Rank 2

Fang Zheng sat down in his seat and actually looked at me with a smug and haughty expression. Oh how I will love what is about to come next!

"Alright, everyone settle down. Fang Zheng here is the first to reach upper stage of rank 1 and has truly earned his title as a genius, but that doesn't mean the rest of you should slack off. We are going to be holding a combat assessment in a couple of days. Do to the increased boar amount in the north, we will be hunting boars as this year's assessment."

He looked at me with a small glare and I shrugged my shoulders. Ya, with the boar territory obliterated in the south, a new kind has taken that place and kicked all the boars out, so they were forced to migrate north.

Like a 700+ boar migration isn't as bad as a beast tide, but some casualties did occur. Good thing I can't be held responsible for them! Being underage and outside the law rocks! No consequence for my reckless actions!

After giving me a glare, academy elder took out a white scroll and said "The rules are as follows: 1) students can work in teams of up to 5 and no more. 2) the assessment will last from sunrise to dawn and all late reports will come with a penalty. 3) all boar tusks collected will be converted to 10 primeval stones and returned to the students. 5) stealing each other's tusks is prohibited. 6)..."

There were quite a few rules, but the teacher soon finished listing them off and I raised my hand "Can I be excused from the assessment? I mean, I did hunt down a thousand beast King not too long ago with the help of only 2 mortals, so my combat assessment should be high, right?"

The academy elder looked at me with a twitchy eye and said "We all know of your high combat standards, youngster Nem, but, unless you give a valid enough reason, I cannot excuse you!" I opened my mouth and said "Ooooh! Well, I do have a valid excuse!" Academy elder furrowed his brows and stared at me, with a bit of amusement "And what reasons might that be, youngster Nem?"

I just casually brushed my shoulder and said "I need a couple of days to break through to rank 2, or my cultivation might stagnate."

Silence! Complete and utter silence. The entire fucking class was too shocked to say anything! Fang Yuan was his indifferent self, like always. It is quite obvious if you think about it a few extra seconds.

Fang Zheng's face was the most priceless. He thought he had gotten a victory over me and his brother, but I was 4 parallel universes ahead of him and now he realized he isn't getting the Jade skin Gu clan leader promised him.

A couple of second passed and the class went into an uproar "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" "Can't you come up with a better lie!" "If you're so talented, why haven't you claimed your prizes yet?!" And other dumb comments were thrown my way.

I laughed at the idiots and said "Did you bunch of dumbasses not pay attention when I told my story of how we killed a thousand beast King? I used a bronze skin Gu and it cost me 40% of my primeval essence! You bunch of idiots though 40% light green or dark green primeval essence is enough to stop a fucking rabid brown boar's charge? Aren't you underestimating the beast kind and me a bit too much? Of course I fought that thing using my cultivation of upper stage and the peak rank primeval essence provided to me by my Liquor Worm!"

Everyone soon thought about it and looks of realization dawned upon their faces along with a bit of shame. Even the academy elder looked at me with a stupefied expression. He quickly got his bearings back and coughed into a fist with a small blush on his cheeks "Alright, on the grounds of your combat standard already being way above your peers and you needing time to break through, you will be excused from this year's assessment. You can also go and claim you peak rank advancement reward as well after class."

I waved my arm and said "No thanks! I don't need a measly 30 primeval stones. Give them to a poor bloke like Fang Zheng. He can't make money on his own and it is causing his cultivation to stagnate so much he is behind a C grade!" I could see the humiliation and a small bit of fear and anger on Fang Zheng's face and the barely-holding-back-their-laughter faces of my classmates.

The elder brushed off the comment and I was officially excused to go cultivate. I also claimed my reward. Hey, being funny doesn't cost 30 primeval stones. If anything, they should pay me extra for it!

I highly doubt Fang Zheng can advance to peak and then rank 2 in less than 2 days, so he will most likely not have a Jade skin Gu. If he has it and I don't, then I will get to have a lot of fun at the clan leader's expense.

I went back home after school that day and saw my brother running around on treetops with a white aura around him. "Wow, that beast phantom is almost perfect! Told you my idea was genius! What is losing a bit of your dignity compared to being able to freely control a beast phantom?"

The white aura, that almost resembled a boar, quickly disappeared and my brother fell down to the ground. He glared at me a bit and sighed. "My strength has reach at least middle of rank 1 beasts, but it is hard to fully control. Also living the life of a boar for almost an entire month was extremely humiliating!"

I smirked and said "What do you have to complain about? You got an unique power and even a sweet gang of boars along the way! Seriously, these guys are fucking awesome!" I pointed at the 8 dark-red boars sleeping underneath our treehouse. They were originally 10, but 2 of them sadly died during a hunt.

They were willing accept my brother's leadership mostly because of the boar aura around him. It is called beast phantom, but we picked up the name beast aura, because Chun Jack has some kind of unique version of beast phantom, which we don't completely understand.

He can bring it out as a form of aura around his body and use it as a protective layer. It works exactly like how Sasuke's Susano wraps around Naruto's nine tails mode. It is a lot more powerful than it looks as well.

The only thing is, that only 1 beast can be used at a time and 1 cat aura is stronger than even 10 to the infinity power of mice auras. Basically, quantity over quality for strength, quality over quantity for aura, got it!

I looked into a solution for that problem and found a really interesting Gu. It is a series of Gu called beast bundle Gu. Short version, combine 10 beast strength Gus' from the same species. There are around 1310 different boar strength Gus, so it kinda makes sense.

They go from rank 1 to 9 and are all called beast bundle Gu. They look like a small golden monkey statue relic thingy.

It's eyes will light up the moment you use it and the more it's eyes light up, the closer it is to full strength. If I get 8 more boar strength Gus', I can make a strength-a-ten-boar beast bundle Gu. The beast phantom it will summon is 1 normal looking boar, but it will have the power of 10 boar phantoms combined.

The price isn't even that bad! It costs 40 Gu points for rank 1 and 100 for rank 2! It is quite amazing! The refining recipe for it is also quite simple. 10 of the same rank strength Gus' of the same species and the preserved meat of the beasts these strength Gus' originated from.

Ya, kinda makes sense now why no one has refined this bad boy since ancient times and why the strength path has declined so much!

The forging recipe is Hell! Good thing I can just turn in those 10 Gu worms and buy the damn thing! Refining it is pointless! So, now I have another thing to add to my shopping list.

When will the fucking beast tide or Jia Fu come, so I can buy some god damn Gu worms! I am sitting on like 1K spirit stones and will soon start doing missions and other things to make more money.

I am about to reach rank 2, so I will also have to think about refining a four Flavours liquor worm Gu. It would be quite useful, seeing as I am not going to use the stone aperture Gu. Think about it later, break through now! "I have already finished refining my aperture to the peak of rank 1 and have a weird fullness feeling in it, so it is about time for me to break through and reach rank 2. I will need at most 2 days, so I need to ask you to guard me for that long. I will also need 100 primeval stones at most."

Chun Jack smiled and said "Don't worry about it! Resources exist to be used, not stocked up! Use as many as you need and make sure you become strong enough to keep up with me!" It is such an amazing thing to have such an amazing brother. The 8 dark-red boars sat around me in a circle formation, as I closed my eyes and began cultivating. With my safety insured, I could freely cultivate.

The black-green waves in my aperture rose and fell according to my directions and crashed into the aperture walls. I might not be the most talented, but breaking through rank 1 to 2 requires 55% talent and I have enough control over my primeval sea to make concentrated attacks, that are more effective than normal methods.

My first few hours were just testing how well I could control and which optimization ideas were the best. I figured out a decent way to attack the walls and truly began breaking through. Waves time went by slowly as I continuously attacked my aperture walls and replenished the lost primeval essence using the primeval stones.

Around 27 hours of continuous cultivation later, the completely cracked aperture broke apart and a small bit of my primeval essence began to leak. My body instantly reacted to that and the aperture walls began healing, becoming stronger and redder.

It was a complete success! The previously black green liquid in my aperture completely turned into mist and a newer, lighter and more red liquid began accumulating. An hour and a half later, it completely filed up to 55% and I slowly opened my eyes. My mind was a bit fatigued, but my body had absolutely no signs of hunger or anything.

My brother smiled at me and said "How did it go?" I smiled back and we bro hugged. He congratulated me and we went to tell my parents about it. They looked at me in amazement and my dad instantly began bragging and whatnot. My mother baked a cake that day and we celebrated as if it were my birthday.