The Doomsday had first arrived with a disease, but even after 11 years of experiencing it, the humankind never understood how and why did it happen. Only the aftermath was known.
About 80% of the population of the world died instantaneously, even though every living thing in the world was infected. The one who died immediately returned to life as a walking abomination, a zombie. As for the people who made it through the mutations; humans, animals, plants, all lifeforms slowly mutated into something else.
The human survivors became stronger and faster. Muscle strength, reaction speed, bone density, stamina, body regeneration, etc. all slowly increased.
When the Doomsday Pillars had descended, it showed the way how humans could break the boundaries of their bodies. The Pillars had shown the four realms of human strength. Each realm had 30 levels and divided into the low, middle, high and peak stages.
The first was the Mortal Realm, normal humans usually had an average level from 10 to level 15 in the low stage. In this low stage, a fair comparison would be an unfit person and a trained soldier. The humans on the middle stage were top athletes, they usually have the running speed of gold medal sprinters like Usain Bolt, the stamina of a professional mountain climber and muscle strength of a heavyweight boxer. The high stage humans would have three times the strength, speed, and endurance of the middle stage. When the body reached level 30, they would reach the limits and become peak stage humans. The peak of the Mortal Realm.
The body would then stop mutating, reaching a bottleneck, but the Doomsday Pillars had a way to upgrade from Mortal Realm to the next. After Mortal Realm was the Earth Realm, then the Sky Realm, and finally, the Saint Realm. As time passed by, the Pillars would be the hope for the survival of humankind.
In Alex’s past life, he reached low stage Sky Realm. With that level, he was already one of the pillars that held together the remaining humans. And as for the Saint Realm humans, they were humanity’s greatest warriors, but they were extremely rare and Alex only knew a few of them.
After the plague, every living thing; humans, beasts, plants, gradually transformed. But everyone had a different speed of mutation. Some took more than 5 years to naturally reach the peak stage Mortal Realm but some only required 1 year.
There were also some lucky individuals who woke up their hidden powers. The Pillars called these people Evolvers. Not only their body could be improved, but as well as their special abilities. They were more commonly known as spirit enhancers by the people.
The word spirit enhancer was not really a made-up term. Historians around the world had noted a few people who were actually spirit enhancers. But their special abilities were known more commonly as; Ki, Chakra, Dao, ESP and many more. The mutation had made their latent abilities become many times stronger. The greatest warrior Alex had ever met, in his past life, was an Evolver Saint Realm who could manipulate fire. But in the end, he also perished when surrounded by thousands of mutated beasts.
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There were two, most common, ways on how to increase a person’s level to the peak stage Mortal Realm. The first was constant fighting; the second, faster way, was consuming spirit stones that sometimes spawned from the bodies of mutated beasts or zombies.
In Alex's hand sat the 50 pieces of white spirit stones. He spent some time on how to efficiently use these. One plan was to recharge the golem to make it stronger and be used longer. The other was to consume some for himself and make other people stronger.
In the latter years of Alex’s past life, these 50 pieces of white spirit stones were like a small change. These were the lowest grade of spirit stones. And in 10 years’ time, every monster, beasts carried these stones in their bodies so it was everywhere. However, right this moment, these white spirit stones were Alex’s greatest treasures.
Alex decided that he would consume it and share some with his friends and family. They were, after all, his top priority. He came to this place knowing he would find these spirit stones. It’s just that when he saw the golem, he got tempted to give all of the stones to the golem. But in the end, did give ten stones to the golem, just enough to be used in case his life was in danger.
"Damn, since this is a rank 2 golem, the 10 white spirit stones only recharged it around 5% of its total power."
But even though the golem only had that little amount of power, it would be able to battle with a rank 1 golem. A rank 1 golem was as powerful as a peak stage Mortal Realm human, so at the moment, it should be sufficient.
As for humans, one white spirit stone could enhance a person’s body from a low stage Mortal Realm to a middle stage. Five more spirit stones could upgrade the body to a high stage, and another ten spirit stones would make a person reach peak stage Mortal Realm.
"There’s no point reaching peak stage Mortal Realm right now. I wouldn’t be able to breakthrough to Earth Realm until I have access to the Pillars.” Alex threw six spirit stones into his mouth and then sat down.
The spirit stones were the essence of a living being’s energy. When a living thing consumed more spirit stones, the energy of the consumer becomes more consolidated which would then, in turn, evolve them further.
Alex ate six of these energy essences; it would take him a few hours to absorb all of them.
The spirit stones were only the size of a peanut. But when it reached Alex’s stomach, it slowly dissolved into million particles and attached into his veins. Slowly, his body’s temperature rose and large beads of sweat came out all over his body. If observe one closely, dark filth mixed with his sweat came out together. His body was being removed of its impurities bit by bit.
After a few hours, all of the muscles in his body contracted and then his body began to cool down. Alex felt the touch of wind right down the tip of his fingers as he slowly opened his eyes. Sight, hearing, smell, feeling, and taste, all of his five senses were enhanced. The feeling was exhilarating.
Alex sat still for a few more hours until he finally stood up feeling full of energy. He was now on high stage Mortal Realm. According to his past life, he should be around level 25, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he was inside a Pillar. At the moment, he should be probably the strongest human on Earth. He tested his strength a little and jumped as high as he could. He touched the ceiling of the chamber, which should be around 5 meters. He then picked up a stone, grasped it, and "Crack" he broke it.
Alex was full of confidence right now. He stored the golem and the spirit stones back into the ring. He walked and swam out of the lake, and the sun welcomed him at its highest point. It’s already noon and it seemed like he spent more than 12 hours inside the cave.
Alex walked back to the temple, took the car and drove all the way back to Bali’s main city to meet his family in the hotel. It looked like his family was having such a nice holiday that they didn’t realize he had been gone for 3 days.
Sometimes, moments like these made him wonder why did he even worked so hard.
After they ate dinner, he then took a long good night of sleep.