"I am not going to fall asleep against my will today" This was Tom's first thought once he woke up. He immediately remembered what the Glatian had said. Especially the point about him now also being a cultivator in the real world.

Tom immediately tried to access this newfound power of his. He remembered the moment in the Secverse vividly as he thought about locating his willpower. He remembered how he had done it while he was awakening his mind.

Tom focused his whole mind on thinking about the place where he had seen the blue ball of energy that he now knew was his willpower. This time he easily managed to go there. He looked at the beautiful ball of blue energy in the center of a vast emptiness where there was nothing else than a black void.

Tom respected the Glatians pieces of advice enough that he did nothing else while he wasn't in the Secverse. He only checked that he truly had willpower in the real world.

Tom noticed other changes also. His mind was clearer than it had ever been. He could remember things he didn't even know that he knew. Also, he could feel that his thoughts were running much faster, almost like he had been in a dream all his life, and he had only just now woken up.

The difference wasn't on at any superhuman level. But it was still clear to Tom, who had spent his whole life used to how his mind worked, so the difference was much more apparent to him.

After Tom had spent a good while enjoying his newfound cultivator status and the clearer mind it brought with it. Tom decided to check his phone. He watched the phone's screen in a daze. He knew that it had to have been a substantial amount of time that he had to spend unconscious, but he wouldn't even have dared to imagine that it would have been three full days.

Tom had to check that his phone's calendar hadn't somehow malfunctioned. So he opened his computer, and sure enough, it was Friday. It had been three days since he awakened his mind in Secverse. So he had only two days before other people would be able to start playing Secverse.

His advancement into a cultivator had ignited a fire in him. He had gotten a taste of advancement and how wonderful it felt, and he wanted more of it. So he wasn't going to waste even a second of the time he had the Secverse all to himself.

Without further ado, Tom placed the 'helmet' on his head and logged in to the Secverse.

Tom looked around, and sure enough, he was where he had killed his own body, which remains now lay at his feet. The core was gone, and so were the blacklines that had appeared on his hand.

Without wasting any more time, Tom started testing everything he could now do. He did all kinda tests for two full hours. From trying to levitate leaves with his mind to making his blood circulate faster. And the results were disappointing, to say the least.

Pretty much everything failed. The only real change Tom could discern was the fact that he could feel his mind working faster. If he really focused on some task, he could ignore every distraction and make his mind work on whatever he was doing with all of its power. This consumed his willpower at a visible rate, so he could not keep at it for that long.

Tom felt almost cheated. As how the Glatian had praised becoming a cultivator, it sounded more like he would be god walking among other humans. However, he was certain that most humans who have had any combat training would wipe the floor with him. Sure he was certain that he could dodge quite a few of their attacks, but his body was not some great piece of art that he had to spend countless hours molding into the perfect fighting machine.

Sure he was somewhat fast but nowhere nearly fast enough to fully utilize his advantages. Even worse was the fact that he knew nothing about fighting. So he was sure that he would only embarrass himself if he went out looking for a fight.

Of course, he could see how a person who was already a master fighter and whose body had been forged into the perfect weapon. Would become unstoppable if their reflexes and mind suddenly got even faster. "Well, there's nothing to it now. The only thing that I can now do is train. I should at least be able to defend myself with my newfound power." Tom thought. As he was sure that once the knowledge spread, that people would be able to get supernatural powers. Everyone would want them, and there would surely be some people who would like to abuse their newly found powers.

Tom also remembered how he was somewhat able to affect the black energy once it was inside his body. So that would be something he would have to test once he had another core. So Tom had his new goal in his mind, as he decided to train and look for another core.

He went to pick up his spear. But to his dismay, he noticed that the black liquid inside of the corpse had corroded most of it. Tom kicked it annoyed that his only weapon was ruined.

As the spear flew a couple of meters away. Tom saw how there was one pristine piece still inside of it it. It was a 10 cm long piece of his stick, but now it was much smoother. Like someone had taken sandpaper and polished it.

"The black liquid must have corroded everything else of the stick." Tom contemplated as he looked. He tested the point of the stick, and he was not disappointed, as it was maybe even sharper than before. Tom got to work and made a new spear using the same method as last time.

Tom was quite pleasantly surprised with his new spear. It looked pretty much the same as its predecessor, and it also worked the same, but Tom had to spend only thirty minutes on making it.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Tom realized that now that he was next to the highest point he had seen in the Secverse, it would be stupid not to use it to scout out his surroundings. So Tom did just that. This time as he climbed up the hill the fear of death didn't affect him in any way. He was still aware that it was there, but it didn't pressure him in any way.

As these trees had no branches near the ground, Tom had to improvise a way to climb up them. Tom remembered seeing videos on the internet where people used some kind of pelts to climb up trees. So Tom took his shirt off, placed it around the tree, and locked his legs around it. Then he loosened his hold on the shirt and move it upwards, then he would tighten his hold on it and move his legs upwards, and so it went.

It was quite awkward at first, as Tom tried to get the hang of it. He was also terrified that his shirt would break and make him fall. But soon enough he had gotten the hang of it and noticed that even after climbing good two meters, his shirt was still holding up perfectly. So Tom felt much more comfortable, and soon enough he reached the first branch of the tree, and the job only got easier from then on. He continued climbing until he was thirty meters above the hill. He did not dare to climb any higher as the pine started getting thinner and thinner.

The view was magnificent. It was almost like he was looking at a turbulent green sea as the pines swayed in the wind as far as the eye could see. It was almost creepy as they were all almost uniformly tall, so there were no big irregularities that would stick to the eye. Tom kept turning around as he looked behind himself, and he was relieved as he saw small mountains in the distance. Tom didn't have to think about what direction he would be going towards. As he had already spent one day too long in this monotonous forest. Tom climbed down the tree and set course for the small mountains that just looked like glorified hills.

As Tom started walking toward the mountains. He decided to try his hand at honing his skills with the spear. As it would take him at least three hours to walk there by his rough estimate, so he might as well use his time productively.

"How does training even work here?" Tom wondered. His body was an exact copy of his body in the real world. So he was quite curious about if he somehow got stronger in the real world, would he get stronger in here also? "Would training here even affect my body in other ways than just giving me fighting experience?" But Tom quickly discarded that thought. His improved mind kindly remembered that the Glatian had said that the cultivation of the mind would be the only one that would affect the real world. Which would mean that he had to have a way to improve his body here and the core, however, he had no idea how he was supposed to get it.

So Tom decided to run to the mountains. "No better time to start training than the present!" Tom thought as he started running towards the mountains.

He periodically did lunges with his spear, and other times he would do side steps. He did whatever movements he thought might be useful for him in combat. At the same time, he hoped that this would be an effective form of training and that he wasn't just wasting his time. Tom was fairly pleased with his idea of multitasking. As it was always a nice feeling when you could work towards two different goals simultaneously.

To Tom's dismay, he quickly noticed a flaw in his plan. He was not nearly in a good enough shape to run the whole way. Especially while he was trying somehow to become a combat master while running.

So he lasted only ten minutes until he was too winded and was forced to switch from running to jogging. He had to stop after a full hour of jogging and a moderate amount of random movements. If some random person had seen Tom 'jogging', they would surely think that Tom had lost his mind. He would randomly attack the air, and the next moment he would jump to the side, almost like he was fighting invisible enemies who would give up after a couple of attempts on his life.

Tom realized that he had evaluated the distance wrongly as he still couldn't see the mountains. And he was almost certain that he had covered the distance that it would take him to walk in three hours.

Tom had spotted a few wooden animals while he was jogging. He always gave a token effort on chasing them, only to be left behind almost instantly. A couple of times Tom had tried his luck with throwing the spear at them. But the closest he had gotten to hitting the animals was when the spear hit a tree next to a wooden rabbit as it jumped behind it.

So his hunting wasn't that big success. His main focus still was to make it to the mountains. As he had already experimented with the core of the wooden bear, and he was quite sure the result would be similar even if he had awakened his mind. As he could clearly feel that he was incompatible with that energy. He shuddered as he remembered how it felt as his insides turned into wood.

After Tom had rested for a while, he forced his body to continue jogging. He could feel how his body was almost at the breaking point, but he forced himself to continue while hoping that getting a stress injury wouldn't be possible in the Secverse. The one thing he had learned from awakening his mind was that if you wanted to improve, you would have to push yourself to your breaking point and then go beyond it.

After another half an hour, Tom was finally able to see the mountains through the caps in the trees. At this moment Tom's 'jogging' was basically walking, but there was an extremely tired bounce to his steps. So it arguably could be called jogging, even if he was going at a walking speed.

Another half an hour later, he finally arrived at the end of the pine forest. His speed had fallen, even more, he could feel how every step was pure agony, and on top of that, he felt hungry and thirsty. He wasn't sure if he could feel hunger or thirst in the game or if it was just his real body acting up.

Tom could see a nice little stream coming down from the mountains and saw a nice hassock by the river that was practically calling his name. He 'jogged' the final meter to the hassock and collapsed on top of it.

Now that Tom had finally stopped moving. He could feel how his whole body was protesting against him and his bright idea of breaking their pact. His body was supposed to stay in decent shape with minimal exercise, in return, he was to never push his body's limits and make it truly spent. Or at least that was how Tom interpreted his body's complaints.

Tom was thirsty enough that he didn't care if only his real body was thirsty, or if he did or didn't need to drink while he was in Secverse. He lowered his head to the stream and drank to his heart's content. He did not care if the water was drinkable or not, it looked clear enough to him and tasted fine. He continued drinking until he felt that he had drunk enough. He was finally able to look around and take in his current environment.

Behind him was a wall of trees. It looked like he was seeing a tree plantation. As there was a clear straight line where the forest ended and the mountainous area began. In front of Tom, he saw a lot of small mountains. They looked like hills that had a rock visible in multiple areas. To his side, he could see the stream continuing coursing downwards to somewhere he couldn't see. To his other side, he saw how there was a small divide between the forest and where the ground started climbing upwards, as there was finally another topography than just flat planes.

Tom took in the sighs for while longer, before logging off as he was sure that he needed to take care of his body.