For the whole day, Gray continually used the evolution ability and took out a total of nine more vials, each one from the ranking higher than the previous.

The reason that he had the blood of all ten of the top geniuses was because he always collected the blood of those who he fought, simply as a hobby. It was odd and disconcerting to say the least, but it was more preparation in his mind.

If there ever came a day when those geniuses betrayed him, he could use their blood to figure out a method to counter them in a perfect way, and it was something that was unique to him.

Everyone knew of this habit of his, but they weren’t worried about it since he was one of the most trusted and responsible people on the continent at the time before his brother’s betrayal.

In the end, he was likely declared dead, and since it had been forty years, it was likely that he had been totally forgotten.

Or at the very least, he wasn’t on anybody’s mind anymore, and there was certainly nobody searching for him.

But even if there were, it wouldn’t matter since he had a different face, different element, and different body from before. Nobody would be able to recognize him unless they recognized his fighting style, which was highly unlikely considering that his fighting style was to always be unpredictable.

Even his personality had radically changed, with him being much more crazy, maniacal, cold, and merciless compared to before. He was also more analytical to the point where he could be called paranoid.

While his thought process seemed normal and his behavior seemed normal, that was only on the outside, and inside he was seething with killing intent and brutality. He intended to make his brother wish that he had never been born, and he would do literally anything to achieve his goal.

He wasn’t even sure if his brother was still alive, but that ultimately didn’t matter. His father was likely still alive, and his grandfather could possibly be alive. Even if his brother was the one who betrayed him, it was his father that turned the kingdom against him, and it was his grandfather who didn’t stop him from doing so.

His master, his most trusted person in the world, was away when all of this happened, so he didn’t blame him in the slightest.

In fact, it was precisely because his master wasn’t around that all this happened. Otherwise, his master would’ve defended and even killed his brother for being the true culprit. However, despite this, Gray still didn’t blame him.

In the end, he knew that his brother had waited for the opportunity when his master wasn’t here to pull his plan, which Gray ultimately knew could be pulled at literally any time he wanted.

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It wasn’t a genius plan, nor was it well-executed. But it was unavoidable nonetheless, and sometimes a simple but unavoidable plan is the best plan. In this case, even he, as the number one genius on the continent by an absolute landslide, couldn’t escape from it in the slightest.

However, there was no use thinking about it now. Instead, he was forging his path forward, which was infinitely more important than dwelling on the past.

After evolving using the top ten geniuses’ blood, he finally evolved using his own previous blood.

When he did this, it was much more painful than the rest despite only going up one rank from second place. It also took more than five times as long, and it was already far into the night by the time it was over.

After using his own blood, compared to the tenth place, his strength in every aspect had increased by another five times.

However, the biggest increase compared to before was definitely his lifeforce, which had more than doubled. This meant that his healing speed would also increase compared to before.

On top of that, it would be harder for him to die, and he could even survive for longer after his heart stopped beating or he stopped breathing.

His body was finally as strong as he was in his previous life, or at least on the most basic level.

And since his body was so much stronger, he didn’t intend to waste this opportunity like he did the first time around.

Instead of just working out normally, he specifically created armbands and ankle bands with a massive amount of heavenly weight sand in them.

They were each so heavy that they weighed more than five times his bodyweight, and he was wearing more than thirty of them all over his body.

It was needless to say that he could barely even move at the moment, and the ground under his feet started creaking and cracking.

It was needless to say that this much weight weight would break the floor, and the only reason it hadn’t completely shattered into pieces yet was because it was directly over dirt ground, but even then, the ground was compacted under the wood where his footprints left heavy dents everywhere.

If he were to stand on the second floor of a building, there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that he’d fall through the floor.

He then slowly left his room, the floor creaking and cracking with every single step he took.

Those around him were surprised to see this, as they didn’t know he was wearing the Heavenly Weight Sand bands.

However, he ignored them all and headed outside, where he then went on a run.

By the time he got back an hour later, he was sweating profusely and his whole body was shaking incessantly to the point where he could barely even stand.

However, he still headed to his room and sat down on the floor, summoning all the Qi he possibly could.

Like this, he would cultivate and strengthen his body every single day, and a month later, he had already broken through to the fifth stage, absolutely demolishing his record for cultivation speed.

But he still hadn’t even left the small village where he woke up from his sleep of death.

And he didn’t have any intentions to do so before he could make his debut as a monster. Of course, fate wasn't something that he could control, and his intentions would soon change.