Over the next few days, Nyx’Sol fell into a rigorous training schedule. His cultivation technique had grown his intake by leaps and bounds. Three days after his healing break, it had grown fourfold. His Qi pool, after resting, was also significantly expanded, and while the technique showed further improvements, they had diminishing returns. He was rapidly approaching the natural limits of the skin-tempering step of body cultivation.

  Since his progress was slowing down, less energy was used by his Qi circulation, allowing him to experiment more with the two remaining problems he wished to tackle. Internal temperature regulation by manipulating his Yin and Yang Qi had proven to be far too difficult for Sol to make work, resulting in him depleting his energy over and over again—with minor to no success.

  He consulted Yin Qi - Moonlight Shadow Technique again and realized that the aforementioned energy regulation was a technique that cultivators in the Qi-gathering stage would utilize. It merely gave the conceptual idea to practice on, translated to the body cultivation stage, which made Nyx abandon the prospect entirely.

  He decided to focus on his second problem, namely that his defense against temperature changes and physical attacks was non-existent. Permanently altering his skin cells felt easy enough—storing Yin energy inside was not.

  The main issue proved to be the fact that the stored energy seemed to freeze the storage medium over time, resulting in his skin cells dying, which was quite painful. Reading a small book on freezing techniques revealed the issue. Compressed stationary Qi states resembled the same state a Qi-gathering cultivator was trying to introduce to energy they projected outside to achieve a freezing technique.

  It took Sol over a day to find a working solution after skimming through Fire Resistance and Insects: The Hives of Un’gholor. The hives of these colony-forming bugs stored the heat generated by their massive colonies inside their chitinous plating, which allowed them to forego underground ventilation and conceal their hives much better than other hives in the region.

  Since those hives were native to the east, Nyx went on a four-hour research spree trying to find established cultivator families that specialized in recovery pills because of the little hint the masked girl had dropped in their conversation. Instead of a name, it led him on a wild goose chase through trading registers, courtesy of which he was now intimately familiar with the ingredients, where to find them, and suppliers in the region—but no hints about families with secret Yin bloodlines that engaged in that type of trade at all.

  The finished product of his research looked quite impressive: a thin, dark grey scale with a metallic hue, about the size of his fingernail. The larger size, which he mimicked from the Un’gholor warrior bugs, contained Qi pathways that shared the energy with surrounding scales over time, resulting in a quietly achieved equilibrium requiring no further manipulation on his part. And they stored a significant amount of energy.

  This would effectively more than double his carrying capacity for Yin Qi.

  On the other hand, this created two entirely new problems. First of all, the creation of each scale was vastly more expensive than his former, much simpler shapeshifting process, not least because the difficulty far surpassed the former exercise.

  The second issue was that he could only store one type of energy in his new armor, which would suit him well in cold environments and against opponents that utilized a lot of freezing techniques, but Nyx had no idea how effective it would be at blocking out heat or, worse: fire.

  A skin-tempering cultivator's mastery over temperature was minor to begin with. They would never be able to stand in a firestorm or a blizzard and survive for weeks on end, like a Qi-gathering disciple fueled by their own internal energy generation could. They could only mitigate the passive absorption of ambient energy.

  There were three ways of achieving this, each better than the one before. Cut off any intake of Qi, which would protect fully from the absorption imbalance. Take in the most Yin in hot environments and the most Yang in cold environments and at least achieve a bit of Qi generation with full protection intact. Or, as a third option, take in everything and then manage your energy through a technique.

  His energy storage solution was temporarily achieving the third, so Sol felt that he had to at least master the second stage of this problem.

  Hence, he spent the majority of the next few days in various cultivation spots, without the necklace from his sister on. His focus skill still remained unwilling to help but sent encouragement his way whenever Nyx was looking for it.

  Cultivation and reading occupied most of his day, and claiming a home at night had been suspiciously easy. Nyx did not complain since he had been able to relax in a house with a simple bath and decent food, and the Spear Saint Mountain group had not come for him with a vengeance like they had the first time.

  Suspicious, because they still projected their power heavily toward others anywhere else. In fact, they seemed to more aggressively protect their spots and tax more for the privilege of using them. In the beginning, Nyx had assumed that they just avoided excessive confrontation because he had been hanging out with Nox’Rictus. Their animosity toward the Aurelius Vox clan seemed to be a motivating factor in any case.

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  But evidently, that was not the reason, as one of their leading members had gone out of their way to visit him in his current training spot, a wooden platform high above the snowpit.

  “Greetings, Nyx’Sol,” Azrx’Ibahros greeted him, clad in a thin short shirt, shorts, and barefooted. He seemed to also practice against the ambient cold, but his visit was for another reason. “I had hoped to have a conversation with you. May I join you?”

  Sol nodded. “You seem to have a good grasp of your Yin management. How did your breakthrough go?”

  “I have broken through in essence. I merely need to give it a slight shove to cross over,” the dark blue-skinned demon replied, eyeing him curiously. “You never came to ask for sparring. Why is that? Are you hostile to the Spear Saint Mountain group?”

  Right to the heart of the matter. Sol supposed it was better than having a longer conversation, though he would have danced around the issue for as long as possible.

  “You taught me a lot already,” he replied evasively. “It would have been rude to ask for more than that.”

  “Nonsense. I would have been happy to. Your enthusiasm for hard fights has not gone unnoticed, you know? It is rare for a new initiate to challenge the group so heavily and succeed.”

  Nyx let the silence drag on, calmly watching as his conversational partner slowly grew more agitated before answering. “I assume my claim to a home has gone unchallenged for a reason?”

  Ibahros smiled at this. “A token of goodwill. We do not need to be enemies.”

  Nyx raised an eyebrow. “Enemies? We had some ‘arguments’ over where we sleep. That hardly makes us enemies.”

  “While that may be true, I want to explain something to you. The Spear Saint Mountain group has been in control of the Skin Tempering Garden for well over two years. We control a certain number of houses, rotating through them in day and night shifts. Half of our group sleeps at night, half during the day. Whenever someone challenges our control, we all retaliate. It is a system that works well. Whichever group is awake protects and controls the cultivation spots, and our members always have the best spots available to them.” Azrx’Ibahros explained with a confident smile. “If you joined us, you would be able to enjoy these benefits as well. You can learn from the older disciples of our group, get sparring advice, and the Spear Saint Mountain is not secretive about their combat techniques either.”

  Nyx frowned and tilted his head. He knew what he thought about their ‘system’ and how they went about doing things. They carried themselves as confident and arrogant, and most of their members had little to back up such a claim. It did not sit well with Nyx that they abused this position while others of similar strength were bullied by their system.

  Maybe it was silly to think this way. A sect tried to bring forth the best talent of a region and hone it. Why couldn’t they work together? Share like a family would? Strictly leave conflict at the door? But his father had often said that tradition mattered, and Sol knew that cultivators were easily offended. It mattered how you said things. “I do not doubt it. I merely sleep where I want to sleep.”

  Ibahros blinked at him. “Then—”

  “Exactly,” Nyx cut him off on purpose. Maybe Ibahros would get the hint without him having to spell it out.

  “That is unfortunate,” he hummed. “Unfortunate, because I cannot return with just that. May I ask... why?”

  Nyx sighed internally. He wanted a clear answer. “The way the Spear Saint Mountain group behaves towards the other initiates is unseemly. It brute-forces its way into any spot they wish to claim and has no regard for what is good for the sect as a whole. They pressure others into payment and, in essence, reduce their progress through this.”

  “Of course. Before we controlled the Skin Tempering Garden, there was mere anarchy—anyone fighting anyone for scraps. The rate of fighting was much higher than it is now! Our system takes in the new arrivals that are promising and—”

  “Makes them yours to own. You are tyrants, only justified in your behavior by the power you possess. It aggravates others, and the moment you lose your strongest members because they break through and move on”—Sol pointed his hand towards Ibahros to highlight one such member—“then you lose grip on it, and it will fall apart because there is nothing that holds it together but greed and power.”

  “What else is there? We are all together under one powerful entity. The Demon Ancestor himself is living proof that the strong rule lifts us from anarchy. What other way is there?” Ibahros asked with a frown.

  Nyx was stunned for a few moments. He had never thought about this before. “It is just cruel and unfair to conduct yourself this way. And you are not our Great Demon Ancestor.”

  “Of course not, but life is unfair. No matter where you go outside of our world—you will find enemies. They will not be fair to you either.”

  Silence stretched out between them. It was difficult to argue against this way of conduct because Sol had no idea what he would do as an alternative. Just assuming everybody would get along if no one exerted control was naive. There would need to be a system that did... something.

  “I assume your answer is still a firm denial?” Azrx’Ibahros sighed. “A shame.”

  Nyx nodded. “I am against it as long as things remain as they are.”

  “Well, at least I am not going to be responsible for dealing with you. Speaking with you is my last task here.” He shook his head. “I will advise you to not try and claim Spear Saint Mountain homes again. This time, there will be consequences.”

  Pondering his words, Nyx’Sol was still thinking about what system would work and how it would be managed and enforced while also noting that his concentration on Qi intake had been flawless throughout the conversation, despite differing levels of wind. He would be able to move on to continue his chitinous plating project! What was a bit of trouble? Fights were there to be enjoyed, and he would learn from them.

  The silence of Ibahros made him stop his train of thought. Ibahros had also assumed the lotus position during the end of the conversation and was now cultivating with closed eyes. Soon, dark ink-black liquid secreted from his skin, sticking to his clothes—expelled from his body. The wind carried away the worst of the stench Nyx knew to associate with it.

  He had broken through. Casually, right next to him, shortly after a conversation. The amount of concentration it must have taken to remain right at the edge of this achievement and not slip into failure? His foundations must have been flawless.

  Nyx’s eyes shone brightly. That was exactly what he wanted.