After another half year, the first round of the game came to an end.

Both winners and losers, along with everyone on whom the bet was made, were teleported by the formation.

Only weaklings and unnecessary trash remained on the planet. They will continue to fight for their lives, or they will die trying.

The formation belonged to Ra, so he entered the planet without any problems and appeared on the surface of the sea in his ship.

He gave the command to the planetary game formation to ferry all the purchased people to his ship, as well as the last sword left on the planet.

So far, there was no point in collapsing the work of the formation and broadcasting into the spiritual network.

There were still enough people on the planet, it is quite possible that someone else will appear talented. Ra was going to squeeze the maximum benefit from this planet.

After all the goods were on board, Ra set off on his way to the spiritual node.

---

Sam had learned everything he could from the orb tapes for a long time, so he just kept watching the sky and the sea, or practiced.

One day during his training, Sam flashed and teleported away.

After a little disorientation, he found himself in a huge hall filled with people.

There were thousands of people, almost all young, if not children.

People began to look around and even scream, but the next moment Sam, like everyone else, felt a huge pressure that brought everyone to their knees.

All voices were gone, Sam could not make a sound either, and he could only kneel like the rest. Sam could only try to look around hardly using his eyes.

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He did not see anyone and nothing in the hall except people, but looking around his eyes froze.

Sam saw Jane among the crowd, she in turn looked at him and for a while their eyes met.

Sam was surprised, of course he assumed that Jane was also teleported, because he did not find her remains in the mansion.

And during interrogations, he found out that she simply disappeared. But he didn't really expect to see her again.

Jane didn't seem too surprised to see him. She only smiled slightly.

Sam smiled back, and then, like everyone else, he passed out.

When Sam came to his senses, he looked around and saw nothing but the endless white space around.

He knew that he had to get into the spiritual node, so he assumed that this was it.

He tried to move around, but no matter how he tried to move, it seemed he remained in place relative to the space in which he was. There was absolutely nothing around.

Sam was banned for a whole year, of course, he had long ago taken off his damaged crocodile skin, and since he had not been warned, he was now in ordinary light clothes in the form of shorts and a T-shirt.

Now he could use spiritual energy, he took two swords from the ring, waved them a little and put them back. He also put on some spare casual clothes.

Some time later, a projection of a middle-aged man appeared next to him.

The projection looked like a typical person wearing some kind of ancient robe and gave the impression of a scientist.

- Hi Sam, you are in a spirit node. Well, I will help you with questions about your future path, namely cultivation.

Sam did not know how to properly greet this projection, just as he did not know whether it was a real person, a clone, or something else. He bowed and returned a greeting.

- The first stage of cultivation is usually called Qi Condensation. Before moving on to this stage and joining the ranks of cultivators, you first need to temper your body to a certain extent and also get to a certain mental threshold.

- Your body and spirit already meet the requirements, but the breakthrough itself you will make already at the destination point. The Spiritual Node does not give out resources and is not intended for breakthroughs.

- For this you need to absorb spiritual energy for a certain time through meditation, or for the first step of becoming a practitioner, at least one processed spiritual stone will be enough.

- You will learn all the information on how to do this in the lower stages of cultivation a little later.

- There is dark energy in your body that you obviously cannot use outside your body. This is one of the many variations of the so-called "insights" or simply mutations.

- In the World sector, such mutations are not so rare, there are cultivators with different types of mutations. They usually give cultivators certain advantages along the way.

- There are two main cultivation paths that are most common in the universe, body cultivation and spirit cultivation. There are many specific variations, however you will only get one cultivation technique of your choice.