John began to infuse the human blood essence from Dylan and the other boy into his body dantian, and followed the principles of the Immortal Asura Body. Human blood essence flowed throughout his body, before eventually infusing into his body dantian. John could feel his body dantian grow in power, and before long, it was at the cusp of breaking through.
Several minutes later, the blood essence was emptied, and a slight muffled sound echoed out in John's body.
His eyes lit up in excitement.
"The human blood essence I had was just barely enough to advance. Both my body dantian and essence dantian are now in the Qi Condensation Realm."
John quickly stood up and sent a punch out in front of him. The air rippled from the power of his punch.
"My explosive body power is at least several times stronger than before!"
He was also pleased to find that the sinister murmurs were at a manageable level, unlike before when he tried to advance his body dantian to the Qi Condensation Realm first. Although they still occasionally popped up and tried to overwhelm him, he had become experienced at keeping the murmurs in check.
Meditating occasionally in front of the sinister gate played a great part in tempering his will and allowing him to resist the murmurs. His tempered will showed its strength in allowing him to withstand the lightning trials pain, and once again showed its use. Without his strong will, John realized he would have not gotten nearly as far in his cultivation journey as he had so far.
Just as he was thinking about this, John once again found himself suddenly appear within his palace realm. This time, instead of appearing outside the palace, he found himself standing directly in front of the holy gate. The translucent sphere hung high in the air, and the many drops of blood continued to revolve within.
John found himself unable to move, but had become accustomed to this. Every time he advanced in a major realm, he would find himself in this scenario.
As expected, one of the drops slowly began to descend. When it broke through the translucent barrier, the power emanating from the blood was much stronger than the drop previously. Just like last time, half the blood radiated a holy aura, while the other half was pure sinister evil.
John watched as the blood slowly descended to him, before it quickly entered his body. Pain assaulted his body as the blood rapidly spread throughout his entire body, infusing into every inch of flesh, as well as his dantian.
The sinister blood did its best to destroy his body, but the holy blood soon radiated its power, calming the sinister blood to a level that he could control. He felt the level of his Immortal Asura Body rise once more.
The process continued for several minutes before it finally ended. After regaining his composure, John walked to the holy gate and touched one of the eight massive chains chaining up the gate.
As expected, the chain began to crumble, before it shattered into nothingness. The holy aura radiating from the gate once more grew in strength, cleansing his soul and making him feel completely refreshed.
John bathed in the aura for some time before looking at the gate and calling out.
"Hey, I know you're in there. Who are you, and what is this palace realm?"
He wanted answers, or at least to have the entity respond back, but despite waiting there for a long time, no answers came back. John shook his head and moved on, heading towards the sinister room.
A sinister aura assaulted John as he ventured into the room, but its strength was far below what was needed to overwhelm him. The strength of the aura wasn't even enough to temper his will anymore
John walked to the massive sinister gate, and looked at the nine chains still chaining the gate. After some hesitation, he reached out and touched one of the chains.
Clank!
The chain shattered, unleashing an aura much more powerful and sinister than before.
"Gah!"
John clutched his head in pain as the murmurs attempted to overwhelm his mind and soul. After a minute of bearing the assault, he could withstand it no more.
He quickly left the palace realm, and found himself breathing heavily back in his Enforcement Hall room. The murmurs took several minutes to fade, and he once again composed himself.
John punched the air once more, feeling yet another increase in his body strength. A large smile broke out on his face, before he quickly thought of something.
"The Immortal Asura Body book. Lets see if anything has changed since last time I looked at it."
The last time John advanced, the Immortal Asura Body allowed him to look at the first page, which depicted how to cultivate the technique. However, despite there being more pages in the book, John was unable to turn to any of those pages, frustrating him greatly.
"Everything in the palace realm seems to advance with a major cultivation increase. Let's see if the Immortal Asura book did as well."
…
In the majestic main palace of the Heavenly Lighting Sect, the Sect Leader continued to sit on his throne and read various documents. Powerful lightning snaked out from the throne and all over his body, but he acted as if he didn't notice it.
All of a sudden, the Sect Leader's gaze shifted upwards, and it appeared as if he was staring through the very walls of the palace and into the sky. His figure quickly disappeared without anyone's notice, and he soon appeared high in the sky above the sect.
"Hmm? Tribulation Clouds? Is an Elder advancing?"
The Sect Leader watched as the clouds high above the sect slowly began to gather and turn grey. Lightning began to build up within the clouds, and the center of the tempest seemed to be directly above the Enforcement Hall grounds. Just as soon as the clouds gathered, they dispersed, returning the sky above the sect to normal as if nothing had happened.
His gaze pierced dozens of miles directly to the Enforcement Halls, and searched around for a moment before a small smile appeared on his face.
"Interesting."