Leon thought about it and indeed felt it was necessary to think things over before he would make a decision.

"Oh, from the cultivation manuals you rented to me, Big Brother John has taken two 5 star techniques for himself and the rest is here," Leon said as he sent his qi inside his storage ring. A purple mist flashed from the ring before the cultivation manuals he had borrowed appeared in front of him.

The old man simply waved his hand and the cultivation techniques vanished into his storage ring. "By the way kid, can I examine the qi meridian networks inside your body?"

Leon nodded without hesitation. The next moment, a golden colored qi left the old man’s eyes and entered Leon’s body even before he could understand anything. In fact, he didn’t even notice this.

After seeing Leon’s meridian structure, the old man’s eyes almost popped out of his socket even though he had expected such a situation.

Normally, inside a human’s body there are three types of qi meridian networks. One is for the vital qi which is linked to the heart. The second is for spirit qi which is linked to the brain. The last type is for the elemental qi which is connected to the lower abdomen.

Among these, the vital qi meridian network and the spirit qi meridian network will only be one each, whereas the number of elemental qi meridian networks can vary according to the number of elemental cores a cultivator has.

Furthermore, the size and complexity of these meridian networks determine how strong that human can be. Usually, except for humans with powerful bloodline hearts which directly strengthen the qi meridian networks, all others have simple qi meridian networks at the common level.

In hierarchy, above the common level come the elite level qi meridian networks. People with this level of qi meridian networks are 2 to 5 times stronger than people with common level qi meridian networks.

Just above this comes the noble level, which is 6 to 10 times stronger than common level qi meridian networks.

Next in line is the king level meridians, which is 11 to up to 100 times stronger than common level meridians.

And at the very peak is the emperor level meridians, which is more than 100 times stronger and can even go up to an astonishing 1000 times stronger than a common qi meridian network.

In fact, the ability of a bloodline to strengthen a cultivator’s qi meridian network is used to determine the level of the bloodline, namely, common, elite, noble, king and emperor bloodlines.

But what the old man saw inside Leon’s body was exactly opposite to any theory he had ever studied or heard.

Leon’s elemental qi meridian networks were fully damaged. It was a miracle that he was still alive considering the severity of the damage. As for his spirit qi meridian network, although it was not fully damaged, most of it was in a broken state enough to lead anyone to a vegetative state.

The old man had initially expected Leon’s elemental and spirit qi meridian networks to be damaged from the almost non existent elemental qi fluctuations around him and the irregular spirit qi fluctuation at the center of his brows which indicated internal meridian damages. However, since he had never actually used his spirit qi to inspect inside Leon’s body, he never knew the condition was this severe considering the boy looked completely fine from outside.

What was even more unbelievable was the vital qi meridian network inside his body. Unlike normal people, Leon’s body had four vital qi meridian networks, each extremely complex and stronger than a typical emperor level body cultivator who has a qi meridian network at the very peak of emperor level.

And one more thing was that these vital qi meridian networks did not only carry vital qi. Instead there was also weapon qi mixed in with it, flowing so smoothly as though it was there from his birth.

But this could not be true since living creatures can only sense and command weapon qi from the atmosphere. If they want it inside their body, they have to craft a weapon using illusionary metal, and then the weapon qi can exist inside the human body in the form of Intent spirit weapon.

As for weapon qi directly flowing inside the meridians, the old man had seen a few such people who have directly refined themselves into a living weapon, but he never even heard of one with more than one kind of weapon qi inside his body.

After summing all these observations, the most likely explanation was that the new technique Leon derived had caused this abnormal mutation to his vital qi meridians and somehow this guy was actually fine as though everything was completely normal.

"If the alignment between your soul and body is not perfect, I would have suspected you are some old monster possessing a young man’s body," Silas rubbed his temples as he leaned back on his recliner.

Leon’s face stiffened for a moment at the old man’s remark. After all, he was indeed not the actual owner of this body, but judging from the old man’s comment it seemed that somehow he had become the actual owner, most likely due to the influence of the Primordial Law Codex.

After thinking for a moment, Leon said sincerely, "Senior, I can give you a copy of this cultivation technique, but it will probably take some time to record everything down to paper."

Silas’s mouth twitched. "Forget it. That technique is only at the mortal realm and is of no use to me. As for giving it to some juniors, let’s not even think about it. There are not many freaks at the same level as you in this world."

"By the way, explain to me more about the characteristics of your spear spirit. I have never seen such a spirit shaped like an energy cannon."

Leon dispersed the weapon spirits he had summoned and said with a thoughtful expression on his face. "The shape of the spear spirit is just a random inspiration. I call it the Gatling gun. Unlike my other weapon spirits, this Gatling gun has a cooldown time. Once used, I have to condense the bullets out of spear qi and fill the magazine before I can use it again. For now, the total capacity of the magazine is 100 bullets, and to condense each bullet it takes me about one minute."

Silas thought for a moment and nodded. "That’s quite reasonable. After all, the raw penetrative power in each of those bullets is far beyond what your spear qi can achieve at the current level." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Leon sighed. "Now my problem is that my cultivation has actually fallen back to the first heaven of mortal realm and I can’t even sense the bottleneck to the 2nd heaven. It feels as though I will be stuck at the first heaven for the rest of my life."

Silas looked at Leon with an annoyed expression on his face. "Stop droning like an old man. Your vital qi meridian networks are more than a thousand times stronger than a normal person, and you dare complain about it? Do you know how many young prodigies dream of having what you have but will never attain it in their life?"

Leon stared back at the old man and retorted, "What’s the use? Every time I cultivate now, I have a feeling that I am trying to fill a bottomless hole. Tell me how am I not supposed to feel anxious? If this goes on like this, even when I am 100 years old and my lifespan runs out, I will be just a mortal realm cultivator. Will it be still worth it being 1000 times stronger than a normal person, while I die as a mortal and others live for 1000s of years as mighty cultivators?"

Silas raised his hand and interrupted Leon’s chatter impatiently. "Stop it kid. I have lived even longer than your grandpa. Just tell me what you want without saying it in a roundabout way."

Leon remained silent for a moment and asked with some hesitation, "The availability of natural treasures which can boost cultivation is extremely rare in the 36th stronghold, and an alternative for this is pills or potions. But I heard that relying on pills to increase cultivation will leave residual poison inside the body which will deteriorate the quality of the vital qi, so I am a little reluctant to use it. Does senior have a safer way to increase the speed of my cultivation without any side effects?"

Silas nodded. "I do have a cultivation technique in my hand. It’s actually a body cleansing technique which can remove all kinds of impurities from your vital qi meridians. It won’t directly affect your cultivation speed, but it will help you clear out all the side effects of using pills and potions."

As he finished speaking, four dictionary sized manuals appeared in front of Leon.

"Vital Qi Meridian Cleansing Sutra has four parts. It’s a 10 star technique and is a little hard to master, but with your level of comprehension, this won’t be a problem for you," Silas said lazily.

Leon hurriedly thanked the old man and put the four manuals inside his storage ring. He also did not forget to give the fine wine he had brought with him to the old man as a token of thanks, though even he was well aware that this was nowhere near the value of the technique the old man had given him.

"By the way senior, we got hold of some mortal grade honey and we are brewing medicine bee wine with it. After 41 days when we take out the wine from the underground chamber, I will bring one jar to you," Leon said with a beaming smile.

Silas nodded in satisfaction and leaned back on his recliner as he fixed his eyes on the painting before him. "Off you go then. The inner forest is not so peaceful anymore, so be careful on your every move and don’t provoke anyone unnecessarily. Otherwise, you won’t even know how you died."

Leon nodded and after bidding farewell to the old man, came out of the mansion.

Outside, the corpses of the soldiers and horses were nowhere to be found. Only some bloodstains remained on the ground. Most likely the bodies were eaten by some beasts as the inner forest never lacked scavengers.

Leon was not too concerned about their death, as there was no evidence that could lead to him. After all, the forest was full of risks and no one knows what dangers are hidden inside and when one will die in its depths.