Once Harry had been walking in the forest for around half an hour, the blue screen showed up in front of him again.
[
Reward Granted: Variant Divinity (Profound)
]
Harry looked on curiously, waiting to see what exactly Variant Divinity was. A few moments later, a vast amount of information hit him, solving his question.
'A cultivation technique!' Harry exclaimed inwardly. Happiness flooded through his body as he realized what exactly he had gotten as a reward.
Cultivation techniques were the backbone of any cultivator. The most important thing to cultivators was the absorption of spiritual energy, and cultivation techniques provided various methods to do so. Different cultivation techniques would have different effects, and they were also divided into ranks similar to spirit roots, pills, and weapons.
The higher the rank of a cultivation technique, the faster one would be able to gather spiritual energy. Higher ranked techniques would also usually be more powerful.
A profound rank technique would be much better than the common rank technique he had been using before.
"... this isn't just a profound rank technique." Harry suddenly muttered as he looked through the information on it.
As Harry grew more familiar with Variant Divinity, he realized the technique was different from its ranking.
Well, technically it deserved it. If one simply cultivated the most basic version of Variant Divinity, it would indeed be a profound rank technique. More powerful than those at the common rank, but perhaps weaker than ones that were mystic. Harry wouldn't know as he hadn't seen a mystic rank technique.
However, the main potential of the technique lay in the fact that it could help one cultivate multiple dantians!
With more dantians being added, the technique's ranking got much higher. Although Harry didn't know a lot about high ranked cultivation techniques, even he knew that having the ability to cultivate multiple dantians was absurd. This could raise one's power exponentially.
Maybe this was where the "divinity" in the technique's name originated. If cultivated well, the technique might even reach a high rank like divine, similar to his spirit root.
The technique had various layers, one for each realm of cultivation. At the moment, Harry could only see two - Qi Refinement and Foundation Establishment. Everything else seemed to be blocked off. It seemed that the blue screen had only given him part of the technique. He could only hope that the other parts would be given to him as well.
The Qi Refinement realm was the start of one's cultivation path. After one forms their dantian out of spiritual energy, they can be said to have entered the first layer of Qi Refinement. Stepping into the Qi Refinement realm would usually increase one's lifespan by around 300 years, and this number increased by large amounts as one continued cultivating. Foundation establishment cultivators were said to have lifespans of over 1000 years.
To advance in the Qi Refinement realm, one needed to fill up their dantian enough for it to overflow, bathing their body in the spiritual energy and increasing the size of their dantian. After repeating this many times, one can be considered ready to step into foundation establishment.
The biggest thing Harry really knew about the foundation establishment realm was that one needed to form a foundation in their dantian based on their cultivation technique. After looking further at the technique, he found that to advance in foundation establishment, one needed to purify their foundation and condense their spiritual energy.
The variant divinity technique also had another portion, which revealed the method to form multiple dantians and link them. The process seemed difficult and required a large amount of energy. Any new dantians would also greatly increase the amount of time needed for breakthroughs. New dantians could only start being formed when one reached foundation establishment, so Harry couldn't try forming any at the moment.
It seemed like cultivating multiple dantians was a lot of trouble, and it was. However, the benefits outweighed the negatives. If one had multiple dantians, they would be many times more powerful than those at the same cultivation level.
As he walked, Harry kept looking through the cultivation technique mentally. He knew that he had obtained a priceless treasure. Once again, he thanked the blue screen.
Eventually, he couldn't stand waiting any longer and decided to try the technique. After walking for a while longer, he found a small clearing devoid of any beasts.
After setting his sack down next to him, he sat down and started circulating his spiritual energy according to the technique.
The main goal of cultivating Variant Divinity during the Qi Refinement stage was tempering the body, increasing spiritual strength, and enlarging the dantian. Most common rank techniques would disregard tempering the body in favor of focusing solely on the dantian.
It made sense. The body's power would be increased when one broke through realms, regardless of whether one focused on it or not. The same couldn't be said for the dantian.
However, tempering the body along with the dantian could definitely increase one's power.
As Harry slowly took in spiritual energy from his surroundings, he also moved some of the entering energy throughout his body, nourishing it.
After around half an hour of cultivation, he suddenly heard a rustling noise. Quickly, he opened his eyes, grabbing his sword.
In front of a bush was a purple fox that was around his height. It bared its teeth at him in an attempt to intimidate its prey.
'A violet moon fox,' Harry noted to himself. 'Doesn't look that strong either, maybe at the 6th layer of Qi Refinement?'
Once he realized the strength of the fox, Harry quickly coated his sword with spiritual energy before dashing towards his opponent.
Seeing its prey offering itself to him, the fox felt a hint of smugness. It opened its mouth and jumped forwards as well, preparing to bite through Harry's neck.
Adrenaline ran through Harry's veins as he saw the fox attack him. Once the fox got close enough, he immediately sidestepped and slashed towards the beast's neck.
The fox's head was lopped off its body, falling onto the ground and rolling under a tree.
Even though the small battle didn't exert Harry at all, he still let out a loud exhale after he saw the fox die.
He marveled inwardly at how amazing the sword felt in his hands. Killing the beast had been no problem, even though he had never used a sword before today.
As soon as he approached the headless body of the fox, he turned it over so its stomach was facing the sky. Quickly, he used his sword to slit open the stomach of the beast.
Immediately, he was hit with a bloody stench as the insides of the beast were exposed to him. A grimace was on his face as he poked around inside the body with the sword, looking for the beast core.
The majority of beasts held beast cores, which were the way they cultivated. While humans increased their realm with dantians, beasts used beast cores. By killing beasts and taking their beast cores, people could refine the spiritual energy inside the cores, increasing their cultivation. Similarly, by ingesting other beasts cores and human dantians, beasts could also increase their cultivation.
After a couple minutes of digging around, Harry was finally able to extract a palm sized ball from the body of the fox. Looking at the object covered with blood and acid, he felt a sense of disgust and reluctance before he forced himself to pick it up.
Holding the dark core in his hands, he sat down and started cultivating.
The sounds of sharp objects clashing reverberated through the White Bone forest. Near the middle of the area, a snake used its large horn to attack a sword wielding human.
Harry dodged to his left as the snake lunged towards him once again. He slashed towards its body, feeling the urge to groan in annoyance as his sword bounced off once again.
'It's cultivation isn't much higher than mine, but these scales are too hard to cut through,' Harry complained inwardly.
His opponent was a horned earth snake, a beast at the 9th layer of Qi Refinement. He had been fighting it for the past couple of minutes but couldn't find a way to get the kill.
There were multiple openings for him to defeat his opponent, but any attack on the beast was nullified by its hard scales.
His sword was already cracked from the beast's continuous onslaught. Harry inwardly cursed Vernon for using a weapon of such low quality. As the city lord, he definitely had better quality weapons, so why had he been using such a bad one?
Although the sword had been helping him a lot these past few days fighting against weaker beasts, the moment he fought an opponent with a stronger defense it failed him.
'Should I just run?' Harry thought to himself in annoyance. He didn't want to break his weapon.
However, thinking about possibly being pursued by this beast caused him to throw that idea away. It was pretty fast and would be able to catch up with him easily. If he found another beast and got jumped by both of them, he would really be in trouble.
Harry blocked another attack from the snake, this one coming from its tail. He took a small step back from the impact.
Upon seeing that its prey seemed to be getting tired, the snake suddenly jumped towards him with its fangs outstretched, hoping to poison him and take him out for good.
Harry once again dodged to the side when he saw this. As he looked at the snake's open mouth, an idea came to him.
He dashed towards his opponent once again, slashing towards it multiple times. The sound of Harry's attacks resounded throughout the area as his blade sliced through the air. Sadly, all the attacks were nullified once again by the snake's hardened scales.
Harry continued attacking and defending against the snake's attacks for a few more minutes before it suddenly jumped towards him with its fangs outstretched once again.
'An opportunity!' Harry thought with elation. Despite his emotions, he had a focused look on his face.
He quickly pointed the tip of the sword towards the mouth of the snake before making a stabbing motion.
The sword immediately pierced through the snake's mouth and came out the back of its head, its long body going limp.
"Finally," Harry sighed. Such a battle was truly annoying.
After cutting open the snake from its head and taking out the beast core, Harry also decided to store the leftovers of the body. He hadn't stored any of the bodies of the beasts he killed before, but decided to make an exception for this one. It wasn't too heavy, and the scales would probably be sold for a good price due to their toughness.
A week had passed since he set out from Azure Spirit City. He had killed various beasts as he made his way through the forest. So far, the horned earth snake was the strongest, being at the 9th level of Qi Refinement.
Harry was around halfway through his journey to the capital. He had just passed the midway point of the forest.
The majority of his time was spent walking through the forest. He would set aside a few hours each day to cultivate as well. Luckily, he didn't need to eat or sleep much.
Those in the Qi Refinement realm didn't need to eat or drink much. They could easily go months without food, relying solely on their spiritual energy. The same went for sleep, although it was less pronounced. Harry still needed to sleep around once a week, and he had done so the day before.
As one's cultivation progressed, their reliance on food and sleep would decrease further. However, many would still consume delicacies for their own entertainment, or the meat of beasts to nourish their bodies.
With some consideration, Harry sat down and decided to cultivate a little before he moved forward again.
Although he had been cultivating for the past week, he wasn't that much closer to the 9th level of Qi Refinement than before. This was mostly because of the nature of Variant Divinity.
The main effect of Variant Divinity within the Qi Refinement realm was directly increasing the strength of one's spiritual energy by suppressing their breakthroughs. After one suppressed their breakthrough once, they would compress their spiritual energy to the point where it was only a small portion of its previous size, greatly increasing their spiritual strength and the quality of their spiritual energy. Although their dantian would still be filled with spiritual energy, they would keep suppressing their breakthrough until they enlarged the previously compressed portion until it filled their dantian. After doing this, they could cultivate again until they broke through to the next level.
Over the past few days, Harry had reached the peak of the 8th layer. It wasn't truly hard as he had already been close to it. Then, he compressed the spiritual energy within the dantian to make it much smaller. The next time he reached the peak of the 8th layer, he would be able to break through.
Harry had also learned a little more about the blue screen during his journey. Although he couldn't do much with it, he learned how to make it appear in front of him and disappear with mental commands.
Once he cultivated for a few hours, Harry got up and continued walking through the forest.
After a few more days, he knew he was nearing the end of his journey to Dark City. He had started coming across traces of humans, showing that people from the capital had most likely come to the area to hunt for beast cores or temper themselves in battle.
Harry felt that he had gotten significantly more powerful over the past couple weeks of journeying. Although his cultivation hadn't progressed significantly, his prowess with the sword and his battle style had definitely increased.
'I can't tell if I'm cursed or favored by the heavens,' he thought, shaking his head as he looked at his sword.
After almost breaking his sword against a 9th layer beast, he had mostly found beasts at the 1st-3rd level of Qi Refinement over the past few days, which helped him preserve his weapon. They were weak to the point where he could usually kill them with a single slash.
It was obvious though, that he would need to get a new weapon when he reached the capital. Let alone a beast at the 9th layer, even trying to kill one at the 4th layer of Qi Refinement would probably be too much for the weapon. It would immediately break.
Harry was broken out of his musing by a wave of heat. Shielding his face, he tried his best to look at the source, his eyes widening as he saw what it was.
Similarly to the violet moon fox he had previously defeated, the dark furred wolf in front of him stood around his height. Its eyes were calmly observing Harry as he started to panic slightly.
'Damn! It's a foundation establishment beast!' Harry inwardly screamed.
He only had around a day's worth of traveling left until he reached the capital. Finding a foundation establishment beast now was like dropping a piece of food in mud the moment he was about to eat it. What kind of luck was this?
Harry cautiously moved back, hoping to escape the beast, but eventually stopped. When he looked at its eyes, he knew that he wouldn't be able to get away by doing this.
Within the beast's eyes was a hint of amusement, as if it was enjoying Harry's fear. Seeing this caused anger to well up within him. It reminded him of Dudley.
Suppressing the urge to attack the beast, Harry quickly picked up his bag and ran as fast as he could. Spiritual energy flowed through his legs as he bounded between trees and jumped over bushes. He didn't dare to look back. He knew that a foundation establishment beast would easily be able to catch up to him, so his only hope was to find a group of humans to fight the beast with. Perhaps they could attempt to defeat it if there were a lot of them.
Deep down, Harry knew that it probably wouldn't happen. Even if he found a group of 100 cultivators at the 9th layer of Qi Refinement, they probably wouldn't be able to defeat a foundation establishment beast. The gap between major realms was just that large.
On top of a vast increase in spiritual energy, breaking through to the foundation establishment realm would give one access to the elements to start cultivating elemental techniques. It was because of this that the foundation establishment realm was also nicknamed the elemental birth realm.
Beasts accessed the elements through their bloodlines once they reached foundation establishment. The flame elemental energy emanating from the beast betrayed its realm.
Suddenly, Harry jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a ball of fire that had come towards his back. He was only able to avoid it because he had felt the immense heat it was emanating. The fireball hit a tree in front of him, causing it to immediately go up in red flames.
As Harry kept running, he started to feel a dense aura show up near him. He started to run even faster, knowing that the beast had decided to stop toying with him. However, it was for naught as a burning pain appeared on his left arm.
Harry tumbled to the side from the impact of being scratched by the wolf. It had a much more predatory look in his eyes now.
His left arm was useless now. Blood flowed like a river from the bicep area, where he had been scratched. Luckily, the wound wasn't extremely deep, but he couldn't fight with that arm.
Gritting his teeth, Harry pulled out his sword. If he had to fight, then he would.
With an enraged look on his face, he jumped forward, swinging the sword towards the wolf. Despair filled his mind as he saw the wolf casually shatter his sword with a swipe of a paw.
'I just barely escaped death a couple of weeks ago,' Harry thought miserably. 'Now this?'
With his sword broken, the only thing he could fight with were his hands. Throwing away the destroyed weapon, Harry readied himself.
Seeing the changes in his prey's temperament, the wolf jumped towards him, hoping to finish him off with one strike. Flames coated the claws of the large beast. Harry jumped to the side, hoping to avoid the attack. Although he managed to dodge the brunt of it, he was still clipped slightly, causing 4 bloody lines to appear on the side of his abdomen.
The pain was extraordinary, but not too much to bear for Harry. With a grunt of pain, he stood and faced his opponent.
He knew he couldn't move too much anymore. Any attacks from here on, he would have to face alone.
Seeing the wolf run towards him again, Harry strengthened his hands with spiritual energy. Once the wolf got close enough, he threw a palm as hard as he could towards its nose.
With a snarl, the wolf was knocked backwards a couple of steps. Seeing this, Harry felt a hint of hope. At least he had been able to repel the beast. That was more than most people at the peak of Qi Refinement could say.
However, that small hope was dashed when the wolf shook his head and ran towards him once again, having seemingly no adverse reaction to the blow.
Harry attempted to run once again, but found he was slowed down immensely by his injuries. Before he could get far, he was tackled by the beast.
As the beast was about to bite onto his face, Harry grabbed onto its jaw out of desperation. He put all his strength into pushing it upwards, moving the mouth away from him.
Even when the beast tried moving fire elemental energy to their jaw to get Harry off, he refused to let go. He knew that if he did, he would die.
Harry felt himself getting weaker after a while. He knew that his injuries were probably causing this.
As his grip got weaker, he could faintly hear voices approaching in the background.
'Am I saved?' he wondered as his hands fell.
Before he could see the answer, the world around him went dark.