totems

Totem cultivation, from what Liang Chen read in the book is a way of using the blood and soul of demonic beasts to draw an image of the said beasts on the body and by visualizing it absorb the power from it to imbue it into the body, strengthening it. This is clearly an ingenious method that no one had thought of or was completely lost to history.

According to the book after completely absorbing the power in the blood and soul it will grant you great strength rivaling that of immortal cultivators then the tattoo of the beast on the body will disappear.

The man went further to create an accompanying cultivation technique for the totem cultivation called [totem art]. The totem art brandishes the body of the user with a tattoo which acts as a medium through which spiritual qi can be absorbed into the body but due to the lack of a dantian, the qi can only be used to refine the body of the cultivator further increasing their strength.

Liang Chen was overjoyed. This is what he had hoped to discover by risking his life and his opportunity had finally come. However, Liang Chen started rummaging through the satchel again

'Where is it?'

'it should be inside here, haha haha, I need to hurry and cultivate this totem art, then I will go up there and end that damn snake'

Soon his eyes fell on a wooden box with mysterious patterns. He slowly opened it and found within the box, a soul-stealing talisman and a jar containing blood. His eyes widened in glee

"haha hahaha haha hahaha … "

Continuous laughter could be heard within the cave, only later did the excitement within the cave finally die down.

Within the diary, it is written that even cultivators of higher levels who wish to strengthen their bodies could also use this technique. All they needed was to kill a powerful enough beast and use its blood and soul according to the cultivation technique. This is why the man also went to hunt a powerful demonic beast to use it to strengthen his body. It was written that the stronger the beast the longer it will take to absorb and the greater the rewards reaped later.

The man went hunting a very powerful demonic beast; an ice flood dragon, he successfully killed it after an arduous battle but his injuries were too severe and he only had time to hide within this cave and write his last entry before dying.

He hoped that if his body was ever found the beneficiary of his knowledge should not let it be lost with him, he gave his life in pursuit of this and also left behind an image of the flood dragon within a memory crystal along with the blood and soul of the flood dragon.

In one of his last entries, the man wrote that to successfully draw the image of the beast one has to see the beast when it was life and experience its movements and abilities to perfectly capture not just the image but also its spirit and imposing might, these are all necessary to bring out the full strength of the totem.

Liang Chen is very lucky because he gets to draw this ice flood dragon tattoo on his body without actually fighting the beast but using the memory crystal left behind by the man it was as though he fought the beast himself.

Liang Chen did not hesitate any longer and decided to start practicing the technique. First, he needed to use the blood of the flood dragon to draw a formation on the ground exactly according to what is drawn in the book, then draw the image of the flood dragon in the center of the formation and it should be as vivid as possible; the more details one remembers the greater the benefits.

Within the formation the was a place for the soul and Liang Chen figured he could just put the soul-sealing talisman there, there was also a place for spirit stones.

Spirit stones were solidified qi, it was a treasure of heaven and earth and appeared where there was an abundance of spiritual qi forming a mine. Cultivators go there to mine the spirit stones and cut them into generally accepted sizes since it was the universally accepted currency within the cultivation world. The mines sometimes were causes of some wars as different sects and clans struggled for possession over it as it could bring about a rise in their economic power.

Laing Chen found more than 5000 spirit stones in the bag and from the man's notes and the things he has always heard he clearly understood its value.

After placing all the spirit stones in their respective positions except for one, Liang Chen went to his position designated by the formation and lay down then extended his hand and placed the last spirit stone.

Immediately he heard a buzzing sound, and at the same time the soul-stealing talisman shattered and one could see an image of a little flood dragon trying to escape, it had a very cold aura but it could not escape the confines of the formation.

Liang Chen only had a glimpse of it before an unbearable pain overtook his body as the blood formation on the ground started inching closer to Liang Chen as though it was being absorbed.

Liang Chen had already experienced this kind of pain before so he did not faint this time around and he felt that something was entering his body.