"This was the moment I had been looking forward the most since having found the map, Hehe." Thiago laughed while he was approaching the small hill of goblin bodies, which did not take him more than a few seconds, until he stood before it.

"Hmm, what would happen if I tried devouring all these corpses at once?" he thought out loud after feeling that this should be achievable, well, at least if he did not directly try to devour all of them at once but more like having his < Black Hole > skill staying activated and therefore automatically, one after another, all the corpses would be sucked into the dark vortex formed by said skill.

As soon as this thought arose in his mind, Thiago did not bother to walk up to every single corpse anymore and stood still in from of the hill, where he then activated his < Black Hole > skill which promptly formed the familiar black vortex attached to his tail.

"Alright, let's commence!" Thiago exclaimed full of Vigor while already anticipating the incredible benefits he might receive after the successful devouring of all those bodies lying in front of him.

Positioning his tail in front of the mound formed by the Goblins' bodies, Thiago forthwith saw the first corpse being sucked into the black vortex. Having already decided earlier on, that he would be using the higher-level goblins to convert their bodies into [Essence], needless to say he also chose to convert the just sucked in body and the ones that would be following after it into [Essence].

Due to the level of the goblin just now only being at the 3rd tier of the Student realm, the improvement it made to his strength was rather unnoticeably but as he had said some time ago, every gain was important no matter how small it may be because it would add up after time.

After the first corpse was devoured, Thiago decided to lie himself on the ground while his skill was incessantly doing the work for him, because he did not need to stand anyway, so why not make himself comfortable, was what he asked himself. Now having lied down on the floor, the bodies were unceasingly being sucked into the spinning black and dark vortex connected to his tail, while he just had a feeling of euphoria the whole time due to the [Essence] rushing and coursing into his body.

He had to control himself to not let out a moan of pleasure, caused by the excessive amount of [Essence] being pumped into his body each second, which he deemed to be a very shameful and unbefitting sound for him. And just then he suddenly had the feeling of breaking Through and in the next second a loud:" Plop!" could be heard inside his body, which represented the realm barrier having been broken and Thiago having advanced to the next small realm.

"Haha, another one! I broke through again, Haha!"

Thiago joyfully and exultantly shouted into the vicinity, which had been cleared of any living beings by him a few minutes prior, as if wanting to declare his achievements to everyone. Slowly coming back from his high, he also noticed the System notification that he had just ignored, due to his sudden outburst.

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

[Congratulations! You have advanced: 6th Tier of the Student realm]

"Haha, good, very good! I have reached the 6th Tier of the Student realm now which means that I only need to advance three further small realms until I will be able to have my human form. That's not much and with my current advancement speed it should not take me much longer, I guess." Thiago muttered after realizing how close he actually was to his human form already.

While he was saying this the Devouring was still going on and there were only about fifteen goblin bodies left, but they were also of a relatively higher realm than the ones having bee devoured at the upfront. To Thiago's surprise, he actually broke through again just a short time after the last advancement just now which undoubtedly made him extremely exhilarated

[Congratulations! You have advanced: 7th Tier of the Student realm]

"Wow, I did not think I would see this notification in just a few seconds again, but who wouldn't like that, Hehe" Thiago commented to the just received notification.

After that there were only a few corpses left, of which only the elder's still untouched body possessed a cultivation higher than the 6th Tier of the Student realm. This meant for Thiago, that his chance to advance another small realm today was rather slim, but nevertheless still there.

It depended entirely on how much energy these last corpses contained. Because speaking theoretically, Thiago could indeed advance a small realm despite only devouring a body with the same cultivation realm as he had, in case that the body to be devoured contained enough energy.

Because strictly speaking, the mana amount, mana density, mana purity and a few additional details such as bloodline, etc, were responsible of how much energy a body contained. Therefore, the cultivation realm was always a good indicator for strength and energy a being possesses, but it was not an accurate measurement, because there were always people or beasts in the same realm with vastly different strengths.

Most of the time the difference in strength came about due to the above-mentioned factors such as mana density, mana purity and more, which could not be perceived just by the cultivation realm.

This is also the point where those so-called genius come from and why they are mostly able to beat enemies that have a higher realm than them.

This comes from the fact that the cultivation realm is just an indicator for strength and the real criteria for strength are the previous mentioned ones. But obviously this does only work in realms that do not have too much of a difference or it will simply become impossible to fight against people or beasts being of a much of a higher realm than one self.

Well having said all of this, we are now returning to Thiago's perspective where it seemed as if his devouring was almost coming to an end and he was just about to devour the last corpse which belonged to the elder goblin. Inwardly hoping that the goblin would provide him with enough [Essence] to push him through the realm barrier, that he had already approached with the corpses devoured before.

Although he was pretty sure that it would work, in view of the fact that he was already almost at the peak of the 7th Tier of the Student realm after having just absorbed a few goblin bodies of the 6th Tier of the Student realm, he still prayed inwardly just to be sure.

Now was the time to see if he would be able to advance a small realm again, which would mark his third advancement this day.

And just after the goblin was sucked into his black hole, and was converted into [Essence] Thiago already felt that it was more than enough energy to help him break through.

Just like the many times before the [Essence] poured into his body, strengthening and tempering his whole body in the process while also making the mana in his demon core churn, due to the incoming breakthrough. The mana was being compressed inside his demon core which made the inside of it becoming more and more chaotic until suddenly with a "bang!" the illusory barrier inside his demon core was broken and he therefore reached the next small realm.

[Congratulations! You have advanced: 8th Tier of the Student realm]

"Haha! Yeah, it was enough! I managed to reach yet another new small realm today, Haha! Finding this goblin village was really a huge blessing for me, unfortunately not for the goblins, hehehehah!"

Thiago exclaimed while thinking back on how he had luckily found the map that had dropped down from the big goblin he had fought around two hours ago.