He took his key and went up the stairs. Since he was already there once, he knew the way. He rejected the boy’s help and went up the stairs by himself. Once he got to the floor his room was one, finding it wasn’t that difficult.

The room was unlocked, so he slowly pushed it open. It was empty inside, save for a bed, a bedside drawer, and a desk. The room was smaller than the suite, but he didn’t mind that. He closed and locked the door behind him and launched himself onto the bed.

“This is a very nice bed,” Nefrati commented.

“It is,” Leo said with a blissful expression on his face. He needed a break after what he had gone through, and he finally got it. At his stage, he didn’t need sleep, but he appreciated moments of silence when he didn’t have to do anything.

After ten minutes, he got up. As much as he could waste all the time he had in the day lying on the bed, he knew that he had to start training.

“So, are you going to start now?” Nefrati asked him.

He nodded. There was an agenda he had that would make him ready for the Phoenix Trials. The first out of them was to make his aura stronger.

The knowledge he received from the Blood God included the technique to shift all his aura into Blood Aura. It would strip away his current element and make it without any quality. Then he would train normally. When he used any Blood Aura Techniques, his aura would automatically transition into that element.

Nefrati expected what he was going to do, so she offered her help.

“Do you want me to guide you through the process?”

“No. Just tell me if I am veering off the right path. I’ll figure out everything else by myself.”

He sat cross-legged on his bed and started circulating his aura. The shadow element was very strongly present in it which made him frown. It was going to be a long and arduous process.

The circulating aura inside his body was slowed down immensely. Once it was going at a snail’s pace, he pulled out a wisp of aura outside. The aura left his fingertip and was about to disperse.

However, he controlled the aura with his hands and took a closer look at the element inside. While the shadow element was strong, it hadn’t completely melded into the aura. The reason for this was that he never truly used his aura as much.

For any of his fights, his go-to was to use magic. The shadow element he had was also partly because of his magic. Since his aura hadn’t used the Aura Techniques heavily, the element was only lingering in his aura, albeit in a heavy amount. So the aura was very easy to separate from the element, which made his life easier.

He controlled the aura and split up the element from it, releasing control over the element immediately. A shadowy wisp dissipated into the air. Once that happened, he reabsorbed the aura back into his body.

Once he succeeded with that little bit of aura, he quickly moved to the next bit. He quickened the flow of aura and brought out a much larger bit of aura. This time, it was the size of a tennis ball.

He repeated the process again and sent it back into his body. The aura cycled through his body, merging with the rest of it. Because the aura all became one again, the shadow element in the rest of the aura diffused into his aura.

While this should have made him a little disappointed that his actions were being voided, it didn’t affect him at all. This was because he knew it was still good progress. While there weren’t any parts of his aura that had no element, his aura as a whole had a lesser amount of the shadow element.

There was a small clock on the table beside his bed. The hands slowly ticked away as he kept at the process without rest. The second hand ticked away, turning the minutes. Minutes turned hours and hours turned days.

Four days passed since he started, and it left his aura almost completely clear. There were only trace amounts of the element that he simply couldn’t get rid of no matter how long he spent. He stretched his arms once he was done, ready to go to the next step.

“Are you going to start anew?” Nefrati asked him.

“No. I cannot let go of that much progress,” he said.

She was referring to the choice he had. Since he now had a new aura manual with a way to create aura circles, he could choose to break off his first two circles to make new ones. This would only make sense because the circles of the Blood God were far superior to the ones he made.

After all, he got his for 1000 Starcoins while the Blood God perfected his circles after years of training. The benefits would be a higher aura capacity and a more efficient aura cycle, but he decided not to do it.

The circle he would build from then would have those benefits as well, and he didn’t have enough resources to rebuild the circles. Because of his Pill Body, he would need too much aura to construct the circles. And moreover, his body already had a very high aura capacity. The circles would add on top of that, but that would be overkill.

“That is fine. You can start at this point and it would still help,” she said. “Are you going to directly breakthrough?”

“Yes.”

He was a Middle-Stage 2nd Circle Aura Knight, which would normally be very far from a 3rd Circle. However, he had one thing that he didn’t have before.

The pill that he got from the Blood God’s temple was perfect for him. He didn’t think it would be enough then because of the strong blood element present in it. If he had to change that to the Shadow Element, he would lose a lot of the aura residing in it.

However, now that he was going to train in Blood Aura, the pill was perfect for him. He took out the box he got from the temple and set it in front of him.

Before he could even open it, the leaving aura made him shiver with anticipation. He took only a second to shake off his excitement and looked at the box in front of him. His steady hands opened the lid, revealing the pill to him again.

The aura released by the pill made him smile. When he peered into it, he could sense a vast sea of aura, threatening to gush out. If it was a normal person trying to use it, they would explode, unable to take such a powerful aura in such a high dose.

But this was nectar to him. He gently took the pill from the box and brought it closer to him.

“Be careful. Once you start, you cannot lose focus,” Nefrati warned him.

He opened his mouth and popped in the pill.