Leon's palms moved with the ease of an eel in water, but the old man's expression gradually turned to one of astonishment as the demonstration continued.
The last time he had seen Leon, he was at the 8th heaven of the mortal realm. But now his cultivation was only at the 7th heaven. He initially thought that his cultivation might have regressed due to Leon's crippled bloodline heart, as such a situation is quite common for people with injuries to their bloodline heart.
But now, as he watched Leon's performance, he was astonished to see that the life essence radiating from Leon's body was as strong as an 8th heaven cultivator even though he was at the 7th heaven.
Even the movement of his body was in perfect harmony with the life essence inside his body, as though it was the way it should flow naturally. He could feel that the young man was not even trying to circulate the life essence. It was automatically happening on its own.
"Perfection level," the old man muttered to himself in disbelief.
Leon stopped with a grin. "How's that? My cultivation fell to the 7th heaven, but my life essence is still as robust as ever. It is likely that this cultivation technique could even increase the potential of the human body."
The old man stared at Leon blankly for a long moment before he asked, "You mean you actually studied the one million figures which still have intent left on them and even mastered the technique to perfection in just half a year's time?"
Leon shook his head. "You are wrong in that. Among the one million, only one hundred thousand are truly part of the technique. The rest is just different applications of the first one hundred thousand."
The old man frowned. "You deduced that from the pictures as well?"
Leon nodded. "Even though I lost my bloodline, a part of my bloodline's skill is still with me. It helps me create dreams where I can train without worrying about any consequences affecting my real body. So I experimented with different styles of the technique and ended up with that conclusion."
The old man walked over to Leon and checked his pulse. "Strange. There is only a little trace of your bloodline left in you. Since you extracted it yourself, logically speaking, you shouldn't be able to use it."
Leon shrugged. Actually, the old man was right. Although the original Chaos Dragon Emperor bloodline did have such an ability, he had lost it the day his bloodline heart was removed. But to cover up the reason why he was able to improve an incomplete technique and why he was able to master it so fast, he needed an explanation. Hence, he put all the responsibility on his nonexistent bloodline skill.
"Something doesn't add up," the old man muttered to himself in confusion. "Can you perfect it further?"
Leon's eyes lit up. This was the question he was hoping for all along.
"Yes, but I need more techniques compatible with the technique recorded in the picture to put together and derive the intent missing in the rest of the figures."
The old man waved his hand without a word, and the next second a purple hue flickered for a moment as space fluctuated and several cultivation manuals at the mortal realm fell before Leon.
There were at least a hundred, and all of them were at least 5th star grade or above.
Wasting no time, Leon sat before the old man directly on the floor and started skimming through the techniques one by one. Occasionally, he would look up at the painting on the wall as though he was deducing some connection between the technique in his hand and the painting, but in reality he was just pretending.
What he actually did was check whether the technique was compatible with the Ultimate Body Forging Art through his Primordial Chaos Codex.
The old man watched Leon with interest. Sometimes the young man would shake his head after reading a few pages of the cultivation technique before placing it to one side.
Other times, he would smile in satisfaction and place the manual by his side. This continued for a very long time until evening, before Leon finally stopped reviewing the introductory part of all the techniques.
"These sixteen techniques, although I don't think all are needed to completely deduce the technique, if you can lend me these, I am sure I can complete at least half of the technique."
The old man rubbed his chin thoughtfully and threw a ring toward Leon. "That's a storage artifact. Inject your qi inside it and you will be able to command it to store the books inside it."
Leon's heart leaped with joy as he hurriedly injected his vital qi into the ring and discovered that it actually contained space equivalent to a basketball field. At the same time, he also felt a mysterious connection to the ring in his hand.
When Leon willed it, his vital qi flowed into the ring and converted into purple colored space qi, before it enveloped the sixteen manuals, which were double the size of a dictionary. The next second, the manuals appeared inside his storage ring.
"Thank you, thank you senior. Once I completely deduce the technique, I will share the insights with you," Leon said cheerfully. As for refusing the offer for the reason that nothing is free in this world, that thought never even crossed his mind.
After all, without joining an academy, association, or family that holds martial art manuals, getting one's hands on complete high quality manuals like these is just a dream even if you have money to spend. So Leon decided to grow strong first. As for repaying the old man, he would remember this debt and help out the old man when he could.
"Prove your worth to me. Maybe I can give you an even bigger opportunity in the future," the old man said thoughtfully as he squinted his eyes.
"Of course, of course. You can definitely count on me senior. Although I am a cripple when it comes to cultivation talent, my comprehension ability is top notch," Leon said with a huge grin. "By the way senior, that single layer core you mentioned, what is it?"
The old man casually took a sip from the wine bottle and said, "Cores can be divided into three. First is the elemental core located at the lower abdomen of the human body, which connects to the illusionary elemental soul sea. Second is the vital chi core, which is located inside the heart and connects to the illusionary vital soul sea. The last one is the spirit core, located inside the brain, and it connects to the illusionary spirit soul sea."
"Normally, people at the mortal realm don't have the ability to inspect their soul sea due to the low strength of their soul and can only determine the progress of their cultivation by gauging the quality of their qi."
"But in reality, each time you break through to a minor realm, a law pattern will appear on the surface of your core. By the time you are at the 10th heaven of any realm, there will be ten law patterns on your core, which will cover your core completely like a cocoon. Once the core breaks out of this cocoon, you will step into the next major realm."
"Then this process again continues. Each time you break through to the next realm, the core will undergo a rebirth inside the cocoon of laws and make you stronger in the process. The more the number of rebirths, the higher your realm. The higher your realm, the stronger you will be. And the stronger you will be, the more you will live."
"Hence, cultivation speed is also important. If your cultivation speed is too slow, you will remain at the mortal realm for your entire life, and your lifespan will be just a hundred years."
"This is where the quality of the core becomes important. If the core is just a single layer core, your cultivation speed will be at rock bottom, and it will be a miracle if you can even break through to the iron realm. But if it is a two layer core, then the cultivation speed will be double that of a single layer core."
"By taking the single layer core's cultivation speed as the base value, a three layer core will be five times faster, a four layer core will be twenty times faster, and a five layer core will be an outrageous two hundred times faster."
"Simply put, compared to a prodigy with a five layer core, your cultivation speed will be even slower than a turtle on land. To make it even worse, your spirit core is full of cracks and likely to shatter any time, and the elemental cores are already damaged. Without some lucky encounter, you can simply forget about becoming a spirit cultivator or an elemental cultivator."
"The one and only option you have is to become a body cultivator by following the vital qi path. Even then, it is unlikely that you can break through this fast if you don't have a god level technique like this one," the old man said as he fixed his gaze on the large painting on the wall.
Dusting his pants, Leon stood up. He was not discouraged by the old man's words. After all, he was a hacker in this world, and as long as he had the Primordial Chaos Codex in his hand, he would overtake all those so called geniuses one by one.
"Not disappointed?" the old man asked in surprise when he saw Leon's calm expression.
Leon shook his head. "I have no time to spend on being disappointed. Either I will change my destiny and kill all those bastards who harmed my family, or I will just die trying. Anyway senior, I don't know why you are helping me, nor whether you are a good person or a bad person. Either is fine with me since I am definitely not a good person. This debt, I will repay it a hundred fold in the future."
The old man waved his hand and said jokingly, "If you can, create a simplified version of this technique. We can then put both our names as owners of the technique and sell it to the human alliance to make some easy money for the rest of our lives."