Cultivating At Last

*Things like sexism and racism are purely for worldbuilding and to make it more realistic. Thank you for your understanding.*

A large hooded figure sat in the centre of a small house with dozens of dry bodies around him. The huge figure made the small human bodies look terrifyingly small as even the tallest was only the height of his knee.

Beneath the hood was a shroud of darkness where not even a speck of light could be seen. Only two large tents in the fabric could be seen on his back and would make him seem even larger.

All of a sudden, a burst of aura was unleashed from the robed figure, causing a slight ripple in the air and the flats of his robe to sway lightly. Following that, two shining red orbs surfaced from beneath the hood and the large tents on his back shuffled and nearly ripped the robe.

The level of the aura was only equivalent to a higher Stage 1 cultivator, however, there was a sinister and much more powerful aura hidden within the figure.

'Ah. Cultivating at last.' Qing Fang thought relaxedly after he had just broken through a minor realm. He seemed at ease knowing there was a growth in his power, however, there was a hint of astonishment at his own growth.

'From lower Stage 1 to middle Stage 1 in a matter of hours, and now reaching higher Stage 1 in only seven days... This speed is something I have only read about.' Indeed, now that Qing Fang was cultivating in line with his affinity, the speed was dreadfully faster than when he cultivated Water path. Breaking through realms felt like nothing to him.

However, he could've gone even faster if he cultivated a normal path. He was always in need of blood, and up until now, he had only sought weak mortals. But just to reach higher Stage 1, he had to slaughter over one hundred humans. Just thinking of the amount of carnage he would need to cause in the future, he winced.

'Millions... So troublesome.'

Thinking this, he smashed the entire wall to pieces and rushed into the sky, not caring one bit about leaving the bodies of his prey behind. He had never met or even seen a cultivator as strong as those two he had fought on the night of his awakening, so Qing Fang was careless.

However, he was not so careless as to lead a trail of bodies back to his lair. He would let the Baron of this region send more and more low-level cultivators into the streets. As far as Qing Fang was concerned, they were just bugs.

Qing Fang's huge wings cast a shadow over tens of houses as he rushed through the air and crushed the sound barrier. Even though he had cultivated two minor realms, the increase in his body's strength was nonexistent. However, crushing the sound barrier was nothing to a Stage 5 physique.

As he rushed through the mess of blur that his Stage 5 eyes could make sense of, Qing Fang suddenly arched his neck and looked almost behind him.

There, about two kilometres away, he saw a figure flying across the sky, although at a speed much slower than his.

And at this moment, Qing Fang suddenly had a wild thought cross his mind. 'A Stage 4. Hmmm, I wonder if the blood of cultivators is better for my cultivation? Haha, I must find out.'

Huge teeth were bared maliciously as Qing Fang's body suddenly stopped dead in the air, seemingly making the air break in two. Until now, he had never targeted cultivators out of caution and only fed upon mortals. Now was the time to find out.

Qing Fang's eyes pulsed as a world of colour overcame him. He was peering into the World of Laws and casting his vision far and wide, searching for any Stage 5s like himself before he decided to kill the Stage 4.

And seeing nothing, he smiled overbearingly.

...

Qing Fang suddenly seemed to appear behind the Stage 4 with a flash of immense speed and went completely unnoticed. His massive body was but a few dozen meters from the oblivious cultivator and dwarfed him.

And then, Qing Fang twisted his dagger-like claws and mobilised an attack containing all his strength. The air seemed to bleed as the red liquid flowed from the void itself, conjured by the abyssal claws as it danced in fury.

Qing Fang mobilised all of the strength available to him, his red corporeal body in the World of Laws clawing at nature and spawning Law fragments of its own to use for its whims. Such was cultivation.

He grabbed as many Law fragments as his upper Stage 1 cultivation would allow him and formed a spear ten meters long that was dripping with blood. And then, he thrust it forth with all the strength he could muster! This was an attack containing all of his cultivation power!

The spear seemed to travel slowly, and as soon as it was flung, the Stage 4 instantly snapped onto it with cold eyes and snorted.

Qing Fang then watched on lifelessly as an attack with all his power crumbled into complete nothingness just from a glance of the Stage 4. He knew this would happen but just wanted to see it for himself.

After all, he was technically a higher Stage 1 cultivator if not for his natural suppression. The attacks he mobilised with his cultivation were terribly pathetic while his body was the true monster.

The Stage 4 snorted again once the spear of blood had completely crumbled to dust only from him releasing his pressure. It was laughable.

However, his eyes suddenly widened exponentially as a shining red figure entered his vision. He could see the body made of material Laws clearly. It was dull and weak, signifying a measly Stage 1 cultivation whereas his pulsed and shone much stronger as he was Stage 4.

But this isn't what terrified him.

Flowing like golden veins in that weak Dao Body, a terrifying fragment of the Law of Strength slumbered. Compared to his own, it was several times stronger and sent a shiver down his spine.

'H-how can this be?!! This is Stage 5 strength!!' His own Dao Body trembled at the presence of a Law at the Stage 5-level, the gleaming golden-brown signifying his Earth path cultivation slipping...

"What---"

A single word escaped his mouth before two fingers as large as his arms were shoved into his eyes and cracked his skull, widening the eye sockets under the sheer power of the fingers. Two obsidian-like claws nestled themselves in the brain of the Stage 4, swirling around as if sticking a finger into water and making ripples!

Instantly, life left the body of the Stage 4 as his Dao Body, along with all his cultivation, crumbled into ownerless Law fragments that were reclaimed by heaven.

"Pathetic. Begging before running, how foolish." A dark guttural voice attempted to speak the human tongue, but it was never meant to be heard by the living.

Qing Fang kept his fingers embedded in the dead body as it hung from its eyes. Carrying it over his shoulder like a coat, he then flapped his wings once and disappeared back to his lair...

...

Qing Fang descended upon his lair, that same house, at supersonic speed.

The door was thrust open and gale-force winds descended after it had already slammed shut once more.

Qing Fang crawled across the floor creepily as the ceiling was but three meters tall, less than half of his seven-meter height. He directed a small glance at the huge pile of bones in the far most corner of the room, the pile comprising over one hundred pitiful mortals.

And in the centre of the room, that same hole was etched out of the earth. However, only now, savage growling and incoherent beastly murmuring were coming from below it, enough to terrify many. Every so often, wails would come from the hole and a cry of subservience followed which always made Qing Fang direct an impartial glance.

And with a harsh snarl, Qing Fang turned the hole completely silent as if there was nothing ever down there.

Qing Fang sat in an empty corner in a hollowed-out dome where he could at least sit upright in the tiny house. Following that, he jerked the body still hanging from his claws like a cow on a hook from his shoulder.

Only now, he stopped to look at the human and its bloodied eyes that made it look nightmarish. It was a slightly younger man with unusually white hair and some blue streaks through it. He had a defined jawline and cheekbones as well as dark skin like caramel. An unusual looking human from Qing Fang's perspective indeed.

Ignoring the sentiment, Qing Fang grabbed the head of the human that had the relative size of an apple. Twisting it many times and pulling, the head popped off cleanly and fresh blood still flowed.

Qing Fang would've loved to put it in his storage bag, however, it had gone missing ever since he transformed. He thought it had probably become unstable due to the massive Law fluctuations at the time, and eventually collapsed on itself.

But no matter, he thought.

Seeing the blood of a Stage 4 cultivator having no difference apart from being much denser than a mortal's, there was no qualitative difference. Opening his jaw and letting his monstrous teeth slice through and swallow whatever remained of the stump of the neck, Qing Fang immediately felt the weight of the flesh in his mouth.

Cultivators' bodies were immensely more dense than mortals'. Even Qing Fang's catastrophic weight was only getting heavier as he increased his cultivation by minor realms, his flesh getting stronger and denser. Were it not for him controlling his weight through quasi-flight, he would've sunk ten meters into the floor already.

Letting the redness flow into his gut, Qing Fang felt fuller instantly. Compared to this meat, mortal flesh felt hollow. But since the flesh was much denser, a cultivator's blood would be equivalent to tens of mortals, maybe even hundreds.

'I was right.' Qing Fang thought nonchalantly before growing tired of chewing and simply controlling the blood to leave the flesh and flow directly into his mouth in a small stream. However, he could feel it harder to control this blood as it was much denser and richer in the quantity of the Law of Blood fragments.

Throwing the heavy set of bones and empty flesh to the corner with the others, and after watching them crush everything they landed on, Qing Fang revelled in the feeling of fullness he felt. Drinking this Stage 4 cultivator's blood was equivalent to drinking that of maybe even two hundred mortals! And despite that, its volume was so small!

It would still take a much longer time to cultivate all that blood into his Dao Body, however, it was just much more convenient.

But just as he was about to settle down and cultivate, Qing Fang felt a shrill screech from the hole in the centre of the room. He instantly snarled in annoyance and tens of whimpers replied pitifully.

He crawled over and arched his huge head to look down in the hole and frowned in arrogance at the sight. Dozens of those inferior black creatures, like that of Da Huan, crawled over each other like maggots. They would bite the flesh of one another and maybe even rip them to shreds all while snarling incoherently.

Suddenly, their red eyes saw Qing Fang appear before them and they started wailing in dismay and subservience. As soon as they saw Qing Fang, many of the creatures picked up the severed heads and limbs of their brethren and presented them to Qing Fang as an offering.

Of course, Qing Fang only snorted in disdain. The creatures invoked a natural disgust and superiority in him, how could he eat their disgusting flesh?

All of these creatures are the fruits of Qing Fang's experiments with Blood path. Unlike Da Huan, who had his soul meddled with for instant results, these humans were forced to cultivate Blood path of their own will. As for Da Huan, his soul crumbled ages ago and his body became an empty carcass.

From what Qing Fang could tell, these creatures seemed to be inferior forms of himself. The reason is the difference in Blood path affinity. Whereas he had huge amounts of it, these humans had none, instead of having affinities for a different path. And thus, they turned into these things instead of a more perfect form.

Qing Fang would love to continue experimenting, however, finding humans with Blood affinity was proving extremely difficult. It was mostly in the process, though. He would have to manually force each and every human to cultivate Blood path, and a difference in their transformation would mean affinity. Up until now, he had no luck and only produced these creatures.

Qing Fang had played around with their bodies of them and surprisingly found that these creatures also had natural physical suppression as he had. Only theirs was much weaker, but they would still be stronger than a human of the same stage by a small amount.

However, Qing Fang had found many flaws in their flesh. One of them being the massive weakness to sunlight as well as flames and other forms of fire. Throwing them into the sun, they would burst into a ball of flames and soon die, whereas Qing Fang only felt a slight discomfort.

It was the same for fire, the element causing significantly more damage than normal to them, even in the darkness, whereas Qing Fang had no such weakness. These creatures feared and hated fire and light of any form, which cemented their inferiority and incompleteness as a creature in Qing Fang's mind.

As for intelligence? They were definitely sentient but had limited intelligence, like a dog. However, they could understand commands and also emotional intent, such as threats just from body language or the look in Qing Fang's eyes.

They could not speak as well, however, Qing Fang had never tried to see if he could teach them. After all, the human tongue was hard to speak even for him now that his vocal organs had completely changed shape. It was one of the biggest inconveniences he was currently facing.

But what was most interesting was that they understood that they had a connection to Qing Fang. It was like wolves amongst their alpha. They were naturally subservient in the face of him and seemed to have a natural fear in their souls of his form. This reminded Qing Fang much of the hierarchy of demons that he'd read about.

As for Qing Fang, he still did not know what he was. However, he was sure that he was not a demon as he lacked the natural darkness that they possessed. He thought that since his race was connected to Blood path, he might be a completely new species that no one had ever heard of nor read about.

However, that's only if there have never been any Blood path ancestors that have come before him...

Qing Fang soon turned away from the strange things that wouldn't stop wailing in submission and returned to sitting and cultivating.

He peered into the world of laws and saw his Dao Body mirroring his real one. It was comprised of Law fragments, however, the quantity and quality were only higher Stage 1. There were huge masses of natural Law of Blood fragments that were sitting in his stomach.

He began to take control of them through manipulation and refining them into his own Dao Body, steadily growing it and making it shine brighter and appear more solid and thicker. It was an arduous process to absorb the wild Law into the Dao Body, and it was made much easier if you had an affinity with said Law. It would make the Law more attracted to you and thus more easily refined and controlled.

Qing Fang felt that the quantity of Laws in his stomach was more than double what currently comprised his pitiful Dao Body. All this was due to the purity of that Stage 4's blood. It seems that targeting cultivators from now on would just be irresistible to Qing Fang.

He sat in the lotus position with his hood still covering his face as he meditated in concentration. Strand after strand of Blood Law fragments would be melted into the Dao Body and constantly strengthened it.

...

With ample cultivation resources, time seemed to pass like it was nothing. Hours were like minutes and days went just as fast. All the while, Qing Fang's figure was diligently unmoving in cultivation.

This was the beauty of having cultivation resources. While the higher level of Blood path resource depended on the level of a cultivator's blood, other paths would rely on the mystical environment to produce them.

Like before, when Qing Fang cultivated Water path, he had bought dozens of Water path treasures that had a high density of the Law of Water. With this, he had the resources to cultivate in seclusion more efficiently. Of course, the grades of treasure would equivalate to a cultivator's Stage.

Like now, Qing Fang was technically cultivating a Stage 4 Blood path treasure, which was the Stage 4's blood...

And after days of cultivation, Qing Fang felt his Dao Body strengthen so much that it had broken through another threshold and was now peak Stage 1. The weak density of the Law was reaching its limit and symbolised the approaching advance to Stage 2.

And over a week later, Qing Fang's Dao Body was on the brink of breaking through. The, although not dense, Stage 1 Law was reaching the breaking point and the Dao Body seemed full...

It was at this moment that Qing Fang's eyes burst open. He could feel a tribulation descending upon his real body and also upon his Dao Body.

*3,032/3,000 words*