Two weeks passed, marking the one month point that Liam had arrived in Ilali.
By then, he had traveled more than 150 kilometers of distance, with breaks of cultivation, exploration of cities, and killing/studying Spirit Beasts.
What Liam silently added to that list was eating humans and Spirit Beasts fresh… and raw.
Of course, just because there was a small chance of him going crazy didn’t stop him from purifying his blood and expanding his Chaos Pearl.
And it was arduously slow, too.
Especially the Chaos Pearl.
It expanded an unnoticeable amount each time Liam ate a Spirit Beast or human flesh. His blood purity wasn’t any better.
Liam was careful of who he chose to eat, avoiding most of the main Sects that governed the regions.
Rogue martial artists were a problem in Ilali. They were basically bandits that lived in the random corners of the land and formed gangs.
Liam was just cleaning the streets like any good samaritan would!
The higher ranked the human or beast was, the more effectively their Lifeforce added to his.
Humans provided much more Lifeforce compared to mere beasts, since they had three centers of power instead of two.
He also paired it with absorbing their blood using his vampiric nails, but its effectiveness was far less than simply devouring flesh.
Of course, Liam couldn’t eat the sea of consciousness or the core.
The former because it existed within the cultivator’s mind, and the latter because the contents inside it were poisonous to anyone else but the user.
If that wasn’t the case, there would be mass killings of everyone attempting to tear each other’s cores apart.
However, it still vitalized the body to an extent.
On the other hand, Liam diligently studied Spirit Beasts. He found out the source of their diverse and amazing abilities belonged to their cores, which directly affected their bodies.
It was a chaotic, mumbo-jumbo of foreign and colorful energies that somehow worked harmoniously within the core.
Some beasts had exchanged their destructive abilities for more damage. Some sacrificed one of their senses to heighten another, and so on.
Liam was genuinely intrigued.
In theory, that shouldn’t be possible.
To change the core properties of their bodies, senses and elements was something otherworldly.
For example, wind could compress into a blade’s form and cut just like it, but it couldn’t actually solidify into one.
The same thing with fire, except its burning properties couldn’t be altered.
Earth couldn’t liquify, but mud attacks were also used. ．
Unless water cultivators had wind as a spare element, they couldn’t harden it.
Spirit Beasts denied all of that.
Liam’s darkness was the exception to the rule, able to shift between gaseous, liquid and solid states at whim… but the corrosive nature of it stayed the same.
Even then, the states weren’t constant – more like a continuous state of ‘triple-point’.
Not to mention, it wasn’t as rigid as earth, or free-flowing as water. And it didn’t burn like fire or cut like wind.
Of course, he didn’t apply that reasoning for the Zenith and Celestial realms of strength, but the beasts he was studying were still in the Mortal Ranks.
In truth, Liam imagined that could be a way for his physical abilities of the Ashura and his mental capabilities as a human to merge together and synergize.
If a beast with no sea of consciousness could alter their body’s composition, why couldn’t he?
He knew he wasn’t the only person to think that, and there were probably billions of cultivators that tried to harness the strength of Spirit Beasts.
But he wasn’t among the billion.
Only… he had absolutely no idea where to begin!
Somehow, it was the same problem he had with the corrupted magical beast parts back in the Korsan Lands.
He still had the blood daggers and corrupted magical beast corpses, but he hadn’t been able to synergize his Blood Weaving with his forgings.
…But now that he could manipulate blood, he would definitely revisit that topic.
Once he was settled and set, of course. Until then, he made sure to note down any findings about the Spirit Beasts.
///
Currently, Liam was inside a large prefecture governed by the Snow Moon Sect within the northern side of Ilali.
He wore a regular fur coat around his black martial arts robe, his hair reaching knee-length.
Meanwhile, the shift in weather was a complete 180, since the snow was so heavy it cast a white blanket across the entire prefecture of the gangho.
No daylight passed through the thick veils of cold mist, snow and fog that enshrouded the region.
Men with lower ranked bodies shivered, and the northern side was known for its ruthless and frigid cold.
Still, the streets were packed with fur-coated martial artists who spent their lives in such a place.
The buildings within the prefecture resembled towering Sects, but they served differing purposes – gambling dens, dueling arenas, brothels and dwellings.
In front, past the buildings and over a towering cliff, was a giant Sector that resembled more like a marble palace. The Snow Moon Sect – a mid-tier Clan with powerful martial artists.
‘From what I know, every Clan has various Elders, and above them, a Sect Leader,’ Liam thought over his findings as he walked through the streets. ‘Between them are the disciples and their relative rankings.’
Although he wanted to ask around and see what he could buy, Liam held off and found a place to stay.
‘Jargon will call soon. I want to know if there was any visit from an Echorian Zenith to these lands in search of me. Even commoners would know of an event that big.’
Liam came face-to-face with a small, run-down building covered top to bottom with thick snow.
He did the same old dance of changing his appearance and buying a room for a single night.
It was a dull journey all things considered, but Liam still enjoyed the steady growth in his strength and knowledge.
Entering his room and sitting cross-legged in cultivation, his Jade flickered.
Liam answered it.
“My liege. Are you well?”
Jargon’s voice was a whisper, with the sound of wind gushing past him.
“I am.”
Liam’s response was brief. But he was glad his men hadn’t died straight away.
Relieved and sensing Liam’s choice to skip the pleasantries, Jargon began explaining.
“More than one third of the Blood Troupe have been accepted into Sects around the region. They’ve been training diligently and raising their strength. The remaining two thirds have divided themselves into working regular jobs and becoming wandering martial artists. I myself have joined the Gushing River Sect, a large-sized clan west of the Main Lands.”