They could feel the rank suppression but it lasted only a moment before it disappeared. He closed his eyes and took a breath.
He felt the mana coursing through his body strengthening him. In his past life as a god he couldn't use mana.
The feeling was amazing, he sensed both mana nodes. The mage node made his mind sharper.
He could feel a spell forming in his head, this wasn't a learned spell but one that came with the mana cultivation technique.
The spell was called charm, he can put people in a illusion if he looked into their eyes.
Then he also felt a battle technique from the warrior path called mirage, it allowed him to create a mirage clone.
The clone had no combat ability but it can fool his enemies. Fortunately his mana cultivation technique was tailored for both paths so it was easy.
This was another issue for warlocks, they had to either find a cultivation technique made for both paths or find two techniques of either path which are compatible enough.
After all that he opened his eyes and looked at them then he stood up and walked towards Viona.
" Tell everybody to stand in a line, I'm going to check their attributes and see what technique is compatible with them."
Viona looked surprised. " You..you're willing to share your techniques with us? Why?" He shrugged.
" It is the will of the lord, I'm merely a lowly servant, perhaps he sees use in you, now stop wasting my time and do it."
She nodded with excitement. They stood in a line, there were only around 56 people here.
27 women including Viona, 16 men and 13 children below the age of 15, 15 was considered adulthood here.
Very few people but it was a start, he could already see it, cities that reached the sky filled with his worshippers.
Armies that can bring empires to their knees in his name and his statues across the entire universe.
He couldn't help but smile which terrified the woman standing Infront of the line. He coughed.
" Let begin, give me your hand." The woman stretched her hand and he took it. He poured his mana into her and let it course through her body.
" Mmm." The woman moaned with pleasure then realised what she did and looked down with embarrassment.
Khali continued scanning her. " No talent for being a mage and you have the earth attribute. Next."
He continued testing the talent and attributes of all the adults. Children below the age of 15 couldn't cultivate so he didn't test them.
After he was done he had figured what cultivation technique to give who. Of the 27 women, 6 including Viona and Lucy had talent for the mage path.
Only one of the 16 men had it. He planned to give them low quality techniques at first.
Fortunately a cultivation technique can be changed later if the new one is compatible with the old.
They would have to earn the more powerful techniques. Only Viona and Lucy were going to get more powerful techniques.
That's because he saw potential in them and wanted to nurture them. Unfortunately nobody had any unique attributes.
Even Viona only had fire, wind and earth, Lucy had water. Most had earth and fire, this of course made it easier for him to find suitable mana cultivation techniques.
He taught them how to cultivate but told Viona to not let the mana circulate after opening her first node.
He wanted to check if she really had the talent for the warlock path even though he was most certain she did.
After they started cultivating he went to the subterranean world by himself. The food was gone and he was going hunting.
Partly because he wanted to test the limit of his power without using divine energy. It should be mentioned that before awakening he was merely as strong as a top human without using divine energy.
However after becoming rank 1, his body had grown much stronger. He walked through the dark tunnels.
After going in a few hundred metres he saw the first lifeform, it was a rat like the ones they faced the first time they were here.
He drew his sword, the rat jumped at him and he cut it head off with a single sweep, he left it there and continued moving forward.
A few hours later he came back, near the entrance of the tunnel were 34 rats the sizes of dogs, unfortunately they were all too weak, he didn't even get to use any of his abilities.
He took two and went back up. He told a group of men to go fetch the rats below. After skinning them they ate.
The initial stages of cultivation drains too much energy especially for warriors, infact that never really ends for them.
Mana alone is never enough, they need a lot of meat to sustain themselves and grow stronger.
After eating he started cultivating too, they didn't have sand that matches their attributes and with such little ambient mana, it would take a few days for them to awaken.
After awakening, cultivating became more than just meditation. It was training, for warriors, they had to train their bodies.
For mages it was their mind. He started doing pushups, in only minutes he had done 200 and with no sign of stopping any time soon.
After 2000 he stopped, he was starting to sweat which he figured was partly because of how hot the cave was.
Then he did sit ups, push ups again and sit ups. He started jumping over and over again to train his legs.
He looked at himself, rubbed his own sweat and licked it. ' Salty.' the others gave him strange looks.
He stretched his muscles with excitement. " Ow ow ow it hurts it hurts." He couldn't experience any of this in his past life.
The sweating, the overheating, the lightheadedness he was experiencing, they were all new and exciting experiences.
He could feel pain as a god but not in the same manner, it was more conceptual than physical for Gods.
So everything he was experiencing right now was very exciting. After his training he sat down and mediated.
He absorbed the ambient mana, it coursed through his muscles soothing then. After he was done he felt himself grow stronger.
Although the difference was barely noticeable, in his domain he could sense almost everything no matter how minor.