John calmed his mind and eliminated all excess thoughts, before he sent his mind into his soul space. In the soul space existed the Primordial Extermination Lightning cultivation technique that Celestial Soulrend had given him.
As mentioned by Celestial Soulrend, there existed dantian cultivation techniques that focused on a single aspect, boosting the cultivators power in that aspect by a large amount. It acted similar to a variant body or attribute body, but was targeted to the dantian itself.
When cultivators drew Qi from their dantian out into their bodies for magical attacks, they would use their comprehension to convert the pure Qi into the type of Qi they were using to attack.
In the Mist Creation Realm, since cultivators were only just getting used to their Qi, they would unleash unrefined Qi out in attacks. While this method could release devastating attacks, it was still much weaker than refining the Qi into the state most suited for that cultivator, and then unleashing it. Only in the Qi Condensation Realm and above were cultivators adept enough in both their comprehensions and controlling their Qi that they could refine it into specific attacks.
For example, a cultivator adept in fire based attacks could unleash pure Qi from their dantian for attacks, but by refining and amplifying the pure Qi into fire Qi, they could unleash attacks far stronger. This was due to their comprehensions being much higher for that specific nature of Qi, as well as having profound battle arts to fully unleash the attacks.
In John's case, in the future when he unleashed lightning attacks, he would convert the Qi leaving his essence dantian into lightning Qi, and then unleash his lightning based battle arts.
However, cultivation techniques such as the Primordial Extermination Lightning technique would allow John to unleash lightning Qi completely naturally from his dantian, and not take the slight amount of time required to convert it manually. Not only that, but the lightning would be of a higher grade as well, resulting in quicker and more powerful attacks.
John sent his divine sense into the technique floating in his soul space, and came to these conclusions after perusing through the cultivation technique.
"How amazing. Not only is this cultivation technique amazing enough to last me all throughout my cultivation journey, it will also give me immense advantages in battle itself. I have a variant body, an attribute body, and now a dantian that is similar to an attribute body."
John studied the technique for many hours before he finally grasped it enough to start cultivating it.
However, John was pleased to find that cultivating the Primordial Extermination Lightning did not require actual lighting. Although it would help somewhat, it was not required.
"It seems as if lightning can speed up the process in some cases, but isn't required. In the meantime, I need to use my lightning comprehensions to refine pure Qi into lightning Qi, then infuse it into my dantian in a very precise and specific manner. If I repeat this technique enough times, I'll slowly transform my dantian, as well as advance to the Qi Condensation Realm. But first..."
John's divine sense left his soul space, and his divine sense drifted into his palace realm. Whenever he sent his divine sense into his palace realm, John would find his divine sense transformed into a soul version of himself, which allowed him to walk around the palace freely.
John walked into the palace and into the main hallway, where he found many items lying around. Everything he had collected thus far in his cultivation journey lay strewn around the main hallway, including beast corpses and barrels of blood essence.
"Such a mess. I need to figure out how to open one of the rooms in the side hallways to store this stuff."
John walked past some of the items and stopped before the corpses of two young boys. He stared at the corpse of Dylan coldly, as he was suddenly reminded once more of the predicament his clan was in.
"They said they were from a power in the Holy Lands. I need to figure out which one...but in the meantime, I'll be borrowing your blood essence."
John quickly drained the blood essence's from both boys, and stored them in a small barrel. Much like the regular blood essence that John used to replenish his Qi reserves, John was able to cultivate with human blood essence without bringing it out of the palace realm. The palace realm seemed to have a unique connection with his body dantian, making this all possible.
"At least this saves me a large headache of anyone potentially finding me using human blood essence."
John prepared the blood essence and slowly started to infuse it into his body dantian. His body dantian was at the peak of the Mist Creation Realm, and only needed a slight nudge to advance to Qi Condensation. Unlike his essence dantian, John's body dantian did not require comprehensions to advance, only blood essence.
"I know that if my body dantian's cultivation realm exceeds my essence dantian cultivation by too much, I'll be overwhelmed by those mental assualts. Who knows what will happen in that case, but I can tell I wont have a good ending...I was able to maintain my mind by having my body dantian be only one minor realm higher than my essence dantian, but...I wonder if that's true for a major realm as well."
Although going from peak Mist Creation to early Qi Condensation was only one step up, it was advancing up a major realm. John was curious if he would be able to withstand such a disparity in his cultivations.
Blood essence slowly started to infuse into his body dantian, and John could feel his body dantian at the verge of breaking through. However, just as John was about to push it over the edge and advance, the mental assaults struck John's mind and soul with an intensity far greater than he had felt before.
"Gah!"
John cried out and hurriedly stopped infusing blood essence into his body dantian. After some time, the mental assaults faded. John was still breathing heavily from the pain he had just felt.
"It seems I cannot have my body dantian be a higher major realm than my essence dantian. Then I'll just raise my essence cultivation first, and then my body cultivation."
John spent some time clearing the mental anguish he had just felt from his mind, and once more focused on the Primordial Extermination Lightning technique. After several hours more of studying, he finally started cultivating the technique.
He followed the principles of Qi movement throughout the body, and was surprised to find that many tiny Qi whirlpools suddenly appeared all throughout his body, drawing the Qi in the surrounding air faster into his body.
"How amazing!"
While John was unsure exactly how the technique accomplished this, he was only concerned in following it, not understanding it. Qi rapidly rushed into his body, at which point he focused on refining it into lightning Qi. The lightning Qi was then infused into the dantian, sent out, and infused again in a continuous cycle.
His face lit up in excitement as he felt his cultivation rapidly rise, as well as his essence dantian ever so slightly begin to transform. He also consumed the Golden Marrow Condensation Pill, which greatly helped his cultivation speed.
This process lasted for nearly a day, before finally, a muffled boom echoed out within his body, and a large smile broke out on his face.
"Finally, I'm in the Qi Condensation Realm!"