The Strongest Businessman

"It has been seven days since then. Huuu." Dylan exhaled for a while to release some of the stress that has been pilong up for the past few days. After closing his eyes for a bit, he opened it and stood up from his recliner. "Time to get back to work."

Seven days after the auction, Dylan received a total of 18 provocations and death threats but he had not paid heed to any of them. The first threat he recieved was actually realized. On the third day after he recieved the threat, the sender snuck into his house past midnight but the "Ford Protection Squad" was able to fend off the infiltrator easily and capture him.

After that there were several more instances where assasin tried to break in Dylan's house but was caught by the Ford Protection Squad and detained by the Thundercloud Guards.

Though protecting Dylan was strenuous for the 10 people who comprising the squad, they were rather satisfied with the ample amount of pay that Azelmek gives them in order to do their jobs properly. They also easily got along with Dylan as Dylan always invites them inside everytime they ate dinner. They even anticipated the times that Dylan cooks because his dishes were all top-class!

During this sevend days, the number of customers that entered the Soaring Garden Herbal store has averaged 1000 customers a day! The largest batch of customers was in the second day where it reached a total of one thousand four hundred. Their sales even reached a total of 57,000 gold coins!

This was reported to the City Hall and the Soaring Garden Enterprise was able to advance in rank. Prior to the auction their official rank was at the 1832nd, but after the auction, they moved up to the 987th place. Currently, they were able to rank at the 764th!

Due to the large number of customers, Dylan decided to construct the third floor of the Herbal Store and Soaring Diner's which caused him 3,500 gold coins. He also renovated the first floor of the Soaring Garden Auction House and created a reception area for the auction house.

Five days ago, he also planned to buy the lot behind the auction house so he could have it remodelled and expanded. Two days after, he finally finished discussing the terms with the owner of the house.

The owner demaded a new yet larger lot so Dylan arranged it with the Real Estate Agent he knew and bought the lot at a preferrable price. Fortunately, they were able to arrive at reasonable conclusion. Thus, Dylan temporarily closed the Soaring Garden Auction House for renovation.

Dylan was progressing well with his cultivation as well. For the past week, Dylan has showed overwhelming progress in Mystical Magnatism! He was able to advance from the first tier to the third tier easily! His mastery with the Magnate level Mystic Technique already reached Expert Stage!

In terms of Cultivation, Dylan was able to reach all of his Low Spirit Rank Techniques to Grand Perfection Mastery, Mid Spirit Rank Techniques to Expert Mastery as well and is currently training with more techniques at the High Spirit Earth Rank. He knew that he did not have an overwhelming talent in Cultivation like how his talent is in Mystical Magnatism so he decided to not take any shortcuts and craft a stable and well-paved path that would secure a bright future for him.

His talent did not cease to impress the Azelmek trio as he completely shattered their expectations of him.

But what even surprised them even more was the diligence that Dylan had! He did not stop training unless he had fully depleted his energy reserves in his Supreme Core and his Mystical Pond. Once Dylan was near breakthrough to the next Mastery, he did not stop until he was able to achieve that breakthrough. This level of discipline made them feel a great deal of respect to him.

His stack of cultivation resources has also drastically improved. Now, he has more than 14,700 Primal Stones, 1,470 Deca-Stones, and 147 Centurion Stones and 7 Millenial Stones!

With regards to his Ancestral Veins, he had 36 stones he still did not use that ads up to 183 stones all in all. He used 52 Centurion Stones to reach to a hundred ancestral veins.

When he reached the 100th vein, he discovered that it actually needed 3 cernturion stones to create the final 25 veins due to it being the last set of Ancestral Veins. Now that Dylan has over 130 Centurion Stones left, he possessed the qualifications to enter the Ancestral Veins Realm.

Just to be safe, Dylan asked Azelmek if he could enter a Cultivation Room for his upcoming advancement because he was afraid that someone might take this oppurtunity to attack him. He told Azelmek it was for his safety during advancement so he was naturally permitted. He was even given access to a high class Cultivation Room.

Dylam naturally did not let this opportunity go to waste. The very next day, he arrived at the Premier Hall, prepared with the tribulation he is about to undergo to enter the Ancestral Veins Realm.

After greeting Azelmek, Sheldon and Allen a good day, he was guided to the Cultivation Facilities of the Premier Hall. It was also situated at the underground section of the Premier Hall building.

According to Azelmek, there was a total of five underground floors. The first two floors were for the cultivation and training grounds for its disciples and staff. The third was the treasury of the entire Hall while the last two floors is the ancestral grounds of the sect.

"Thank you so much for letting me enter." Before Dylan was about to enter the Cultivation Room, he thanked them once again for giving him the opportunity to use this Cultivation Room.

"Hahaha, there is no need to thank me like this. You are my disciple. I would naturally give you the best treatment I could offer but you have to remember that master will not be there to help you always, you have to remember that the only reliable aid is oneself." Azelmek imparted an important teaching before Dylan entered the Room.

"Hallmaster is right. Empty your mind and focus on making the breakthrough." Allen offered good luck for Dylan's advancement.

"Sir Azelmek has already promised a gift for you..." Sheldon was about to disclose the surpise when Azelmek called out his name.

"Sheldon!" Azelmek stared intensely at Sheldon.

"Ooff, me and my big mouth." Sheldom spoke in a silly manner.

"Thank you, master." A heartfelt thanks could be heard. Dylan felt warm after knowing how much these three appreciates and supports him like a father to his son or uncle to his nephew. It was just like his past life, he may have never had a true father or uncle but he had elderly figures who played that role, however, none of them showed us much concern as these three did.

"Mmh. Now, go on and become more stronger!" Azelmek nodded and remarked.

"Yes, sir!" Dylan answered and turned around to proceed to the room not having any thought to turn around anymore.

The three looked proudly at this man. They first thought of him as a means to become closer to the enigmatic and incomparably strong expert but now, they have formally accepted him as a disciple and a nephew to them after interacting with him.

...

Dylan sitted crossed-legged. He meditated first to adjust his mental and physical state to its peak state. After a third of an hour, Dylan slowly opened his eyes and uttered, "Begin!"

He crushed the Centurion Stones by pairs. Each 5 Centurion Stones he crushes, a new ancestral vein was incorporated to his Spirit Veins System.

By the time the 120th extra vein was formed, the 120 veins started to extricate itself from the Spirit Veins System. It started to form an independent and new Veins System with a different structure altogether. But compared to the Spirit Veins System, it did not have the sense of aliveness with it as if it was dead.

"This... is the Ancestral Veins System?" Dylan pauses as he observed the changes in his body. He observed how the 120 Ancestral Veins was slowly changing the morphology of the insides of his body. He was feeling rather strange as each veins connected with one another.

"I have to continue!" Despite the eerieness he was feeling, he still decided to continue.

As soon as the 125th vein was born, the Ancestral Veins System came into being once more! The connection of each Ancestral Vein was established and it successfully became an independent system from the Spirit Veins System.

"Finally, the formation is done. According to the manual, the next thing to do is the detonation of each vein, one at a time. The worse thing is that I have to this successively..." Dylan could already feel the imaginary sting in his body just from reminding himself of that phrase.

"Before I continue, I need to use this." He held out a Mid Spirit Rank Herb called Silencing Pepper. It was pretty much useless other than losing your voice for an hour. It was the perfect thing that Dylan needs in order to avoid attracting attention just like how he attracted the bandit group that Barry was in at Great Pine Forest.

After consuming the herb, he tried speaking a few times to test it out and it was truly effective. Just to make an extra precaution, Dylan ate another one in case the effects of the first one would die out midway.

'Explode!' Dylan shouted in his heart. He concentrated a great deal of energy to one of the Ancestral Veins and it exploded!

*Boom*

Dylan shivered as he felt the pain across his body. It felt like one of his fingers exploded suddenly. He opened his mouth and wanted to scream. Right after, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to do it again.

*Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

Consecutive explosions followed! Dylan opened his mouth and soundlessly coughed blood. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay in a meditative position with one thought resounding in his mind, 'I can do this!!'

*Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

Repeatedly, Dylan detonated his veins with just a few seconds as an interval. He did not know how many times he had done it or how much time had elapsed from doing it. He had lost track what vein he was detonating and was just mindlessly following the route which the Ancestral Veins System had.

He was constantly reminding his self four words which kept his mind awake. Constantly hanging on that one thread of conscoiusness that he had been holding onto.

"You can do it!" "You CAN do it!" "YOU CAN DO IT!!!"

His appearance could only be as bloody as it could get. Every time he detonated an ancestral vein, the part of the skin where it could be found upon would break and excrete blood. He was rapidly losing too much blood but he persevered and continue on with the task at hand.

'I'm... finally done." After 10 minutes of nonstop self-torture, Dylan was finally able to completely detonate all of the Ancestral Veins in his body.

But it was not without a cost, he has lost too much blood from the process, he was suffering from hemorhage and organ failure. He was nearly losing his consciousness and his heart could not keep up with the rate he was losing blood.

'Like hell will I die!' Dylan forcibly opened his eyes and he remembered the last step that was written on the chapter [Circulate your spirit energy into the system]. He used all of the mental strength he could summon in order to guide his spirit energy to the Ancestral Veins System.

With difficulty, he let his spirit energy pass through the crippled veins of the system. It seemed rather futile doing all of this because there was no apparent reaction that was happening.

'You have to work! YOU HAVE TO!' Dylan did not feel disheartened and hanged at this one hope he had left. At last, he was able to complete one cycle of circulation in the Ancestral Veins System.

Suddenly, the entire Ancestral Veins System shone, each vein had an abstruse golden light with them! The Ancestral Veins System was greedily absorbing all of Dylan's energy reserves in his Supreme Core at an extreme rate!

'So this is... Ancestral Purification...' Dylan's body was shining like a star! It floated in mid-air. Seemingly ancient runes appeared atop of each part of the skin which broke and was excreting blood. These runes converged and formed one ancient seal! The Ancestral Seal entered Dylan's body and mended his wounds at a terrifying rate!

In just a matter of seconds, the wounds were gone without even leaving scars! The blood, that Dylan lost, shone in golden light as well. It ascended in mid air forming 125 conglomerated bloods and they all condensed into the ancient runes that appeared atop of the wounds earlier. Each entered to the respective spot where they originated.

Now, Dylan has full regained all of the blood he lost! He opened his eyes which emitted golden light. He looked like an immortal ascending while he floated in mid-air. He suprisingly spoke even, "That felt amazing!"

"Apparently, the effects of the Silencing Pepper was neutralized in the process of awakening the Ancestral Veins as it was labeled a foreign material and was purified." Dylan deduced.

"Yes! Hahaha! I have successfully awakened the Ancestral Veins!" Dylan laughed in excitement. He felt as if there was another additional route opened to him! Now that he has entered Ancestral Veins Realm. He was really excited what type of Avatars he is going to get after he reaches Awakened Spirit Realm.