John and the other men ran for several miles until they returned to where the mustachioed man was standing. He was sitting on a log lazily, at which point he heard the group approach and quickly stood up.
"Do you have it?" asked the man with excitement in his voice.
The group all looked towards John, at which point he stepped forward.
Boom!
The spear loudly crashed to the ground in front of the mustachioed man. The cultivator eyes all opened wide at the site of the weapon. Several envious eyes gazed at the weapon, their minds thinking about whether they should take such a weapon for themselves or not.
Suddenly, white haired man stepped forward and bent over to pick up the weapon. After a brief struggle, the man managed to slightly lift the weapon, at which point it suddenly disappeared. Everyone's eyes narrowed at this new development.
"I would suggest you put away such thoughts" said the white haired man out loud. He walked over to the mustachioed man, took off his storage ring and handed it over to the man.
John suddenly realized that the white haired man was working for the mustachioed man all along.
"I would advise that you all forget what you just saw. My employers want this weapon quite badly, and it would be in all your best interests if you set aside any greed you have. Now, for your payment." The mustachioed man waved his hand, at which point six leather pouches floated towards each of the remaining men, John included.
John reached out and grabbed the pouch. His eyebrows arched slightly at the contents within.
"Three hundred gold coins...It seems like this weapon really was valuable to this man" thought John as he put the leather pouch away. John had made three times what he had money wise in this single mission. It turned out to be quite lucrative for him. Not only that, but John had siphoned thousands of gold coins from the Duke's vault.
"It seems like money wont be an issue for a long time" smiled John as he thought about his great gains.
While everyone was looking at their payment, the mustachioed man spoke up. "I thank you all for your assistance today. In fact, I have another opportunity for you all, should you choose to accept."
The group looked back towards the man and all nodded. The mustachioed man smiled at which point he explained the new opportunity.
"Now that I have this weapon, I need to escort it safely to my employer. We will be journeying through the Skycleave Forest to avoid any prying eyes, and so I will need men to guard the carriage from any attacking beasts. The payment will be the same as tonight, three hundred gold coins."
"When do we set out?" asked John. Although he didn't fight today, John felt his own dantian was ready to break through to the middle Mist Creation realm.
"I want to raise my strength first. If we leave now, I will have to decline" thought John as he waited for a response.
The mustachioed man looked at John and replied "I have a few matters to take care of before we set out. We will leave tomorrow night. The meeting point will be the same as for this mission.
John thought about it for a moment before nodding his head.
"This should give me enough time to break through" thought John.
All of a sudden, a heavy palm slapped John on the back several times.
"Not bad today. Those attacks of yours on the vault were quite impressive. You're a lot stronger than you look" exclaimed Austin as he cheerfully patted John on the back.
John smiled back at Austin but said nothing. After the meeting was done, John slipped back towards the inn he was staying in, making sure to not be spotted on the way.
"Phew!" John sighed out loud as he fell onto his bed. "That was quite the night."
After resting for some time, John hopped off the bed and sat on the ground.
"Although I didn't fight tonight, the pressure of the situation allowed me to focus all my strength into those two attacks. I felt my comprehensions towards my Qi increase by quite a lot. I should be able to tackle the middle Mist Creation realm now."
John cleared his head and connected his mind with the sphere, at which point he fell into a meditative trance. Several hours later…
Boom!
A muffled boom echoed throughout the room as John slowly opened his eyes. A smile hung on his face as he sent his divine sense towards his dantian.
"Success!" exclaimed John as he clenched his fists in excitement.
"My own dantian is now at the middle Mist Creation realm."
John inspected his dantian with his divine sense and noticed that the Qi within was much more potent than before. While he was in the early Mist Creation realm, the Qi in his dantian was wispy and ethereal, almost as if it didn't exist. Now however, the Qi in his dantian was much thicker and more noticeable. Although it was still quite misty and diffuse, it was much more powerful than before.
"I'm one step closer to entering the pocket realm" muttered John with a determined look on his face. John was about to start meditating on the second attack of the Myriad Annihilation Scythe when he suddenly thought of something.
A body suddenly appeared in front of John. It was the body of the leader of the bandits that John had killed. John looked at the man for a moment before cutting open between his brows and extracting a small sliver of blood essence.
He paused for a moment before absorbing the blood through his chest and guiding it with his Qi towards his sphere dantian.
"Slowly, just the slightest amount" thought John as the blood approached the sphere. He didn't want the murmurs to assault his mind like they had before. This was merely a test to see if his guesses were correct regarding the sphere and the Immortal Asura Body.
A small amount of blood essence neared the sphere dantian, at which point it was rapidly sucked in. John held his breath and prepared his mind for the mental assault, but instead of murmurs, John received a wave of refined Qi from the sphere. John focused his mind and guided the Qi according and let it nourish the different parts of his body.
He opened his eyes in surprise before a happy grin took over his face.
"It's just as I thought. I am once again able to cultivate the Immortal Asura Body technique. It appears that cultivating this technique really is limited by my own dantian. From what I can tell, my own dantian must be within one minor realm of the sphere dantian in order to keep it under control."
John quickly took out the other corpses of the bandits and cut open their brows. After extracting and absorbing all the blood essence, John guided the blood towards his sphere dantian and greedily absorbed it all. A wave of nourishing Qi was soon released from the sphere, which John appropriately guided to all the various parts of his body. John could feel his body growing stronger and stronger as it was nourished by the refined Qi.
Several minutes later, John opened his eyes with a slight look of disappointment.
"It seems that this blood essence wasn't enough to push my sphere dantian to the late Mist Creation realm. I'll have to get more blood essence it seems."
From what John could tell, the blood essence from the early Mist Creation bodies provided very little towards his dantian, while the one middle Mist Creation body provided more, but still not nearly enough for advancement.
"It seems that the higher the realm of the blood essence, the more beneficial it is for cultivation. I'll have to see if I can find more bodies to cultivate with. Although its not as if I can buy human blood essence. I suppose I'll have to hunt beasts for now and use their blood instead."
Although human blood essence was far more efficient and potent than beast blood essence, John had no solution to this problem. Unless he started killing cultivators indiscriminately, beast blood essence was all he would be able to attain for now.
John finished cultivating the Immortal Asura Body technique before he took out the jade piece and started meditating on the Celestial Lightning Script. After meditating on the script for several hours, John took out the Myriad Annihilation Scythe and focused on learning the second attack of the battle art. John meditated late into the night before eventually collapsing onto his bed in exhaustion.
The next day…
Knock! Knock!
Knocks at John's door woke him up from his deep slumber.