ATG 3

[AN: Just a heads up so this note won't be in the middle of the story, and so I don't get people poking at me for making a mistake that I deliberately chose to interpret to Carl's benefit.

For Carl's High Quality Armor item, it describes it as "This armor looks however you want it to look…" Now, some might decide that it means you get once chance to have it look a certain way, and that's it. But Carl has decided in his mind that the armor will shift to look like whatever he wants, and will change to accommodate him whenever he wants. Kind of like a not alive version of the Symbiote that Peter Parker got. So the Jumpchain took Carl's belief that that's how it should work, and made it work that way for him.]

XX

Carl observed the changes in his body and strength now that he was at Nascent 10. The profound energy did cause a small upgrade to his physical body as he gained cultivation levels. But compared to his Ki and the Great Way of the Buddha, the changes were negligible at the moment.

The higher he cultivated, though, the more changes it would bring to his physique, the more profound energy he would have access to, and the more powerful his abilities and attacks would be.

So while his profound energy did incrementally upgrade his physique as he leveled, the way that his profound energy would truly shine is through the use of profound skills and techniques, powered by profound energy. And so for the next segment of training Carl decided he would focus on mastering the use of his profound energy, and practice the techniques he obtained.

Even though his perks would keep his cultivation foundation from being unstable due to the rapid advancement of his profound levels, he still had to spend some time getting used to the upgrade in energy and practice his profound skills to make sure he was in total control of his profound energy. Otherwise he would be a pushover when it came to actual battle, wasting his energy left and right while he kept missing the target.

Standing up, Carl looked once more at the other Evil God Seed. "Yeah, I'll get to you later. You'll likely bump up my profound level a ridiculous amount again, and it will be even more difficult to start getting fine control of my profound energy. Best to start learning control when it's still pretty small. For now, it's time to practice." He put the box away for later and thought about using the Heavenly Time Pearl for his training ground, since he was sure his dojo wouldn't be up to snuff for his profound technique practices.

'It did say that it was one of the two best Heavenly Treasures for cultivation. So I should totally be using it.' Carl didn't even want to talk about his Heavenly Treasure out loud, not even when he was positive he was alone and no one would overhear him. If anyone got any idea he had one of the Heavenly Treasures, they would chase him down to the ends of the earth. He didn't want to be forced to live the next ten years inside his Warehouse or in time dilation inside the pearl to escape the death hunt that would ensue.

Did he even need to mention that murder hobos were greedy and had no problems hunting people down who found great treasures if they didn't have enough power or a large enough force to protect themselves?

Carl called for Rover, who appeared in a flash from where he had been hanging out. Carl whistled while checking out Rover's new look. "Looking good, Rover!" Rover preened in pride in his appearance.

His phoenix familiar was even larger and fiercer looking, now that he too was Nascent 10. Carl could no longer have Rover sit on one shoulder, since he'd grown too big. And Carl wasn't going to let his familiar awkwardly perch with one leg on each of his shoulders while his head was all scrunched up under Rover's body. Too undignified.

Carl laid a hand on Rover's head, and reached out with his profound senses to the Heavenly Time Pearl that was merged with him. He pulled them both into the time dilated space inside the pearl.

Carl once more eyed the sight of the inside of the Time Pearl. It was a simple, flat grassland, that extended as far as the eye could see. Looking up Carl saw no sign of blue sky, since the entire sky was covered by grey clouds. There was no specific light source, but everything was lit up for him to see. It wasn't particularly impressive, but it went on forever. Even with his enhanced vision, it just dwindled into nothing before he saw anything different.

"We'll be here for a while, Rover. I'll open up the Warehouse where we can get food while we train. But we both need to get used to this new profound energy. It's not exactly overwhelming me yet, since I've already gotten so strong with Ki, but it's best to learn control when we have so little power, so when we get stronger it won't overwhelm us." Carl advised Rover.

Ever since Rover had been upgrading his profound level in lockstep with Carl, he'd been getting more intelligent. One of the ways these cultivation worlds usually worked was that when the Profound Beasts, or Demons as they were sometimes called, cultivated, they got progressively more intelligent. And eventually they gained the ability to transform into a human form. For whatever reason, the human form seemed to be ideal for cultivation. It gave a perfect balance between comprehension ability and profound energy absorption ability.

The first generation Demon Emperor was one such being that cultivated until they could transform into a human form, and many of the founders of the families in the Demon Illusory Realm were originally Profound Beasts, or Demons, that attained a human body, After that, any offspring they had started off with a human body, even though they retained their beast origin bloodline and abilities.

Carl wasn't sure just what the future would bring concerning Rover's cultivation and possible change into a human form. When Rover got high enough in cultivation and gained full intelligence and self awareness, and especially when he gained a human form, would he then count as a companion to the Jumpchain? Would he be left behind in this world until Carl came back for him? Or would his status as a familiar allow him to piggyback along with him as he had been already?

There wasn't anything Carl could do about it, so he threw the concern into the back of his mind for the time being. The only way he could think of to make sure that Rover wasn't left behind was to not cultivate so he wouldn't make that change. But in a world where cultivation was might, and might made right, it made no sense to pause his cultivation for nebulous worries about possible futures. His concern would be answered in the future one way or the other.

While Carl started focusing on his upcoming practice, Rover flew off to practice his abilities on his own, so they wouldn't get in each other's way.

In the meantime, Carl sank his awareness into his inner world. He was impressed with the energies that pooled there. There was his Magic, his Ki, his Profound energy, and there was also the different elemental energies that Carl had affinity with. The strongest and most abundant elemental energy was Fire. Ever since he ate the Fire Seed, that was the biggest element there. Aside from that, there was wind and also shadow elemental energy.

Carl was a bit surprised the first time he saw the shadow energy, but soon determined that his animagus form of a Shadow Panther had given him a talent with the element. The quality and quantity was about the same as the wind element affinity that the Cultivation perk had given him.

Inside his inner world, among the energies there, were floating three items. His profound sword / goblin blade, his profound armor, and his Ark. Carl hadn't paid attention to the three items until now because he'd been so focused and excited to work on his cultivation. But now he thought it was past time to get a feel for them.

He first pulled out his blade and armor. They had been bathing in his energies and getting stronger while inside his inner world. If only for that reason alone, Carl decided that anytime he wasn't training or using them, he would store them inside his inner world. They needed to soak up every bit of the various powers he had access to in order to really get strong.

Since he was at the peak of Nascent Profound, the sword and armor were at the peak of True Profound. With a thought he wore the armor, and his blade was on his hip. He played with the ability of the armor to look like what he wanted. It shifted to a set of Halo armor. Then he shifted it into Iron Man's armor.

Carl chuckled amusedly at his cool armor. "Rule of cool. You can't be a recognized badass unless you look the part."

He then had the robes shift to look like an expensive set of robes that hinted that he had money but didn't flaunt it. His long disused perk Fashion Chaser from the BtVS universe had informed him what would make him look like a member of a well off local family. He needed to get used to wearing the local garb so he didn't stick out too much.

When he finally started interacting with the people in the ATG world, he needed to look the part. He wouldn't really need to shift his facial features too much to pass unnoticed, because while walking around earlier he'd seen a wide range of facial features and even hair colors. So his normal brown didn't seem too out of place when there was natural blue and orange hair colors out there.

And first impressions were important. If he went around dressed as a homeless bum, then people would treat him like that. If he dressed the part of a rich son of a well off clan, then people were likely to treat him like that.

Carl next pulled out the Ark, and watched as it appeared floating in front of him. It looked like a 40 foot long wooden boat. Jumping on the boat, Carl willed it to go forward. It started moving at a sedate walking pace. Carl tried urging it to go faster, even pouring all his profound energy in to push it faster. It started moving at a nice, slow jogging pace. Carl sighed. Apparently he didn't have enough energy to power it properly.

With a thought, he reached out to the Ark and willed himself inside it. Carl was sucked inside the dimensional space of the Ark. Looking around, he saw that it appeared like a regular world. He was on the outskirts of a forest, with a large castle in front of him. Since he was the owner, he had a vague mental impression of what was inside the Ark's space. Running over what was available inside, Carl wasn't too impressed. Besides a lot of land, there wasn't much there.

Carl figured that if he didn't have his Warehouse, Farms, and other abilities and perks then he would be super happy about the dimensional world that came with the Ark. But as it was, he didn't really have a use for it for the time being.

Since there was nothing of particular note, Carl exited the Ark once more. He sent the Ark back into his inner world. He was a little disappointed that the Ark wasn't a bit easier to use. It didn't have a power source or even a method to store power for later use. So until he found some kind of battery that could be used, and hopefully recharged, to power the Ark, it would have to remain in his inner world.

If he was to think of an immediate use for the Ark, he could maybe plant local herbs in the Ark space that could be used as medical treatment or refined into cultivation resources. He would get to that later, after he trained up some, if he needed more farm space.

Deciding that he had delayed enough, Carl focused on his training. He unsheathed his sword and began running through the katas and exercises he had learned from the HSDK world. After he had practiced the moves, and warmed up, he started channeling his magic, casting a large variety of curses and jinxes as he practiced his combat forms.

Now that he was warmed up and in the right mindset, Carl mentally reviewed the three profound skills he'd gotten from the Cultivation perk. An attack, defense, and movement skill, all geared towards the element he'd picked to have an affinity with through the Cultivation perk, Wind.

Each of the skills relied on profound energy to power them. They were only low level skills, which was perfect for his current profound level. The attack skill was a wind cutting skill.

He concentrated his profound energy in the method described, and a blade of wind started forming in front of him. Carl observed how his profound energy gathered up the wind element and constantly added it in, while some of the wind element escaped the technique.

The technique made use of the way wind was always flowing, always moving. But it used that aspect to assemble a dense blade of wind. Carl sent the blade of wind flying forward and down, landing on the ground a dozen feet away.

The explosion of earth from the wind blade wasn't very impressive. Carl moved over and observed the shallow gouge in the ground that was a result of the wind blade slicing the ground. It wasn't particularly impressive, but it was only Carl's first time utilizing the skill. Even though he had all the knowledge about how the skill should work, taking that knowledge and applying it in the real world was a different matter.

Everyone's mind worked differently, so Carl would have to continue to practice using the technique to figure out how best to maximize the technique activation speed, cutting edge, and speed of the technique.

The technique was useless if it was too slow to hit the target, or if Carl couldn't use it instinctively and without a thought in the midst of combat.

Carl then moved on and thought over the details of the defensive technique he was given. It was a method to harden the wind around him into a basic shield that could stop or slow down attacks below a certain power threshold. It was better at stopping physical attacks than attacks based off of elemental energy, so the defensive technique had its pros and cons, but was still useful.

Carl spent several seconds forming up a dense shield of air in front of him. Poking the shield, Carl wasn't particularly impressed. It didn't even feel very strong. Maybe if he played up the aspect of wind that he'd already seen, that it was constantly moving?

He spent several more minutes figuring out how to make the wind the shield was made of rotate faster. Once he thought he had it, Carl lightly punched the wind shield. His fist seemed to slide away from his target.

"Huh, that could be useful. Instead of attempting to stop a blow, I should practice deflecting enemy attacks with the wind shield. Just a little bit of misdirection of attacks will make dodging that much easier."

Now that Carl had a basic idea of the defense method he would develop with the technique, he moved on to the movement technique. The technique was a method of forming the wind in several ways to speed up his ability to move in combat.

He could solidify the air into objects that he could use to push off against. With the air steps he could change directions when the enemy was least expecting it, or use it as kind of starting blocks that sprinters used to push against and get maximum acceleration on a charge. If he was coordinated and skilled enough, he could even use it to "airwalk".

The warnings in the technique advised against using airwalk except in the most dire situations, since it took a huge amount of profound energy to support the user's own body, for some reason. There were even examples of cultivators that thought they had mastered the technique and used it over a large canyon, who subsequently fell to their deaths.

Carl gulped nervously when he reviewed the warning in his mind. He had already started planning to use the technique exactly like that. Perhaps he would be a bit more circumspect and keep safety in mind.

Now that Carl had a basic understanding of the three techniques, he spent the next several hours practicing the three techniques. His activation speed was still sluggish. Trying to get a feel for how he could utilize the techniques into a coherent battle strategy was taking quite a bit of work. Just as he was starting to feel like he was getting a bit better, Rover flamed in to where Carl was training, singing a certain song that Carl had gotten familiar with over the years.

"Hey, Rover. Food time?"

Rover indicated enthusiastic agreement, causing Carl to chuckle in agreement. Opening the portal, Carl entered his Warehouse and started preparing another feast for the two of them. His farms would keep producing food while in the Time Pearl, so they would have quite the stockpile once they came out, so he was more than willing to create large amounts of food for them to devour. And training was energy intensive, so they needed the calories.

While they were eating, Carl had a thought that he hadn't considered before. "Hey, Rover, come here a second." At Rover inquisitive chirp, Carl answered. "Ever since I got all that medical knowledge, I haven't checked you over. I don't even know how many Profound Entrances you have open, or anything really about your physical condition. So I wanted to check that out."

Rover chirped agreement, and waddled close to Carl at the table. Carl spun a probe of profound energy, sending it into Rover's body as he scanned his familiar. He was somewhat shocked to see that Rover also had 54 profound entrances opened, and his body was quite sturdy, due to the Way of the Great Buddha. Carl related all that information to Rover, who preened proudly, causing Carl to chuckle. He was also proud his familiar was awesome.

After he had scanned Rover, Carl thought he should keep better track of his own condition and progress as well, so he decided to do a full scan of his own situation. After cleaning up the meal, Carl sat down on the couch while Rover watched an episode of a T.V. show they had.

Mentally filtering out the sounds of the show so he could concentrate, Carl sank his profound energy probe into his body. As he scanned his body, he saw many of the things he already knew would be there. Centered in his head was his magical core. In his heart was his Ki core. And behind his navel was his dantian where-

His dantian wasn't there.

What did he do wrong in his cultivation that he hadn't formed a dantian?!

According to all the books he'd read, when he started cultivating he should have created a dantian core where his profound energy would pool and store his profound energy. It would be connected to all his meridians and send energy throughout his body. As he progressed in cultivation, his dantian should progress too, and the flow of energy through his body should upgrade it.

So what exactly was happening, what did he do wrong?

Carl brought up his knowledge he'd gotten from the Cultivation and Genius Doctor perks. He reviewed the information, and soon realized something. The cultivation in the ATG world was different from all the other stories he'd read. Carl face palmed for letting his previous knowledge and assumptions blind him to what was actually in front of him and what was actually happening so that he had panicked at a false alarm.

In the ATG world, everything was about Profound Veins. Profound energy was stored and circulated by the veins, while the profound entrances determined how much profound energy he could hoover up.

Now that he wasn't panicking over some imagined error, Carl relaxed once more and continued his scan. He observed his inheritance body types, and how they affected him. Only as he was observing his Nine Profound Exquisite Body, did he realize that the entry for all the various energies that would pool in the inner world was behind his navel, where his dantian would have been.

'Interesting. I don't have a dantian, but the channel for my various energies to enter the inner world is where the dantian would be. Coincidence? I think not!' Carl figured there was some kind of significance to that little fact. It would be interesting to see how it would interact with a different cultivation world's system if he found himself in another one in the future.

Carl continued inspecting his body, and saw that every bit of his body, from blood to bone to muscle, had a scarlet tinge to them that felt of fire. 'That must be the effect of the Evil God Seed of Fire. Every bit of me is attuned to fire. So that's why I become immune to it.' Carl concluded.

Thinking of the Evil God's Seeds, he turned his attention to his profound veins that were the Evil God's Profound Veins. He soon saw the seven gates that came from the Evil God's bloodline. It looked like he only had access to the first gate: Heretic Soul. When opened, it would amplify his profound energy by 2-3 times.

'That would be a big boost to fighting against people of a higher cultivation from me. But I'll have to practice opening the gate sometime soon to get a feel for using it before I need it in a desperate battle.' Carl thought. 'Using an unproven technique in combat is only for desperate times. And since I've got time to get used to it, there's no need for me to not be practiced in its use.'

As he continued to trace all the changes in his body, he saw certain drops of blood that were different from the rest of his blood. They were more…robust. 'They must be the blood essence from the Dragon God and Golden Crow legacies that change and enhance my physical being.' Carl concluded.

And with a bit more focus, he could tell the drops apart based on the feel of them. There were the six drops of Dragon God blood that had an indomitable feel to them. Like a Dragon God should, looking down on all.

There were the six drops of the Golden Crow blood that burned with fire and disdain for everything around it, knowing that nothing was safe from its flames' destructiveness.

Then Carl saw something he didn't expect. There were two more drops of blood that were out of place. It wasn't from him, the Golden Crow, or the Dragon God. Scanning the drops of blood, he soon determined it to be Phoenix blood, based on the feel. After he'd scanned Rover, he had a pretty good idea of what a Phoenix felt like.

'Huh, looks like the sharing goes both ways with Rover. It was not just me sharing my cultivation and opening of profound entrances, looks like I'm getting something from him too. That's actually pretty good. Phoenix's have amazing regenerative abilities, so it can only benefit me. I wonder if I'll get more drops as we level up our profound cultivation? Only time will tell.'

'But wait a sec.' Carl paused as a thought came to him. 'If he's sharing his blood essence with me, why isn't he getting any of the blood essence from me? Is it because I've only got a few drops of blood from the legacy, but I'm not really a Dragon or Golden Crow, so I can't really generate it and share it, while he is 100% phoenix, so he can share some with me? That makes sense, I guess.'

Once Carl finished his self health scan, he meditated for a bit to digest his new knowledge, and really integrate it into himself. He then filed everything in the appropriate section of his mind. It wouldn't do to leave his mental room messy.

After Carl was finished with his meditation, he returned back to the Heavenly Time Pearl's fields and pulled forward in his mind the information he gained from the Golden Crow's Record of the Burning World to practice the first stage.

The Jade Tablet he had received as part of the legacy had seven stages. The first two stages were foundational skills, meant to give him a cultivation method and build his affinity with and control over fire. Only when each stage was mastered should he move on to the next stage. It included benchmarks in his skill and ability to control flames so that he knew when he had mastered each stage.

Carl started the exercises in the first stage as he summoned fire and started manipulating it. It actually felt incredibly easy. The fire resonated in Carl's very blood, causing him to have a really positive feel about the beautiful, mesmerizing flames. There was nothing better than to play with fire. Carl grinned hugely at the effect his Golden Crow blood was having on him. Fire now felt comfortingly like home.

Over the next few days Carl continued his routine of cultivation and training. He could feel his mastery of the techniques rise incredibly swiftly. He had already mastered the first stage of the Golden Crow's legacy. He had integrated his three wind techniques into his fighting style. He used the wind blades either to enhance his sword's cutting edge, or used them as a second and third blade to make multiple attacks at the same time to fluster and overwhelm his future opponents.

'It must be the effects of the Heart of Snow Glazed Glass.' Carl speculated. 'When the perk said incredible comprehensive abilities, they weren't joking. The grading curve for "incredible" was probably wrecked because the jumpchain has access to the entire universe. Comparing the label "incredible" would mean different things, depending on the perspective. Compared to a dinky, hole in the wall country, someone with 20 profound entrances open would be incredible, but compared to the entire world, they wouldn't even be considered mediocre. So for the jumpchain to label it as "incredible", when it has the entire universe to compare to, really means something.'

Carl also enjoyed his movement technique, being able to, in an instant, deploy his windsteps to make himself incredibly mobile. Even just the little things, like being able to shift his weight or momentum while airborne, would confuse his opponents.

Another thing Carl noticed over the past few days was that at different times, even when he wasn't actively cultivating, he would feel profound energy entering his veins. After a short investigation, he found one more aspect of his familiar bond with Rover that went both ways. When he or Rover actively cultivated, a portion of the profound energy would be shared with the other. So the two of them were benefitting from each other's cultivation, which could either speed it up or slow it down, depending on how dedicated or lazy the other side of the familiar bond was. Thankfully Rover wasn't lazy and was more than willing to pull his own weight.

After several days of his cultivating and training, Carl broke through into the True Profound level. Rover of course was right there with him in the break through. Rover increased in size once more by a few inches. While Carl didn't have any outward changes to his body like Rover, the amount and density of profound energy available in his profound veins had a huge jump.

That huge jump in amount and density of profound energy available was the reason it was generally accepted knowledge that someone from a lower cultivation realm couldn't possibly win in a fight against someone who was a realm higher. At the very least, someone from the True Profound realm should easily be able to defend against and wear out someone from the Nascent Profound realm, simply on the fact that he had more profound energy that was denser and stronger.

But when someone had all kinds of bloodlines, er..Inheritor legacies, profound energy multipliers, and body upgrades like Carl did, that kind of reasoning could be thrown out the window, to a certain degree. Even though he could punch above his weight class by a bit didn't mean that as a new True 1 level cultivator that he could take on an Emperor 1 Throne cultivator. They would still kick his butt.

But that didn't mean that Carl and Rover couldn't enjoy their current success. So they had another celebration to commemorate their advancement by watching some movies while enjoying some popcorn and Root Beer. It was something mindless and relaxing to do after they had been training hard for a few days. Halfway through the movie, Carl shifted to his panther form and lounged on the rug in front of the couch. There was nothing more lazy and relaxing than being a cat being lazy. It felt so good.

After another few days, when Carl had judged that his cultivation was as good and stable as it could be, and he had a good handle on controlling his profound energy, he pulled out the Evil God Water Seed. Looking at it for a moment, and then looking over at Rover, to see he too was ready, Carl popped the marble size blue seed into his mouth.

The experience was pretty much the same as when he ate the fire seed, except that instead of a burning sensation, he felt a deep cold spreading through his body, changing it on a fundamental level, and the light shining from him was a deep blue instead of scarlet.

He was already prepared for the rush of chaotic energy in his profound veins, having experienced it once before. He actively worked to channel the chaotic flow through his veins, struggling hard to upgrade his profound level as much as he could, to maximize the opportunity while he had it. That was his last Evil God Seed, after all, there were no more after that.

His profound level kept jumping up crazily fast. It finally came to a stop when he reached True Profound 10, while the rest of the profound energy was funneled into his inner world, where the water elemental energy joined the rest of the energy types.

Carl was proud that he managed to use so much of the energy for his profound level advancement. Because for each level he grew, he needed a larger and larger amount of energy to advance to the next level.

It was basically like a video game character leveling up. The higher the level, the more experience needed for the next level. So while his perks ensured he would never have a bottleneck and that he could advance just as fast at Sovereign Profound as he did at Elementary Profound, the need for a much larger pool of energy still took a certain amount of time to gather.

Carl once more ran scans on his and Rover's bodies. Rover was still mostly scarlet colored, but now he had tints of blue color underpinning the scarlet on his feathers. Inside both their bodies, in every cell, the red-fire color was joined by the blue-water color, indicating their affinity for, and immunity to, water based elemental damage.

Over the past few days as Carl became proficient with the fire element due to the Golden Crow's Record of the Burning world, he had come to greatly enjoy his time playing with fire.

So now that he had an unparalleled affinity to water, Carl decided he would test his new affinity out. He dug out a hole in the ground, and poured water in to create a pool. He could feel a deep connection with the water when he concentrated on it. And when he tried to shape it, he could control what it did. He played for some time, making different shapes and pretending he was a water bender like in the Avatar cartoon. Good thing only Rover was there to see him.

He tried to use the exercises in the first stage of the Golden Crow's legacy but switch it up with water, and it didn't go very well. The water wouldn't respond to the exercises properly. Carl very quickly realized this was due to the fundamental differences between water and fire. At his level of comprehension of the water and fire laws, he couldn't really come up with the proper exercises out of the blue, so to speak, to learn to control water. It would require a lot of time sunk into it to feel out his control and connection to water before he could get anywhere.

Because of not having a guide and how much time he would have to sink into his study of water to get anywhere, Carl eventually decided to focus on fire and the Golden Crow's legacy for the time being. Trying to figure out the secrets of water, and how to turn it into a combat ready weapon, would take too long at the moment. Since he already had a legacy and guide in the use of Fire, he would focus on that for the time being.

In the future he would keep his eye out and try to collect cultivation or battle techniques related to water so he could advance his understanding and control over water. But until then, or until he reached a bottleneck in his studies of fire, he would focus on what he had now.

Carl then continued his training and cultivation schedule over the next couple of weeks. He was also making good progress on cultivating the Great Way of the Buddha. His incredible comprehension made the early levels a snap to understand, and after only a few weeks he was close to breaking through to the next level. He could feel it was only a smidge away.

But his next breakthrough wasn't with his body enhancing technique, but with his profound level. He finally broke through into Spirit Profound level 1. Carl thought 'finally', but if anyone else had heard him complain about how "long" it took to only spend a few weeks to go from Nascent 10 to Spirit 1, they would definitely want to beat him up.

Carl was very happy with the perk that insured he would have no bottlenecks. When he broke through, it felt like a new tier up. His veins and profound energy density shot up a good amount, and felt so much more powerful and responsive.

After scanning his body, he found that he had 4 drops of Phoenix blood. Evidently, each time he and Rover attained a new realm, it would allow Rover to share one drop of blood with him.

Naturally Carl and Rover celebrated another realm upgrade. They were only halfway through their movie when they suddenly popped out of the Heavenly Time Pearl inner world, and found themselves sprawled on the floor of Carl's room in the inn.

"Mreow?!" Carl blurted out.

Oh yeah, he was still in his panther form. Carl shifted back to his human form. "What the hell?!" Carl repeated himself.

Sending his profound senses to the Time Pearl, Carl saw that it seemed to be empty of energy. Apparently like the Ark, it needed energy to be used. At least he got a bit more than a month out of it before it kicked him out. Carl guessed that it was from whatever energy had already been in the pearl when he got it. He certainly hadn't added any energy to the pearl on his own. He watched the pearl for a bit, and saw that it didn't seem to be getting any more of an energy charge than before.

Apparently he had to actively feed it energy? He started sending his profound energy to the Time Pearl. After half an hour of charging it, he again investigated how much it had filled up. Carl sighed in despair at the miniscule amount. He hadn't even gotten .01% filled up. Obviously, these Heavenly Treasures were Heavenly Energy Hogs.

'Well, looks like my plan to not leave the pearl until I was Sovereign 10 level is scuppered.' Carl sighed. It would have been so much easier to wait out the 10 years in the cultivation world if he had been a high enough level that most people would leave him alone. 'At least I'm not still a tiny Elementary level ant though.'

Carl decided to send the Heavenly Time Pearl into his inner world where his energy battery was. It could sit in there with the Ark and his profound blade and armor while it charged from the energy he sent there.

Eventually he would gain enough of a charge to jump back in and continue to blatantly cheat the system. With his comprehension and no bottleneck perks, he didn't have to worry about shaky foundations or anything from cultivating straight to the top. And while he may not have gained high level techniques while solely cultivating, he would have more than mastered what he did have.

And considering he had the Golden Crows legacy that had the most powerful flames, Carl figured just those techniques alone would have seen him be at the top of the food chain.

After finishing his investigation with the Time Pearl, Carl looked over at Rover who was giving him inquisitive looks. "Well, looks like our training field is on cool down for the time being, Rover. Want to finish the movie?"

At Rover's affirmative trill, Carl opened up the Warehouse, and the duo returned to their previously scheduled movie party.

XX

The next morning dawned bright and cheery. Carl stepped out of his room at his inn and looked around at the surroundings. He had been away for over a month, even though it was only one night real time.

Rover was chilling in the Warehouse, while Carl kept the small portal stuck to the inside of his sleeve while it was open. With Rover's Phoenix abilities, he could flash out anytime he wanted, but Carl's warnings about the dangers of the world kept him close to home until they both had gained more strength to defend themselves with.

Carl was leaving the small town that was on the outskirts of the Capital behind, so he could stay at his headquarters that was located in the capital. He planned to hire some workers to act as intermediaries for him, to start gathering different rare resources so he could start adding them to his farms. And being in the capital would get him closer to the center of trade, where so many more goods and services were available.

While he had been in the small town, Carl had learned that the Illusory Demon realm had only a few small sects. Most of the large organizations of cultivators were families and clans. So while he was in the capital, he planned to do more research (no, not Jiraiya style research) and learn more about the sects and families, to see if he wanted to join any of them so he could have mob style protection for the next ten years.

Carl had just taken his first step on his journey, not even leaving the inn's courtyard, when he felt something grab his ankle, surprising him. Looking down, he saw a small white bundle of fur latched onto and gnawing on his ankle. Thankfully, the small dog was only at the Nascent Profound level, and was unable to get past his Earth level armor.

Carl lifted up his leg and watched as the small dog dangled in the air, refusing to let go. Carl could feel the corner of his mouth twitching as he watched the tenacious little cute beast.

A thirteen year old girl with pointed ears and semi-transparent butterfly wings on her back came running up just then. "Xiao Bai! You can't go running off and attacking people like that!" The girl cried as she grabbed the dog and pried its jaws off Carl's ankle.

Carl almost face palmed at the amusing scene. He had forgotten about his Profoundly Delicious drawback. It looks like he'd have to start being more alert to beasts around him, even just pets.

After snatching up her dog, the young girl looked up at Carl, a little shyly. "Sorry, mister. Xiao Bai is still pretty young. I'll teach him better!"

"That's alright. Just keep a good hold of Xiao Bai so you don't lose him again before you can teach him better." Carl smiled wryly at the little girl as the dog stared at Carl and drooled.

"Number Seven Under Heaven, get back here this instant!" Yelled a voice from around the corner.

"It was nice to meet you, Mister. I gotta go now!" The little girl ran off. "I told you not to call me that! Call me Seventh Sister!" the 13 year old yelled back as she rounded the corner.

"Your name is Number Seven, and I'll call you by your name. And I told you that if you can't control your dog, then you can't bring it with us…" The adult female voice that called for the little girl trailed off as they left the area.

Carl started chuckling at the scene. 'And I thought being named Carl after that Walking Dead meme was bad. At least my parents didn't name me Number Two. The number of bathroom jokes that I would have gotten growing up…'

Carl continued chuckling on that thought as he made his way out of the town.