Thinking in the Bath.

After dinner, Collin decided to take a long soak in the tub and try and make some decisions about what he should and shouldn't learn. Since this trouble started with thinking about switching body refining arts, he would start with that first.

The Divine Celestial Body Refining Art was a cheap low-tier body refining art that many cultivators buy when they hit the wall between the 7th and 8th layer buy and practice vigorously to help break through. The three body arts that Collin was thinking of using were all mid-tier arts that many would kill to have access to. The body art that used the Blood Purification Cultivation Method was an art that seemed to be at the peak of mid-tier body arts. It also had the benefit of letting Collin have a small reserve of Qi to use in emergencies, plus the fact that his blood would slow turn from normal red to a rich metallic silvery gold color was cool.

The only problem with this body art was that he would have to take the time to cultivate his blood, which would take time. Most cultivators cultivate more than one technique or art to improve in areas they are lacking or to make use of various spells, techniques, and arts. During the second era some cultivators went to the extremes and cultivated hundreds of different methods in an attempt to become the strongest and call themselves great sages. The opposite of great sages were sword cultivators. Sword cultivators are cultivators that forgo almost all techniques, arts, and spells in favor of using mostly sword-based attacks. During the third era all the so-called great sages were the first to be hunted down and exterminated, most were killed by sword cultivators.

Collin didn't want to train only a few skills like sword cultivators, and he didn't want to train everything he could get his hands on. He wanted to train skills that would continue to be useful in the future, like his Celestial Star Slaying Sword Technique, it could be trained till he reached the Soul Transformation realm. Most of the techniques that Collin had bought like his Heaven Shattering Steps would become useless when he entered the Foundation Establishment realm, and he would have to find and learn higher rank skills to replace them.

The Blood Purification Body Art would continue to be usable as long as one continued to progress in the Blood Purification Cultivation Method. He sat in the tub trying to think if he should cultivate the Blood Purification Cultivation Method and its body art, but he was getting the feeling that he spent all this time convincing himself to do it. After he got out of the bath, he would study the Blood Purification Cultivation Method book and study the pill recipes needed to start cultivating it within the next few days.

Deciding whether to use a soul art took far less time to convince himself to do it. Since the strength of his soul when it came time to break through the minor bottleneck was something he was concerned about, he decided to do it. Of the three soul arts he had, the demonic soul art was cast aside due to the fact that he would have to endure the excruciating pain of repeatedly damaging his soul over and over again. It was like most things demonic, offering quick and powerful results at the cost of pain and suffering and with the very real chance that messing up will cripple your chances of progressing your cultivation.

Of the two remaining choices, one was slightly better for those who practiced alchemy, inscription, and treasure refining, but the other was easier to practice. Having a strong soul in the Qi Condensation realm only mattered when you hit the minor bottleneck, but as an alchemist starting from Foundation Establishment and beyond it becomes very important. He chose the one better for those the practiced alchemy, while not as easy to practice as the other one it would help him more in the future.

Getting out of the tub, Collin moved his Qi outwards sending most of the water on his skin falling to the ground. He still needed to use a towel to dry his hair and places like his armpits and butt crack. Getting dressed he headed to the library to study.

The pill recipes were easy to understand, they were "do nothing pills". They didn't heal or help with cultivation in any way, other than making it easier to ingest the medicinal properties of the spirit herbs they did nothing. He had all the spirit herbs he needed but would have to visit the alchemy shop to restock when it was time to start making some of the other top ten pills.

In theory cultivating this method is similar to becoming an Alchemic Cultivator. Both need an area with rich spirit energy and then ingest spirit herbs before moving spirit energy around their bodies in certain ways. The difference is if a cultivator fails to mutate their blood, they feel sick for a week or so instead of exploding or having their internal organs liquefy from poison.

The next day after making scab pills and before making Qi gathering pills, Collin made several sets of very dark green pills that had a bitter smell to them. There 3 different pills in each set but if Collin hadn't sperate them as he finished them, he wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Tonight, after dinner he would go to the cultivation room and try to mutate his blood. Each set of pills would be used with each attempt, if he failed his blood would become slightly toxic and his body would become weak, and he would feel very sick till his body healed itself.

Success would be determined by mutating at least 10% of his blood, which would the same as the 1st layer of Qi Condensation. Something Collin found odd about the Blood Purification Cultivation Method was that it used percentages instead of layers, and the ranks were colors. From 10% to 99.9% his blood would be a bright scarlet color, and when he hit 100% his blood would transform into a purple color and be equal to Foundation Establishment.

Since he was already a cultivator and could manipulate his Qi with some skill, the chances of him failing were rather low. But as someone who was read cultivator bedtime stories, Collin knew his recent good luck would come at price, the heavens offer gifts with one hand and punch you in the face with the other. If the heavens were going to punch him in the face, he wouldn't mind only feeling sick and weak for a week or so. He figured that would be better than having people or demon beasts try to kill him, or worse. Besides he had some low-grade healing pills that would reduce the side effects of failing to a day or two. In a few days he would start to make those same low-grade healing pills during his alchemy practice.

After eating his dinner, deep fried fish filets and a hearty potato soup with sides, he headed to the basement to begin cultivating the Blood Purification Cultivation Method. If he succeeded tonight, he would be able to start his new body refining art tomorrow. As he reached for the door of the cultivation room, he remembered when he first became a cultivator, he shit, pissed, and vomited the foulest sludge shortly after he succeeded in became an Alchemic Cultivator. And when he broke through to the 3rd layer this morning, he spit up a foul goo.

Collin didn't know what was going to happen when he cultivated his blood, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He took a large towel from his space ring and placed it inside the cultivation room, before he took off all his clothes and placed them in his space ring.