Slowly time began to pass, and Kayden just cultivated and went to the library. His classes with Athena were sporadic and, for the most part, to answer questions. He didn’t care. Could he ask her for chewing techniques? He could, but that would go against his ideals.
This chapter is updat𝙚d by freeweɓnovel.cøm.
Two months after gaining the treasures, Kayden was at the peak of the sixth level and ready to move up the ranks. He had used one seed to reach the peak and another now to break it. His cultivation was extremely fast. His foundation allowed him to just cultivate and not waste time making mistakes and racking his brain on how to make them. Kayden had already studied, and the bending process was identical to that of the apprentice realm.
The only difference was the amount of mana he would use. To do this, he prepared a special room with a high mana density and bought several mana stones to spread around if needed.
His goal was to reach the seven-folds, and he would do it even if it cost his life. Kayden ate one of the seeds and felt the mana in his body multiply on its own. With that, he started cultivating.
It didn’t take long and he reached the point where cultivation no longer had any effect. Slowly, he began to draw mana into his body and accumulate it to the point where it was saturated. It was done in seconds because of its path.
Kayden didn’t even celebrate when he saw the mana being compressed for the first time and instantly began to accumulate again. This time, it took a little longer and he was once again able to compress it successfully. It wasn’t really difficult at all. The next saturation took even longer and this time he had to concentrate to get the compression done, but other than that there was nothing really difficult. Now it was the fifth fold. Kayden had to draw even more mana, it took more than twice as long, and he felt his body close to exploding. He would be experiencing a severe headache if it wasn’t already constant for him.
Unlike the other time, his veins didn’t start to rupture, but the pain was still present in the process and his entire body felt like it was about to crack. Without caring about it, he went ahead and started doubling his mana. Slowly, the pain increased, and so did the pressure on his body. His veins were getting very close to bursting, but...
’Success’ easily withstood the pressure of five folds. It was tiring and difficult, but he managed it, and yet he continued to gather mana. He wasn’t close to breaking. After 1 hour, Kayden started to feel strange. It was taking a long time just to accumulate the mana along with the five-fold mana. The pain was at a ridiculous level, and his veins were about to burst from the buildup process itself.
’Shit,’ Kayden felt a vein in his leg rupture from the excess mana. The boy utilized his path to the fullest and began to strengthen his veins with a second layer of artificial mana. It was just a temporary solution. Without paying attention to anything, he continued. After 1h30 and several ruptured veins, he reached the point of compression. Kayden tried his best at this moment.
Fortunately, his path gave him absolute control over mana, and with his iron will, he easily endured the pain of having his entire body blasted from the inside out. More than half of his veins were in tatters being supported by walls of mana. Still, Kayden continued. He was already expecting something difficult, but not to the point that half an hour later he had 70% of his veins detonated.
His body was a mess of mana and blood, all of his pores were bleeding. And yet, Kayden continued. He didn’t care, he would only end up dead if there was no hope of success. It didn’t take long, and all the veins in his body were being supported by mana coming from outside.
His control remained absolute, but his veins were no longer able to withstand the enormous pressure. Kayden continued to press on the compaction, he felt himself getting closer and closer. Every second, he felt like he was going to succeed. Without any fear, he continued and... ’Success’.
Kayden felt the two densities merge and form the sixth fold, the density was so great that his body seemed to have become heavier, and some veins were protruding and pulsing in his skin.
’I won’t be able to do it’, Kayden couldn’t perform the seventh fold, he could feel his whole body shaking, it was simply impossible. Accepting this fact, he let the process of advancement happen. This time, he increased the size of his veins and his strength, he needed this to not burst. Slowly, his veins became better and supported the weight of the new mana, this was a time-consuming process, as while one vein was fixed, the other burst.
When it was finally over, Kayden just let the world guide the rest, large amounts of impurities were being released from his body without stopping. The sixth fold increased his strength even more, Kayden didn’t know it yet, but for every increase above five, the strength was increased ridiculously.
The usual pain took over his body as his flesh and muscles were slightly improved. Kayden had already lost track of time and just kept waiting, seconds or minutes didn’t make any difference to him.
"I thought you weren’t going to wake up," Raven said as soon as Kayden opened his eyes. The boy just gave her a nod and asked:
"How much time?"
"One week." Kayden was surprised. That was quite a while. He had truly lost track of time. Then he began testing his new strength.
The amount of mana in his body increased to a ridiculous degree. Even without his path, he could release dozens of low-strength lightning bolts. His strength and other physical attributes improved by 30%, and an additional 5% double. Easily, increased his strength, but it was still a low increase compared to when he was at the apprentice level.
Back then, each level could double your strength or even more. Kayden learned in his research that over time each increase in level had a smaller increase in strength, which is why many people ended up stagnating at a certain point, even if they increased in level at the expense of forbidden techniques, their gains would be low. That aside, Kayden... went back to his routine.
***********
A sense of familiarity appeared for Kayden as he looked at his mansion in the capital of the Sun Kingdom. It had only been 6 months, but it felt like years had passed.
Author’s note: I’m speeding up the story so you don’t have to read so much filler.
Kayden was at the peak of the seventh realm and about to rank up, but his tour time was up. In these 6 months, he learned and gained a lot of strength. He refused all invitations to dances and lectures and focused solely on learning elemental mana and cultivating. Furthermore, he studied the ways of casting spells, mana manipulation, concepts, and concept paths that he could in the library.
His relationship with Athena improved a little, but it was just a business thing. At this moment, he could modify his mana and cast just one bolt of lightning before he lost all of his elemental mana. As Athena explained to him, the lightning was extremely unstable and he would hardly be able to put more than one lightning in the same portion of elemental mana. He also learned another medium force concept called servitude.
Other than that, he consumed almost all the treasures he received. The other two fruits gave him a skin mutation that allowed him to breathe water, nothing really useful. The other fruit increased his ability to see in the dark. The night was now practically a cloudy day for him with low sunshine. Kayden felt a little cheated, but any skill was a skill. He still had some seeds and a cup to learn another concept.
At the moment, his focus was learning the concept of electrical dissipation. Kayden was slowly passing the number of concepts considered beyond ridiculous. He had concepts of balance and imbalance, the concept of static energy, the concept of bondage, and the concept of loneliness. Two concepts were expanding his path and three for his lightning ability. At the moment there were five and Kayden would continue tying more and more, regardless of whether they were weak or strong concepts.
He decided to have at least 7 strong concepts and still had a few missing. The weak ones added up and could equal a strong one, but it took several, for example, the two concepts of balance were not equal to the concept of static energy. His strength had increased considerably without considering cultivation. He improved the way he fired the beam. He studied his base and his throwing method and made a significant improvement.
His acceleration spell was augmented by other techniques and was now practically Kayden’s creation. It worked based on using lightning to accelerate your movement. Furthermore, he used mana around him to open a small vacuum path and make it so that his body was not impeded by the air.