Three months elapsed and Velora advanced with Ezra's help.
Now seven years old, Ezra's physique mirrored that of a ten-year-old.
He'd grown broad shouldered, holding a neat six pack abs and a height of 5 foot 2.
Right now, he was coughing out blood with his eyes bloodshot, yet the smile never left his lips.
'I'm almost there' he rejoiced.
The closer he got to clearing out all his impurities, the worse the backlash.
Normally, one would've cleaned such an amount of impurities only after hitting Expert-rank.
Yet here he was, doing the same at Adept-rank. Of course he would suffer, as his body went through deep changes each time impurities were expelled.
Change called for adaptation, which led to a transformation.
And since these changes weren't natural, his internals fell into chaos as they adapted, causing painful backlashes.
That aside, the potency of his blood poison increased.
His cultivation method had him coughing blood or bleeding out of his pores, so he halted his plans to increase the potency of his blood poison till he cleared out all his impurities and gained better control.
Alas, he failed to account for it growing in potency as the quality and quantity of mana within him increased.
'Oh well'
There was nothing he could do about that now.
With each cultivation session, the backlash worsened, and the days it took to heal increased.
But it was all worth it.
'With this, I'll build an outstanding foundation'
The result would justify the process.
The bleeding ceased after several minutes and Ezra rested on his back, his thoughts setting on future events.
'The next session will clear out the last of the impurities'
Normal children would get excited, rushing the process.
Ezra did the opposite.
Rather than emotions, logic took over.
'The next session should be the last' he took a deep breath.
'It's also going to be toughest yet'
'The risks are even higher. If I rush it, the chance I become crippled is not small'
Taking things slow was the right move.
'This time I'll do it after four, no, five months' he nodded, looking at his arms.
'My meridians will also have healed by then'
'Till then…'
He looked at the crest-sized scythe on his clothes.
Having learned staff movements, he mastered the scythe's fundamentals in three months.
'…I'll take this as far as I can'
For the next five months, the aim was to master the scythe to a level beyond average.
'…right after I get enough rest'
He laid, shut his eyes and slept soon after.
A thought popped up as he was about to sleep.
'I should tell Sebastian to begin forming the faction'
—---------------
A lot had changed for Black Jaws in the last three months.
A partnership between Goldmasters, Black Jaws subsidiary guild, and Halobren, a reputable merchant family fallen from grace, was established.
The D-ranks returned a month ago, and were allowed into the special cultivation chambers as a reward.
They were special because Fredrick had mana gathering formations carved on its walls.
At the center of every formation was a mana stone powering it, hidden from sight.
The D-ranks had Intermediate level cultivations, using weapon mastery and physique to bridge the gap between them and normal D-ranks.
As they began cultivating with mana from mana stones, the effect was instantaneous.
Too bad, some were too greedy, crippling themselves in the process.
Others took notice, applying caution. With Fredrick's advice, they built substantial foundations before advancing to the next rank.
Also, Traxford's slums reconstruction neared completion. It had become the talk of the town, because at the center of the slums lay an ongoing construction that dwarfed the royal castle.
If completed, it would be the tallest building in Orion.
They grew famous as their movements caught the attention of many, but the buffer zone kept them at bay.
A month later, Covaria and Ledemor joined the war.
Niton was pushed back, suffering massive casualties as the Emperor rallied the forces of the clans and great families with promises of great riches and counter attacks, dealing twice the damage to the enemy.
From then on, the war shifted from being about the manite mountain to being about conquering the land of the surrounding kingdoms.
With promise of nobility titles and adamantite weapons on the line, Masters arrived at the battlefield in droves.
Everyone was out for blood, escalating the war in both scale and magnitude, which in turn had most turned away from Black Jaws matters.
Ezra's aim was achieved masterfully.
Days later, Ezra communicated with Fredrick to begin the establishment of the faction of concubines.
—--------------------------
Triton sat by his mother as she explains her plans for him,
"It saddens me to have you go, but academy admissions close at year's end, and who knows how long it'll take till the next time it opens? I can't have that"
She rubbed Triton's hair.
"Take this chance. Grow beyond the reach of your brothers and become the man you were destined to be"
She chuckled.
"You're thirteen now. My boy's becoming a man already, isn't that right?"
Triton beamed with pride.
"Of course, mother" he knelt.
"I will not disappoint you"
"Of course, my boy. Now, shall we begin packing your bags?"
Triton gave her a weird look.
She tapped his nose.
"Oh fine. I'll hand you your very own space ring. Can't have my little man looking uncultured on his way to school"
He bowed.
"Thank you, mother!"
Soon after, Triton is enrolled.
Nearing the year's end, the other wives got a whiff of her actions and acted accordingly.
In due haste, Connor and Jordan are subsequently enrolled, albeit to a different institution.
Five months soon passed, Ezra clocking eight years old.
In caution, he postponed the cultivation session another month.
This month sees Cabrera advance to Expert-rank and Fredrick advance to late Master-rank.
Black Jaws exploded in members, recruiting more than five thousand members, and at a good time too.
Kingmere's slums had been completely reconstructed, and the next project was Irondale's slums.
Turns out, partnering with Halobren was the right move.
Their combined efforts led to the transformation of the entire guild system.
The method of resource acquisition was exchanged and expenses were drastically reduced by reducing the benefits of non-combatant members.
Additionally, rather than focusing on nurturing members of G-rank upwards, they had their benefits cut by half.
Instead, more resources were allocated as they grew stronger.
No matter how much money they had, it was paramount that no profit-oriented organization worked with a loss.
Simply put, to spend more than one earned.
That was what Black was previously doing.
With Halobren's help, they shifted to the right track.
On that matter, the newly built slums had its building up for rental, rather than giving them to members.
Then, low rank blacksmiths, alchemists, enchanters, artificers, and cooks were incorporated into the guild.
Not that high rank professionals weren't sought, but most didn't think well of having themselves tied down.
After aggressive negotiations, twenty-eight Journeymen professionals and three Experts joined.
With them, Black Jaws created another subsidiary guild, Black Works. A guild exclusive to professions.
Woodbrothers was also incorporated into Black Works.
Goldmasters, Black Silence, and now Black Works. It was the third subsidiary guild.
Black Jaws began producing weapons, potions, artifacts. Going further, they bought land bigger than Kingmere's slum and employed farmers in droves to begin growing food and herbs.
This in turn causes them to hire blacksmiths to forge farming tools.
A month passed, bringing with it a pleasant surprise…maybe not so pleasant.
The winds turned cold as fragile ice crystals began to fall.
Ice shower. It was an event occurring at least once every decade.
But its timing couldn't have been worse for Black Jaws.
It made the work of farmers three times harder.
While harmless to even low rank adventurers, falling crystals were fatal to normal humans.
It also had the effect of reducing soil fertilization.
Most people had to wear thick clothes to retain body heat, or freeze to death.
Thick clothes restricted movement, making the work of farmers harder.
Many of the hired blacksmiths had their contracts voided, preferring to pay a fine as demand for farm tools had dropped significantly.
Thankfully, it wasn't all bad.
The potency of anything related to ice increased.
Ice attacks became deadlier while its defense became stronger.
Black Jaws switched the plants to those ice attributes as they grew three times as fast during ice showers.
The plants were then preserved, rather than sold.
Items and beasts with fire affinity were highly sought, their already high prices being tripled.
The best effect was the temporary increase in affinity.
Cultivating with C-rank affinity would yield five times the result of D-rank affinity. And better, the progress in cultivation was retained.
Alas, most ice showers lasted a month, at most two.
After a lot of thought, Ezra decides to postpone the cultivation session for another month.
He felt the risk was still too much, and instead, cultivated his ice attribute, since it was temporarily S rank.
Mana cultivation and element cultivation were different things.
Elements stayed as orbs within the body, and cultivating them proved more taxing.
Ezra had five tiny orbs as the center of his chest, a red one denoting fire, crimson for blood, white for lightning, black for darkness and blue for ice.
The rank of affinity was denoted by how deep the color was.
So, if one has an ice affinity, light blue would denote F or E-rank, blue would denote D or C-rank, and if it was partly deep blue, then B-rank. Fully deep blue denotes A or S-rank.
