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5 Months Later
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Chen Baoliang looked at the completed Wu Family Estate and snickered,
"Damn youngster, actually made me waste a month building this damn ghost town."
Chen Baoliang tapped his chin with his fingers while admiring his work,
"I must say, I really outdid myself this time. No matter, only 30 years and this old man will reclaim the estate for myself. Tsk.."
The construction took longer than anticipated, the Blackwood trees that filled the forest were extremely tough and required a cultivator to fell them. With so few cultivators available, many days were just spent gathering wood from the forest.
In other forests, a single hour would be enough time to gather the supplies.
The Blackwood here, was special. It was imbued by the surrounding mana, making it a tier 1 refining material.
This Blackwood would be a staple of Heimu Village in the future, so the Zhang Clan Patriarch ordered it to be used for all buildings.
Chen Baoliang initially agreed wholeheartedly, yet it wasn't until a week later that he realized that he underestimated the sturdiness of the trees around Heimu Village.
Slowing the progress significantly.
Chen Baoliang left and retreated to his own clan estate, tired from the constant labor.
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So far, the four family heads, including Wu Tianmo, have all been given their lands.
Chen Baoliang has taken the northeast of the village, being closest to the main path leading further into the forest.
This is only natural, the forest provides ample supplies for their puppet production.
In this short three months, the Chen Clan estate had been built
The Zhang Clan, has taken the southeast near the flowing river where his clan also built a separate private port.
The Liu Clan has taken up in the southwest, where they had already begun irrigating the land to begin planting tier one and two plants. Not only for cultivation, but special spirit rice that had been passed down in their family for generations.
Then there was the Wu Clan.
While the Wu Clan Estate was impressive, it was far to the north of the village, leaving room for much of the villages development.
While the Chen Clan did make them an impressive estate, they purposely put them far away from the other three major clans.
Chen Baoliang was a petty person.
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Within The Wu Family Estate
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The estate was large and had two main pavilions and a private living quarters.
In the center of the estate was the central pavilion, within this area was a large courtyard and buildings to receive guests. This was the place for the Wu Clan to host important meetings, host large events, and receive important guests.
These buildings would be the foundation of the Wu Clan in the future, providing the needed space for clan administration and ceremonies.
The blackwood trees surrounded the main pavilion's courtyard providing some privacy, the tree bark was ashen and the leaves were a bright red.
The private courtyard in the north of the estate, consisted of a house and walled courtyard which the main lineage of the family would soon occupy. A pond had been dug around the building with a clever walkway leading to a gazebo nearby.
The walkway was so low, it looked like you were walking on water within the central courtyard.
The other pavilion was a training hall, outfitted with a stone floor training area, a large building for lessons, and many tier one blackwood swords lined up on a rack waiting to be practiced with.
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The Wu Clan was large, yet only one was inside.
Wu Tianmo was alone in the vast estate.
He stood over six feet tall, his long white hair blowing gently in the night breeze. His skin was like jade and it glistened in the moonlight.
He was handsome and nearly all of the mortal women within the village desired him.
He was a young man, a cultivator, a handsome devil who was a patriarch in his own right.
Who wouldn't want to climb the social ladder and be with him?
Yet even with all this attention he sat down under the moon in the lotus position, on top of the white stone training floor wearing the traditional red Wu Clan robes.
Wu Tianmo entered his mind space and started to analyze the Crimson Moon Sect's inheritance.
There were three techniques that had been imprinted into his mind from the cave.
First was the Crimson Lunar Blood Scripture.
This technique is the core cultivation technique of the Crimson Moon Sect, it was the way in which the disciples could cultivate the surrounding spiritual essence.
This technique was twice as powerful under the cover of the moon and ten times as effective under the full moon.
Most impressively it noted that under the blood moon a disciple would have an additional 20% chance to breakthrough a major realm.
That in itself was a heavenly ability, most cultivators break through with only a 10-20% chance of success. With special treasures or pills this percentage can be increased, though these treasures are rare and the pills are expensive.
This technique would assist the cultivator in refining the spiritual essence, It has a special circulation method that is intricate and resembles a crescent moon.
Yet it doesn't simply refine the essence into qi, it refines it into Blood Qi.
In his current 1st Stage of the Body Reforging Realm Wu Tianmo needs to refine his skin by absorbing the surrounding spiritual essence, refining it into qi, and tempering his skin with it.
While considered a cultivator at this stage, he truly was only in the initial stage of the 1st level of Body Reforging.
He had yet to completely temper his skin.
Though before his family was eradicated, an elder did inject refined qi within his body to stimulate its potential. This was an old-fashioned way of starting ones cultivation path, causing one to be considered a quasi 1st stage cultivator.
To complete the first stage of Body Reforging spiritual essence needs to temper the skin of the body, strengthening it.
At this stage of cultivation one isn't able to completely absorb spiritual essence and refine it into qi.
The Body Reforging realm is mean to prepare the body to absorb this essence easily, creating the cultivation vessel.
This is done by using the spiritual essence to refine the body, this starts first with the skin, after tempering spiritual essence can enter the body and begin to refine other portions.
The first stage of Body Reforging is normally done in increments, though Wu Tianmo is anything but ordinary.
He was on a time clock, needing to progress fast and steadily.
Wu Tianmo began to cultivate under the moon, as time went by red aura started to gather and surrounded him. Eventually the red aura was so thick that it created a thin sheet across all of his body.
Violently the aura began to attack his flesh and the skin of his body started to be tempered.
A crimson crescent moon appeared on his forehead, and unknowingly, the irises of his eyes turned permanently blood red.
This process is painful, as if a thousand little ants were crawling all over your body devouring your skin and piercing through your pores.
Cultivation is not for the weak of heart, like the world, it is cruel.
A red aura began to thicken under the guidance of the moon.
For the first time in over a year, since his clan had been destroyed, since he had fled to Heimu Village.
Wu Tianmo had entered seclusion.
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