13 Cultivation Ranking System

After destroying most of the creatures that attacked me, I sighed in relief as I relaxed. The fight had taken a little more than half of my Qi.

After spending the week eating inside the flood dragon, my size had unknowingly became 600 meters or 200 meters short of the width of the flood dragon's body. My cultivation had broken through two times again making the Qi thicker and the elemental water usage more efficient. My foundation had become increasingly stable and my exoskeleton 50% stronger from the scales.

I had unknowingly gained the ability to shrink my body to a certain degree. I can go from my original size to about 30 meters in diameter.

A side affect was that my blood essence became thinner by a lot since it's no longer compressed in the small body of mine. I could've drank a bunch more blood essence from the flood dragon but they had already taken most of it. As a result, I just ate as quickly as possible. It wasn't until I felt the presence of the lifeforms outside attacking, that I decided to come out.

I didn't have much confidence and planned to escape, but surprisingly, I only burnt through half of my Qi to take them all down including the two strongest ones. Their blood essence wasn't a lot but the quantity made up for it, especially the two strongest. But, it didn't impact my current amount too much, to my disappointment.

But now that they've been all scared away, I can now enjoy feasting on this flood dragon corpse. But, my luck isn't that too good. A roar echoed through the area, causing even plant life to shrink up. The roar seemed as if it could penetrate anything. I instinctively felt a fear towards this roar, and a very dangerous feeling.

Being too greedy is bad, so I quickly shrunk my body to 30 meters before reluctantly booking it. Only when I was several hundred meters away did I bury myself into the mud, dozens of meters below.

A horrifying presence descended into the area, making me feel like my first time this deep underwater. I don't even dare leave in my soul form and try to create light to see. My instincts were telling me this was a creature that was way more powerful than what I can possibly hope to fight against. Escape may even be possible.

The ground violently trembled with loud sounds for a bit before the presence began to dissipate over time. A few minutes later, the presence seemed to have vanished and that sense of life or death faded away as well. Crawling to the surface, I peeked out to see a horrifying outcome.

Several meters away from my spot, the mud floor had seemingly vanished. Floating over, I saw the original mud-floor that was there had seemingly turned into a chasm, except the other side was not seen. Mud was caving in creating slow moving water falls of it. Storms of brownish fog seeped upwards from the abyss.

I went down nearly a thousand meters before reaching the bottom, which was completely shredded with rock formations everywhere. I began flying across and only managed to reach the other side after two miles of flying. Going the next direction for a mile, the ground began sloping up till it was back to mud. There was no flood dragon anywhere, like it had vanished with the earth.

It was as if a massive creature swooped down and took the body and the earth with it. I couldn't help but shiver. How large is this creature to cause such massive damage? Just the roar and it's body was terrifying. Maybe even that elder that picked up Leonardo may not be a match. It's a good thing I can control my greed, or else I'd be inside it's stomach.

I sighed, and decided to leave the area, as there's nothing left to do.

Or well, I tried to do that, until I realized that I was lost in darkness on a seemingly endless sea floor.

Three weeks later...

After losing my sense of time, I nearly went insane with nothing to do. I had to swim up to higher waters for food several times already. I gave up at the bottom and swam near the surface, as the sky's much better to look at.

It wasn't until I spotted a little black dot at the horizon. I frantically swam over towards that direction. The dot grew larger and larger until I could faintly make out the outline of a ship. It grew larger and larger until I was a mile away.

It's size is 370 meters in length, or about the length of a cruise ship. It's height around 80 meters, which I think may be the same height. It's exterior is a jaded white, with its shape similar to a ferry and a pirate ship combined. It also has the many windows and views as a ferry. Although it's a little weird with the huge sails with the clan symbolism on them.

I couldn't help but nearly yelp in ecstasy. I had been soaring near the surface for a week, with little time to rest, as the dark abyss water had become insanity inducing. Not to mention that terrifying creature that could easily eat me.

Without care, I swam as fast as possible to the side before sliding up onto the side, finally exiting the water. I bit into the wall for support before finally relaxing. I could feel the mental exhaustion overcome me.

However, I had unknowingly triggered a massive commotion by doing so. Several dozen human cultivators floated in the air and surrounded me with serious looks in their eyes. One of them sent an Qi attack, which was absorbed by the shingles, before turning into energy for me. Then they started sending in stronger attacks, but they were all absorbed by me. My shingles which had dimmed out began shining once again with the purity of darkness.

"Monster, why do you cling to our ship?" demanded a middle-aged cultivator.

I was about to answer when I realized the problem. I had only been speaking in my mind this entire time, and a sea urchin's mouth isn't designed for speech. I also never thought about it, but the language of this world is also in English, even though I listened to that conversation back then.

Hesitating for a second, I tried using devour energy. A black fog escaped my body and surrounded me, causing the others to tense up, ready to attack once again.

Some of it gently floated up towards them unstably. I created a few sentences with my imagination.

I need to rest.

I have traversed a long ways.

The words were black and very unstable. Some looked weirdly at each other.

"What can you offer to us?" asked the middle aged man, with an indifferent face.

I hadn't thought about that. There's really nothing that I can offer. I'm sure they wouldn't want the food in my stomach. Thinking for a few minutes, there was only one idea. Blood essence! I manipulated the blood essence in my body to forcefully condense a droplet of essence blood. Spitting it out, it floated to over where they were. I spelled out a few words.

Blood essence.

The middle-aged guy manipulated the essence into a bottle before observing it with his divine sense. Startled, he looked at it greedily before waving for them the cultivators to leave which they reluctantly did. He seriously looked at me for a second with a look of hesitation.

"Alright, you can stay. But no trouble."

Before I could respond, he flew back into the ship. I did not mind him nor the blood essence. I have over a hundred of drops of blood essence as dense as that, so it's nothing to fret about. Getting the chance, I finally relaxed and dozed off into a blissful dream.

Meanwhile, in the captains quarters, the middle-aged man was sitting down with a glass bottle in front of him with a few subordinates nearby.

"Senior Cosmo, are you sure we should trust that creature?" asked a member that looked to be in his twenties.

"I've never seen such a creature before, should we let this go Senior Cosmo?" asked another.

"Shut up," said the middle-aged man as he put the bottle away, "For a creature to easily give away it's blood essence means that it's powerful. My divine sense couldn't even get past his scales. We're also about to enter dangerous territory soon, and it'd be nice to have a powerful ally protecting us, as I can't guarantee we'll get out easily."

"Senior Cosmo, you mean?"

"Yes," he nodded, "I'll go negotiate with the creature later. You all stand bye in case something goes wrong."

"Wouldn't that stain our reputation? Asking a creature for help?" one asked.

"Normally it would. But at a time like this, it's sometimes best to put reputation away in exchange for a better chance of survival," he said with a gloomy face.

After all the members left, Cosmo sat quietly and thought.

Enjoying the blissful dream, I woke up eventually feeling refreshed once again. My energy and spirit invigorated as a result. I felt the gaze of someone and looked up the see the middle-aged guy floating nearby with indifference on his face. I sent a stream of devour energy up towards him.

What do you want?

"We are about to enter dangerous territory soon. I would like to ask for protection," he asked slightly bending.

No problem.

"No problem? You don't want any gift? Elixir? Rare treasure? Pills?" he asked in shock.

As long as you can answer a question of mine.

"Question? No problem. Ask away," he said.

I'm from a place with a different cultivation system. What's the cultivation system here?

"Cultivation system? I see. I didn't think you are new here."

"First is ten levels of body refinement where one refines the body's skin and flesh to the highest degree."

"Then there's the ten levels dantian gathering where one gathers Qi from the air into their dantian." "After that is major meridian unblocking where one has to unblock all the major meridians that circulate around the body back to the dantian which consists of ten levels. If it isn't for body refinement, the body would explode."

"Minor meridian unblocking is when one has to clear all the smaller ones leading to the organs of the body which consist of five levels for the five organs."

"Organ refinement realm is when one has to refine each organ, to allow higher performance. This takes five levels to complete. Each allowing greater strength."

"Next is the Post-Xiantian realm which is a single realm where one has to clear out all the blocked meridians of the body. This is in preparation for the biggest gulf that makes one become an immortal."

"Once preparations are complete. One must break into Xiantain realm. During this time, one must face a horrifying heavenly tribulation. The chances of surviving are low. But if you do, all impurities of Qi and body will be expelled from your body, while Qi will slowly transformed into Saint Qi, which is way more powerful than normal Qi."

"After that is the Saint realm, which one breaks through when all their Qi is transformed into Saint Qi. The ones after are Saint Immortal realm, Saint Demi-God realm, and Saint God realm which I don't much about. After that, I don't know at all. But there's three minor stages in most realms which is initial, middle, and high."

I see. How strong is Saint realm?

"Terrifyingly strong! With a wave of a hand, hundreds of mountains will be crushed instantly. They can take space apart and create their own realms for their own clans. Populations of billions will be killed instantly. Each fight shakes the entire Immortal Realm. They can appear anywhere in the Immortal Realm in the blink of an eye."

"Our clan leader is somewhere in Post-Xiantian realm, and we're just powerhouses with other clans of the same rank nearby. But no need to worry about Saints, as the number of them can be counted on a hand. They rarely come out, and if they do, it's either serious or important."

Ok. What about monster ranking?

"Oh. I should've mentioned that first. You're all just ranked by 1 to 50. Rank 1 to 3 goes to peak of body refinement. 4 to 6 is in dantian gathering. 7 to 10 is major meridian unblocking. 11 to 12 is through minor meridian unblocking. 13 to 16 is organ refinement realm. Post-Xiantian realm is 17 to 23. Xiantian realm is 24 to 30. Saint Immortal realm is 31 to 35. Saint Demi-God is 36 to 40. Saint God is 41 to 50. Above that, I don't know. There's a few monsters out there in the saint realms that can also be counted on a hand. Also, when one reaches rank 2, they form a monster core."

Thank you.

"Ah, you're welcome. If that's all, I'll take my leave," he said as his left.