Chapter 37 37 – Learning About The Core Formation Stage



'That was a good haul. With 231,000 medium Qi stones, I don't need to worry about money until I get to the Core Formation Stage.'

After leaving the arena, he went to take back his 50 medium Qi stones; he couldn't challenge rank 1 of the youngest list after getting ranked 33 in the list for ages 13-16.

He didn't think he will get a chance to earn so many Qi stones at once, so he still had time to visit the treasury before going to the tournament of his family.

He also felt relieved after killing Joel. After training his bloodlust for so long, he had a strong urge to kill more people. Finally killing someone almost felt like finding water in the desert.

He visited the exchange office and directly bought 20,000 merit points. He also gained 2,000 merit points from his new rank; being in an older top list would multiply the monthly rewards by four. Since the top 50 got 500 merit points per month, he received 2,000.

If he stayed in the list meant for his age, he'd receive 750 merit points per month for being in the top 10 or 1000 points per month for being in the top 3.

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When Ken left the arena, two old-looking men looked at each other.

"What do you think, Brother Theodor?"

"He is indeed as powerful as we were told and more, but he seems too bloodthirsty. I won't take him in."

"I had the same thoughts; I will have to tell Sue's patriarch that we won't take him as a disciple."

The two old men found a kid who could kill others mercilessly too cruel to become their disciple. They only came to take a look at Ken because of Dominic's request in the first place.

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The next day, Ken went straight to the treasury.

"You can stay for as long as you like. Every hour, a thousand points will be deducted from your account until you get out. If you're out of points, we will come to forcibly pull you out of the treasury."

The man at the counter told him when he registered his token to enter the treasury. He had to wait over 2 hours before it was finally his turn to enter the treasury.

"Do you want to enter the techniques treasury or the cultivation manuals treasury?"

"Cultivation manual first."

Understanding the Core Formation Stage better before browsing the techniques would be better, although it didn't matter much which treasury he'd enter first with his memory. But it might help him focus on the relevant techniques.

He entered the treasury and started browsing the manuals. Unlike the family treasury, they allowed up to 20 disciples into the treasury at once, or else the queue would be more than a full day.

At first, the disciples were just surprised to see a kid around 10 years old go to the section of the Core Formation Stage but soon dismissed it as a rich kid looking around with his parents' extra money when they saw his robes.

However, it really baffled them when they noticed he opened a book, skimmed through it in a few minutes, and moved on to the next book.

'This kid must have too much money and too much free time.'

Ken didn't pay attention to them, and they also soon returned their attention to choosing their manual. After all, being inside the treasury was expensive.

To his surprise, there were more manuals for the Core Formation Stage than he thought. There was one combined section for the first three stages, and it was only a fifth of the size of the section for the fourth stage.

After reading a few manuals, he understood why. The Core Formation Stage was when a cultivator chooses their path, which was why cultivators needed to master techniques before advancing.

When forming one's core, the core's characteristics would be derived from one's foundation. The strength from the body, the density and size from the dantian, and the attributes from the soul.

Mastering techniques is required to leave an impression of them on the soul before advancing, and this way to give those attributes to the core when it's being formed.

The reason that there were so many manuals for forming the core was that masters of different paths created different manuals. For example, there were manuals for spear users and manuals for sword users.

Those were also divided into subgroups – there were pure swordsmanship manuals and manuals for people who combined their swordsmanship with elements and other techniques.

Ken's soul was affected by the constitution that granted him extra power over his peers, by his swordsmanship, and by his bloodlust.

When the core would be formed with those attributes, the core would automatically convert all Qi into attributed Qi, which would multiply the power of the techniques a few times over.

Ken's future core would produce Sword Qi and Bloodlust Qi. Later, he might be able to combine them into a single type of Qi.

Armed with this new knowledge, Ken started reading all the sword manuals, darkness manuals, and illusion manuals. The whole process took him 7 hours, costing him 7,000 merit points.

To his dismay, there were no manuals for bloodlust. It made sense, because the sect was meant for younger people, and nobody killed enough humans to develop bloodlust at such a tender age.

If they did, they wouldn't be part of a righteous sect, but part of an evil one.

'I didn't expect it to cost me so much. Luckily, I already took this option into consideration and purchased enough points.'

He still had around 24,000 merit points left after spending those 7,000. He originally purchased 9,000 points, then won 2,000 from the arena, and purchased another 20,000 points.

'I guess it's too late to go to the technique treasury. I still need 8 hours of night sleep for healthy growth at my age.'

He returned the next day, but this time didn't have the patience to wait 2 hours for his turn again. Instead, he used his family token.

"Move or all of you will get challenged by my personal guards and my family members."

He said with a smug voice while waving around his family token. Everyone quickly moved from his way and let him cut the line. Although even members of the elite families couldn't murder others as they wished inside the sect, challenges were the legal way to do it.

Since killing wasn't banned in challenges, if one participant was strong enough, he could kill his opponent before they could give up, just like Ken did with Joel.

And just like that, the 2 hours queue was shortened to 10 minutes.

The man at the counter didn't remember Ken; there were hundreds of disciples coming every day, and he barely glanced at them while giving his normal speech in auto mode.

After explaining the pricing again, he asked Ken where he wants to go, and Ken chose to enter the technique treasury.

Ken entered the treasury and quickly went to the section on controlling bloodlust. He found there many more techniques compared to his family's treasury. He found nearly a hundred books, and he spent over 8 hours finishing them all.

He spent the next 8 hours reading techniques for manipulating the mind from different types of elements and sections. Since he felt his existing techniques were as good as they could get, he focused on creating a database for his future bloodlust techniques.

After 16 hours of reading, he went home to have dinner and sleep.

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"Young Master, the Patriarch wants to meet you."

Ken woke up from Soleil's voice. He assumed it must have something to do with the fact he killed a rich kid lately.

"I'll go after breakfast."

He already missed many meals the day before, so breakfast was more important than the patriarch's opinion on the matter.

After he finished eating, he changed his clothes and went to meet the patriarch. The guards let him in after he showed his token, and he found his grandfather meditating with a sword in his hands, while black smoke kept emitting from it.

Dominic Sue opened his eyes when Ken entered the room and stopped his cultivation.

"Ken, I've heard some surprising news."

"You should share them with me, I always like a good surprise."

Dominic just snorted when he heard his grandson's sarcastic words.

"You're too smart for your age, but don't forget being too smart can also be one's downfall. Why did you challenge and kill the boy from the Han family?"

"He looked down on our family and said we were poor; I didn't like it, so I challenged him to battle. I only attacked once, but he was too weak and died. I was surprised myself."

"Don't get me wrong. If you prepared for it and told the family in advance, we would support you and even grant you benefits for killing someone from another elite family, but instead, you did it completely on your own. We only found out when the Han family kept showing hostility, and some of our spies brought back the news of what happened in the arena."

"I'm sorry, it was too spontaneous."

"You don't kill people spontaneously, Ken. Next time you need to make sure we approve the kill first before doing it, or you will bring endless trouble to the family. You won't receive any rewards for killing that boy. You can consider our protection from the Han family as a reward."

"Thank you for your protection, Patriarch."