Cultivation Through Artifacts

After spending more than half of his wealth on the pills, Khal decided to consume Essence Particles in Blade Mountain at day while hunting for Beasts on Moon Mountain at night.

Like this, after his remaining 2 days he was able to raise his Heaven's Eyes all the way to 411 pushing him extremely close to the Fourth Cultivation Stage.

And just like that, a new week began and the time for him to go and forge with Bazz arrived once again.

Because now he was finally able to forge a piece of rod normally without any exterior help, Bazz decided to teach him how to refine the most basic material in the world to perfection, the Glowcopper!

Glowcopper was a piece of metal that was the most common material in the Federation. They used Glowcopper to create Low-Quality weapons, artifacts, boxes, armors, shields and so much more. Even Bronze coins had a small amount of Glowcopper in them, so it was truly a material that can be found everywhere.

The refining process of a Glowcopper was quite easy and even a beginner could refine it to perfection after a few tries, but its tempering part was what made it hard to forge. Because Glowcopper lit up with almost blinding light every time they got hit during Soul Thread Tempering, it was quite hard to see and strike the right point you wanted to.

And that's what Khal did in the following 2 days. Bazz taught him first how to perfectly refine it with the Soul Thread Refining technique before trying to temper it.

But what Khal found pleasantly surprised that even though he made several mistakes that not even a beginner would do, Bazz decided not to torture him like the previous times but let him rest at night which Khal gladly accepted. Using it to sleep for a bit then consume Essence Particles in Blade Mountain, Khal was able to learn how to forge and become stronger at the same time.

After 2 more days, Khal went to fix his Secret Art with Logan, but because the remaining 3 Forms that still needed to be fixed were harder than the first 4, Khal had quite a hard time even with Logan's help.

But naturally, the nights were Khal's so he was able to steadily consume Essence every day.

When the last 3 days of the week finally came, Khal's Heaven's Eyes reached an amount of 467, meaning he only needed 33 Beast Essence to break into the Fourth Cultivation Stage!

That is why instead of going to hunt, where it wasn't sure he would get enough Beast Essence under 1 night, Khal remained in Blade Mountain for a bit more than 1 day to break into the next Stage! 

[Notify! 'Power Core' Heaven's Eye has reached the Fourth Cultivation Stage!]

[Notify! 'Power Core' Stellar Domain has reached the Fourth Cultivation Stage!]

Khal felt ecstasy upon hearing the voice inside his head as his belief seems to be true. Just like how he has thought, he only needed to strengthen and reach the next Stage with one of his Power Cores to make the other one follow suit!

"Fourth Stage... To reach the Fifth Stage I need 1000 Beast Essence. Will I be able to reach it under two weeks?" pondered Khal deeply when suddenly a loud power erupted out from his side, from above his shoulder!

Bam!

"?" turning his gaze to the left, Khal watched as Rubie's body underwent great changes once again, while her presence broke into the Third Cultivation Stage in a flash!

"Screech!" with a sharper and way more intimidating pitch, Rubie cried out gently toward Khal, seemingly happy as she finally reached the Third Cultivation Stage.

"Woah, look at you! You have grown up a lot!" exclaimed Khal with shock, hardly believing that Rubie was born less than half a month ago!

Not only his appearance grew bigger and become way more intimidating, but even her aura leaked a kind of majestic aura that only a few Beasts had.

This type of cultivation speed was simply too fast!

"Well, considering she ate several hundreds of corpses, eggs and even was able to consume the Essence Particles here... It's not a surprise at all."

Khal understood clearly that reaching the first few Stages was not hard at all, because the only thing you had to do was to consume enough Beast Essence.

Naturally, the time you needed to reach the next Stage grew every time you broke through, but once one reached the Fifth Cultivation Stage everything changed.

From that point on every Stage required a kind of 'enlightenment' or special item to let the Cultivator break into the next Stage while enough Beast Essence was a must too.

For example, to break into the Sixth Cultivation Stage, into the so-called Cultivator Stage, one needed to open up one of the 24 sealed Essence Paths in the body. Without that, even if one consumed enough Beast Essence, breaking into that Stage will only remain as a dream!

In truth, a lot of Cultivators failed to step into the Sixth Cultivation Stage as opening one sealed Essence Path was way harder than swallowing a sword for the first time without dying! It was an extremely dangerous process and if one failed or opened it unsuccessfully it could result in dire consequences!

But for the time being, there was no reason for Khal to worry about things like that but simply make sure he reached the Fifth Cultivation Stage before the tournament began.

If he were able to reach it then his chances for survival would increase by leaps and bounds! But in reality, consuming 1000 Beast Essence only under a mere two weeks... Well, that was something impossible to achive, but he will make sure to do everything in his power to turn the impossible into possible.

"I will do my best and see what the future holds to me." sighed Khal as he continued to consume the Essence Particles from the air.

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Days after days have passed in a blink of an eye, and when Khal was not forging with Bazz or fixing his Secret Art with Logan he did everything in his power to strengthen his Talents as fast as he possibly could.

Let it be consuming Essence Particles in Blade Mountain or hunting on Moon Mountain for Beasts, Khal consumed Essence as though there was tomorrow.

Naturally, he still met with Liza and Nate occasionally when he went hunting onto Moon Mountain, but except for that and a few mundane things he spent almost his entire days with three stuff; forging with Bazz, learning with Logan, and consuming Essence together with Rubie.

"So it's tomorrow huh?" sighed Khal inside the dark cave as he realized that only one day remained for the start of the tournament.

As silence filled the dark cave, Khal pondered for a while and glanced at Rubie on his shoulder.

"Should I meet her?" asked Khal from Rubie as Liza's figure appeared in her mind.

Maybe he met with her a few times, in truth he did spend more than a few minutes with her ever since they enrolled into this Academy. But now that only one day remained for the tournament and his life was unknown, for some reason Khal wanted to spend this last day with her.

"Haha, such an odd yet familiar sensation." thought Khal as he knew that Liza was not Nancy, yet, for some strange reason he couldn't stop his heart pounding hard whenever he thought about her.

Rubie looked up at Khal, seemingly confused about what he tried to say. Ever since she broke into the Third Cultivation Stage her intelligence level became higher, but knowing what Khal tried to say was still out of her understanding.

She could understand simple commands such as come here or stop, but complex sentences were still out of question; maybe once he reaches higher Stages she will be able to, but that is a mystery that the future holds.

After sometime later Khal just smiled and stood up, "What question is even that? Isn't the answer quite obvious?"

With that, Khal took out his key from his pocket, and with a gentle flick with it in the air, he split the space before him into two.