Hunting alone for a long time and immersing myself in slaughter has affected me, I could feel it, however, this was necessary.

If I wanted to have enough strength to change my surrounds, I must get more powerful.

In these last weeks, my origin cultivation had broken through to the second tier, and my soul force only advanced a bit.

Looking at my bag, I knew that I had enough points to get a lot of resources. I would mainly focus on buying resources to temper my body right now, to improve my cultivation.

Getting my thoughts in line, I decided that it was time to go back to the fortress, and exchange my points for some resources, and later go to the fourth floor.

The third floor was not presenting any challenges for me right now. I could now use the concept of destruction with naturality, and the enemies were not strong enough to defend against it. Even applying soul force felt now easy and natural, I didn't even need to concentrate anymore, reinforcing my body and weapon almost became a natural reflex.

Collecting all of the material around me, I strapped the sword to my back and proceeded to the fortress.

The way back was peaceful. After staying here for so long, I had mastered the way to hide with the concept of darkness.

Many people thought that staying here three weeks was not long, but these fools were mainly people that had never dived into the underworld.

Imagine staying in a hostile environment for three weeks, constantly battling and barely having time to rest. And even if you stopped to rest, you would still have to watch your surrounds.

My clothes were now in drags, all stained with blood. This was the last set of cloth that I had, the other ones were all destroyed. If other people saw me right now, they would surely be puzzled. How were the cloths in rags, but the skin beneath it was spotless and without sign of battle?

I stepped into the stairs to the second floor and felt the sensation of spacing bending around me. In this instant, realization dawned upon me.

One of the concepts that were not advancing was space. although the concept of space was everywhere, it was mostly stable, and its variation couldn't be grasped.

Standing here on the stairs, I saw the opportunity to have some enlightenment and seated down to meditate and perceive the concept.

The space was bending and stretching around me. I could feel that one side was connected with the 3rd floor, and the other with the 2nd floor.

The intersection was where space was being modified and bent. It was almost like someone picked two separate lines and tied them together, however, these two lines were already connected to another thing, making the lines having a constant tension between them, being only held together by the knot.

This phenomenon was incredible! How could someone tie something that was not physical? Realizing how incredible this passage was, I began to eagerly try to have some insights from it.

***

Two days later, I was still seated at the stair. Some groups had passed by me and looked with strange faces. Some realized what I was doing, but others had no clue.

In general, they chose to ignore me, after all, I was someone that was training in the concept of space, and they wouldn't want to mess with someone like that.

Feeling that my concept of space had advanced quite a bit, and was on the peak of the mortal level, I knew that it was useless to stay here anymore.

I got up from the stair and went to the fortress.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

***

Getting in the underworld hall, many people gave me strange looks, just like I imagined they would do. I ignored them and went to the point of exchange to get some points.

Arriving there, I looked at the booth and my mind became blank for a moment. Arriving here and not seeing Hannah reminded me of why I was training so hard.

I quickly exchanged the material for points and left the place.

Looking at the card, I saw that my total of points had gone to a little bit more than 3 million.

I finally had some money to play with right now.

I browsed through the stores on the street and bought various things, and one of them was a resistant cloth enchanted with auto-repairing. It was a necessity for me, and just in case this one was destroyed, I bought three sets, having a total of 3 hundred thousand.

I bought several pills and herbs to temper my body and went to Ian's armory to buy armor for me.

Arriving there, I looked around and saw that while the clerks were attending to some clients, Ian was sitting on a reclined chair while enjoying a smoking pipe, releasing smoke like chimney.

I approached him and offered my hand while saying. "Hey there Ian."

He looked up to me, strongly grabbing my hand and saying. "Oh, look who is back." A grin appeared on his mouth and he asked. "Making justice to Purbás?" while releasing my hand.

I stroked the handle of my sword over my right shoulder and said. "Surely."

He nodded and asked. "So, shoot away. What are you here for?" without beating around the bush.

"I need new armor."

"How is your budget?"

"I have two million points to work with."

Hearing my answer, he pondered for a bit and said. "Well, you're poor as fuck!" His answer surprised me. "That little money can only buy you a subpar armor, to have the real deal, you would have to cash out at least 1 billion."

Hearing what he said, I remembered the struggles that I went through the last weeks, almost dying several times, and fighting like a madman. Compared to Divers in the third level, I was well of.

Most of them only did 7 hundred thousand per month, because they would have to share it with their teams and wouldn't fight without stopping, they would have to at least rest, after all, not everyone had a mutation that would give them as much stamina as mine.

I nodded to him in understanding and he continued. "Look, boy, when you have some real cash, come to me, and I will do a special armor for you, but for now, go talk to a clerk and they will give you something in that price range."

"I will." I said while nodding. "Until next time then."

I talked to one of the clerks, and after 20 minutes and some different armors to choose from, I left the store with a leather armor, covered in some special runes.

The armor had an enchantment of cleaning, auto-repair, and physical defense. Although it was not powerful, it would serve me for now.

I went to the hotel and booked a room. The clerk looked at me with strange eyes after remembering the destruction I caused the last time I came here. She was a blond woman, that was using a tight black skirt and a white blouse. She gave me a sweet smile and tried to talk a little bit. But I was not in the mood for a conversation.

After finishing the procedures, I went to my room, took a shower, and rested.

I finally got a deserved sleep….

***

Waking up the next morning, I decided to stay in the hotel for the day. I had some insights to consolidate and try to have some breakthroughs.

Knowing that I could cause some damage to the hotel, this time I booked a room with a special place, meant to those things.

By what the clerk told me yesterday, many people had their breakthroughs after coming back from the underworld. After all, it was on the battlefield where you could learn how to best apply your concepts. And knowing that, the hotel had special rooms with that in mind.

Getting in the reinforced room, I looked around and saw that the place had many enchantments, to maintain the integrity of the place. I seated down and began to meditate.

The first concept that I would try to level up to the domain level would be the concept of death. After all, it was the most recurrent concept in the place I was in.

I was surrounded by constant death in these last few weeks, when not by the enemies I slain, by the bodies that were thrown everywhere.

I began to remember the transformation that happened in the energy after they died, how the souls slowly left the body, and how my own near-death experience informing the origin energy happened.

The aspect of death was mysterious, to say the least. Life was everywhere and slowly happened by the formation of a new life, but death could be either slow or quick.

Quick death didn't even need to be explained, a sword to the neck would be a simple answer, but a slow death was the scariest.

People aged naturally, and they died with time. Because of that, all the races trained in some form of energy, to try to achieve immortality, dead was an inevitability to most.

It was said that when one reached the ninth tier, the life force inside of a person would not deteriorate any more, giving the said person eternal life.

There were many powerhouses in the eighth tier. However, breaking through to the ninth tier was easier said than done.

One of the things required to advance to the ninth tier was to have advanced your concept to the Heaven level. And with each level, gaining insights would become harder and harder. It was easy for a mortal to move a rock, but was it easy for him to move a mountain? That was the same thing with concepts, the higher the level, the harder the challenge.

There was only a handful of ninth tier being in the continent, with most of them being dragons, a heavenly race that was born already in the fifth tier.

In history, there were only some heroes that were known for having achieved the ninth tier, with one of them being the legendary mage that opened the portal to the underworld.

Back to the present, Ullach concentrated on feeling his concept, and his understanding of it slowly bloomed.

Death was present in nature, and some people thought that when you are born, from that day onwards you are slowly dying as you grow old.

Reflecting all these things in his mind, the concept of what death slowly became clear to him. A heart ceasing to beat, a cell that stopped working, the decay that happened to the bodies, and age.

Everything was connected to the aspect of death, after all, everything that was alive could die, having infinity lifespan or not.

A gray aura began to appear on his body, slowly expanding to his surroundings….