Three days full of cultivation after the announcement of how much humanity was behind the Olen, Tom was starting to get into a stable routine.

Wake up, eat, work out, get back into the Secverse and continue cultivation.

The longer he kept at it, the more familiar he grew with the electricity mana, lengthening how long he could continue on, as he learned different tricks on how to manipulate it better, and his mental strength rose.

The mana wanted to move constantly, and the longer he tried to hold it still, the harder it fought against him, so he had modified his process. He had started slamming the electricity mana inside of his core and outside of it against its walls simultaneously, holding it still for a while and then letting it once again move freely, then he repeated the process.

It wasn't necessarily better than just holding it still, but he could keep at it for much longer, as it demanded much less from his willpower. He also noticed that whenever he hit the core just right, it would produce minuscule cracks all over it, forcing him to slowly build up the power behind each of the attacks. However, he noticed that the cracked parts seemed to heal into a tougher crystal accepting much more punishment, allowing him to increase the strength behind his attacks.

But, the thing he was most excited about was the fact that his meridian had formed into a point where they could get used to the levels of mana whenever he moved deeper into the cave. However, when he moved deeper into the cave, the first five minutes would be pure suffering, the mana would wreck through his body, making his meridian feel like he hadn't progressed at all. But it only lasted for a short while before his body once again adapted to the changes.

Just as he was starting to feel that he was starting to get used to the mana levels, and his advancement speed started to decrease from ridiculous to just brilliant, he saw the gecko for the first time in a long while. It rushed out from the depths of the cave excitedly, stopping right in front of him, and then it started rushing around him.

Tom looked at it curiously, it looked a bit different like it had gotten a bit bulkier. Then something drew his attention, the gecko's claws started gently glowing, and it started swinging them around in front of Tom, waiving them around this way and that, making sure that he could actually see them. After it was sure it had Tom's undivided attention, fifteen seconds after holding the energy in its claws, it finally attacked the ground, leaving small scorch marks behind into the rock as the claws scraped over it.

Tom was genuinely impressed. The gecko had imitated how the nails interacted with the electricity mana and implemented it into a deadly attack. Once again, he had to reevaluate just how intelligent he thought it was, as it kept breaking all the expectations he held for it.

After the gecko finished its attack, it started bouncing around in glee, coming closer to Tom, and looking at him expectantly, clearly wanting to get rewarded for its great achievements.

As it got closer, Tom could feel how its excitement was starting to infect him. Who could resist the charm of an oversized gecko acting like an excited puppy as its owner got home?

So in a moment of enthusiasm, he placed his hand on the gecko's head, which was centimeters away from his hand, particularly calling for it, as he would do with any excited pet that demanded his attention. Of course, the difference was that this was no pet. No, this was a gecko that could probably still beat him.

As the hand landed on its head, it froze on the spot, stopping all of its exited movements and focusing wholly on Tom, watching every single of his movements, ready to react to whatever he would do, switching into battle mode in an instant.

Tom started to realize that he might have made a mistake, as all excitement drained from the space, turning into nervous anticipation.

However, after a couple of seconds of standing there, frozen on the spot, not daring to make even the slightest move, Tom did the thing how the gecko had firstly interacted with him. He sent a small pulse of electricity mana into the gecko's head and scratched its tough scales. He was surprised at how tough they felt, he couldn't imagine how he could have ever passed through these scales with his swords, but he realized that the gecko hadn't just created a new way to manipulate mana. No, it actually had fully advanced, improving all of its weaknesses, making it better in every sense of the word.

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While his mind ran wild, distracting him from the dangerous situation, trying its best to make him seem as unthreatening as possible. The gecko just stood there, looking almost confused, letting the hand stay but not lowering its guard until Tom decided that he had pushed this far enough and pulled his hand away. But just then, as he stopped sending the small pulses of electricity mana and stopped scratching it, the gecko started to move.

It went straight under his hand and rubbed the top of its head against it, demanding that its new servant continued to give it whatever the blissful feeling it had just experienced was, wanting more of it.

Tom laughed as he saw the gecko going from ready to shred him into pieces, to friendly in a blink of an eye, and he did as it wanted.

A good while later, the gecko had finally had enough of the treatment, and it shot out of the cave, clearly ready to see just how much more powerful it had gotten.

Tom was almost jealous. Oh, how he also wanted to go out and experience just how much stronger he had gotten. But alas, he knew that he was still too weak unless he wanted to burn ridiculous amounts of time creating a perfect situation where he would have a chance of a victory.

However, he knew that he needed to advance faster, as the reality of humanity's situation had set in with the announcement. Even if Tom didn't care about humanity's internal power struggles, or who controlled what piece of land, as he could do whatever he wanted, there was unknown amounts of wilderness, just waiting to be explored, under no one's jurisdiction.

But the fact was, there was only so much he could ignore. If humanity lost this war, their planet in the Secverse would be downgraded. And that sounded like a death sentence to Tom.

Of course, he realized that this state wouldn't be permanent, and soon enough, someone would control these lands, and at that point, it would be a smart idea to have a good network of powerful contacts. But there was one thing he had learned from the Glatians, one could do whatever they wanted, as long as they had enough strength and resources to make it happen. And there were uncounted amounts of resources just waiting for him in the wilderness.

So he continued on cultivating, following his routine with only one change, the gecko would come and go, traveling in and out of the cave. However, its hunts were starting to take longer and longer, and it seemed to come back with fewer and fewer scratches.

Whenever the gecko passed him, he would try to interact with it grasping at the opportunity to take a break from his constant cultivation, giving himself a mental break and relaxing.

And likewise, the gecko would stop to demand scratches or something out of his backpack.

Each day he noticed that he could move forwards less and less, the amount of electricity in the air increasing expediently.

This continued for a week before Tom could finally see how a bluish light was coming from the other side of the next turn in the tunnel. He forced himself to move forwards, and sure enough, the end of the cave was there, waiting for him.

The last ten meter of the tunnel was straight, leading to some kind of natural chamber, where he could see some kind of alien thing. He saw how blue lines were running all over the dark walls and roof sprawling all over each other. It looked like he was looking at some kind of a supermachine that was encompassing the five-meter wide areas of walls, floor, and roof, crawling all over it.

However, soon enough, the space lit up, as lighting shot through the dark maw of the cavern, revealing to him that this was actually a plant and not some giant machine. It looked like it was completely burned, its surface coal black and cracking from dryness, then there were the blue lines that ran through it, shining through the dark surface. He could only see its actual appearance only whenever one of the bolts gave him enough light to make out its shape, and what he saw was weirdly beautiful.

As Tom watched the abstract beauty of the plant, he got a boost of motivation, as he was finally approaching the end of the cave, the source of all this electricity mana just ten meters away from him.

However, he soon realized that these last ten meters would be unlike any of the ground he had covered so far, as after just one step, he realized that his core was starting to crack and his meridians were burning like never before.

Almost confused, he said, "status." He had trained his core to great heights. He knew that there shouldn't be anything that could stop him from approaching one step closer to it.

___________________

Name: Tom Palmer

Awakened mind 9

Awakened body 6

Awakened core 8

__________________

He wasn't surprised by his mind's progress or his cores. He had spent so much time on them that he took their progress almost as a given. And he was pretty sure that the one rank in the body had come from creating his meridians.

However, there was one thing he didn't understand. His core was so close to the top of the tier, so how could this plant affect him so much, even from this range?

But then, it hit him. "It isn't tier 0 material, it's at tier 1..."