How greatly things have changed in such a short time.

Walking into the security room of the main house, Collin started to read the villas operation manual to find out how the Tyler family had set the locking array for the main gate. It didn't take long to find, whoever was in charge of the setup took meticulous notes. The most interesting thing was the notes mention that this villa was originally supposed to be for Drew Tyler.

The Tyler family had been a noble family for centuries, but they wanted to take the next step up in social standings, becoming a cultivator clan. The only problem was that their family had never produced a cultivator. The first son Gergory Tyler killed himself after being banished for being untalented, the second son Drew Tyler, became a devil worshiper and massacred his entire family after being banished for being untalented, and Alex Tyler was supposed to be tested this winter.

Collin knew full well what it felt like to be thrown away, and banished from everything he knew. He knew the feeling of hopelessness and he knew the feeling of rage. But to kill oneself or murder your whole family were things he didn't, he couldn't think of doing even if he did hate the system that was responsible.

It only took ten minutes for the front gates locking array to be reprogramed to only open for him. Even if Collins formers friends remembered coming to the villa and how to open the gate, it was too late. There was a real possibility that others would target the villa, whenever a wealthy family or clan fell, everyone would scramble to claim what was left over. Of course, when dealing with devil worshipers, there may not be much left to claim.

With the front gate secured, it was time to take a look at his new spoils. The first place Collin wanted to check was the library. While he was checking the building, he noticed the bookshelves in library were full of books. Given the wealth of the Tyler family and their obsession with trying to produce a cultivator, the chances were high that Collin would find something useful.

Some of the books were on subjects like business, history, and various forms of arts but most were books for cultivators. There were dozens of books on cultivation methods, orthodox and demonic, there were even a book with the complete method to summoning devils. When Collin bought his books of the alternative paths of cultivation, it included a book on devil cultivation, but it wasn't complete. It lacked the knowledge of how to draw the summoning array and what parts of a devil to infuse into your body or how to even do it.

What shocked Collin the most about this book was that it contained a method to completely transform into a devil while retaining one's sanity. It was common knowledge that anyone who took the devil's path would degenerate into a mindlessly insane monster that would slaughter anyone or anything around them. If this book was to be believed, someone could have all the powers of a devil and still have the intelligence of a human by becoming what the book called a Heavenly Devil.

Collin found the information inside the book fascinating because it overturned his knowledge of what devil worshipers could do, but it was useless to him. To become a Heavenly Devil, one would still have to murder massive amounts of people to cultivate and that was something Collin wouldn't do, plus he was already an Alchemic Cultivator.

As he was putting the book back on the shelf, he wondered if Drew Tyler was trying to become a Heavenly Devil. This villa and these books were originally meant for him and would explain how he got so powerful in such a short time.

The more Collin looked through the books the more he found, including two alternative cultivation paths he didn't have. A beast taming method and a method the uses blood purification.

The beast taming method is both an external path and a technical path, using a beast orb, a device made by an inscriptionist using the soul and core of a Core Formation rank demon beast or higher, that allows the storage of living beings. A beast tamer forms a special blood contract with five or more demon beasts at the 1st layer of Qi Condensation, and the demon beasts then act as both spiritual roots and as a dantian. For a beast tamer to increase their cultivation they need to increase the cultivation of their demon beasts. If any of the demon beasts are injured or killed the beast tamer's cultivation will damage their cultivation, until the demon beast is healed or replaced.

The blood purification method is a technical path, it was created to make up for the limitations of body cultivation. Using easy to obtain alchemy pills and a special cultivation method to mutate the blood and making it into a liquid dantian. Some non-body cultivators use this method to have extra Qi at their disposal, but most see it as a waste of time that is only useful for failures like body cultivators.

Collin was interested in the information in the beast tamer book as it aligned with some of his plans for the future. Taming and raising demon beasts is quite common, some are raised to fight, some to protect, and some rare demon beats are raised as status symbols. Collin wanted one or two demon beasts for protection, failing that they would buy him some time to run away. There were three ways for a demon beast to grow stronger; long periods of time, eating the flesh and cores of other demon beats, and pills made by alchemists. Since he was an alchemist, making pills for a demon beast would be the same as alchemy practice.

In a few minutes time all the books in the library were placed in Collin's hag of holding. There are hundreds of books that he wanted to take his time to read. Some would be helpful to him, and some would allow him to have a better understanding of cultivation as a whole.

The next place Collin visited was the main bedroom. Around the door were alternating gold and silver tiles, kneeling in the doorway Collin tapped the bottom most gold tile on his right, followed by the bottom most silver tile on his left, then tapped the next tile higher of the same color on each side till a click could be heard. He had watched Alex happily open the safe during the tour of the villa and remembering a simple pattern was easy.

It was not like Alex had to worry about his friends stealing from him. Since the villa was a gift from his family for when he became a cultivator, it would be fully staffed with two dozen guards, a dozen male servants, and as many female servants as he wanted to tend to his every desire. Every visitor would be monitored, any fighting or attempts at stealing and the guards would activate the security arrays to trap or kill the offender. And as a kid Alex couldn't imagine that the young lords of the various respected and powerful clans and families would bother to steal from him or his family.

'How greatly things have changed in such a short time.' Was what Collin was thinking about as he walked to the safe. The first time he visited this villa, he was the young master of the strongest clan in Camis city and was looking forward to taking his talent test. Alex was the young master of a wealthy noble family that harbored ideas of becoming a cultivator clan. Now Alex and his entire family were dead, and Collin no longer had his clan to rely on, he was on his own.

Two bags of holding and a space ring were in the safe. The space ring was empty, but the bags were full, one of the bags was full of gold coins, the other was full of spirit stones, both were ten times the amount that Collin started out with.

"How greatly things have changed in such a short time."