Cultivation Through Artifacts

"This power is way more powerful than I have thought." Khal's expression showed great surprise, never would he have thought his Stellar Domain would be so dominant against the Ghost Spider.

"It is clearly on the Fourth Cultivation Stage but even like that it was unable to resist my domain. Just what is the nature of my domain?"

This question made Khal wonder quite deeply because as far as he could see it his power was a Talent that affects his enemy's mind directly. Once he began to rotate the galaxy around him, any individual in his domain would be incapable to move properly; or at least that what he noticed from his previous attempts so far.

"Well, at least killing it like this will be much easier," said Khal, and without hesitation began to walk toward the Beast.

"SCREEEEEECH!!!"

With painful howls that could put fear into any weak-minded Cultivator's heart, the Ghost Spider struggled to stand up, but whenever Khal took a step forward its body would tremble and drop back to the ground powerlessly.

"Just die for me!" said Khal and once he was next to the Beast swung his weapon vertically, drawing a crescent silver arc in the air.

Swish!

With a clean and smooth cut, Khal chopped the Ghost Spider's humongous head off, turning its colossal body into Beast Essence in a flash.

"This was surprisingly... Easy." thought Khal as he sat down and began to consume the Beast Essence.

Sometime later, about only 5 minutes later, Khal opened his eyes while a voice sounded inside his head.

[Notify! Heaven's Eyes has consumed 16 'Beast Essence'!]

"16 out of 20? That's quite a decent amount." a smile formed on Khal's face as he stood up and patted his clothes gently.

"Chirp!"

"Huh? What's the matter?" asked Khal as he noticed Rubie's abrupt change of behavior and began to examine his surroundings for any sign of threat.

However, instead of continuing to flutter her wings, suddenly Rubie leaped into the air and began to fly toward the woods that was enveloped in abyss darkness.

"Chirp!" seeing as Khal didn't come after her Rubie turned around and with a low sound signaled him to follow her.

"Did she find something?" Khal turned quite confused why Rubie decided to fly toward the danger zone but still decided to follow her.

Walking among the towering woods where everything was so dark that even his Heaven's Eyes barely helped, Khal run closely behind Rubie and watched as she arrived before a huge hole in the ground and flew into it.

"A cave?" exclaimed Khal with shock and after examining it for a bit he began to descend after Rubie.

The hole was about ten meters wide in radius while it was extremely deep. Luckily, it was not steep so Khal could safely descend without any external help, but even like that he made sure to stay on his guard.

Whatever this place led to, it was unknown what waited for him down there.

After climbing down for almost 30 minutes straight, Khal gradually reached the bottom only to see something that he didn't think he would see.

The cave was as enormous as three football stadiums put next to each other while on the ceiling blue crystals with different sizes and shapes shone the space below them with gentle blue light.

However, this wasn't what made Khal completely speechless, but the things found in this massively huge cave.

Hundreds if not thousands of eggs with the size of a human baby were placed all over the place, filling the cave almost to the absolute brim!

"The hideout of the Ghost Spider?" Khal watched the almost infinite amount of Ghost Spider Eggs on the ground and didn't know what to say.

So many eggs... If all of them succeeded to hatch, not only Shadow Woods but even Moon Mountain and Moon City would end up in utter chaos!

As Khal reached this point he glanced at Rubie on the side, who already began to feast on the eggs even before he has arrived.

"That's right! This can be a huge opportunity! Even though these are only eggs, they are still on the First Cultivation Stage! If I can get one Beast Essence from each, getting a few hundred shouldn't pose a problem at all!"

Immediately after he thought about this, Khal didn't hesitate at all and began to slice the eggs up, turning them into Beast Essence one after another.

When there was more than 50 yellow mass in the air, Khal sat down and started to consume them.

[Notify! Heaven's Eyes has consumed 1 'Beast Essence'!]

[Notify! Heaven's Eyes has consumed 2 'Beast Essence'!]

[Notify! Heaven's Eyes has consumed 1 'Beast Essence'!]

[Notify! Heaven's Eyes...]

Consuming each Beast Essence without stopping even for a second, Khal felt as his Heaven's Eyes began to grow, approaching the next Stage at a rapid pace.

Under a mere 10 minutes, his Heaven's Eyes reached from an amount of 87 to 164! If this went on, reaching the 500 margin wouldn't take him a lot of time.

Bam! 

Just as he consumed a Beast Essence that gave him an amount of 3, suddenly Khal's eyes opened wide with shock only to see Rubie in the distance finally break into the Second Cultivation Stage!

"Nice," exclaimed Khal merrily and watched as Rubie's body underwent great changes.

Her tiny body grew a foot bigger whilst her crimson feathers turned a shade deeper than before. Her claws became sharper while her beak grew a bit longer too.

"She will be a great predator once she reaches the higher Stages." thought Khal and continued to kill and consume the Ghost Spider's Essences.

Time passed by in a blink of an eye, and after spending their time in the cave for close to an hour, Khal's Heaven's Eyes reached an entire amount of 342 Beast Essence!

"And this was the last one..." sighed Khal as he watched the final Ghost Spider Egg disappearing inside Rubie's belly, pushing her presence closer to the Third Cultivation Stage!

"This was quite a great harvest, wasn't it?" asked Khal from Rubie who just simply let out a satisfied pitch and flew back onto his shoulder.

"Let's head back," said Khal quietly, and after making sure that they truly ate everything, Khal walked to the exit and began to climb back up.

The way up was surprisingly smoother than when he descended, and after a bit less than half an hour Khal reached the surface safe and sound.

Climbing out of the hole, Khal didn't hesitate to run, but not even after he took a step forward, a loud shriek as though thunder has descended from the skies came from behind his back.

"Fuck!" without waiting even for a second to find out what shrieked, Khal accelerated his Essence around his feet and like a bullet exploded forward.

BAM!

Sprinting at the highest speed that his legs currently could bear, Khal watched as the trees around him turned blurry while Rubie on his shoulder held onto him tightly trying not to fall off.

Only after running for straight 5 minutes without rest and seeing other Cultivators did he dare to slow down and breathe in a mouthful of fresh air to calm himself down.

"I don't know what that was, but I don't want to find it out," exclaimed Khal in a low voice as he thought back how a cold shiver swept through his spine the moment that blood-freezing scream sounded behind his back.

He could clearly remember that even Rubie trembled uncontrollably and was frozen in place by the being that tried to approach them a few moments ago.