Kairos pulled out a bag from his time-space ring and opened it in front of the fifteen, “Alright, with six weeks, there should be plenty of time. Before we head off, each of you should take one of this.”
Within the bag is a whole bunch of meat-smelling fruits. A quick glance shows that the bag is filled to the brim, a rough estimate, and they could tell that there are likely over fifty are within.
He handed each of them a fruit, and they couldn’t help looking gratifyingly at their young lord. Although they are unable to identify what they had been given, there is no doubt from the amount of powerful energy it is emitting that they have been given a treasure.
The group came from a large and powerful noble house, and they have seen numerous treasures in their time. Yet never one like this strange, cubic-shaped fruit in their hands. Moreover, with their utter lack of talent in training, they are ranked among the lowest out of those who serve the Devilheart family. If there are any training resources handed down by the noble family, they would be the last to receive it. When did they ever receive care like today?
While these are grown adults, sometimes their actions reflect their inner child.
A month ago, when they decided to follow this boy, they were still extremely uncertain about their choice. At that time, they had no other options, but now they have slowly come to realise that their future has completely changed. When they were sent to retrieve their young lord’s tome and to wreck the young lord’s manor, they were actually almost driven mad with anxiousness.
Forced to accept the mission, every single one of them felt that they were sent to bite the hand that feeds them. They were actually preparing to forfeit this mission along with their lives. They came to the boy, hoping to warn him of what Calculus is up to, but instead of being turned away, their young lord wanted to let them take back his precious tome of the origin.
And not only that, he gave them this fruit with an extremely dense amount of life energy.
Although they could not tell how much life force is packed in each fruit, Kairos could guess that the ones they are holding will bring them to at least A ranked.
In fact, he learned this from his own personal experience. Within the bag, there are quite a few fruits of different sizes, and the amount of life force of each fruit is related to its size. The ones that they received are the medium-sized fruits.
Previously, Kairos himself took a small one, but it was already packed with an insane amount of life energy and nearly killed the boy from consuming it. This time, he learned to correctly assign the correct size of fruit for his subordinates.
However, improving one’s cultivation is but a small benefit of consuming the cubic fruit. The real advantage it brings is the slow nurturing effect it has on their bodies to improve their cultivation talents, albeit the changes it brought are undetected so far.
Under his request, each of them took a bite from its juicy flesh. The taste of caramel flooded their mouths, and a few of the girls nearly squealed with delight. It can be seen on everyone's faces that they immensely enjoyed its taste but more than that, the life energy.
When they realise that the life force is dissipating after their initial bite, each of them quickly gulps down the whole fruit. And just like what happened to Kairos, they were all forced to sit down because of that, and they focus on distributing the overload of Ki throughout their body. They activated their cultivation to the maximum, spreading out the numerous strands of energy from the consumed fruit to revolve around their bodies.
With each cycle, the strands became thinner but more refined. Those lines of energy then combined together and turn into a more concentrated strand before entering their Dantian.
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As the energy starts piling up, their meridian channels & Ki centre strained to contain it, and gradually breakage appeared at the weaker parts of their bodies. The group immediately combined their cultivation with the body tempering method, just as what Kairos had instructed them to do. This time, beautiful runes appeared from the inside of their body, surfacing onto their skin.
The colour of their runes indicated the elements that they are capable of using. Red for fire, blue for water, silver for metal, brown for earth, green for wood. Those that have the natural elements of frost, wind, and lightning are in bluish-white, metallic green, and dark yellow, respectively. Those with the transcendent elements of time & space are grey and dark grey. Void & Chaos are purple and colourless. Life & death is prismatic and transparent grey. While Holy & Darkness are pure white and black, respectively.
Besides having a different colour, each of those runes is of a different symbol that is indicative of its type.
As they practised, a large number of runes surfaced, making their skin shine with different colours, then dimming into a pure black before glowing again.
Almost immediately, there are a few among them that shown signs of breaking through their cultivation ranks.
Mere moments later, the first one successfully broke through his rank, and right after that, as if corn kernels are popping over a stove, the rest followed one after another. Those that were trapped at Entry and Mid B ranking jumped a grade or even two. However, those that are at Peak B still struggled.
Several days ago, a voice spoke loudly into the minds of everyone present, and all that heard it could understand regardless of their language or species. The voice sounded male, but at the same time, female and sometimes even like a sharp blade screeching against a rock or a roaring beast.
The things spoken that day were engraved in every practitioner’s heart, no matter what realm they are living in.
It wasn’t actual words that were communicated, but a clear intention from above that someone dared to plot against the heavens and will bring great calamity to the lands. To prevent this, new restrictions on cultivation will be placed on the lower realms to save the masses.
Everyone was astonished.
At first, they were distraught by the drastic limitations. This is, of course, horrible news for everyone. Those that were near the end of their lives wept as they heard the voice in their minds. In their hearts, they knew the voice spoke the truth about this restriction.
All cultivators that step into a new rank will be able to extend their lifespan further due to the natural strengthening of their bodies from the Heavenly Energies. Therefore this news is no different from a death sentence to them.
However, no matter what, everyone became cultivators are prepared to fight for their own future while ready to die anytime, and when they heard this news, many of them fervently trained even harder than before.
After they accepted their fate, they were amazed by the fact that someone could cause the heavens to be frightened. They wondered what kind of monster is the one prophesied to cause a calamity.
Kairos watched as the fifteen of them cultivate in the lotus position; being used to this position already made it their most natural stance.
As any practitioner, during meditation, they are at their most vulnerable state. Fortunately, this area they are safe from prying eyes, and because of the natural formation the stone boulders are in, it could even distort sound to a certain degree.
The life energy of the fruit reformed their bodies and surged into their veins. Everyone had entered Mid B rank. In fact, most of them are above that at Peak Grade.
Their cultivation continued to increase until only the three slowest ones are in Mid grade. As time passed, one more person broke through and reached Peak grade, making the number of Mid grades to drop to two.
The two continued mining out the powerful energy from the fruit and used it to strengthen their bodies part by part, refusing to give up. Then, six hours later, the first among the fifteen broke through and entered into the illustrious A rank.
Unexpected, that person who became the first A ranker was the last who broke through Mid B rank to Peak. The two Mid B rankers are still Mid B ranking, and they looked at him in shock.
This person is called Ah Gui, and the oldest among the fifteen. Even though he is one of the oldest, at 38 years of age, he was also one of the lowest rankings among them when they met Kairos at only Entry B rank.
The young lord smiled when he saw Ah Gui as the first among them to reach A rank, then he turned his gaze and looked at a lady who is about Xuan Xian’s age.
That lady is called Selena, and she is the next person Kairos believes would break into A rank. Then just as he thought, she broke through in another 2 hours and started solidifying her strength.
Perhaps the Heavenly Laws have changed. But even if the bottleneck becomes narrower, it does not mean that it is impossible to break through, especially in the face of something as powerful as a World Tree’s fruit.