In the blink of an eye, a day passed.
Ezra’s eyes snapped open in an expression of shock.
"Woah...
His cultivation speed was out of this world.
In just a day, he’d made noticeable progress.
Noticeable progress, put in percentage, was about an increase of 0.2
In a single day!
At Mythic rank, that was just insane.
Plain madness.
To put in perspective, one just had to look at Frederick.
He’d been a peak Grandmaster since Ezra was still in Arcadia, but because of the lack of knowledge, he was unable to press forward.
But he’d been cultivating ever since Ezra showed him the way.
Nonstop, for over a year.
Not to ntion, this was with the help of thick essence gathered through Zydrax’s barrier.
YET! The possibility of breaking through only appeared now!
So he could only achieve Mythic rank comfortably after weeks, a month or even more.
By that standard, Ezra, who was at the latter half of lding his essence as a mid Mythical being, was faster!
With a daily progress of 0.2, he would achieve transcendent rank after just five hundred days!
Ezra was ecstatic! And rightly so.
After reaching this rank, his cultivation speed would snail, taking weeks to gain an increase of 0.2
But no, things were still looking awfully bright.
Ezra couldn’t help but smile like an idiot, letting out a sigh that was almost a moan.
There was only one thing that could cause such an effect.
The artifact used to fix his heart.
Ezra closes his eyes and looks within himself, visualizing the elental core in his heart as well as the changes in his body.
"Woah" he exclaid a second ti.
Rather than the ocean blue mana filling his veins, the essence within him was partially Gold now.
The Gold essence filled his body alongside the mana.
He intuited that it held significant power, but he couldn’t see through to know what or just how significant it was.
He dives deeper within his body, reaching the heart where the elental core stood.
For one, his heart healed up nicely, no scars remained on his skin.
There was no indication of Alvarach’s attack left on his body.
He didn’t know what he was expecting, but what he found was not a cube.
It was the core, but different.
It was bright white now.
Almost blinding as it lay there, untouched, uninvolved and unconcerned about blood flow.
Atop the white core were several tinges of Gold all over.
He didn’t know what exactly the core had evolved into, but this definitely held more things than just elents.
He could see thin black lines slither across the surface from ti to ti.
’That should be negative mana’ he thought.
Unable to glean more, Ezra ends his observation.
’Zydrax, this is wonderful. Thank you! My cultivation speed is unbelievable!’
He thanks Zydrax, the architect of the whole thing.
He didn’t know what Zydrax intended to achieve, but this was already very impressive.
[It’s not that good] Zydrax’s tone was still weary.
’Nonsense’
Ezra shook his head.
"Even if it didn’t turn out as you hoped, it’s not sothing just anyone can do. So thank you, this is already far beyond what I expected"
[Hmm...]
Zydrax mused over those words, finding solace in them.
Ezra cherry mode helped lift his evaluation of the artifact.
[...I guess it wasn’t a complete failure]
Ezra shook his head again.
"Just because it does less than what you intended doesn’t make it any less adequate. It not a failure at all"
[...]
Those words seem to have struck deep within, because Zydrax was lost for words for a good while.
[To think it took this long to learn such a simple thing...]
Zydrax gave up an aged sigh.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ezra asked.
[...]
[I suppose now it the best ti of any to do so]
[...But where do I begin]
"Anywhere you’re comfortable with," Ezra answered.
A minute went by.
[My full na is Zydrax Bloodbourne, and I co from a bloodline of Vampires]
Ezra blinked. "Vampayas?"
[Vampires. Right...you don’t know what that ans...let’s just say we’re a race that love blood]
"Okay"
[Like you I was the youngest of my family and also odd one]
He continues. [Unlike other vampires, I didn’t like blood, detested it even]
[But as a vampire, our biggest strength cos from our connection with blood, so you can imagine how things worked out]
[I was basically excommunicated by all my family mbers, and my siblings detested the re sight of ]
[But I’m ] he says. [And if there’s one thing I know to do, it was to follow my own path regardless of what anyone said]
[Long story short, I left my family mbers and threw myself into the expanse of the universe]
[Later down the line, I t many people and succeeded in changing myself enough that I didn’t have to deal with the blood I detested so much]
[From then on I lived my life anew, growing and consolidating my strength, and because I didn’t bother anyone, I naively thought no one would bother ]
[One fateful day, I was ambushed whilst coming back from a lone journey]
Anger creeped into his tone. [Could you imagine who the assailants were? They were my brothers]
[For a reason I’m yet to understand, three of my brothers attacked , I was too shocked to respond properly, and for that I was defeated]
[They tore my body apart, destroyed my soul and left for dead. All. While. Laughing]
The anger simred.
[By a stroke of luck, a piece of my soul escaped the destruction]
[It must’ve fallen and ended up landing on Orion. That’s how I to ca to inhabit the world’s will]
[I planned my return and waited for soone worthy who would take my revenge for , but I found none]
[No...] he recounts. [There were many, but at the ti I had yet to understand, no, I had yet to accept my situation as rely a shell of my forr self]
[Thanks to my intervention, Orion grew ten tis faster that it normally would, but I didn’t like any of all the people that sprouted from it]
[A transcendent was too appear in the course of history, but because the attention it would bring would disrupt my plans, I disrupted his cultivation at a critical juncture and killed him]
[Far away from the gathering of others, he had turned to dust before any other would find him]
[Then, when Orion started producing Mythic ranks en masse, I forcefully sent them all away, thinking the next batch of people would surely have soone worthy within]
[Heh...imagine my surprise when I realized what truly happened]
[That act set Orion back by at least a century, aning those coming would be much worse than those before]
[It took till then for to realize that I was searching for the impossible on such a planet]
[Afterwards, I started looking for even just a moderate prodigy, but even that did not appear]
[My soul was losing and more of its essence and ti was running out with no hope in sight...Until I found you]
[Peculiar since birth, I watched over you, and all signs seed to point that I had found the prodigy I had been looking for]
[But I had to be sure, so I kept watching. Unknowingly you were becoming a sort of amusent for , exceeding my expectations on multiple occasions and with enough luck to stay alive]
[You were extrely driven and even more angry. You were my best candidate in a long ti]
He sighed. [But I still hadn’t learnt my lesson]
[Even then I was still undecided. Thinking if you ca from this generation, surely the next generation would have better prospects...]
Ezra could envision Zydrax shaking his head.
[In my hesitation, demons almost killed you, what a sha that would’ve been]
[Then, sothing unbelievable happened]
[I felt a piece of my essence within you]
"Oh yeah" Ezra rembered. "That ti"
[Once you told about the apocalypse, I knew my waiting ga would fail . So I gathered up my soul and as much essence as I could and fused with your soul]
[And now we’re here]
"Yes" Ezra nodded. "We’re alive, healthy and Orion is far less damaged"
"I’d say we did pretty well. Better than last ti at least"
"Now we prepare for those dungeon masters"
[If the artifact ets half, no, a quarter my expectations, such a thing will be the least of worries in no ti]
[For now, you need to concentrate on cultivating, because there’s could launch a bigger attack any ti soon]
"Of course"
Zydrax goes silent.
Then...
[It seems we’ll have another Mythic rank very soon] he reveals.
"Huh?"
[Looks like your friend will breakthrough soon]
Ezra’s thoughts pointed to one person.
Frederick.
"That’s a good thing"
Ezra was naturally happy for him.
[Indeed it is. But you better cultivate if you don’t want to be surpassed]
Nodding, Ezra brought up sothing else.
"That reminds . What happens when I reach Transcendent rank?"
[You evolve, enhancing your race or beco an entirely different lifeform] Zydrax answers.
The information was nothing special to a being of his caliber.
"New lifeform?"
[A new race]
"So I can beco a erm... Vampers...?"
[Its Vampire and no, you can’t beco a vampire because you don’t have any vampiric blood]
[Personally, I wouldn’t recomnd it]
"I won’t beco vimpaya then"
[...That’s good]
Zydrax initially wanted to correct him, but gave up that thought.
[Only after reaching Transcendent rank will you be able to go beyond Orion]
"What’s that like?" He asks. "What’s beyond Orion?"
[You’ll find out once you beco a Transcendent, so better get to cultivating]
Nodding, Ezra took his lotus position, and began cultivating.
But then...
"Zydrax"
[What? Are you not going to cultivate]
"Could you increase the barrier’s size? There are many more Grandmasters now, it’ll be good to have more mana to boost their cultivation"
The influx of Grandmasters into the barrier caused the distribution to lessen significantly, affecting even him.
It would do him no good to chase them away, so the best answer was to increase the mana.
[Lend your body for a bit then]
With a nod, they change places once more.
Feeling the difference of the restored heart, Zydrax rises out of the abode.
Heading to the top of the barrier, he sights the tall earth pillar Frederick conjured up.
Frederick resided at the top of the pillar, so he was close to the barrier’s core when Zydrax approached and their eyes t.
Nodding at one another as greetings, each turn to their business.
Rising beyond the barrier, Zydrax surveys the surroundings to know which direction to extend in.
The choice is made quickly and Zydrax drops to the barrier’s core.
Last ti he had to do things delicately because of Ezra’s heart condition.
This ti, with a touch, he sends his commands and the barrier extends towards the east.
Apart from cultivation, the speed of deploying spells had also gotten faster.
The barrier encroached upon the territory of both Itrevezar and Solace.
With the Grandmasters of both countries dead due to their fight with the Emperor, no one would bother him.
The barrier increased threefold, and so did the beam gathering mana.
It widened extensively, dragging quadruple the amount of mana it previously did.
This way, everyone’s cultivation speed within the barrier would speed up.
Done without breaking a sweat, Ezra heads back to his abode.
Setting a formation, he projects a beam from the barrier that sends down thirty percent of all mana taken from the atmosphere.
Unsurprisingly, this increases the speed of absorption.
There was a high chance the level of progress achievable would also increase.
Even if it was minuscule, the compounding effect wouldn’t be small.
With everything in place, Ezra gained his body back and started cultivating tight away.
Even with how easily they’d handled the apocalypse.
It would be a woeful mistake to underestimate the enemy.
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