'Just stay open!'
Noah shouted in his mind, giving another strong thrust with his saber.
A drop of blood fell on the bucket below his stretched arm.
The blood had filled only half of the bucket but Noah had to cut his wrist for the whole day to achieve that result.
As usual, the wound healed right after that drop fell.
'Dammit!'
Noah lost his patience and directly made a long vertical cut starting from his shoulder and ending on his palm.
The wound was deep and many lines of blood flowed out of it.
However, after the bucket was filled by only another eighth of its volume, the cut healed and the blood stopped flowing.
'This will take a while.'
Noah realized as he sighed in helplessness.
If he made those large cuts, the filling speed was somewhat acceptable.
Noah spent the whole night to fill thirty-two buckets with his own blood and then proceeded to immerse in each of them one chameleon bone before finally sealing them and putting them back in his space-ring.
'This is over, now I should just quietly rest and let my body stabilize.'
Days passed, which Noah spent slowly resuming his normal pace of training.
He soon discovered that he didn't really have to worry that much about the stability of his body.
Even if just created, a rank 4 body was still a center of power in the heroic ranks!
Noah almost didn't feel any need for food or water in that period and even spending entire nights cultivating in the Dark vortex technique produced basically no stress at all on his dantian.
There was also the fact that he didn't cultivate anymore in the Yin body.
His body had reached the fourth rank, the technique was complete, the "Breath" that he stored in the membrane around his heart would naturally be refilled once expended.
Ivor came back precisely after one month.
"What happened to you!?"
He exclaimed as soon as he passed through the entrance door and stared at the young man sitting on the floor.
"What do you mean?"
Noah asked, he really couldn't find any difference with his usual appearance.
"Contain your damned aura already! You know that my sea of consciousness can't sustain much pressure!"
"…"
'Don't tell me, the cold halo released from my body has increased even more?'
Noah pondered, applying a layer of mental energy around his body to hide his presence.
"Better?"
"Yes, thanks! You can't be alone for one month that you already forget that you have an ill roommate! By the way, did you just have another breakthrough?"
"Not yet, I was just too focused and I've influenced my surroundings."
Noah lied while shaking his head.
He had finally obtained his rank 4 body, his big escape was nearing, he couldn't let people know that his power had risen again.
'Right now, the powers I have that the Royals aren't aware of are the shard of Demonic sword and my body in the heroic ranks. There is also the Warp spell that I've purposely avoided using so they shouldn't be aware of my proficiency with it. The last two should be enough to take them by surprise and allow me to escape, now I just need the right moment and a better knowledge of the world outside the Utra country.'
Noah had a vague understanding of the various countries that composed the continent he was in, yet that was far from enough to secure a smooth escape.
He was completely unaware of the political situations in the other nations, which was what made him doubtful about his destination.
'I think it's time to go back on scamming soldiers.'
He decided in his mind as a cold smile appeared on his face.
Noah resumed the hunts with Kurt's group.
He was eager to test his new strength but, in the end, he decided to lay low and pretend that he had still a rank 3 body.
He didn't do that only to hide his actual battle prowess and to continue in his accumulation of material, he did that to appear the weakest of the group.
Most people would talk in a more unrestrained manner to those that considered inferior to them, Noah knew that fairly well.
He used that fact as a way to gather precious information.
Kurt's group had the tradition to gather in the main hall of the guild to drink after each successful hunt and that moment was precisely what Noah was aiming for.
He began to drink more in those situations, that wine was made precisely for cultivators, that meant that it could make them drunk.
Since Noah was pretending to have a rank 3 body, he could act as if he had gotten drunk after a few jugs and "innocently" ask for sensitive information to the others in his group.
Only Kurt was only a hunter after all, the other five hunters had all other jobs outside the guild, many of them in the Royal army.
As soldiers, it was impossible for them not to know about the political situation of their opponents on the borders of the country.
"But, I mean *hic*, this noble system is so restrictive. It is impossible for all the other nations to have the same."
A "drunk" Noah exclaimed loudly, waving his empty jug toward the servants waiting near the walls of the hall.
"Haha! Vance is drunk again! I told you that I can turn everyone in a drunkard!"
"Newton, don't feel proud about that, he is not even twenty and is already trying to match your amount of wine. You really have a bad influence on people."
"Hmph, and what does age even matter! We might all die in our next hunt because of some unexpected beast appearing out of nowhere. The way I see it, be extra careful when there is the possibility to die and be extra drunk when there isn't!"
Newton and Ella bickered as usual on the table while wine continued to be poured on their jugs.
"There are different political systems throughout our continent. I know that there is a nation where the power is divided through many independent organizations called "sects". They are like a bigger version of the academy but without any restrictions on the bloodline."
Ada answered Noah's question.
Newton's eyes lit up hearing her words and joined that conversation.
"I heard about that too. What was its name, right! Papral nation! I heard that the cultivators there live in caves where they isolate themselves for entire years!"