A white-stone floor path led up to the temple. There were short trees on both sides of the road, leading up to a series of stairs before the temple’s entrance.

He walked up the stairs, noticing multiple monks traveling up and down. They conversed with each other, laughing and smirking as they walked.

Some were silent, others alone and seemingly more focused.

‘Huh… I thought they would be more stoic.’ Tyr thought to himself. The monks around him were oddly kiddish, like normal young people their age.

After getting atop the stairs, Tyr noticed there was a 10-foot wide stone flooring guarded by railings that wrapped around the entire temple.

After asking, Tyr was guided by an older monk around the right side of this path to a more open balcony-like area.

This place was large, around 100 by 100 feet in size.

There were several mats on the floor for what seemed to be meditation, and a single plum blossom tree in the center.

A few monks were already deep in meditation, breathing easily as they sat in a lotus position.

‘Hmm…’ Tyr mused, surveying the area in depth as he understood he would be spending a lot of time here.

There were 50 sitting mats laid out on the floor equally spaced out, and about 15 monks who were actually sitting on them.

Tyr chose the mat closest to him and sat down as well.

‘Man… I should probably get a good cultivation technique. That would help a lot. Right now, I am just using my basic breathing to try and absorb this Aura. It probably doesn’t work great.’

He had this thought, but that was something to think about at another time.

For now, he placed the two Purple grade pills in front of him and closed his eyes.

He was sitting with criss-crossed legs and his hands on his lap, one palm above the other.

He inhaled, focusing on his breathing.

After about 5 minutes or so, he finally began to feel the Aura around him, and especially the Aura in the pills.

It slowly began to flow toward him as he concentrated on it.

It entered into his body, but he couldn’t really tell how.

It just felt like it was absorbing into him somehow.

This entire process was hazy and dulled. It felt confusing and odd, but it worked—despite the inefficient feeling.

However, Tyr did feel the Aura finally entering his Aura Core.

‘When I have enough of this, it will form another layer around my Aura Core—increasing my Rank and allowing me to become stronger.’

After an hour of cultivating, Tyr finally managed to absorb both of the Aura pills.

His body had acclimated to the increase in power.

‘Status.’

┏━━━Status━━━┓

Name: Tyr Evolion Thalonis

Bloodline: Almighty Thalonis + Unknown

Age: 18 Years

Level: 307

Vitality: 127/127

Strength: 136

Stamina: 125/125

Speed: 125

Aura: 124

Stats remaining: 0

Rank: Virtuoso

Find exclusive stories on m_v l|e-NovelBin.net

┗━━━━━━━━━┛

‘Tsk… I can’t believe I only gained a level from that. An entire goddamn hour of boring ass meditation. Maybe getting a cultivation technique is more important than I thought.’

He stood up. ‘And to think, that’s while being in this place with high Aura as well.’ He was disappointed.

‘But then again… I guess one hour of meditation is better than attempting to slay a Berserk Rank beast. After all, that would be pretty much impossible for me if it was above something like level 500.’

Just as he was about to leave the area, Tyr got a tap on his back.

“Kid… you really are a frog in a well, aren’t you?” a familiar voice said.

Tyr turned with a brow raised, noticing Lao Heshang from yesterday standing behind him.

“It’s you… what do you mean?” Tyr said, confused.

“To think… you have gotten this far from luck alone. It’s clear to see you have put no hard work into your talents.” Lao Heshang shook his head.

Tyr furrowed his eyebrows, pretty offended at that statement. “What the hell are you saying, old man!?”

“Oh? Do we still have an ego? Lose it… brat.” Lao walked forward, forcing the puzzled and irritated Tyr to follow behind him.

“I will listen like a learner, but I won’t be subject to your abuse, geezer.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Lao Heshang exclaimed, “Listen well, young man.” He paused, inhaling.

“You are a frog in a well. A fly trapped in feces. A pig—”

“I get it! What’s your point? Do you even have one at this point!?”

“My point is… you just wasted two purple grade pills due to your ill knowledge. Without even a proper cultivation technique, you absorbed only a meager amount of their Aura into your body.”

Tyr remained silent, willing to hear more about this as it was something he didn’t know about.

“To cultivate, there is nothing more important than a cultivation technique. Yet I just observed as you wasted most of those pills into the atmosphere, giving others around you a treat as you yourself suffered.”

‘Nothing more important?’ Tyr mused rhetorically, shocked.

“Depending on your cultivation technique, the same person can either be a lifelong Apprentice rank bum, or go on to be a Paragon rank or more.”

Tyr raised a brow, confused. “But… doesn’t it come down to the Aura around them? Their environment, and the pills they have?”

“Those help, sure… but most cultivation doesn’t require nor have such things when at the highest level. With high-grade Cultivation Techniques, you get the Aura from the techniques themselves, let alone your environment!” Lao Heshang sounded passionate.

This opened up Tyr’s eyes slightly, who hadn’t even considered that a possibility.

‘Over a thousand levels in difference… just from a cultivation technique? It seems I’ve been looking at this the wrong way the entire time.’

“But I will admit. You are gifted. To have come this far without even knowing how to cultivate… you know less than a child no older than 5, yet are as strong as many Elite Faction members.”

Tyr quickly responded, “So how do I get better techniques? Do you have one? What’s your best? Give it to me.”

“Woah, woah!” Lao exclaimed, “Slow down there, bucko. Cultivation techniques are rare, and not just that, they are expensive. Written by our ancestors and created by powers in nature, they give us humans the power of the gods. Don’t just think I’ll give you a good one just because I am generous.”

Tyr sighed, “How can I get a good one then?”

“I don’t know… buy one? Steal one… find an exploit… win a tournament. There are many ways, some ethical, others not. That is not up for me to decide. However, what you have to understand from now on is that cultivation techniques are the so-called ‘bread and butter’ of power in this continent, understand?”

Tyr didn’t hesitate to nod. He then thought to himself, ‘Steal, huh? Where would I steal one from? This old dump of a temple probably doesn’t have anything too special… but I’m sure a faction like this has a place filled with good techniques. After all, the faction members need to gain raw Aura somehow, right? Sounds like a plan…’

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep