Leon danced around Claire’s attacks, her spear thrusts getting sharper by the day. What he failed to avoid was deflected by casual swipes from his sword. The sword was holding up well, allowing him to figure out a few simple moves to deflect and even redirect Claire’s spear thrusts.

It was the easiest time he had ever had learning new moves. With super senses and exacting control over his body, Leon was able to seamlessly match Claire’s speed and connect to her blows with almost no inaccuracy.

Of course, that was before she became harder to predict. Her movements had been consistent to a fault. When she failed to scratch Leon a single time in twenty minutes, he had to explain that the rhythm of her movements was extremely simple. She thrust the spear, then thrust it again. And again and again and again like someone leisurely sliding a vacuum back and forth in the exact same pattern and speed.

With his help, she began to integrate some feints and misdirection into her style. She listened well. The next time they fought, Claire tried to break his rhythm and trick him many times. Tried, and failed as most of her attempts were painfully simple.

She was getting better at her timing, but thankfully she wasn’t improving fast enough to overtake him. Failure for Claire meant disappointment while a mistake on his part meant a spear in the gut.

Coming to the end of their sparring session, Leon deflected a thrust aimed at his neck. Claire, panting and covered in sweat, took a half-step back and pulled her spear along with her. Leon took advantage of her flagging strength. Twisting his wrist with a snap, he knocked her retreating spear wide.

He stepped into her guard and her eyes widened in shock like they usually did. Leon knew he had her, but then his heart ran cold as her smile widened into a mocking grin.

Using his momentum against him, Claire spun around and raised her leg as he came in close. He instantly raised his arms to his face. She kicked him in the side of the head with her knee, Leon’s arms barely holding her powerful legs back. The world danced as he reeled from the unexpected feint. She couldn’t stop him from deflecting her blows, so instead of trying to do the impossible, she turned his own move against him.

Pretty smart.

It was a shame it took her so long to figure that out.

He was certain of his defeat until she continued into a spinning slash. The move was shaky and weak, her experience lacking enough that it gave him the chance to react. Leon decided to punish her for her arrogance. He crouched below the slash and swung his sword up without looking, his weapon throwing her spear up into the air.

Her eyes widened for real this time as her arms were pushed up along with her spear. Leon dropped his sword and shoulder tackled her midsection, pushing her off balance and forcing her to the ground. She struggled for a few seconds, but Leon’s hold on her didn’t budge an inch no matter how much she struggled.

Holding her arms against the warm golden blades of grass, Leon smiled down at her despite the furious glare she was sending his way. It was only made worse by the fact that he could've ended the fight instantly by holding his sword up to her neck. Still, they weren't really trying to kill each other.

The point of sparring was to iron out which techniques worked and which ones would get you killed.

“Good job!” Leon said, realising that she wasn’t grumpy about her loss. She was upset that he was dripping sweat on her face. “Shit, sorry about that. Let me get off you.”

“No, it’s fine. Just a little sweat. My punishment for making such a stupid move.”

“What are you talking about? That was very good! That feint was the first time you almost had me.”

Claire blushed. “If only I didn’t screw it up in the end then it would be me dripping sweat onto your face.”

“Still, that was very good for a beginner. The slash, on the other hand, was very bad. I was still reeling from being kicked in the head, dummy. Take your time and finish the job… Well, don’t actually finish the job please, but you get my point.”

“I know, know! I just thought to continue spinning because I expected it to be faster than stopping and making another move. I didn’t think that far ahead because I half expected to mess up and half expected you to not fall for it.”

“Well, you were actually right there. If you had practised more with slashing then you probably would have been faster. The thing is that you didn’t practice enough, making it a bad choice for a follow-up move. Still, you almost had me! You should be proud of how quickly you’re progressing.”

“Thank you,” Claire said, smiling as she lowered her head.

“Now, let’s go relax and eat dinner.”

By the time they sat down, Claire was still breathing deeply. Not only was Leon completely relaxed, but he was even feeling ready to fight again, and not just for a few minutes. Part of that was thanks to completing his Bone Forging. He had noticed a fairly large boost to his endurance from that, and now that he was almost finished with the Viscera Forging stage, his endurance had been enhanced again.

That wasn’t even mentioning his daily feedings. Like some kind of crocodile, Leon was Devouring half a squirrel every day. His stats were improving by leaps and bounds, his body was growing stronger thanks to his cultivation, and his Devouring was fundamentally improving his flesh in a way that nothing else was.

Leon moved on to his transmuting work once he finished eating dinner. He still wanted to imbue the pure sky crystal into the cauldron, hopefully upgrading it in the process. The only problem was that he had no confidence in succeeding. That was why he sat on his sleeping bag with a lone Bloodroot berry in his left hand and a red mushroom in his right.

Focusing on the items, Leon pushed his will against their mental barriers. The mushroom’s will instantly shattered. It was so easy that he didn’t even get a full picture of what its defences looked like. It wasn’t until he pushed on the berry that he realised it was different. Unlike the cauldron or the pure water, the berry reacted to his presence.

Instead of it being a solid wall, he felt the surface ripple with movement. It recoiled at his presence. Then, when he brushed against it, the mind on the other side pushed back. Hard. Leon felt a line of blood trail down his nose, but he ignored it as he moved to resist the foreign willpower. They battled like that for a handful of seconds before the barrier crumpled under the force of his mind.

Leon opened his eyes. He suddenly felt very tired, his hand lazily coming up to wipe away the blood leaking out of his nose. He hadn’t expected that. If he had, there was no way it could have resisted so fiercely.

The berry was alive.

Not in a sapient, mulling over the human condition kind of way, but a sentient presence like an insect or a small animal. Still, that was quite a shock. It was obviously more powerful in its home ground. The thing was a berry, after all. If Leon met it on even ground and still lost, he would be so dumb that he wouldn't have enough brainpower to breathe.

What he had fought was a berry.

A spiritual berry, sure, but in the end it was still a goddamned piece of fruit.

Leon silently wondered if his performance was shockingly bad or good for a first attempt against a spiritual object. With no way to compare besides waking up Claire or Sophia and getting them to try, Leon took a sip of healing elixir and got to work.

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He reached into the berry and pulled on what he suspected was its essence. It was difficult, feeling like he was trying to move a brick with his mind, but he eventually pulled it out and into the palm of his hand. It was wrapped in a bundle of his Qi, trapped so that none of the power could leak out until he shoved it into the mushroom.

Which he did two seconds later.

The little crimson fungus glowed from the intrusion, its surface becoming luminescent in both his aura sight and normal vision. It grew brighter and brighter until it suddenly faltered, the light shuddering. Leon felt that was a bad sign, but before he could even finish the thought, the mixed essences contained within the mushroom began to leak out. It wasn’t five seconds later that it deflated into a dried-up clump.

Leon sighed, the mushroom crumbling into ash and disappearing on the breeze.

Taking the obvious failure on the chin, he was silently glad that he hadn’t attempted to upgrade the cauldron. He needed much more practice before he was confident enough to pull that off, and he had a nearly infinite reserve of random items to continue practising on.

It was getting late. Glancing at his watch, Leon reached for a bottle of Spirit Water and placed it to the side. His Qi was only half full, but now he would use it all up in his cultivation before going to bed.

When he woke up that morning, Leon had tried out the Spirit Water again. He had expected the resistance to not be permanent. And when it kicked in, he came to realise that he was right. He still only got about ten minutes of increased regeneration, but that was good enough. If he could only drink one bottle a day to full effect, he would take it just before bed for maximum effect.

That allowed him to use up his Qi meditating, fighting, and experimenting during the day. It was only at night that he would consume a bottle of Spirit Water so that he could wake up with a full supply, ready to use it all up again over the coming day. The Spirit Water only recovered about two-thirds of his supply, but when sleeping, most of the other third would passively regenerate.

He considered drinking one in the morning and one at night, but if he needed to wait a full day for the effect to return, he would actually regenerate more Qi by only drinking one bottle per day since the resistance built up more with each use.

Now it was time to use up the rest of it before bed.

Leon sunk into his meditations, cycling his remaining Qi throughout his channels. He had worked on one organ at a time like he did with his bones. From his brain to his kidneys, almost everything was done. All he needed to do now was nourish his heart.

Condensing his Qi into the thickest stream possible, Leon shrouded his steadily beating heart in a haze of power. It thumped loudly in his mind’s eyes. He didn’t fully comprehend how visualising his body worked, choosing to wave it off as cultivator bullshit. Still, it was infinitely fascinating. He wasn’t imagining his heartbeat. He was sensing it, his brain perceiving what his eyes and ears couldn't.

Or maybe he was hearing it, the volume much louder now that he was focusing his entire mind on just his heart. Normal people couldn’t control their hearing like he was now able to. They could focus on certain sounds and ignore others, but that was largely a subconscious behaviour.

Time faded into obscurity. Leon’s mind drifted as his heart was nourished, its beating going softer and softer with every thump. Not because it was failing. No, it was harder to hear because it was growing more efficient. Just like a professional athlete, Leon’s resting heart rate was decreasing as the organ became more effective at its job.

It didn’t need to beat hard to send blood around his body. That was why Leon knew he was done the second his heartbeat disappeared, the sounds fading entirely from his mind. He was done with Viscera Forging. Unlike his previous breakthroughs, this one was silent. His organs simply began to function better, their every movement in tune with the rest of his body.

Leon’s dwindling Qi receded back to his dantian and with a yawn, he drank the bottle of Spirit Water as he slid into his sleeping bag.

***

The next morning, Leon silently meditated as Sophia challenged the puzzle. He had decided to nourish his right arm first. While it wasn’t necessary, he liked to see the practical difference between the changes his Qi made. Who didn’t like to see their progress laid out before them?

It reminded him of the rush he felt as a teenager when Marcus pointed out that he now had back muscles. He had never been unfit, but once he turned sixteen and began to lift weights, his body visibly expanded in size. Because he saw the slight changes every time he changed clothes or showered, he simply didn’t realise he was becoming stronger until someone else pointed it out.

This was the same.

After everything that had happened in the city, he needed something to focus on. A goal to move towards. It probably wasn’t healthy to ignore his worries, but in the end, none of them were unfounded. Monsters were flooding the world, people were gaining the ability to bend steel with their bare hands, and his friends and family could all be dead.

There was no breathing exercise or therapy session to solve his problems because the only way to fix those issues was with overwhelming power. That was also why he loved to meditate and learn new techniques. The stronger he became, the less suffering he would have to subject himself to in the future.

What he did today may very well save the lives of countless people in the future.

A small smile touching his lips, Leon absorbed himself into the process of cultivating. He breathed in, pulling his Qi back to his dantian, and then he breathed out, condensing the flow as it soaked into his right arm. The changes were astonishing. His skin tingled, his muscles twitched, and his tendons felt like they were being stretched as they swallowed his Qi.

It was only a matter of time before he broke into the next realm. He suspected that late Foundation Forging would focus on the spirit, but that would still be a while yet. Even though he had figured out a way to double his Qi supply, Leon had only halved the two months of needed time down to one.

At the very least, the ability to make Spirit Water meant that reaching the end of late Foundation Forging would be four times quicker than a normal person. Without it, Leon would’ve spent a two weeks to finish his Bone Forging, a month for Viscera Forging, and two months for Muscle Forging, and that was after his cultivation speed had been doubled. Now he only needed one month to reach the end of Muscle Forging and break into late Foundation Forging.

He had essentially shaved five months of time off his cultivation from a total of seven. While he was sure that there were super talents that could do more in a fraction of the time, one had to remember that Leon had no education in how to cultivate and was also stuck in a forest without any cultivation resources. How many people would be able to do the same? At the very least, Leon was probably in the top one percent in adaptability while likely being at the very forefront-

“Yay, I did it!” Sophia shouted.

Leon twitched, pulled awake as the door to the next room creaked open.