Time passed again, and Kayden had been in the abyss for more than 6 months without realizing it. He was already at the peak of the first level but was trying to squeeze out every percentage of strength he could. His methodology for finding caves has also changed. This time, he opened a hole in the ground and after a few dozen meters, he made a metal room with a few meters of space.
Then, he placed a fire in the center supported by a metal structure. This was to keep the room temperature pleasant. Furthermore, various animal skins were scattered across the floor, making the entire space suitable for lying down and sleeping.
Something he never did a single day. All this comfort was so that he could cultivate in the best possible conditions. He had no problems with smoke, as the fire heated the metal and heated the room, the smoke coming out through a small hole that led to the surface.
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His food was eaten in a small kitchen that he developed, which had running water and a homemade stove. Most of the time, he cooked his meals while reading a book and ate them immediately.
When Kayden was in the abyss for a year, he finally succeeded in taking his first medicinal pill. It was mainly made from leaves from a tree in the first realm and some other apprentice-level materials. It was something very weak with low healing capacity, for him it wouldn’t even heal a scratch, but that was to be expected. Kayden first had to learn the basics and then do something better.
He scattered several metal rooms at different points in the abyss with a few dozen treasures and supplies. He often got lost and ended up passing by one of these points. It was easy to identify them because he always built a small metal mountain and left his mana mark on the spot.
Loneliness wasn’t managing to scratch even a small piece of Kayden’s mentality. His entire time was solely focused on cultivating and learning more of everything he could.
He learned several basic spells that were not useful in combat but were otherwise perfect. For example, by utilizing his spiritual sense and employing his mana signature on an inanimate object, Kayden could replicate it. This caused him to leave several copies of books in different hiding places. If someone found it, it could be a treasure for her.
Another year passed and Kayden was finally ready to move forward. The process was relatively smooth and similar to other times. He did some tests and felt that his strength was 15% higher than it should have been if he had advanced normally a while ago.
This meant he had gotten 5% of his base perfect and another 15% of his stat max. Furthermore, he felt that there was an increase of less than 0.1% coming from external factors that he could not explain. This could be your new diet of meat and vegetables with excess mana.
Wasting no time, Kayden continued to strive towards his goals. It didn’t take long for him to develop an alternative spell for acceleration. He was based on some spells he received from Han and others he studied in some books he owned.
As his body was capable of supporting a greater amount of mana, he only irrigated his muscles with neutral mana and before it became poisonous, the mana was removed from the muscles through his veins in an irrigation and drainage circuit. Unfortunately, this was a theoretical technique and he would have to wait until the level advanced to change his entire body’s veins. At the moment, he was only able to perform isolated tests on some parts of his body, which demonstrated a satisfactory increase in all statistics.
Its spokes also needed to undergo another polishing. Just putting in more mana didn’t increase its effect much. Hence, he was investing in elemental mana as the solution. But beyond that, he learned from a book of his element about colored rays and how mana could make them acquire certain specialties.
For example, white lightning was faster and used the support of mana to burn a small film around it as fuel. Another beam was black and it was supposed to be overloaded with a peculiar type of mana that was denser and heavier, resulting in a large area of shock and destruction.
Kayden was focusing his efforts on just the two rays, leaving other aspects of his magical practice to explore later when he reached the peak of the second realm. Without realizing it, time passed and he advanced again. The rate of increase in his strength remained constant, which indicated that he had been in the abyss for about four years and had yet to encounter any traces of human beings. He didn’t even remember his voice. During this period, he explored an extensive amount of terrain.
During this time, he began writing a book entitled "The Almanac of the Abyss", in which he detailed various locations of his hiding places and sources of natural treasures. Furthermore, he explained in detail the biomes he found and the beasts present in each one, providing instructions on how to face them. It also mentioned the bosses of each area, which were beasts in the third realm. However, he noticed that they were all only in the first three levels of the third realm, as he had not faced any of them yet.
Seeing his reflection in the water, Kayden mentally commented on how quickly time passed. His hair now fell below his waist, and he tied it into an oriental-style ponytail. The beard on his face was removed, completely revealing his appearance. Over 20 years old, he had fully developed, retaining his deep black hair and eyes. His chin had thinned, adopting a more elegant appearance.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Kayden returned to his usual activities. A few months later, he advanced again and reached the third level of the second realm. His consecutive maxes meant that, upon reaching the third level, he had the same strength as he would have on the fourth. Furthermore, the percentage of external factors remained constant, sometimes increasing its strength a little.