Decisions.

The night quickly passed; Collin had awoken before the sun had even risen. He had noticed that he was needing less and less sleep the higher his cultivation base rose. There would come a time when he would want to spend time sleeping instead of needing to sleep, as a simple round of cultivation would take its place.

After Collin was done with his body refining routine, he began to do the many things on list of things to do today. One of the first things he wanted to get done was feed the five dead bodies in his basement to his raptor.

Last night before his bath, had removed the bodies of the Styron family from his space bag. After placing their bodies on an oiled tarp, he stripped them. The only problem he had stripping them was the wrappings the female cultivator had covering her breasts. It was secured to itself in a way that Collin couldn't undo, in the end he was forced to cut the wrappings free.

As Collin was stripping the female cultivator, he noticed the feeling of regret he had killing her was gone, like it never existed. He discovered why when he searched the space bags of the three cultivators, they were Totem Refining cultivators. They were also using powerful demonic cultivation methods, the method the female cultivator was using made those around her more aware of her presence. In some this would mean they would want to be friendlier to her or desire to possess her. For Collin it was a slight desire not to kill her, but since her cultivation base was weaker than Collins, he was able to suppress that desire.

Soon the five bodies and the tarp they were on, was on the floor of the guardhouse. The raptor stood up from the bath and looked expectedly at its new meal. After making sure the raptor ate a beast pill, Collin quickly left the building, after all, he didn't want to see what was going to happen next, but just as he stepped outside, he heard the sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking.

By the time the alarm went off, there were few items left on Collin's list that needed to be done. After giving a yell for the trio to awaken and come to breakfast, he gathered the food and brought it inside. After waiting about ten minutes, the trio showed up and gave Collin weird looks.

"You told them about our conversation?" Collin asked Valter.

"Yes, I thought they had the right to know."

"Good, saves me the trouble of telling them." Collin said as he started to fill his plate with food.

"We, are children of a cultivator clan. While we were learning to walk, other children our age hadn't even learned to roll over. While we were learning to speak, they were learning to crawl. While we were learning how to read, they were struggling to say their first words.

While they ran around playing with their toys, we were being molded into the next generation of the clan. While they played with their friends, we were making social and politic alliances to benefit the clan. And while they still have several years to enjoy their childhood, we never had a childhood.

We were born to be cultivators. We were raised to be cultivators. And if we were deemed talents, we would have been trained as cultivators, all for the benefit of the clan. From the cultivation methods you train, the techniques and spells you learn, down to the weapons you practice, all are chosen by the clan, to benefit the clan.

Since we were deemed useless to the clan, we were tossed aside. So, stop acting like children with hurt feelings, when all I did was offer to let you be what you were born to be, while recouping some of my investment.

Now eat. After breakfast, you two will tell me the paths you wish to take and discuss cultivation methods with all three of you separately. You three should avoid talking about the specifics of your cultivation paths with others, for your own safety."

After talking to them Collin began to eat his food. The trio hesitated for a moment before they started to fill their plates and eat. Collin didn't know whether they agreed with what he said or the temptation of the braised pork steaks in a sweet sticky sauce won out, but at least they were eating.

"Oh, last night I found another alternative cultivation path. It's called, Totem Refining. It's an offshoot of the Treasure Refining path. Instead of spirit ore, you use the bones of demon beasts to create a totem to act as a dantian. Then using more demon beast bones, blood, and cores you strengthen and enhance the totem. This path works best with demonic cultivation methods. The downside of this path is the need to regularly feed the totem demon beast blood in ever greater amounts and strengths."

The news of a new path they now had access brought a halt to the trio's eating, but after hearing it was for demonic cultivators, they resumed stuffing their faces. Soon all the food was gone, and Collin told Viktor to bring the tray back to the delivery chute while he took Valter to the library to talk.

"Have you changed your mind since last night?" Collin asked.

"No." Valter said it in that calm and quiet voice that sounded like he was indifferent to everything. This annoyed Collin, Valter and Viktor were twins, one exploded at everything, while the other didn't seem to care about anything, and the most annoying part was Collin could never tell what Valter was thinking about anything. The twins were two sides of the same annoying coin.

With a wave of Collins hands, two books with a fist sized lump of metal on top, appeared on a table next to Valter.

"One of those books is a manual on the Treasure Cultivation path, the other will teach you about treasure refining. The spirit ore is metal element, which according to the manual, is best for sword cultivators. When you get to the 2nd layer you can choose a sword cultivation method, but before that focus on your foundation. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good, I'd like you to send Julie in, then wait in the hall."

Valter nodded his head as he collected the three items before heading out. A little over a minute later and Julie was seated in front of Collin fidgeting nervously.

"What's your decision?"

"I want to learn the Beast Taming path, Nine-Desolate-Dragon's method." She said anxiously.

The Nine-Desolate-Dragon's method is a beast taming cultivation path that used nine flood dragons as both spiritual roots and a dantian. Collin had three beast taming cultivation methods that used: the Five-Raging-Dragons method, The Nine-Desolate-Dragons method, and the Twelve-Celestial-Dragons method. Each method starts with flood dragons with a different spiritual root to act as the cultivator's spiritual roots, and when each flood dragon reached the next layer, so would the cultivator.

If flood dragons with a light spiritual root weren't so rare as to be all but impossible to buy, Collin would have recommended she practice the Twelve-Celestial-Dragons method.

"Do you also plan to be a beast tamer? Or do you just plan to use this path to cultivate?"

"What is the difference?" A simple look at Julie's face and Collin understood she really had no clue what the difference was.

"Any cultivator can become a beast tamer, they use their beasts to attack, defend, and as support, similar to how most would use magic tools. If the beasts get injured or killed, they can just replace them, and it won't hurt their cultivation. They can also replace them if they find a beast they want more, or if they don't want to spend the time, effort, or money to strengthen their current beasts.

But using the Beast Taming method requires you to use a ritual to destroy the minds and wills of the flood dragons while forming a connection to them. This basically turns them into soul bound magic treasures that act as your spiritual roots and dantian. Any damage to them hurts your cultivation, any of them die and it hurts your cultivation, and unless you find flood dragons of the other three elements, you never be able to change from the Nine-Desolate-Dragons method. Also, the most common way to increase your cultivation is to use beast pills, which will be expensive.

The good news is that the Beast Taming method is one of the safest alternative cultivation paths known. And since almost everything dragons has been studied and known, it is easier to use them for this cultivation method than other beasts, and the possibility of evolving flood dragons to pure dragons and higher is only a matter of time and effort. You just need to remember to never bring your dragons out of your beast orb unless you are sure you are somewhere safe.

Do you understand now?"

"Yes, now I do."

"Then, have you changed your mind?"

After a few moments of silence, she answered.

"No, I still want to use the Nine-Desolate-Dragons method."

"Ok, I'll take you to the market later and we will buy everything you need."

Standing up Collin walked to the bookshelves and pulled out three books and then handed them to Julie.

"Study these books, one is about beast taming, one is about the Beast Taming method, and the last one is the Nine-Desolate-Dragons method. The first two books have information that will be helpful to you.

Now, Tell Viktor to come in, then wait in the hall."

Not long after Julie left the library Viktor came in and sat down. He wasn't as loud or aggressive as he usually was, to Collin, it seemed results of the test proving he had a natural cultivation talent was weighting heavy on his mind.

"Hello Viktor, this is where I should let you browse through my collect of cultivation methods to find a method you want to practice, but the truth is I don't trust you not to be stupid."