"I guess I truly should thank my master for such a wonderful gift," John mused to himself with a smile on his face.
The blood essence from Allfiend was quickly extracted, and John began to infuse it into his dantian in the same fashion as all the other blood essence. However, he quickly stopped as he felt an overwhelming surge of energy wash through him, nearly exploding himself from within.
"How potent," John couldn't help but comment as he breathed out a sigh of relief. "If I had gone quicker and absorbed more at once, I truly may have injured myself severely."
John shook his head at himself for making such a simple mistake, before his gaze shifted to the partially filled blood pool next to him. This blood pool was filled with the blood essence of Core Formation and Meridian Forging experts, and was far too low to make any change to his body dantian. However, it was the exact thing he needed at this moment.
"I truly am a genius after all," John laughed as he stared at the blood pool. "Diluting Allfiend's blood within this blood pool will make it much easier to absorb, while still boosting my cultivation level."
John quickly extracted Allfiend's blood essence from his forehead, which floated as a small ball of blood before him. His face became slightly excited as he struggled to maintain its shape.
"Even just constraining it together takes quite a bit of power to do. Off you go."
John tossed the ball of Allfiend's blood essence into the blood pool below. Allfiend's blood essence quickly diluted amongst the rest of the blood, and John could instantly tell that the quality of the blood pool had advanced considerably, while still being at a level that he could withstand.
A satisfied smile appeared on his face as he saw this. "Using this method, absorbing the blood essence of cultivators much higher than my own level won't be a problem."
With his palace realm and his body dantian linked, John was able to freely infuse any blood essence within the blood pool directly into his body dantian.
With his recent near-accident, John tested the new blood essence otu with a very small amount. The blood essence infused into his body dantian, which instantly turned into Qi and began to raise the cultivation of his dantian.
A satisfied smile once again appeared on John's face as he confirmed the success of his experiment. Blood began to infuse at a steady rate into his body dantian, slowly but surely increasing his cultivation. The process continued for several minutes, before once again, his body dantian hovered at the edge of breaking through.
Unlike his essence dantian, his body dantian never had any bottlenecks, and he didn't need any comprehensions to break through. It only required a certain amount of high quality blood essence, and then it would break through.
Not only that, but there were never any instabilities or flaws in his foundation, regardless of how fast he broke through.
John couldn't help but be impressed at the profundity of it, as his thoughts shifted to his mysterious father.
'That mysterious man within the holy gate, my supposed father, was able to make something as heaven defying as this Artifact, which serves as my body dantian. Just how strong is he to be able to accomplish such a thing?'
Boom!
Interrupting such thoughts, another muffled boom echoed out within John's body, as his body dantian was once again pushed over the edge to a new realm, quickly reaching the Late Meridian Forging Realm.
The same mysterious Qi surged out of his body dantian once more, flooding into his body and increasing its strength and profundity. John felt the power and durability of his body rapidly rise to new heights. With each minor and major realm breakthrough of his body dantian, his Immortal Asura Body rose a level as well.
The naturally sinister and bloodthirsty aura John emanated increased greatly as his body dantian surpassed his essence dantian in power, but John quickly reigned in that aura as he began to inspect the changes to his body.
His satisfied smile only grew larger as he inspected his new power, which dwarfed his power just half a day ago.
Upon inspecting his new power, a crazy idea popped into his mind.
'I wonder if with my new power, coupled with my innate bloodline ability, if I would be able to fight back against master…'
John's thoughts shifted back to her battle with Allfiend and the summoned Demon, and he quickly shook his head rapidly at himself as he wiped such thoughts from his mind.
...
The flying ship hovered above the Great Desert for over a day as everyone waited for John to return to the ship. Lilian had at one point grumbled at John's lack of haste, and had begun to descend to the desert below, when Barden quickly appeared before her and revealed that John was doing something of paramount importance.
Although Lilian questioned how such a thing was possible in a place as barren as this, she could tell the sincerity and seriousness on Barden's face, and had agreed to patiently wait until John returned to the ship. She returned to the ship and began to cultivate in silence as she ignored everything else.
Her eyes occasionally opened as she felt an incredibly faint but powerful energy surge out from the desert sands below, as a small smile appeared on her face.
"Seems like he truly is doing something down there," she mused to herself before returning to silent cultivation.
Some time later, John's figure emerged from the cave below, and he quickly boarded the ship hovering high in the sky. The eyes of everyone on the ship glanced at John, his parents as well.
Lilian immediately noticed his arrival, and appeared before him in a flash. She closely inspected John, who almost seemed to be a changed person. His gaze was more resolved, and she could tell his will and thirst for strength was even stronger than before. Not only that, but she could tell that his strength had increased significantly, at a rate she was unsure was even possible.
While his cultivation had only improved by one minor realm, she could vaguely tell that his strength had increased much more than what his cultivation increase revealed.
A small, satisfied smile appeared on her face as she nodded at John. "Not bad. Perhaps you truly are worthy of being my disciple."
John rolled his eyes as he heard such words, but before he could reply, Lilian appeared at the helm of the ship and began to pilot it forward once more, wasting no time at all.. The ship sped forward through the Great Desert once again, rapidly sailing towards the distant Heavenly Lightning Sect.