki cultivation if he reached the 7,500 range which was the maximum for his current species, he would be able to reach the peak of the Emperor Realm and if he was lucky, he might even break through to the Sage realm. However, for a guarantee to break through to the Sage realm, he would need a body that could reach rank 8000 at the least.

There was a huge difference for bodies that could reach rank 8000 and above, those kinds of bodies had the chance to learn godly laws and achieve the God Realm, however, the higher the body rank the easier they would learn the laws, Yun Jhin's former body in his last life reached the rank of 9,999 through multiple experimentations and forbidden techniques, however he couldn't reach rank 10,000 which was the breakthrough to reaching a realm above the God one.

He always lamented his failures, but now with the system in his hand which was easily helping him evolve, he would be able to reach the 10,000 ranks!

Yun Jhin slowed his flying speed as he reached the sect grounds of the Stone body sect, he didn't need their techniques as he already had his own, but what he needed were the special herbs and liquids they were monopolizing. There were no other body refining sects that rivaled them, so they bought all of the body refining materials in masse at cheap prices.

Even if Yun Jhin wanted to buy some materials he would have to go to their sect and they would surely overcharge him making him join the sect so he could gain 'discounts', that's how they made rogue body refiners join them.

Sects had many tactics to gain disciples, some were underhanded and some were orthodox, but most sects prided themselves in being the 'good guys' however, 90% of them were hypocrites, in all of his lives Yun Jhin only saw like 3 sects that were truly righteous and lived to help others, most of them were destroyed immediately after Yun Jhin found them, and only 1 survived. It was unknown if that sect survived up today.

After all, Yun Jhin's organization was so strong and had numerous disciples but it faded away in the sands of time.

Yun Jhin looked at the sect's entrance, the sect itself was as big as a capital city almost 50,000 kilometers long with millions of disciples, the Zither sect was also middle-ranked but it was smaller than the Stone body sect due to their stringent requirements.

Yun Jhin easily slipped around the guards that were staying at the entrance, he didn't even need to use much of his stealth technique, he easily entered the sect grounds and made himself fully invisible.

He looked around and found that the sect was very lively, disciples had stalls as they shouted at each other to buy their wares, most of them were body refining herbs of low quality some of them were of middling quality but they were useless to Yun Jhin's current body.

Most middle-ranked sects had two or three treasuries but Yun Jhin didn't need to enter their treasuries to gain what he wanted, most of the herbs and body refining liquids were kept in special places that kept them fresh, while the treasuries kept the rarer treasures and herbs most of them were things that increased the ki cultivation base and that didn't change for sects that focused on body refining as well.

After all body refining was a practice that helped you cultivate ki easier, it was a crutch for untalented people to grow stronger and a boost to the talented people's battle power.

After searching the huge sect grounds for a long while Yun Jhin finally found a place where some high-ranking herbs could be found, it was an ice cave in the outer skirts of the sect.

The naturally formed ice ki would keep the herbs nice and cool for those who needed them, this was just one of the ways to temper the body, there was also self-immolation type of body refining but this sect didn't seem to have such a type of technique.

Yun Jhin entered the cave but then he jumped on the ceiling and stuck to it like a spider, there were some fluctuations coming from the inner parts of the cave.

It seemed someone else was here to get herbs...

Yun Jhin kept himself tightly on the frozen ceiling and waited for the unknown person to make himself/herself visible.

Out of the inner parts of the cave, a cute sneeze could be heard...