But before that, he needed to learn the Nine-Cycle Body Art, which he took from the Martial Manual Hall. It had already been two months since he entered seclusion, and he only had one month left to return the manual.
So Stiles planned to stay up and practice the Nine-Cycle Body Art for the next month.
As the name suggests, practising the Nine-Cycle Body Art requires one to bathe in intense flames.
Skin, blood, and sinew are the initial stage of the Nine-Cycle Body Art, while tempering muscle, bone, and marrow is the middle stage.
If one tempers their organs, meridians, and unity, that's the final stage of the technique.
This will be able to increase their overall body strength.
If he is able to master the Nine-Cycle Body Art during the initial stage of Foundation Establishment, he will be able to rival cultivators at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.
But to cultivate this technique, he needed intense fire. As for fire, there was a place in the sect called the Crimson Flame Cave, where it helped cultivators with fire elements to practice.
So Stiles planned to go to the Crimson Flame Cave.
Then, he waved his hand as the dust accumulated inside the cave disappeared. Then he had a little fresh-up and walked outside the cave.
After coming to the inner area of the outer sect, he was able to cultivate twice as easily compared in the outer area.
Not only that, he could feel the elemental energy in the air.
It should have been done by some powerful array formation that gathered elemental energy from the surrounding area.
Array Masters could be considered one of the most powerful sub-profession practices by cultivators, like alchemy, talisman making, Beast Mastery, and so on. These professions assist cultivators not only in accumulating wealth but also in gaining respect.
If comparing all side professions, Alchemy could be considered the top, followed by Array Masters and Talisman Masters.
The reason why it was more prestigious than other professions was due to its complex properties and methodology.
"Well, I plan to learn alchemy, but I need to find a Spiritual Fire… but finding a Spiritual Fire is really hard. Maybe in the future, the system may provide it."
Speaking about Spiritual Fires, every alchemist needs a Spiritual Fire to concoct pills, but finding one is really hard. It depends entirely on one's luck and fortune.
Even Spiritual Fires are divided into different grades, and finding a low-grade one is also considered to be impossible.
Stiles kept walking toward the Crimson Flame Cave.
Soon, he walked toward the huge cave where he could feel the elemental consistency of fire growing richer and richer.
He could also see most of the disciples walking back and forth inside the cave.
Soon, he reached the huge arch where an elder was guarding. As he walked toward the elder to enter the Crimson Flame Cave,
He bowed. "Greetings, Elder. I want to enter the Crimson Flame Cave."
"Give me your sect card," said the elder.
Stiles nodded and handed over his sect card to the elder.
"Good. You can stay 30 days inside the cave for free. Once the time period ends, you must leave, or else you must pay the penalty."
Stiles nodded his head and bowed toward the elder before walking inside the cave.
As he passed through the inner entrance of the cave, which looked almost like a portal, he entered and saw a whole different world.
The entire atmosphere was filled with heat, and the world inside looked pale red in color, as if the sun itself had descended near the world.
He could also see most of the disciples occupying their own slab seats. Even though there weren't many disciples in the cave, finding a good spot was a different matter.
Even though the spiritual energy of the fire element was intense and rich inside the cave, there were still some spots where the fire element was especially intense in nature.
So Stiles roamed inside the cave. He had to find a good spot soon since there was a time limit. Even though he had 30 days, it still wasn't enough for him to cultivate the Nine-Cycle Body Art.
After roaming for about 2 hours, he finally found a better spot for meditation. He could feel that the richness of the fire element was much more peculiar here than in other spots.
Soon, without wasting any time, he sat cross-legged on the rock slab.
Then he took out the Nine-Cycle Body Art jade from his Spatial Ring.
Even though he had an inventory within him, he didn't want others to suspect him of having some unknown spatial object besides the Spatial Ring.
Because one must know that any spatial treasure would cost an astronomical amount of money.
Soon, he placed the jade slip between his eyebrows, and he immediately felt a large amount of information pouring into his mind.
He was fascinated by this method. He could obtain the content without reading for long hours.
If something like this had been invented back on Earth, it would have been an earth-shaking invention.
But there was a drawback to this method: it only worked if a person's soul capacity was at a certain level.
Once someone embarked on the path of cultivation, their soul would transform and be refined, which would increase their memory and help them comprehend anything much faster.
But even if a person's memory became stronger, it didn't mean they could easily comprehend complex cultivation techniques.
The difficulty of practising a high-level technique was a thousand times harder than learning the most complex mathematical or physics theorem from his previous life.
After extracting the technique from the jade slip, he began organising the method in his mind. Soon, he began breathing according to the technique's instructions.
The breathing method was meant to accumulate Yang energy from the atmosphere and circulate it throughout the body.
To reach the first level of the cycle, one had to gather Yang energy and temper the skin to its absolute limit.
Following the instructions, Stiles began breathing steadily. Soon, he could feel the Yang energy gathering around him. As it started entering his body, he blocked the acupuncture points that normally allowed the energy to circulate.
Right now, all he wanted was to temper his skin so he could achieve the first cycle of the Nine-Cycle Body Art.
Two days passed…
At this moment, Stiles looked like charcoal, as he had been burning his skin for two whole days.
During the initial stage, he felt excruciating pain as his skin began to burn, but after maintaining the breathing technique for so long, he managed to endure it.
Still, he could feel intense itching throughout his skin, constantly irritating him.
After two whole days, Stiles could feel that he had reached the initial stage of Skin Refining, which was the first stage of the Nine-Cycle Body Art.
After two more hours, Stiles' body trembled, and the black, charcoal-like substance began to shed and disintegrate into dust.
The black "charcoal" was nothing but his old, burnt skin.
Once it turned into dust, Stiles could see a new layer of skin forming on his body, much stronger and thicker than before.
Even though his skin had become tougher, its colour hadn't changed; it was still pale white. However, compared to the previous one, it was much smoother and shinier.
Stiles then opened his eyes. He could feel that his strength had grown a little bit stronger, but he didn't stop there. Since he had stepped into the initial stage of the body art, he quickly took out the Dragon's Bone Tempering Pills. He had around ten bottles, and each jade bottle contained ten pills, a total of one hundred pills, which was already a lot for Stiles.
He threw two pills into his mouth and adjusted his posture. Soon, he felt a large amount of violent energy rampaging inside his body. Without wasting any time, he directed the energy toward his skin.
Stiles once again immersed himself in cultivation.
Soon, another five days passed…
Stiles opened his eyes again. He could feel a huge surge of energy inside his body. After seven whole days of cultivation, Stiles had perfected the Skin Tempering, the first cycle of the body art.
Now he could start comprehending the second cycle of the body art Blood Tempering. As stated in the technique, one needed to temper their blood to its peak, refining the blood density to its finest.
This was where the effect of the Dragon's Bone Tempering Pill shone the most, because—as the name suggested—the pill was concocted using Flood Dragon blood.
You must know that even money couldn't buy Flood Dragon blood, which showed just how valuable the Dragon's Bone Tempering Pill truly was.
It was said that a single Dragon's Bone Tempering Pill was more precious than a Golden Elixir Pill, which was the most significant resource for breaking through to the Golden Core stage.
But that wasn't all; even Nascent Stage powerhouses went crazy for the Dragon's Bone Tempering Pill.
This was because, in this era, the Nascent Stage was already considered the peak of physical strength. But there was a catch to the Nascent Stage Body Techniques. For one to cultivate their body further during the Nascent Stage, they needed a Heaven-level body technique, but obtaining one was almost impossible. Only someone from an extremely influential family could get their hands on such a technique.
However, there was another way to increase one's physical cultivation at the Nascent Stage, the Dragon's Bone Tempering Pill,
This helped a cultivator at the Nascent level increase their body density and break through the limits of their physical aspects.