The Bone Peak cultivation technique was quite unique in that regard. It was almost as if the creator himself had deemed that those who choose to abandon practicing this technique are not worthy of walking the path of cultivation.
This is the only explanation Gaston could come up with. He had never heard of a cultivation technique that prevented its user from abandoning it before.
Although the Poison Continent's inhabitants were ignorant in that regard, especially when it came to techniques above Stage 0, they did possess an abundance of "foundation setting" techniques for those below the 1st stage. From amongst them, Gaston couldn't even think of one that functioned in a similar way to the Bone Peak technique.
Considering that he stood at the apex of that region for a few months, and near the apex for a few years, Gaston had seen an immeasurable amount of techniques, so he was confident that it wasn't his own ignorance at fault.
His new cultivation technique seemed to be quite special. Perhaps this shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to him as it did. It was a cultivation technique provided to him by the daughter of a Stage 5 being after all. It was only natural that she was in possession of a unique technique like this.
Gaston wasn't grateful to her at all however, and he didn't think he had a reason to be. The royal princess, Marika, had undoubtedly only provided him with such a unique technique in order to better control him, not out of the goodness of her heart. A thing that Gaston questioned the existence of when it came to her, though perhaps also when it came to him.
Unique as it was however, the Bone Peak cultivation technique more than lived up to his expectations of what he deemed a top-notch cultivation technique.
After her royal highness Marika took out the manual for it out of her storage ring and gave it to him, he opened it with her permission and was quickly certain that this was what he was looking for. There were strict instructions regarding proper form and methods even at first glance, paired together with pictures next to them that showed what the text was describing.
He quickly discovered why this manual, named "Bone Peak" by who he assumed was Marika herself since there was no mention of a name for it inside the manual, was named as such.
Gaston was not in possession of a cultivation technique at the 1st stage to cross-reference the Bone Peak technique, but he was quite sure that visualizing a mountain made out of bones was not something that was common.
It was what the technique required of its user however, and for good reason.
According to the manual for the Bone Peak cultivation technique, the user could be of any grade of spiritual root, as well as of any type, whether it be Water, Fire, or anything else. All that was required, was a very high degree of magical energy purity, which was extremely fitting for someone like Gaston.
With a magical energy purity of 90.4%, this technique almost seemed to be made for people like him. His captor, or more accurately now that they had struct a deal, his partner, was quite considerate it seemed.
Such a high degree in purity was still not enough however. The purpose of the Bone Peak technique, was to naturally absorb an enormous amount of magical energy, far higher than what he was capable of, by way of visualization, and then undergoing a natural filtering process whilst the magical energy was traversing across his body through a specific path that was described in the manual, until such a time that the magical energy was pure enough, and by which point only a small amount of extremely pure magical energy would remain.
The benefits were great, as it provided one with a way of keeping their magical energy pure, a problem which all cultivators faced, at least according to princess Marika.
Elite cultivators were a very rare type of cultivator, but far from unheard of amongst Stage 1 beings. The higher the stage however, the more rare this type of cultivator became. An occurrence that went against what one might think, factoring in the fact that Elite cultivators supposedly had a far higher chance at breaking through the major cultivation barrier than their peers with lesser titles.
There were a multitude of factors behind this, which Gaston would have to check for himself considering that he only had the word of princess Marika to go off of at the moment, but the main reason was due to the gradual loss of magical energy purity that almost all cultivators were faced with when progressing across the minor levels of their stage, but also when going from one stage to another.
If a cultivator only lost a decimal point or two of their magical energy purity when progressing from one level to another largely depending on their cultivation technique, then the 5 to 8% that they lost when crossing into the next stage was the real killer.
This was why Elite cultivators became so rare after reaching the 2nd Stage, but also why high-level cultivation techniques were regarded so highly. With a higher quality cultivation technique, came the added benefit, on top of everything else, of losing less magical energy purity along the way, or even losing none at all depending on how high quality the technique was.
The Bone Peak cultivation technique that Gaston had gotten his hands on, was one such quality technique, that allowed its user to not lose any degree of purity in their magical energy when progressing. That in and of itself made the cultivation technique a priceless treasure in the cultivation world.
Demonic version of the cultivation technique or righteous version, both Bone Peak cultivation techniques had this benefit. Something that Gaston had no doubt was considered by his new partner, princess Marika, when deciding which cultivation technique to give him.
After all, he would be entering the territory of the Wright Kingdom, a land that was inhabited by all sorts of cultivators, but of which the majority were righteous cultivators. The ruler himself was considered to be part of the Righteous Faction, which in and of itself made the territory's inhabitants primarily Righteous.
It could be imagined what would happen if someone was to discover the fact that Gaston practiced a demonic cultivation technique. Noose, beheading, soul searching, all manner of deaths went through his head for a moment.
In truth, despite the Wright Kingdom being considered a righteous territory, there was a fairly large number of non-righteous inhabitants, whether they be neutrals or demonic practitioners, due to the general lack of interest in pursuing them.
Combined with the fact that cultivators, mages and titans were all encouraged to be accepted by the ruler of the Wright Kingdom himself, it wasn't too difficult to imagine why this was so. For reasons unknown to him, the Wright King seemed to be very interested in growing his forces, to the point that he could ignore their chosen path, or even which type of being they were.
As long as his subjects were human, the Wright King appeared to be uninterested in whether they were Righteous, Neutral or Evil, or whether they were a cultivator, mage or titan. A matter that drew Gaston's interest, but something he doubted he would figure out any time soon.
With that said, as someone in the Righteous Faction, there were lines that the Wright King couldn't cross if he didn't want to be cast out of his faction. This was why when it came to important positions within his territory, only inhabitants of the righteous faction were considered, and why Gaston as a spy for the Thurstan Kingdom's princess, had to be seen as a righteous cultivator.
Gaston was not aware of how the righteous version of the Bone Peak cultivation technique differed from the demonic version, but since princess Marika hadn't gone to the trouble of telling him, he was certain that it didn't matter and that others wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
The benefits of the demonic version were many, even aside from the magical energy purity factor. By visualizing a beautiful mountain range full of life, with lush and beautiful trees, an impressively long river, tall and dense grass, the user of this technique could slowly but surely turn this visualization into reality inside their cultivation base.
Perhaps for the righteous version of this technique, this was the same and also where it ended. For the demonic version however, this was all both real and false, as underneath the thin beautiful layer, one would discover that the mountain was made out of bones, that the river was a river of blood and not water, and that the nutrients that allowed for the impressive growth of the grass and trees came from the blood and flesh that lay deep beneath the surface.
In the manual it is said that the specifics of the visualization varied depending on the attributes of one's spiritual roots, but considering that Gaston's main attribute was Earth, and his two minor attributes were Water and Dark, it made sense to him why his visualization picture was what it was.
The practice of this technique provided one with a steady and all around increase in one's physical attributes, and an increase in Resilience, Sensitivity and Capacity when it came to the mental attributes.
This alone, the guaranteed and progressive increase in 9 attributes, 6 of which physical and 3 of which mental, made this cultivation technique extraordinary. From what princess Marika had told him and even shown him, by way of lesser manuals, a guaranteed increase in 2 attributes was the worst type of technique, ranging from 3-5 were more commonly used in the cultivation world, and any technique that increased 6 or more attributes was highly sought after and valuable.
Not only did the Bone Peak technique provide him with a guaranteed increase across 9 attributes, but it also came with several magic powers that were engraved on his cultivation base. At first this was something he was concerned about, but princess Marika assured him that this was standard with all truly high level cultivation techniques.
How true this was he wasn't sure of, but it had already happened so it wasn't like he had much of a choice to do anything else but continue at this point.
Amongst the magical powers engraved in him, one was Regeneration, which was fairly self explanatory but also not exactly as he had thought at first glance. While it did for the most part, provide him with passive healing, to the extent that he could slowly regenerate anything as long as he had enough time and energy stored, it also came with the active ability to heal a major injury fairly quickly.
Whilst the passive effect of the magic power was far more valuable between the two, Gaston was also almost as satisfied with the active ability. He could immediately imagine the value it had, especially if used correctly in the middle of combat, he could give his enemies a nasty surprise.
There were other magical powers engraved on his cultivation base, but they seemed to be unavailable to him for now, considering that he was only at the 1st level of the 1st stage. In fact, he was fairly certain that he would need to break into the next stage in order to gain access to his next magical power.
With these great benefits however, came great costs. This was true even in the great era from which a technique like this was probably from, where they had access to far more magical energy and of far higher quality.
In todays modern cultivation world however, the costs were far more than great. In fact, Gaston was almost certain that the righteous version of this cultivation technique was almost unpracticable, considering the enormous amount of magical energy required in order to practice it.
The reason the prospects of the demonic version were better however, was that despite the relatively thin amount of magical energy in the world, one could also use the magical energy from other beings, both living and dead, to practice with.
This was what made it demonic, but also what made it viable in this day and age.