Cutting the bird's head off, and separating the burning part to throw into the fire I had before going to sleep, I started to clean the bird to get as many materials as I could.

All its feathers are stronger than burda ore. They would be perfect to make arrows with.

Opening its belly, I look around for the DanTian.

Given how powerful it was, I bet he used to cultivate. So there must be a DanTian.

DanTians have the capability to contain ki, and if you capture one and absorb it, it's the fastest way to cultivate.

Not many people dare to do this, given that it’s incredibly risky.

If you can't control the exterior ki, and it goes out of control, you can easily break your dantian, and even die.

But the biggest boon of my race, other than our powerful bodies, is that our DanTians are way stronger than the other races, making this process not so dangerous.

I've been cultivating for eighteen years now, and even so, the amount of ki inside this dantian is more than I have.

Sitting down on my four knees, I place the dantian in front of my belly, touching the skin, and start to suck the ki directly inside me.

Keeping a low but steady speed. I focus entirely on it for three days and three nights.

Finally, all that is left on my hands now is a cracked crystal, the size of my thumb.

The ki inside me is doubled, i am feeling as if i absorb one more bit, I'll reach my limit.

Remembering the last time this happened, four years ago, I focus on entering into a deep meditation state.

Focusing all my intent in my dantian, and the gaseous ki inside it. I force it to collapse into itself, turning it denser and denser.

The ki is condensed to a heavy gas, but I am still far from it becoming liquid.

Mother taught me everything she knew about cultivation. The only bad thing is that she doesn't know much.

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She knows three stages of cultivation.

Ki gathering, ki condensing, and core formation.

She is stuck in the upper part of ki condensing for years, and hasn't managed to form her core yet.

The ki in this continent is so rare that even the strongest are barely into the core formation stage.

As my ki is being renewed into this richer form, my body starts to expel impurities from all sides.

Even my scales start to fall off, as new ones start to regrow.

Finally opening my eyes and looking around, I see the rotting corpse of the bird on the place that I left it.

I gather all my fallen scales up, and store them.

Looking for a lake or river, from the top of the mountain, the closest one is halfway towards the city.

Knowing that I won't be able to live with the stench my body is exuding, thanks to the breakthrough in cultivation, I look down to my bracelet.

“Let's try this one then.”

I know that one thousand degrees is still manageable to my body, so I turn the array on the bracelet on and point it towards me.

The one thousand degrees hot flame that used to make me itch is now the same as a hot summer wind.

Wanting to test my limit, I turn the second stage of the array on, and start to rise the heat.

One thousand and half

Two thousand degrees…

Three thousand degrees…

Three thousand and half…

Only when it gets to four thousand degrees is that I can't take it anymore.

So I turn it back down to three thousand and half and burn the impurities into nothingness.

Having an idea. I take my carving equipment out of the ring, find a good, medium sized, scale on my forearm. And start carving the same array that I have in the bracelet, but now in my scale.

Surprisingly it works completely fine. And given that the array projects the fire forward, the fires above four thousand degrees keep its distance from me, so it won't melt my scales.

Imagining how cool I would look while engulfed in fire. I change a little of the design of the array, and start to carve this array in all the major parts of my body.

Now, every time I turn them on, they will first follow the shape of my body, and then be redirected outwards. Creating a circle of fire around me.

Testing it out, I noticed that if I turn it to more than three thousand degrees, it becomes hard to breathe, so I should keep it below this number. But other than that, I’ve turned into a fire monster.

Every step that I take cinders the ground, as the flora around me catches on fire instantly.

Three thousand degrees will not be enough for all the enemies that I encounter, but it shall be enough for most, so I am happy with it.

I shall name this array the Flame Armor Array.

Turning the runes off. Stomping all the fires nearby, to not make a mess out of this mountain, I look around to gather all my things.

Looking up, in the highest tree, I see the reason why the bird attacked me.

A nest.

This tree is more than three hundred meters tall and so large that I think I can go up there.

Taking my forge and doing a quick work, I create four shoes with claws, and two scaling axes, so that I can climb my way through the main trunk, instead of branch to branch.

It doesn't take long for me to get up there.

Inside the nest are two eggs. Each is thirty centimeters tall, white with black dots all around.

A quick way to test if they are fertilized is to try putting them into the spatial ring. Given that the ring is only capable of holding dead matter inside, it will not catch the egg if it has life.

One of the eggs goes in, but the other doesn't, so I tie a blanket around my waist and place it inside.

Getting back down, I take one of my fallen scales, carve a simple heat array in it, and place the egg above. Making a baby carrier out of the blanket.

“I am sorry for killing your mother, but I will take care of you.” I said softly to the egg.

Making my way down the mountain, in just four days I arrived at the city.