"Your body is reaching the maximum potential at its current level. Soon, it will be time to advance." Isaac's voice brought a much-needed optimism to Dante. They were in the cave for about a week. Everyone was cultivating every day.

Dante knew - no, felt - the progress in his body. Day by day, his Qi was circulating more easily through his meridians, and his body was reacting better and better to injuries. He was healing him faster and with less pain.

Less pain, in this case, was far from an ideal situation.

Isaac was unrelenting. As Dante evolved, the master released more and more Qi in his training. After feeling his flesh being destroyed for so long, Dante was surprised that his body managed to keep the same original form.

"Thank you, master. I can feel my Qi getting purer. It's as if, all my life, I've been trying to wash something with dirty water, and I finally got to reach its pure state."

Isaac sat in lotus position, directly in front of Dante. Without delay, he took a pill and handed it to the young cultivator. Right after the fire Qi induction session, Dante needed to cycle light Qi to balance his core.

"You are doing well. I admit that we are taking quite some time, but that is as a result of your new Qi being coupled into your body only a short time ago. Essentially, we had to walk a path that your body would take on its own over the years. The good news is that we have already cleared the backlog. Now, we are shaping you beyond normal. Towards perfection."

It only took a brief expansion of his senses for Dante to notice the gross difference the training had made in his Qi. Before, light and fire did not mix very well, making his core look like a defective sun. Now his core shone like a star.

Unlike how he had predicted, Dante ended his session totally unable to go after monsters. As his body was pushed to the limit time after time, he needed to sleep and eat.

Arriving at the area they called home, at least for the moment, he noticed that only Hector was present. The muscular boy was sitting in a chair, reading a tablet. Instinctively, he looked at the area where Rim and Sabrina were training. Despite the great difference in personality of the two, neither had yet completed their advance.

"Hey, Hector, is it common for an ascension to take this long? The one from bronze to silver was so fast. I find it strange that they are taking so long."

Hector raised his eyes quickly, looking at Dante with full interest. If there was anything common between the two, it was an interest in cultivation and its mysteries.

"There is no right and wrong in this case. You can advance to gold quickly, yes. But in Sabrina and Rim's case, Isaac is making them take the 'hard' path. Basically, there are two ways to advance to gold. One is to force your monster to manifest in your core, causing the first oversoul state. In this case, one needs to learn the oversoul gradually. The other, which is their case, is to get them to tune into harmony with their monster first. These ways, the cultivator learns the oversoul almost complete from the start, so it gives a better foundation. The second way is far better than the first, but much harder. Most choose to move directly to gold and learn the oversoul gradually."

Dante contemplated the possibilities thoughtfully. Being optimistic, it wouldn't be long before his turn to ascend would come. "And how do you plan to do it?"

"I will do the slow way. Slowness is not the only reason this form of advance is unusual. In fact, the main reason is that this method needs to be guided by a more experienced cultivator, and the resources required are much greater than the other way, for the time it takes."

A little more at ease, Dante thanked Hector for the explanation and went to eat a quick meal.

While he was eating, he decided that he would go out and kill some monsters after resting a little. For the first time in days, he was not feeling completely exhausted after training. It seemed that the purity of his Qi really mattered, after all.

The meat was melting in his mouth. He didn't even know which animal had turned the stew in front of him. Not that it mattered much. There were few better fates for monsters than a cultivator's mouth.

After Dante rested a little, he went to see Isaac. He told the master he would be out to exterminate some monsters. To do so, he headed off toward the cave.

While resting daily, he had thought several times about what would be the best route to hunt the new monsters. The problem was that there were many options that would be perfectly feasible. In fact, if what Isaac had said was right, and Dante was betting it was, then getting harm by any C-class monster would bring him one step closer to his goal.

However, the truth was that even the looting of an immense treasure had to start somewhere.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

It didn't take long for him to locate his targets. Creatures that looked like trees, but had arms and some sort of legs appeared in the distance. This was the first place Dante had written on his tablet. He bet those monsters had a special kind of Qi.

This time, Dante decided to be bold. Testing his flaming claws one last time, as if to ensure that he would not fail, he did not hold back in drawing the attention of an individual monster.

Jumping into the middle of a group of three, Dante took advantage of the beasts' seconds of surprise to hit the nearest monster with a sharp blow. Watching the result of his strike, he smiled. His Qi refined to the limit had lost some of its resemblance to fire. Now, the golden flames destroyed rather than burned. Where his claws had hit the monster, only emptiness remained.

A stab on his leg brought him back to reality. Instinctively, when he felt the pain rising in his thigh, he tried to jump so that he could reposition himself. After feeling his leg stuck, however, he looked at the attacker. The monster had stretched out its wooden arm to pierce Dante's leg. The monster was still snaring the young cultivator, refusing to let it go.

Locating the other monsters to make sure he would not be pierced again, he managed to move his left arm in time to avoid suffering another blow.

At that moment an idea popped into the Dante's head. A dangerous ideia. After so many sessions that for any other reason could be compared to torture, the monsters' attacks couldn't possibly cause that much damage.

He would follow that logic. Dante concentrated and forced his body not to react to the attacks, remaining static. It didn't take long for him to rethink his strategy, but it was already too late.

While concentrating on his body, he felt the exact time when the branches from the other tree like monsters pierced him. There was nothing usual about those attacks. As soon as the branches entered his body, they seemed to break. That's why he hadn't been able to jump and free himself easily in the first attack.

The death machines that disguised themselves as trees kept producing more limbs, which pierced Dante. To their misfortune, practice in agony situations was Dante's forte. Trying to calm himself as much as the situation allowed, he tried to distract himself from the agonizing pain by focusing on his Qi. It was time to put into practice all the theories he had developed in training.

First, he focused on the internal skin bleeds to make sure he wouldn't pass out. Even with his body, should he lose consciousness, his life would be in great danger. Next, he focused on the Qi emanating from the monsters. He tried to memorize in his mind as many details as possible. He had learned that by doing this he would speed up the process of toning his physique.

As the pain became unbearable, he circulated his Qi at maximum power. Instantly, the wooden tentacles began to burn with solar fire. Determined to end the fight in one blow, he gave his opponents no breathing room and continued to expel Qi as agilely as he could.

Satisfaction overtook him when he heard the screams of the monsters. Looking at his targets, he saw that his earlier thought was right. The fire had spread to the beasts, which soon turned to ashes.

After the extermination, he took his harvester and collected the essence of the monsters. It didn't matter the state of the monsters' bodies, as long as the harvester was used right after death, the essence was always captured.

He only realized that there were still wounds scattered all over his body when he noticed that his Qi had not yet ceased exiting his core. Feeling an unusual warmth even for him in the region of his core, Dante felt happy.

Foreseeing what was about to happen, he returned to a point where there were no monsters in the cave. Getting into a meditation position, he concentrated. His core spun rapidly, as if it were unstable. Although there was no ambient Qi that would be useful to him, Dante was so close to the peak of Silver V that advancing alone would not be impossible.

Determined to take another step towards power, he focused solely within himself, examining the flow of his Qi as much as he could. Now that the wounds had been healed, his body was in ecstasy. Dante theorized that this was how being hurt by different kinds of abilities made him stronger. When his body was hurt by a new kind of Qi, his Qi seemed to evolve, to learn.

Concentrating on this feeling, which at the moment was taking over much of his body, he let the Qi dance freely through his meridians, like a cyclical waterfall. It didn't take long for his core to start spinning even faster. Faster. Until... a cracking noise came in his ears.

He had finally passed into the high levels of silver!

Getting up, he surveyed his surroundings and set off back to his group. He couldn't wait to tell everyone that he had finally advanced. From the steady rate of progression he had gone through in the first few weeks, a time without evolving his Qi was already being scary.

Even in a state of happiness, Dante had learned to pay attention to his surroundings. Thus, he easily noticed when footstep-like sounds approached.

Finding a spot that was poorly lit by torches, he hid behind a rock. Unfortunately for him, the area he was in was watered by nature's Qi, a mix of earth and water. It would be difficult for him to fight, should it be necessary.

Deciding to worry only after he identified the danger, he waited for footsteps to approach. It didn't take long for voices to echo through the cavern.

"Ah, man, I don't know what those shitty leaders have in their heads. Isn't being on top enough? No, they need to keep making us run after a few lousy bucks."

"Watch your mouth, Yao. You know as well as I do they wouldn't hesitate to do to us what they did to Zaiko. Let's pretend we're looking for a little more and go back to base, shall we?"

"At least they put me with someone who isn't a complete idiot for a change."

As the voices were distancing themselves, Dante was able to observe there were two men who the voices came from. One was tall and shallow haired, while the other had medium height and long hair.

More than controlling his anxiety about telling the others that he had advanced, what happened was enough to bring up Dante's worries and anger at those bastards. They still had Sabrina's belongings. That is, if they hadn't already destroyed everything.

Deciding that he couldn't be too careful, after all, he had just advanced and didn't know how stable his Qi was, Dante waited a few hours while meditating before returning to the group. He would have to alert everyone that they were being hunted.