Cultivation Through Artifacts

After David's figure vanished from sight, Khal grabbed his badge and began to inspect the map.

And just as he was able to see it for the first time, the map was relatively... big. Though, saying that it was huge could even become an underestimation as the word 'huge' couldn't describe entirely the size of this massively enormous 'island'!

"Okay, it seems I am currently here." thought Khal as he shifted his gaze at one of the many sections on the map.

It was a relatively small area compared to the rest, while a bit toward the east, a small red dot was shining brightly akin to a miniature red sun; logically, that indicated his current position that even an idiot would realize.

As Khal pondered what he should do next, he glanced at the other three sections next to his and thought, "Two on the west and one on the South... The rest has disappeared, including the one I came from."

Tapping gently on his thigh continuously, Khal raised his gaze at the starry sky above and began to ponder.

Staring at the moon that was hanging in the boundless sky in its full glory for a while, Khal's mouth curved slightly while an idea popped up in his mind.

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Somewhere else, where the land was perfectly flat and only huge pieces of ruins could be seen scattered over the place, a girl in a beautiful purple robe with butterfly symbols embedded onto its surface was running quickly, visibly afraid of something.

Ever since she was teleported into this strange ruin-filled area, creatures similar to that of iron golems were chasing her, giving her no rest at all.

She fled for more than 6 hours straight without rest, trying to hide but only in vain! She even had to listen to David's speech during her escape!

"I can't believe I have such bad luck from the beginning! Even with my Talent and strength, I was unable to penetrate their steel-hard defense!" exclaimed the girl quietly, her chest heaving up and down in a rapid manner.

She was from Butterfly Academy, from an average Academy somewhere in the northern part of the Southern Continent.

Her name in fact was Seren, and just as her name indicated, she was quite a beauty. Milk smooth skin, raven black hair with a pair of blue eyes that held great firmness, but a bit of helplessness too thanks to her current situation.

She had a slim waist with a voluptuous body, yet even like this, she didn't seem to be the seductive type of woman but the kind of innocent girl.

BAM!

"Here they come!" mumbled Seren quietly, her tiny fingers firmly tightening around both daggers' hilt in her grasp.

BAM!

Seren put her head out from behind one of the bricks that hid her figure and watched as a huge robotic golem approached her position, its huge legs smashing solid rocks into dust with ease!

"I should go." thought Seren as she knew that trying to fight with this thing was only useless. Its metallic body was harder than steel, and her daggers that were fused with his Talent were unable to even leave a slight scratch mark!

BAM!

"Yeah, I should get out, right now!" nodded Seren, but just as she turned her head around, suddenly her movement froze still while her pupils shrunk to the size of a needle.

Right before her, a boy in a white uniform crouched inches away from her face, his strange but terrifyingly scary eyes staring right at her.

"Wh-" started to say Seren, but was suddenly silenced by the boy's index finger.

And right after that, the next thing she was able to see was a silver flash before everything came to complete darkness.

"I am sorry..." apologized Khal in his heart as he watched Seren's beheaded body fall before his feet lifelessly. 

For some reason, out of the three participants he killed so far, she felt the worst. Her death left a kind of sour taste in his mouth that he could hardly swallow.

Maybe because she was a girl or maybe because she didn't want to kill him and even seemed to be scared of him, but whatever was the reason, Khal felt as his mood worsened a bit.

BAM!

"..." raising his gaze at the metallic Beast before him that represented an iron golem Khal stood up and swung his Devil Fangs before his body.

Swish!

Crack!

BAM!

With several sudden flickers, silver light appeared and vanished around the golem, its body sliced into hundreds of parts in a flash!

But even before its body could have fallen onto the ground, it turned into a yellow substance and flew toward Khal's body.

However, opposite to what used to happen, the moment the Artificial Beast Essence melted into his body it didn't become a part of his Talent but flowed into his heart!

"Argh!" clenching his teeth in pain, Khal fell onto his knees and endured the familiar discomfort that swept through his body once again.

And exactly a minute later...

[Notify! 'Transfiguration process successful!]

[Notify! Your 'Body Essence' has grown from 100 units to 170 units!]

"It worked!" said Khal merrily, standing up from the ground as though nothing happened at all.

"It seems I can increase my Body Essence exactly the same way as I would do with normal Beast Essence!" Khal's mood immediately skyrocketed as he knew what he should do next.

His original plan was exactly this. He wanted to see if he could increase his Body Essence with Artificial Beast Essence or not, and to his great surprise, he could!

And now he discovered this, he began to hunt for all the Metal Golems among the ruins.

Finding them wasn't hard at all as Metal Golems were the types of Beasts that could detect anyone in a mile radius, hence even before Khal could have found them, they were the ones that brought themselves before him!

And with his Devil Fangs, that could cut through even his Diamond Skin as he already tried it once before, killing these Metal Golems was a piece of cake!

In the following 3 hours, Khal spent all his time killing all the Metal Golems in the ruins while turning all the Artificial Beast Essences into his Body Essence.

Under 3 hours, his 170 units of Body Essence skyrocketed all the way to 820 units, surprising even Khal himself!

He could clearly remember that he spent 3 days back in Blade Mountain just to increase his Body Essence by 710 units, yet he almost did the exact same under but more than 3 hours! This was ridiculous and incredible at the same time!

Though, the spectators that watched Khal didn't feel the same way as him, not even in the least! No, instead every one of them, including Jas too, stared at Khal like some kind of unknown phenomenon that they have never seen before in their entire life!

They weren't shocked by the fact that Khal killed all the Metal Golems with quite ease as even a Second Stage Cultivator would have done the same with a good weapon, but they look stupified because they saw what he did with their Essence!

He used the Essence not for strengthening his Talent but to increase his own Body Essence!!

They could clearly see that whenever the Beast Essence entered Khal's Body, instead of becoming one with his Talent and Cultivation Strength it would turn into Body Essence and melt with his body!

This sight was something that everyone knew about but none of them dared to copy as it would lead them only into their demise!

"Essence Transfiguration... How can he use such a high level and powerful Secret Art from the Cultivator Level? He clearly didn't open none of his Essence Paths so how?" asked Connor, his complexion showing great tremor.

And it wasn't just him who asked the same question, but everyone else all around the world.

Jane, Scarlett, Alde, Liza, Nate, Asur, Merlyn, Marx and even Jas too! All of them knew what kind of Secret Art Khal was using, but none of them understood how Khal, a Fourth Stage Cultivator was able to use it!