Alrin was pleased that he could break through much sooner than expected he was still patient and decided to heed Alara's advice and see if the sect had any Path Arts that suited him. Although he was doing this he was not particularly optimistic of his chances of finding anything suitable for two reasons. The first that his understanding of the elements was extremely weak which makes any path arts he would want to learn difficult to impossible. The second was that he was still an outer sect disciple and would have limited options.
Leaving the restaurant Alrin naturally paid for the food but he also put the still sleeping Kor back into his ring to prevent him from waking up anytime soon.
Heading towards the western part of the sect Alrin did his best to avoid as many people as people not feeling quite relaxed with so many people around despite the sect itself being relatively small.
The large amount of people was due to the city outside the sect known as Sun city. Unlike other sects the Star Sect was managed quite loosely compared to most others since it even went as far as to allow mortals to build a city just outside of it, yet that wouldn't even be considered the particularly strange to most sects. It was the fact mortals were able to come and go into the sect as they pleased as long as they used the main gate. Although not official this fact made it so Sun City was seen as an extension of Star Sect and caused Sun city to become the most populous city in the southeast despite bordering the Circle of Sen Beasts.
Only after walking for a while did the countless people that filled the streets finally vanish allowing Alrin to feel more relaxed. This part of the sect was reserved only for members of sect and unless you wore a star badge you would be naturally turned around by a barrier.
After walking for a bit longer Alrin arrived at the Star Plaza and it was quite full of people since this was one of the most important places for cultivators of the sect. Unlike immortals, mortal cultivators still had to do most things in person such as buying and selling goods with Sen Stones, using contribution points to buy things from the sect, or even getting Path Arts from the sect all these still had to be done in person as a mortal.
Walking through the plaza Alrin eventually arrived in front of a small building titled 'Star Library' his destination. Entering the building Alrin was amazed not by the fact that the building was far larger on the inside no, he was amazed by the countless filled bookshelves that filled the new space.
"What do we have here a new disciple? Wait black hair, gold eyes, handsome are you the new disciple from the rumors!?" Asked a young woman somewhat excited.
"What rumors if I may ask senior Sister?" Alrin asked seeing the orange star badge.
"You don't know? Theirs dozens of rumors saying the sects star disciple senor sister Alara fell in love with a new disciple with black hair and gold eyes and has been skipping out on her duties to spend time with him." The woman explained.
Hearing this Alrin was left speechless since all he had done since joining was too cultivate in his cave yet their were apparently rumors about himself.
"Unfortunately I don't think that me I only had talent to become for the body path and I've only reached the third core." Alrin said feigning ignorance.
"That's true well at least your handsome so you have that going for you." The woman said trying to be nice as she began to lose interest in him since he was only an outer disciple.
"Since your new here let me explain how to search for what you want otherwise you would never find anything. To quickly search this library simply walk through one of those doors and you will see a pedestal in front of all the bookshelves. Simply stand in front of the pedestal and speak what you are looking for if nothing pops up it means you were being to narrow or it will show you do not have access as an outer disciple. Got it?" The woman explained
"I understand thank you for the help senior sister." Alrin said clasping one hand over the other as a sign of thanks
"Ah, One last thing since you said your are of the body path you can get access to some normally forbidden techniques but you have to specially add the criteria or they won't appear."
Thanking her once again Alrin entered through the door once he did he saw a pedestal a few feet away from the bookshelves that continued further than he could. Placing his hand on the pedestal it felt like an ordinary wood pedestal but the woman said all he needed to do was speak his desire and so he did.
"Body path." As soon as he said this an incredibly long scroll appeared on the pedestal listing all the body refining techniques he had access to get.
Diamond Body
Iron Turtle
Golden Bones
…
Now understanding how it worked Alrin spent an hour searching for anything suitable to him but unfortunately he hadn't come across any and at this point he only had 1 thing left to try and added the last criteria.
"Forbidden techniques."
Blood Explosion
Soul Refining
Qi Inversion
…
After reading through the forbidden techniques for another half hour he finally came across that he found suitable called 'The Radiance'. By reversing the natural flow of Sencia in the body causing it to clash against itself creates an overwhelming explosion of heat and energy causing a bright aura to appear around the user thus earning its name 'The Radiance'.
Naturally this brought about an incredible increase in strength but as a forbidden technique the downsides were great but as great as it was the downsides were naturally as great.
The first downside was that it was worse than basically setting your own internal energy on fire and watching as it quickly vanished. This would cause the user to not even be able to sustain the technique for a minute. Of course Alrin as a body cultivator had larger Qi reserves and would be able to sustain it longer.
The second downside was that since you would be exploding your own internal energy inside of your own body the best case scenario would be having your cores destroyed taking your cultivation with it. Unfortunately for a body cultivator Qi would naturally and constantly flow throughout ones body entire body unlike traditional cultivators where it would main circulate between the cores. This mean that were Alrin to use it every inch of his body would start to burn alive making it difficult to use of course he was able to deal with this or else he would not have chosen it.
The third downside was that most things would become useless upon activation. Pills or elixirs unusable as they would be immediately destroyed. The clothes you were or even the weapon being used could very well also be destroyed by this technique. Even if you were to be fighting with allies they could not help you as just by getting to close would also hurt anything withing its vicinity. This was the last downside but it was not something Alrin was particularity concerned about at the moment.
If their were to be a fourth downside it was that at this moment Alrin was too poor to afford it. The sect provided 100 contribution points a month to outer sect disciples and if were to wait with just that it would take decades years for him to afford it.
But their was one major upside to this one specifically while it did require some understanding of the fire and light paths it was relatively low so it made it perfect for Alrin.
Alrin had not found another reason to go on a mission for the sect and having decided that he immediately left the building heading for another nearby build where he could take on missions for the sect.
Looking through the missions that would give at least a significant amount of contribution points Alrin ran into a problem. The missions that he could take on as an ordinary outer disciple did not provide nearly enough contribution points for the technique let alone all the resources he still needed.
For him to get the contribution points he needed he would have to join a group that had at least one inner disciple or higher to take on higher tier missions and so he found himself recalling Alara's words. Channeling Sencia into his his ring he quickly sent a message to Alara.
Alara was having a meal with her master when she received Alrin's message and let out a small sigh. Reading the message she was satisfied seeing that he was willing to ask her for help. It seemed the effort she had been putting in to befriend him was paying off.
"Why are you suddenly smiling?" her master asked.
"I'm going to go on a mission."
"You… hate doing that?"
Alrin quickly received a reply from Alara asking if he had any preferences to the type of mission he would like to which he replied hunting down demonic cultivators which were also known as fiends.
Hunting fiends? Alrin doesn't seem like he has such a strong sense of justice is it related to his past or does he just want the contribution points but even then… Well at least he was willing to ask for help I wasn't confident he would. Wait! This is actually great fighting together should make him more willing to trust me and ViVi was being forced to take on mission this is lining up perfectly!
After thinking it through Alara sent him a reply telling her she would help but she had one request.
"My request is a simple one I want you to spend a day enjoying yourself but I'm guessing you would simply do nothing if I told you that right?" Alara said in message
"You're right." He replied.
"Then join me for a date."