Spirit Realm.
The true step separating those who can from those who can not. Even at the First Level, a Cultivator has centuries of lifespan, with each subsequent Minor Realm adding decades to that time.
And I have done it, I officially reached the First Level of the Spirit Realm. It was surprisingly easy. In fact, I didn’t even have to do anything, it happened all on its own in the middle of the fight. I was so distracted by killing that I didn’t even notice my Soul filling up until it reached its limit.
By then it was too late to guide the change as my Dantian imploded. Yes, it imploded. It was gone, compressed into nothing, and replaced by a Spirit Seed. The resulting explosion of energy was devastating, and I could feel the changes. My Soul and Body became more closely linked than ever before. Thin tendrils of that mystical Seed spread through my flesh like the roots of a tree from my core, binding the two together.
The Seed, though still just a newborn, was like a diamond compared to a lump of coal of other beast cores. It was so incredibly dense, I could easily tell the difference. It was… vast.
Spirit Qi ran through my new Meridians with such ease that I struggled to detect any losses of energy. It was nearly perfect. I was so close. The fight against giant ants was already easy, but after my breakthrough, it became boring. How could they be considered Spirit Beasts? They were so weak!
Oh, well… Even though they were easy to kill, that didn’t mean it was a simple task. I didn’t have enough Qi to slaughter them all as I did, but during the fight, I perfected a technique that suited me perfectly.
I burned my Soul to increase my power and replenish my exhausted core, but by absorbing and devouring dead Abyss Terror Souls, I could repair the damage I was doing to myself. It was perfect. As long as things died around me, I would never run out of Qi. And that was the supercharged version of Qi we are talking about. It was brilliant!
Going against one large enemy was way harder than a sea of weaker ones. Even if they were infinite, I would never exhaust myself! Not anymore.
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After the Queen sliced me up and I collapsed into a bloody heap, she thought I died. Obviously, that was not the case as I was still fully conscious and aware of everything happening around me, though my absolute control over my energy made her think otherwise.
She then went to play with and terrorize my teammates and I used that time to regenerate. I did that with such precision and in silence, she failed to realize I was behind her.
I even gathered a whole bunch of energy inside my hand, before blowing her chest out. By the time she felt pain and realized I was still alive, it was already too late. I had already won and just had to finish the fight, nothing else. She tried to escape, but obviously I didn’t let her.
Cowardly creatures, trying to escape through the sub-space. Heh. It had no chance against me. After reaching the Spirit Realm, my only weakness disappeared. After being able to produce Spirit Qi, with all my other advantages, even a beast close to the peak of Spirit Realm had no chance.
I had better energy control, a stronger body, and way, way more energy at my disposal. All those things combined made it so she couldn’t even hurt me anymore. Her strongest attacks Couldn’t even pierce my skin anymore. That was a pleasant surprise.
Also, I was a bit startled after my final attack evaporated her body and half the cavern at once. I might have gone slightly overboard, but there were so many Souls still around me that I just had to try and test my new limits.
Conclusion: I was satisfied. My power skyrocketed more than I thought it would, and I wasn’t even feeling drained.
[Hey guys. Good day to die, isn’t it?] I grinned at the five.
I approached, my body producing tremors with every step as I was letting my weight be felt. I stopped close to the edge of the cavern where they stood on a ledge that came up to my chest. They were so small. Each of them about the size of my finger. The pinky finger.
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I noticed they were also nervous about me being so close, all of them except for Magnus. That guy laughed in my face and agreed with the statement. “Indeed, Junior Brother! It is a good day to die!” He picked up on the joking tone.
I released a deep roar of laughter and began to shrink. The tunnels leading out of the cavern were a bit small for my massive form to squeeze through. I kept shrinking, but it was getting harder to compress my mass. I consumed too much flesh and Essence and probably bulked up quite a bit.
As my body reached the height of five meters, it became really stiff and difficult to push further. I would have preferred to remain at that size, but I still pushed until I shrunk down to the size of only three meters. I did that with a roar and my Aura spiked for a moment, but I was successful in the end.
I was feeling slightly bloated and my body dense, like I was made of tungsten instead of flesh. I then slipped on my Ring of Weightlessness and shifted the space around me, removing the final pull of gravity on my body. Because, you know, walking around weighing hundreds of thousands of tons was slightly inconvenient. Heck, I was probably going to gain my own gravitational pull soon if I continued to grow at the same rate. Now that would be funny.
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“So…” General Red said, rubbing his head after I landed near them on the ledge. “You are a shapeshifter…”
The atmosphere was somewhat awkward after I rejoined the rest of the team. The girls were giving me somewhat uncomfortable, predatory looks, while Toring refused to even look me in the eye, appearing dispirited, and the general clearly didn’t know what to say, trying to make small talk.
The only one relatively normal was Magnus who looked like he had just seen his biggest idol or something.
“Brother! That was amazing!” The man exclaimed and threw himself at me, eyes wide and full of wonder. “You were just like bam! And then rawr! And then those insects were like weeee! And trying to escape before getting squished! It was a-ma-zing! I’m so lucky I got to see it!”
[Uh… Thanks.] I replied and slowly moved the guy away from me. His excitement was creeping me out.
[Hey, boss?] I turned to the general.
“Yes?”
[Since the nest has been cleared out and all… Um, what were we doing here again?]
That question got his brain going again.
“Oh, right! The mission…” He pointed at the veins of green glowing crystals all over the cavern walls. “That’s what we came here for, to make way for the miners to extract the Netherealm Jade. And since you cleared out the nest so quickly, this makes our job much easier.”
[That thing?] I lifted an eyebrow flew up to a glowing vein, and tore off a fist-sized chunk. It reminded me of Kryptonite. The funny thing was that the crystal actually made my skin tingle. It clearly had some sort of effect just like the green fantasy stone.
[Is this thing radioactive?] I wondered out loud as I landed back on the ground.
“Netherealm Jade is quite a useful material, here in the Underdark, though it’s best if you don’t hold it directly for too long. It’s a really potent Qi disruptor and can curse your body if held for too long.” Red warned.
[Really? You don’t say…] So it really was radioactive and gave you cancer. I looked at the chunk of Netherealm Jade with squinted eyes. I wondered if the effect was the same as what I experienced in space. I conjured a tiny Qi blade and poked the crystal with it. Not much happened, though I could feel the energy under my control softening slightly. The effect was indeed the same, though not all that powerful.
I glanced at the green glowing lanterns they held. They contained the same material, though they had a smaller chunk inside it that glowed brighter. Refined or concentrated ore maybe? It couldn’t be all that harmful if they were willing to carry it on their person.
“Uh, well now…” Red said. “Since our job here is done, let’s get back to the camp and report.”
“Sure…” The rest of them had no objections so we turned around. On our way back they stopped to collect the bodies of the Abyss Terrors I killed in the tunnels. I had no objections. They could take them if they wanted, I already took enough, so even if they technically belonged to me, I didn’t want them.
I took the time while they were working to digest the soul of the Shadow Queen. She had a few interesting abilities, the sneaky one being especially attractive. If I was an assassin I would have paid good money for it. The thousand slashes one too. It was extremely destructive. A Martial Arts manual containing the instructions for it should be worth a fortune.
That got me thinking. Since I had so many different techniques from all the people and beasts I killed, what if I wrote them all down, repaired them if they were incomplete, and then sold them? I would get rich. That would be an easy way to make some cash.
The only question was who to trust with such powerful techniques. People would probably be greedy and try to rob me if I showed too many at once.
I decided to think about it for a while longer and then maybe get Gale or his brother to be my contacts to the outside world. That could work, going through a Clan to sell my techniques.
I began to mentally sort out the relevant memories of techniques for the high Golden and early Spirit Realm. There were so many, and as I had some time, I sat down and meditated. The sounds of tearing flesh and various techniques for extracting essence in the background were soon tuned out as I focused entirely on the task at hand.
My mind sank deep into the infinite library of knowledge and I began gathering scattered pieces, weaving new techniques for the world to see. It was a long process, one that was sure to bring me many, many benefits.