Isn't this just cheating?

It had been another month since Alex started marrow refinment. turns out, not every stage is just an infinite repeat of the last, while blood refinements 'bonus stage' was being able to re-refine his blood, marrow refinments bonus stage was increasing the quality of blood produced even further. After acclimatising his marrow to the new blood compleatly, is began to slowly produce higher quality blood before acclimatising it and repeating this prosess. Unlike blood refining he had to just wait for this to happen, so far it had done thus cycle 32 times. Each time increasing the the bloods quality by roughly 50% of the last iteration.

He had expected his blood to start becoming golden by now like in every other cultivation novel he read in his last life, but instead jt just became an even richer red color, by now it was an unnatural ruby color that almost seemed to glow. Of course, he was going to wait before advancing to bone rerinment for a while. He planed to properly advance when he got into the purple dawn sect. That was where he planed to realy speed up his progression I'm general, besting his won father in cultivation speed by several times was extreamly strange, but 'having a fortuitous encounter' while in a sec and advancing rapidly wasent as strange.

As there was nothing for him to do, as his marrow refinment was automatic, he decided to continue with his favourite pass time, creating new techniques. There wasent any reason for him to do this, he didn't even keep the techniques afterwards, he just like to create things. It was a habit he picked up from when he was a baby. Plus he had read every boom in the library a while ago so there was nothing for him to do.

And it wasent like it was a waste of time, the knowlage he gained could be used to make beneficial techniques without the system. So far he had created techniques for plant care, medicine, phiscal training, mental training, lesser combat techniques, and more. He had even created techniques that mimicked the 'bonus stages' he had, albeit at a much lower efficiency then his own. He kept some of them sometimes, especially good plant care techniques where integrated into [earth's blessing], phiscal and mental training techniques where added to [forge of 108 devine meridians] and [soul visualisation] respectively. Good ones for medice where added to a new technique called [travelling doctor] and if he liked the combat technique he would keep it, but none had become actual techniques yet.

'Thinking about all my techniques and such, isn't it high time I got the proper [analysis]? System, how much would it cost to upgrade my curent level of analysis to the proper level.'

[4,500 exchange points]

'If you would be so kind.'

[System skill [analysis: tier 1] has even added. Exhcnage uneffected]

[Analysis: tier 1: this system skill is the upgraded virsion of host previous analysis. along with being able to analyse things not related to the host it also alowes host to see parts previously unknown pieces of information, such as the tier and hidden traits of things. Tier can be upgraded, the tier is the overall level of something, the higher the tier the greater the affect.]

'Huh, interesting, I wonder what tier my traits and stuff are.'

[The traits [fetus], [untainted], [pure heart and clean mind], [Parasite], [being nurtured by mother] and [enhanced amniotic cycle] are all tier 1, the traits [transcendent phisque], [Blessed by the earth], [child of heaven] and [innate being] are tier 2. All statuses are tier 1. All techniques are tier 1. All system skills are tier 1.]

'That's kinda disappointing. With such grand sounding names you'd expect some of them to be a higher tier. Oh well, I can just upgrade them later. For now, more techniques.'

...

5 months later Alex was sitting cross legged infront of his father, it was time for his to start cultivation. A but late considering he only had a 6 months to get ready for the sect test, but oh well. "Alright son, first things first. Once you start cultivating you will be brought into an entire new world of demons, dragons and other mysical and wild things. There will be danger and chaos at every turn and only your own power will be able to do anything."

His father reached into his robes and pulled out a book with a worn leather cover that had the words 'lesser five elements cultivation method' on its cover. "This is our family's cultuvation method, obtained by one of out ancestors in a fortuitous encounter. It is a tier 3 man cultivation method that uses the five elements as its basis. There is not much I can realy teach you. Body forging will be a breeze for you considering you already completed blood refining, and by the time you reach Qi absorbing you will already be in the purple dawn sect. All you have to do is study and cultivate."

Returning to his room, Alex looked through the cultivation novel. 'Huh, not all that bad. At least it doesn't destroy any and all hope of progressing like the original [black tiger breathing method].' The basic principles of the [lesser five elements circulation] was just that, a very basic method if harnising the five elements circulation, and that was about it. For the body forging stage the user was ment to temper their body with the five elements. Such as sitting under a waterfall, training under the sun or enduring extreme winds. Supposedly the more extreme the environment the more compleat the forging. the purpose of this was to get the users body used to the five elements, so it eould be able to effectively store five elements qi in the next stage.

Of course Alex couldn't just find a random waterfall or hurricane to train his body, but luckily the tempering part was already done, so he just needed to get his body used to the five elements, which would be pretty easy. He planed to create five diffrent elemental techniques related to the five difrent major mythical creatures. This would also benefit the [five elements organs] trait that was fused into [transcendent phisque]. He also planned to have the difremt techniques create their own traits that he would fuse into a greater trait.

'Might as well start now. But which element do I start with? In in the east already, so I might as well start with that one, it was the azure dragon right? So wood.' Alex started to plan out how he was going to make the technique, he wasen't just going to stare at some trees and pretend like whatever he made would be good enough. This was going to need some fancy and esoteric features.

First things first, he needed knowlage about dragons, especially the azure one itself. He also needed knowlage about the wood element itself. The framework he had planed out would be a kind of ritual dedicated to the azure dragon based around wood and the direction east, it was basicly going to be half a spell.

Getting to work searching his memories time went by, a week later he was in his room, sitting on a prayer mat facing the directions east with insence lit infront of him. He was speaking in basic runic, which was considered a 'special language'. He was basicly reciting a prayer to the east dragon for health, protection and fortune. With his offerings being beast blood and Qi fruit, that he technically didn't have but thanks to the permanent statuses [eaten clean beast meat] and [eaten Qi fruit] he could just take the resorses from himself.

Once he was done the prayer he stood up and dismissed the incense and prayer mat, they where his first peices of equipment made from some resources he requested and exhcnage points. They where [Blessed prayer mat: tier 1: this mat increases the effectiveness of all rituals and prayers. can be summoned or dismissed at will.] And [Blessed incense burner: tier 1: incense burnt in this burner will have twice the effect as normal. Can automatically make incense if given needed materials. Can be summoned and dismissed at will.]

The materials he had used for the incense where some of his own blood and a little but of fruit. Looking wg his system window there was a new status [blessing of the azure dragon: tier 1: your prayer to the azure dragon has been noticed and as such it has granted you a temporary boon. Minor increase to regeneration, minor increase to wood affinity.] At the bottom their was also a new technique. [Prayer of the azure dragon: tier 1: this technique was specially designed to seek a blessing from the azure dragon and was made to be used in conjunction with a special prayer mat and incentive burner.] It wasen't anything special, but it worked. 'System, would you be so kind as to make my new status permanent?'

[Status [blessing of the azure dragon] has been made permanent. 200 exchange points deducted. Exhcnage unefected. Total exchange points: 31,500]

'Nice, now for the next one. Which one should I do? Continue the cycle and go for the south, vermilion bird? sure, why not.'