While all of this was happening behind the curtain, Illyan just minded his own business as he looked for a way to speed up and strengthen his progress in the [Flow Breathing Technique].

Caleb told him a lot of things, but his body told him even more. Thanks to constant experimenting, Illyan finally didn’t need to use the sleeping powder to neutralize Caleb.

He discovered that aura was something that could be said to be a mixture of emotions, intentions, and body vitality. It stemmed from deep inside the user.

However, if the user wanted it to manifest outside of his body, it would need to pass through certain energy points.

In southern medicine, they were called acupoints.

Illyan had only heard about them but never knew how to find them or use them. Until now.

With his eyes, he could see that whenever Caleb’s aura burst out, there were small points covering his body from which the aura was gushing the most.

Through some drugs, he repeatedly forced Caleb to manifest his aura until he finally understood it properly.

Once he did, he started to experiment with them.

The screams of Caleb were even worse as he did so, which made Illyan realize that they were a kind of weak spot for him.

He actually crippled several of them, making recovery impossible, which made Caleb’s aura even more unstable.

In the end, however, Illyan succeeded and managed to seal the acupoints.

“Who would have thought that I would use these for acupoint sealing?” Illyan thought to himself as he fondled the manticore’s barbs he got from Ezekiel.

If you were precise enough, you could literally stab the tip of the barb inside the acupoint to completely seal it. And if he did it right, he could do so without harming the acupoint or even causing pain. He reckoned that there were other ways or methods he just lacked for now, so this was enough for now.

There were simply unlimited options for how to use this new knowledge.

However, the first thing Illyan considered was to seal his life force. He still didn’t forget that Ezekiel found him from a distance only based on that. Illyan didn’t have any idea how he did that and feared that he would be discovered.

Fortunately, he found a possible solution after hearing Caleb’s explanation. The reason you needed a strong body before igniting your aura was that the aura itself was part of your life force.

That meant that if you seal the aura, you seal the life force. Of course, that was just Illyan's conjecture that would need to be proven yet.

“Ugh…” Caleb’s quiet groaning was going into Illyan’s ears, but he ignored it as he looked into his chest, which was opened like a book for him to read.

He fell into focus he had never felt before as he stared at the pulsating energy. It was very difficult to notice it at first, but after several days, he managed to force the body to move the flow around, effectively manifesting it while the body was still open.

Thanks to that, Illyan could observe the most instinctual flow movement that was happening as a reaction to certain things.

Like pain, for example.

Unfortunately, the flow always seemed to dissipate whenever it contacted the air, which made it impossible for Illyan to get any sample. That would explain why they didn’t use the Flow the same way magisters used mana.

At the end of the day, Illyan closed the man’s chest by sewing it up and stabbed his acupoints precisely before leaving.

Lately, he found himself using the technique of sewing quite often as he had to close the man’s cavity unless some bacteria got inside and killed the man.

He learned to stitch basic wounds back in the day with Kaoran. But only now did he use it for something like this.

Once he was done with Caleb for the day, he decided to go out to his laboratory.

There, he stared at several herbs he had prepared beforehand.

From Caleb’s mouth, he found out that to speed up the flow formation inside the body, there was some kind of concoction that could be added to the bath in which you could increase the efficiency of the breathing technique by several times.

Thankfully, Caleb knew the ingredients and the process of creation, but it still didn’t change the fact that Illyan had to create it for the first time.

The ingredients were on the rarer scale but still nothing he couldn’t get. Now, he didn’t dare to buy them as it could bring attention to him if someone who knew about the concoction too noticed, but even if he didn’t fear that, there would probably be some herbs that could not be bought normally as they were more precious than common ones.

‘I didn’t know you could use the blood of animals to create concoctions too…’ Illyan, pondering over the recipe, realized that his view was too narrow as he was mainly focusing on his herbalism knowledge when it came to medicine.

Because of that, he was missing many other useful ingredients that could be used in some of the concoctions he used.

As he thought so, he prepared a new beaker and started crushing all kinds of herbs and seeds inside the mortar.

Thanks to this new concoction that was supposed to help people get stronger, he remembered the one concoction he planned to make years ago.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

It was the same concoction that the Bakur Tribe used to feed their wolves across generations.

He wanted to make it on a whim back then, but now thinking about it, if it could speed up his training even a little, it would be worth it.

Fortunately, the herbs needed were very common and also cheap, except for a few core herbs needed for their high nutritious and energetic value. But even those were readily available in the merchant’s guild’s stock.

And since the ingredients were completely different from the ones that were meant for the flow formation, he didn’t waste time and immediately went to buy several batches of the herbs and even their seeds.

It was quite costly, and he left with many fewer silver coins than he came before with, but he was satisfied.

Only a few hours after he stopped experimenting with Caleb, he made the first concoction.

He was looking at the glass bottle where the slightly green liquid was and frowned.

The liquid should be reddish-brown, so it could be said to be a failure.

But he didn’t care as he donned it as normal water and started anew.

Soon after, sickness overcame his senses before slowly dissipating while his body regenerated any kind of harm the concoction caused.

His regeneration got stronger the more he used it, and he felt that sooner or later, he would be able to regrow entire limbs in a matter of hours and later even in a matter of minutes.

Just thinking about that made him realize how amazing this gift was…

..........

In the middle of the night, he finally finished the reddish-brown liquid. It was bubbling slightly while smelling like fresh earth after heavy rain.

Illyan was satisfied as that meant he succeeded. Even though he knew the recipe, he had never tried it before. Back then, when the Bakur Tribe was in need of food, they forsook this recipe and instead used the herbs as food.

But now, Illyan could finally try it out.

He went to his bedroom and sat in the lotus position. Normally, the liquid would be fed to wolves through their food since they wouldn’t eat it otherwise, but there was no need for that in Illyan’s case.

He took the glass bottle and drank it in one gulp before throwing it aside. Then, he closed his eyes and waited for any change in his body. The taste was quite undelectable, but it gave off the feeling of filling your stomach.

Illyan even felt a little sleepy after drinking.

That was weird since Illyan’s body was almost in no need of sleep lately. In truth, he only slept because of mental fatigue. And that was just a few hours a day at most. And even this time was getting shorter as he was waking earlier and earlier as time passed.

In a few years, Illyan reckoned he wouldn’t need to sleep at all.

But now, he felt the almost forgotten feeling of sleepiness that lulled him to sleep.

Illyan didn’t even realize when he fell asleep, letting the concoction work in his body.

The next day, he woke up with hunger afflicting him as he was sprawled on his bed.

“Ugh…” Illyan just checked his body but didn’t find any change. But it didn’t mean there was no change at all.

The change was gradual, and it began with helping his food digestion and absorption. Not only that, but Illyan also realized that he had a sudden body odor.

Normally, Illyan hardly sweated even during body training, but now his body was covered in sweat that was a little more smelly than normal.

“Hmm…It seems much more effective than Kaoran said it would be on humans…” Illyan muttered to himself.

Of course, there was no sudden spike in his strength or body composition, but the fact that the secreted sweat had a weird smell and his sudden hunger told him that something more happened.

‘Maybe it is because my body is more similar to a beast than to a human?’ Crazy thoughts came to his mind.

He remembered that the reason it worked on beasts better was because they had stronger digestive systems.

Normal beasts in this world don't have the option of choosing the way they want to get stronger and just eat their way to the top.

After billions of years of evolution, even the weak normal animals have much stronger digestive systems than regular humans.

But Illyan was a little different. He could easily digest a high amount of food when his body was lacking

in energy.

When his body was missing energy, it actively helped him out to regain it.

That made him even wonder if his ability wasn’t regeneration but something more beastly.

His nails, long hair, regeneration, and digestion kind of hinted at this possibility.

But Illyan shook his head as soon as he thought about that. After all, his ability didn’t make him beastly or anything. The nails would grow even without the ability. The hair was the same.

To Illyan, it felt like it was just sped up because of his ability. As if the uncontrollable life force needed to be applied somewhere.

However, thinking about this wouldn’t do him any good for now. If he wanted to get to the bottom of the truth, then he would need to put in a lot of time to fully understand the core of his ability. The time he didn’t have for now.

He stood up from his bed and went to cook something for himself.

Illyan was getting better at this as he made eggs, meat, and some vegetables for himself.

It was simple but delicious.

After that, he wiped his body sweat before he went to check on Caleb. He fed him and then let him be.

Today, he wanted to try something new.

He was training in the breathing technique almost any time he could. Actually, the thing was supposed to be used during a fight in short durations. Furthermore, each breath got you closer to forming the flow.

Because of that, he decided to use it whenever he could instead of just sitting in a lotus position without moving for hours, wasting time.

He felt that thanks to that he would get closer to Flow Master than a normal person, and once he got the herbs for the bath he would be even faster. But it still wasn’t enough.

He wanted to try something else.

Illyan took the barbs on Caleb’s body and put him to sleep with the sleeping powder.

After disinfecting them, he went to the laboratory. He felt like it would be better to do it there.

After studying the acupoints for so long, he had already identified where they were even on his body.

So, with precise stabs, he sealed his own acupoints.

Not every one, but enough to make any warrior’s inner energy slowly flow like thick honey.

Illyan didn’t have the energy yet, but that was the point of his endeavor. He wanted to use the breathing technique during the acupoint sealing to try if it could put pressure on him and speed up the progress.

Of course, he wouldn’t dare to do so if he didn’t have the ability that he did have.

Thanks to that, he could be much more courageous than others without facing the same consequences.

Still, he wasn’t careless and prepared one of the vials that Armen had for healing if needed.

Right after sitting down, he noticed that it was harder to breathe. His first inhale was slightly painful as he started the [Flow Breathing Technique].

Each breath caused the feeling as if his chest was pressed down by a boulder and the more time passed, the stronger the pressure became. He felt the spiritual energy, which albeit thin in the closed space, was still wreaking havoc in his body and was difficult to be exhaled.

Blood flowed on Illyan’s face as his seven apertures started to bleed. The veins started popping on top of his arms and around his neck while he felt the strength build up in his muscles.

These actually turned red and swelled as his clothes became tight.

Now, every time he exhaled, the sound of wind ripping the air apart resounded.

The barbs embedded in his body were trembling as if they were on the edge of popping out, and his bones started creaking while on the verge of dislocating.

*Cough Cough*

In the end, he splattered a big amount of blood that spurted out of his mouth on the ground and stopped.

Wheezing for a breath, he coughed out the still-flowing blood infused with some spiritual energy.

‘This was not that great an idea… But it should work.’

Once he caught his breath, Illyan reviewed the entire incident and how to improve this idea into a working state.

He knew that he would have long days in front of him…