The Earth pill had the ability to help a cultivator breaking through the stages of the dantian.

However, that would still require the user to have reached the peak of that stage.

'Even though I could only train at night, with the help of the "Breath" inside my body I'm already close to the limits of the gaseous stage. Now that I'm finally free to train at will I can definitely reach it one week!'

Noah focused only on the cultivation technique for eight days straight, he didn't sleep at all during this period and only stopped his meditation to eat.

On the night of the eighth day, he finally could not enlarge his dantian anymore.

'Peak of the gaseous stage!'

He then fell asleep on the floor as he had no strength left due to his intensive training.

It took him one year and a half to reach this stage and he had to focus only on the cultivation technique to achieve that feat.

The "Breath" inside his body also helped a lot in the process as it assisted in overcoming the weaknesses of his rank 1 technique.

If he could not have a technique that fitted his element, he would just use more "Breath"!

Sadly, this method only gave him some relevant advantages in the gaseous stage since the "Breath" in his body was in that same form.

He woke up after a whole day of sleep, in the night of the ninth day.

He ate to make sure that he was in top condition and then took a small box from his space-ring.

Inside the box, there was the Earth pill that he took from the Gray Shadows.

He held the pill in his hand and put back the box in the ring.

'Time to start.'

He ate the pill and directly gulped it, then he closed his eyes to concentrate on his dantian.

The pill was absorbed by his body and created a sphere around his dantian that began to compress on its own!

Noah aided the process controlling the "Breath" inside it to not oppose the condensation.

The "Breath" though seemed unwilling to contract and tried to resist the pushing force.

However, at that point the sphere pushed with more strength, forcing the "Breath" to amass in the restricting space.

Noah gave up on forcing the "Breath" to stay still and just controlled the dantian to help the sphere advance.

The dantian became smaller and smaller and the "Breath" inside it seemed to grow unstable.

Then another push from the sphere forced the dantian to the size of a small circular nail.

The gaseous "Breath" agitated more but the sphere was unmoving so the walls of the dantian stood still and resisted the internal pressure.

After a few minutes in that state, the "Breath" began to change form and from all that compressed gas, only a drop of black "Breath" came out.

The sphere dissipated and Noah opened his eyes and pointed with his arms on the floor to prevent himself from falling.

His breathing was rough and his face was pale, sweat continued to pour from his orifices.

'That was incredibly tiring!'

The process seemed smooth but a quarter of his mental energy was expended to assist the effects of the Earth pill.

'Am I supposed to force the compression simply with my mental energy if I don't find another pill?'

He calmed himself and resumed a normal pace of breathing while in his mind he was analyzing the process he just went through.

'This is so strange, it's like the "Breath" didn't want to be compressed. Does that mean that Heaven and Earth don't want cultivators to become strong? I've read that cultivation is innately an act of defiance against the will of the world but to think that it could affect even the "Breath" in my dantian.'

He inspected his now small dantian and the new "Breath" inside it.

The black drop seemed to contain a tremendous energy, way more than all the gaseous "Breath" in his body.

'It makes sense. After all, this drop is the result of the condensation of all the "Breath" that was in my dantian which was already three times the one in my body.'

It was still deep in the night and he had no need to sleep so he chose to cultivate.

He used the same absorption method with the help of the "Breath" in his body but the results were disappointing.

He stopped meditating at midday but his dantian had enlarged only by a little bit.

'This is incredibly slow! It would take me three to five years to reach the same size as yesterday and that's only if I can train freely. I really need a better cultivation technique.'

He was eager to escape but suppressed that feeling and unsheathed his sabers.

He practiced his forms like he used to do back in his room in the guests' building and he could not help but spread a cold pressure around him when the memories of his life there emerged.

'Soon dear nobles, I will come for you soon.'

When he felt that his attacks had regained its previous apex, it was already deep in the night.

'I have around twenty days of closed training to get used to my new stage and enlarge my dantian as much as possible. Since going out of the mansion is impossible I only have one method.'

He took out his upper clothes and thought of a name that he didn't use for a long time.

'Assea.'

A big head of a snake came out of his body.

Noah wore his space-ring and put all the items in his room inside it, the empty room was about ten square meters.

'Spar with me, don't touch the walls.'

His blood companion didn't hesitate and charged at him but was met with a black wind slash that almost cut it in half from head to tail.

A sharp pain hit Noah due to the damage to Assea but he didn't care and dodged the assault of the snake that had already healed.

He spent the days before the opening of the inheritance ground fighting with his own companion and cultivating, giving a look at the second rune in the spare time.

Sometimes metal sounds would reverberate from his room but since he was appointed for such an important mission, no one dared to interrupt him.

In the end, his month of isolation ended and the inheritance ground opened.