Sect Leader's Rise to the top!

Kai watched as Song Fei carefully look through each pill bottle. When she was satisfied, she turned back to him with a warm smile. "Mr. Kai, you really are full of surprises!. If you or your Master-Alchemist friend require anything else, please feel free to come to my Song family. We will do our utmost best to assist!".

Kai could only nod at her response. Kai knew that at this rate, more powers would come looking for information about the new 'Master-Alchemist', so he needed to prepare. When the exchange was finished, Kai put the items into his spatial bag and left the Song family Auction house. He rushed back home and immediately locked himself in the basement.

Kai decided to start by combining his existing manuals. He only had five martial arts slots, so he needed to make some room before he started creating any new ones.

Kai looked through his current skills one at a time.

[Twig] [F-Rank]. "I outgrew this skill a long time ago..." Kai thought with some nostalgia. This skill had helped him a lot in the early phase of his arrival, but it wasn't as useful anymore. Kai decided to combine it with his other F-Rank skills.

[Hare Leaps over Moon] [F-Rank]. "This one has helped me a lot, even recently. It's by far the best F-Rank skill I've ever seen". As Kai thought this, he wondered what made it different from the other F-Rank skills. Kai was constantly looking for any patterns that could help him make better manuals.

"Well, I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. For now, let's combine these manuals!" Kai said while thinking of merging the two manuals. At that moment, a prompt appeared before his eyes.

=[Please select the amount of Qi to be used for combination]=

[100 Qi]

[500 Qi]

[1000 Qi]

Kai still didn't have much Qi to work with so he chose [100 Qi] to start.

Two streams of light flowed out of his mind and combined, creating one soft glowing orb. The orb quickly became a single sheet of worn-out parchment.

"Looks like it stayed F-Rank", Kai thought while absorbing the information.

=[New Entry]=

>[Unnamed Martial Arts Manual] [F-Rank]

[Active]: Active Footwork, Can perform a short leap at unprecedented speed in any direction with some precision.

[Cost]: 1 Qi

[Cool down]: 55 seconds

"Interesting...", Kai thought while reading the description. The manual had essentially remained the same, keeping the traits of [Hare Leaps over Moon], but now had a slightly decreased cooldown. The description had also added "precision", which made him believe that the balance attribute from Twig was in play there.

Kai nodded his head and moved on to his remaining three martial arts skills.

[Corrosive Dragon Stance] [E-Rank]

[Dragon's Whispers] [E-Rank]

[Primordial-Dragon's Scale Armament] [D-Rank]

Kai decided not to mess with his only D-Rank skill. This had quickly become his lifeline due to its insanely high defensive capabilities and so he would hate to lose it to a bad combination.

Kai also wanted to keep [Dragon's Whispers] which functioned as a telepathic link between him and his disciples. This was invaluable because it allowed Kai to give his disciples remote instructions. Kai decided to only combine it with similar manuals of high grade to keep the same functionality.

"That means I can only combine [Corrosive Dragon Stance]...". Kai had not used this skill much, simply because it took far too long to be effective. He was now strong enough to kill [Grade-2] beasts with one punch so waiting for the corrosion to take effect was just a waste of time. The ability also had very little effect on [Grade-3] beasts which made it useless for the current Kai.

"Should I combine it with the new movement skill I just got?...", Kai wasn't sure what would come of it, but he was in the mood to experiment and so he decided to go for it. He combined the new skill with [Corrosive Dragon Stance] then chose [500 Qi] to make sure that something good came out of it.

Like before, two streams of light combined, but this time, a small booklet was created instead of a single page.

"It looks like it's E-Rank!" Kai said thankfully. He paged through the small booklet before he chose to absorb the information.

=[New Entry]=

>[Unnamed Martial Arts Manual] [E-Rank]

[Active]: Create a corrosive cloud that spreads around a limited radius, infecting everything it touches with corrosion.

[Cost]: 1 Qi per second

[Ability 2, Footwork]: move to any location within the corrosive cloud with unprecedented speed.

[Cost]: 20 Qi

[Cool down]: 2 minutes

Kai read the skill and was somewhat conflicted. At first glance, it seemed to be an upgrade, but it had clear flaws as well. He wouldn't need to touch his enemies to infect them with the corrosive attribute. But, the skill's cooldown time had increased, meaning he wouldn't be able to use it as often. The other downside was that if his enemies noticed the poison cloud, they would just avoid it, meaning Kai would lose the element of surprise.

"This skill could also harm my disciples, so I can't use it while they're around...". Overall, Kai felt that the skill was good but had a completely different use now. This proved Kai's hypothesis that if he wanted to keep a skill's general function unchanged, he would have to combine similar skills.

Kai named the new skill [Corrosive Dragon's Cloud] and decided to pass it off to Qiulong for the time being. With that, Kai now had three slots open for new martial arts manuals. He pulled out the three [Grade-3] items and placed them on the table in the middle of the room.

"Three D-Rank manuals, with a slight chance of getting a C-Rank...". Kai thought with his eyes closed. He would be happy with just the guaranteed D-Rank manuals, but Kai was still curious about the C-Ranks that needed a minimum of 10,000 Qi to be made. How powerful would those manuals be?.

Kai shook his head to get rid of the unnecessary thoughts and focused on the first item.

[Blood Rhino Horn] [Grade-3] [Qi 1033]

He picked it up and felt the aura of Qi pulsating through the horn. Kai likened the feeling it gave off to a raging river of blood.

"Create Manual!", Kai thought with the horn in his hands.

[Blood Rhino Horn] [Grade-3] Selected as the base material. This will cost 100 Qi. Do you wish to proceed?].

Kai accepted and the process began. The horn disintegrated into little motes of light and combined into a blood-red scroll. The scroll had images of a horned creature etches in and around it, making it look like a work of art.

Kai opened the scroll and observed the mysterious glyph, then absorbed the information into his mind.

=[New Entry]=

[Unnamed Martial Arts Manual] [D-Rank] based on Blood Rhino Horn [Grade-3]=

[Alone I stand. They call me a tyrant, yet where are my followers?. Why do they call me a warmonger?, when I alone ended the wars?. I am the last one standing so that makes me the strongest. The rivers of blood now flow for me and me alone. And so, I shall claim the title of Blood God!]

[Active]: Blood Force: When you attack an opponent, slightly increase your Speed and Damage (stacks up to 10 times).

[Cost]: 10 Qi per use

[Duration]: 1 minute per stack

[Active]: Relentless Charger: When outnumbered by more than one opponent, increase your Attack and Defense by 1% for each hostile opponent present. (Stack is indefinite, but will be removed if the hostile leave the ability's radius).

[Cost]: 1 Qi per stack

[Limit]: 100 stacks

"As expected from a D-Rank manual!", Kai said excitedly while reading the details. Not only was the skill good for facing one opponent, but Kai quickly realized that it was perfectly geared towards fighting multiple opponents at the same time. Kai would become stronger, faster, and harder to kill when facing a lot of enemies. At full stacks, Kai would essentially double his combat effectiveness!.

It did not specify the radius of the ability, so he would have to test this himself, but Kai was still more than pleased with the result.. He learned the new martial arts manual and decided to call it [Blood Dragon's Rage].