Two hours passed since the plant healed him and in that time he began to truly realize how fortunate he is to have this plant with him, he would either succumb to corruption or that injury without it being here.

However he cannot continue gambling on all of his outcomes or he would face a horrific outcome, he had put off condensing further due to it being to dangerous but now he has cleared out the large groups of slime in the area. It was time to advance if for no other reason than to prevent the earlier event from being able to happen, his energy will most likely double and he will be able to deal with the slimes while also having a thin barrier up.

Knowing his next step he took off his clothes, sat down, and began to meditate.

His energy was full both in his veins and his mental energy, so he once more began to add pressure to his energy veins. Once more the pain returned but compared to the first time he felt it, it was little more than a scratch or itch compared to the other pain he had been forced to endure.

With ease that came from experience his act of condensing the gasses energy into liquid energy only took an hour, the familiar sluggish feeling once more returned but he ignored it and began to gather energy.

Eight days, that is how long it took for my veins to completely fill, double the time it took to gather energy from liquid to solid realm. Why would it increase so drastically, it is the same energy condensation as last time at most it should double from the 2 days it took to gather and condense the first time. But it had quadrupled. 'I couldn't use the previous energy to coat things either, is the energy transforming more than just condensing together.'

He isn't just transforming his energy but also all vessels involved in the process, unaware of just what he was doing however he had no way of knowing just how unique of a cultivation style he had created. One that no matter the potential or born ability you can increase your own potential to the extreme using this method, of course you needed mental fortitude to bear the ever increasing pain that each new transformation will bring. Many who attempted to copy this cultivation style would end up mentally and physically breaking down before succeeding all the way.

Unknowing of this future he sets it aside to look at later and falls into his mental sphere so as to begin to advance it now that he can.

It was quite easy, almost as though it was beginning to transform on it's own already without him needing to do anything. Maybe if he kept doing this again and again it eventually would happen all on it's own.

Feeling the sluggishness he once more begins the condensing process for his mental energy once his mental sphere was completely filled, and like with his condensing process from the first time it only took half the original time. From four hours to only 2 hours he had completely used up all mental energy to condense his liquid energy into solid energy.

The time it takes to completely refill after each condensation is rising exponentially, but it was the best cultivation means he could ask for in this situation. It was versatile with no corruption problems and although slow the farther you get it is still currently faster then normal cultivation style offered by the government, at least in the beginning which is what he needs. He doesn't need energy only powerful in one field as he needs it to fulfill many roles like healing, growing crops, attacking, defending, and manipulate elements so as to be able to enhance his living situation. A highly versatile one that is quick to cultivate in the beginning is perfect for his current situation.

But he knew it would hurt him later, as he would go from ahead of the pack to stagnating and eventually falling behind. In any other situation the slow and steady cultivation style is perfect but he simply has neither the time nor resources needed for it and with his body rapidly adapting to his new cultivation he is unsure if he can return to the original slow and steady one.

So like that he spent the next sixteen days refilling his energy veins with solid energy, from only taking a week and a day to finish one condensation rotation to a little over half a month, if it continued like this it would probably take him an entire month and a half for the next complete advancement.

Closing his eyes he begins to condense his mental energy, and like last time it reacts quickly and smoothly. Taking a nap to increase the speed of mental energy refill he gets naked in preparation for the upcoming painful and arduous process of expanding both his mental sphere and energy veins. Like last time he began by pushing his mental energy in thin stands all throughout his energy veins, then he slowly began to push out.

He had thought himself prepared the upcoming pain but he was wrong, so very, very wrong.

If he thought the last advancement was painful then it only held a quarter to what he felt now, but he ignored the pain by focusing on his mental energy rather than his physical state. Slowly time passed and he finally succeeded at completing half of what he needs to advance, out of energy he falls into sleep knowing he would soon undergo a more horrific pain when he finally awoke.

Waking to no energy in his veins like last time, he once more enters his mental sphere to guaranteed it is full before beginning the process of expanding the mental sphere. As he had expected after his energy veins, the expanding of his mental sphere was easily quadrupled the amount he experienced last time but he focused all his attention to his body's reaction to his expanding mental sphere unlike last time. And to his surprise small amounts of corruption left his nervous system, the more he expanded the further the corruption was pushed out of his body until he succeeded and the energy was completely pushed out.

Once more entering sleep to recover his energy he thought of why his body was able to now expunge corruption when it couldn't before.

Once more he awoke to a smell so horrific it occurred to him that it was probably the smell of the corruption he had expunged rather than what his body had gathered naturally. Going to the shower area he has pretty much made at this point he begins to rinse his body off the same way he did last time, however it was much harder removing the corruption gunk from his body.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

After what was an easy hour of scrubbing a small amount still present he contemplated how he was going to get the last of it off, since he couldn't do it normally than add some energy behind the scrubbing. Gathering the water on my hand I begin to scrub using both energy and water and in only a few scrubs it comes right off, with myself now clean and skin bright red I put on the other set of clothing while putting the ones I was wearing in water to soak in order to get the previous dust, sweat and blood out. While cutting this pair of pant above my knee so as to use the extra cloth as make shift bandages since it would just be dissolved by slimes otherwise.

Refreshed and feeling full of energy he began to contemplate how far he had come in these last 5 months, a sustainable and consistent garden that he has expanded using the seeds to enhance the size. Two advancements of a self created cultivation style, and learning how to use energy of said cultivation style to fight.

He had gone from barely surviving and hiding away from everything to somewhat killing monsters and a completely self sufficient home.

He after his body is completely refilled of energy, decides to test how long he can last with both a barrier up and coating on his knife. With his mental sphere doubled his control on his energy gets even smoother and easier, and his energy veins became 4 millimeters thick meaning he had double the amount of available energy and even finer control on it.

He had been expecting at most 5 minutes of use with this advancement but what he got was 10 minutes, a ten times increase to his original time of only a minute of usage with both constantly active. In theory the increase in the amount of energy and control should only allow a triple or maybe quadruple increase at most, the 5 minutes taking into account the variability of change in energy like previously seen. But it had went above and beyond any expectations he had for the energy, being able to hold both a thin barrier and coating for an hour is the peak of what an F-grade energy is capable of while the amount he can do would qualify him as a barely F-grade person.

But humans are only able to reach low F-grade at the age of fifteen due to lack of energy control before then, they can make a core when they have enough energy but F-grade status requires at least control over said energy. It is why The Trials only take in those fifteen and older because they can't properly use their energy till then.

Essentially ones grade depended on usable energy and how long you can use that energy, of course knowing when to and when not to use energy and being able to identify what energy is needed when is a skill you have to build up on your own and is also required to be able to enter tunnels so not to waste to much energy and time.

But being ten years old and soon to be 11 in another few weeks when august rolled around, he should not have this extreme control and precision capability.

The biggest difference he can think of is his ability to increase his mental sphere, if the reason is because of this then it meant everyone had it and simply were unable to access and increase it beyond it's natural increase. Most likely ones mental sphere was only large enough to allow more control after you were 15 because that's how long it took it to grow to that size.

His cultivation didn't just increase his energy density and amount, it also increased his influence and control on it. Allowing him to make leaps in his grading without actually being at that level, he probably has only half the amount of energy most low F-grade people have yet can use it to the same extent as them.

With each advancement this would only get more pronounce as he would probably skip directly to top F-grade ability with his next advancement.

Getting up once his energy had once more refilled he felt both joy and sorrow over this, it was an incredible cultivation that would increase him in leaps and bounds with each increase but at the same time he only discovered it due to being ripped from his family and forced to gamble to survive.

Sighing he prepared once more to head out for the next slime hunting, Low F grades can deal with 50 slimes easily and 60 slimes at max before being to overwhelmed, most slime packs when dungeons appeared where between 150 to 200. And that was each induvial ones that would be spread out in different areas, all together a slime dungeon had between 10,000 to 20,000 slimes in it. It was precisely due to this that it required at least D-rank to be a hunter, not because of the ability to kill monsters but the ability to last through hoards of thousands of small monsters.

The dungeon he is in is only about 5 hour walk from one side to the next making it a small one with only about 10,000 slimes at max capacity. He heard A rank dungeons can get as big as small states and from s-rank forward the smallest was a small decent off country.

Coming out after almost a month of not killing them he knew he had to be carful, although he can theoretically deal with 50 his actual capability was probably more like 40 as he has limited fighting ability and has yet to go up against such large numbers before.

So he was probably able to deal with scouts and strays but if he came across a current pack their was nothing he could do and even larger scouting parties would be hard on him.

About 5 minutes out he came across a scouting part of 35, a size he would have had to run away from and could only deal with if in an advantageous positioning now became the perfect test group for his new advancement.

Putting up his barrier and coating his knife he had ten minutes of time to deal with them and not have to worry about injuries or have to retreat due to being overwhelmed.

Dashing in he felt a certain amount of sadistic joy as he sliced through them while they surrounded him, the last time he was in this situation he was in horrific pain and could barely hold on. But now he sliced, slashed, and stabbed to his hearts content without so much as a hint of worry, by the time he was done 6 minutes had passed and he had killed all of the slimes using purely his energy to deal with them.

Returning back to his cave humming the nursery rhyme he usually would sing to his youngest siblings, he couldn't deny the sense of pride and deep satisfaction that came with what he had just done.

He knew he couldn't let this good mood affect him or he could end up in a worst situation than before, so he chose to immediately return rather than continue hunting. Watering the plants, eating one of the last few remaining nutrient packs, and practicing his martial arts he spent the last of the remaining half month before his birthday in a cycle that left him both satisfied and filled with joy.

It's been 6 months since he has been in this dungeon and he now has officially run out of nutrient packs, however with his large and bountiful garden and his increased energy he can easily last without them.

He has made two more bowls and is constantly circulating his energy whenever he comes back from killing slimes. He cultivates next to his plant that he still is unsure of exactly which plant it could be, although it has grown some it is still bare of any berries or flowers that would indicate what it is.

He intends to advance once more after his birthday, August 27, he disappeared February 20 and his birthday is 2 days away. God that felt sad, half a year spent trapped in a dungeon constantly growing crops and killing slimes, while undergoing painful advancements alone with no other people around.

He is honestly sure the only thing keeping his sanity at this point is the little emotions he and his plant transfer to each other while he is cultivating.