Those who refine their bodies need a lot of life energy, or what is known as blood energy or vitality. This is the energy stored within cells for their operation.
For example, in muscle cells, life energy is used for movement. Other cells use life energy for a host of other functions. Without life energy, the body will shut down.
It can be said that without life energy, there won't be life. So the body produces life energy naturally. But the life energy produced naturally in the body won't be enough for cultivation.
The body needs the life energy it produces to live. Those who cultivate the path of body refining can only use the excess life energy that the body produces.
There has to be a minimum amount of life energy in the body to maintain life. If cultivators want extra, they must get it from external sources.
The best external source of life energy is mana. A life seed created with a technique that cultivates both the path of energy refining and body refining like the Everlasting Wood Art can convert mana into life energy.
But in the absence of such a powerful technique and the mana to take advantage of it properly, the alternative is to use blood pills. These blood pills are made from the flesh of other corpses and sometimes, even the flesh of people.
Blood pills can also be made from plants. All in all, external sources of life energy are essentially the life energy in the bodies of other beings, be they plants, animals, or humans.
However, all those beings need their life energy for living and won't give it up without a fight. This is what makes cultivating body refining the expensive option.
A disciple of a sect like him can sit still in his home and cultivate for decades at a time free of charge. But body cultivators outside of the sects have to go out hunting and risk their lives to gain access to the life energy of other people for cultivation purposes.
If there is one advantage that the path of body refining has over the path of energy refining, it is that it is very fast. This is because life energy is very easy for the body to absorb and process.
So if a cultivator outside has access to a lot of wealth, they can grow their life seeds fairly quickly. But the irony is that the people outside of the sects rarely are wealthy.
The people outside of sects are weaker than the people in sects, so there is no way that they will be richer than the people in sects.
Besides access to the more abundant resources produced in secret realms, the cultivators in sects also have the advantage of not needing to spend on their cultivation, so they are richer than the cultivators outside of the sects.
Since the cultivators outside of the sects are poor, they can't grow stronger fast enough and will remain weak compared to the cultivators in sects. This will make them well and truly stuck in a circle of poverty and weakness.
He thought of this and many others as he busied himself with cultivation. He didn't stop until Elder Storm Hawk told him that she had finished her preparations for him to enter the inner sect.
He stood up and said in anticipation, "I guess it is time to see where the inner sect is and what's so special about it."
After saying that, he began cleaning up and packing. He also called Roar back through the mental link between them.
Roar was excited to learn that they were going to the inner sect. But he didn't feel much excitement about moving there.
At this point, he is mostly curious about the situation in the inner sect. He doesn't have many expectations because he doesn't need to.
He doesn't need an environment with better mana for him to cultivate because what he already has is good enough for him.
Any cultivator outside of sects would kill to have the conditions in his current cultivation room. That's how valuable what he has is.
But far from needing to kill to gain his current situation, all he needed to do to get a better cultivation condition is to advance to the third mortal coil.
He is literally about to cross the most important barrier that stopped most of the people outside of sects from transcending the third mortal coil and achieving the golden core. But all he feels is curiosity.
He thought to himself wryly, "Maybe it is because I am ignorant. Or maybe it is because I have been spoiled, so I don't know the value of what I am about to receive."
In this case, he doesn't think there is anything wrong with being spoiled. In fact, he likes being spoiled. He is sure that he prefers his current situation infinitely better to what the people outside of sects have to settle for.
He thought of this as he moved everything of value into his slave ring. This included all of his specimens and research materials of the silver pine tree and the Life Pill Art.
He also took his formation engraving tools and materials. Apart from those, there was very little that belonged to him in the house.
Everything that was of the highest value to him was already in his space ring, not in the house. So it was easy for him to move.
He didn't take any food or furniture from the house because he didn't bring any when he was moving in. Besides that, he doesn't even need them. So he would have left them behind if he had brought them in the first place.
He left his house and went down the mountain without much fanfare. Thor didn't see him off because he was still in seclusion busy trying to reach the peak of the second mortal coil and advance to the third mortal coil.