Myriad Paths Clan

Collin went to his room and sat on his bed before he began to refine the energy from the tea. Ten minutes later Collin had successfully broken through to the 7th layer of Qi Condensation. Which caused him to rush to the bathroom and vomit several mouthfuls of a thick black substances all over the floor of the shower. For Collin, the worst part of expelling impurities from his body was the after taste, he had no idea what a dried moldy animal turd tasted like, but he was sure it would taste better than what he just vomited up, and what he would be continuing to taste for the next couple of hours.

Failing to get rid of the taste in his mount Collin decided to refine the rest of the energy in the bath. Refining the rest of the energy allowed Collin to stabilize his new cultivation level, now all he had to do was refine the fire energy. As he began the slow process of refining the fire energy, he noticed that if though there was around the same amount of fire energy as a whole bottle of pills, it was far easier to refine than any pill he had taken before. Once all the fire energy was refined Collin could feel how close he was to filling his Alchemic Pill Dantian of all the fire energy that it could hold. If he continued to refine fire pills for around a month longer, he would have to decide if he wanted to start refining pills with a different energy or not.

In theory Collin could fill his Alchemic Pill Dantian with all the energies he needed to form all the spiritual roots that a human could have. There were only two reasons why Collin wouldn't do this. First reason is the pills themselves, even with a discount from the Alchemist's Guild they would be expensive. And he couldn't make them with his skills in a way that wouldn't be considered wasting ingredients for the very little energy they would provide. The second reason was simple common sense. Even adding a fire spiritual root to his Alchemic Pill Dantian is a very dangerous process that increases the chance of failing in the re-refining process when he tries to breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment realm. If it wasn't for the need of using his own fire for the smooth progression of his future alchemy skills, he might not have bothered.

Collin used a simple burst of his cultivation base to remove all the water off his body, except a bit of moistness from his hair. Looking into a mirror, Collin had a hard time reconciling the person he was seeing with the poor beggar that looked into a similar mirror eight months ago, or the spoiled young master from nine months ago. He was taller but still skinny, he was now a full head taller than his cousins, and he had nice defined muscles but had no bulk to them. And instead of being angry and calling himself a dumbass, he felt like laughing. Before he left his clan for the last time, he made a goal of becoming a cultivator, and shortly after that he made a goal of joining the Alchemist's Guild. He had succeeded in becoming a cultivator eight months ago, and today he succeeded in joining the guild, all his big goals had been achieved, now only small goals remained, lots and lots of small goals.

Collin practiced his body art till dinner, trying to get used to the improvement of his strength that comes with increasing his cultivation. During dinner, the trio were so busy talking to each other they missed the rare look of confusion on Collin's face. After dinner, Collin was going to do some alchemy to get used to his new Qi strength. But he was consumed with what he should make, except for a few items, everything Collin learned to make with his alchemy skills was directed at making the top ten pills to pass the guild test. Now that he passed the test, he was free to learn to make anything he wanted.

When dinner was over, Collin decided to figure out what his next focus in alchemy was for tomorrow. He was supposed to meet Valeria tomorrow, he was hoping to get her opinion on what he should learn, since this might be the last time he would be able to see her at the shop, or ever. For today he would just do what he had been doing to get used to his new power.

The next morning after breakfast, Collin left the villa again and headed towards the city center. As he was walking, he was wondering if he should be angry that the trio failed to notice him leave two days in a row or be happy that they were so engrossed in studying and cultivating to notice. It didn't take long before he was standing in front of the registration building, where all guilds and sects within the territory needed to register themselves or be declared a rouge group and hunted down by the empire.

During the first three eras, anyone at any time could proclaim the creation of a new clan or sect. But are the chaos of the third era, all empires required every cultivation group to register to safeguard against potential threats to the wellbeing of the empire. There were some that disagreed with this new rule and refuse to comply, but after they were massacred by the various empires, people stopped complaining and registered.

Collin walked into the building wearing his green guild outer jacket with his guild emblem hanging around his waist. Moments after walking into the building a young woman rushed to aide him, she took him to a private area and filled all the paperwork needed to register a new clan, and she didn't even charge him any of the fees that should have been in excess of one hundred spirit stones. The most difficult part of the registration process was selecting a clan emblem, he chose a world tree in a circle design with its roots making the bottom half of the circle and a selection of swords, spears, and axes interwoven together to form the top half of the circle.

With all the paperwork done and a few stamps later, the Myriad Paths Clan was born in Camis city. The name didn't take Collin long to select, since of the four current members of the clan three were using alternative paths of cultivation and most of the cousins he was planning to have join would be using alternative paths as well. He thought the name fit, plus it was a common enough name for clans and guilds that another one appearing in Camis city wouldn't raise any suspicions that was a clan formed by runaways. Collin knew that eventually the Monten clan would learn about his new clan and that it was formed by their throwaways, but Collin was hoping that it wouldn't be anytime soon. Even if he does have the Alchemist's Guild as a backer, the thought of having to deal with his father and the rest of the clan seemed more of an annoyance than he wanted to deal with.

Now all he had to do was go to the alchemy shop and speak with Valeria. He was certain that with the way Elder Orta spoke of his skill and promise as an alchemist, her hope of reducing her punishment was successful. And that she would soon be able to return to the guild tower, or wherever she wished to. Now all Collin had to do was hear it from her, and deal with it however he can.