Told You, I’ll be Back!

A month passed after Eric's life changing experience at the jungle cave. He followed the instructions he got from his new master to the letter. But at the very beginning, he was reluctant to follow the kid's orders. But later he remembered the bloody scene and the cosmic tribulation that took place which made him paranoid. But before starting his journey he investigated Kayson's background. What he found confused him further.

Nothing about Kayson stood suspicious. Not even eye catching. He was a completely normal poor kid who moved to Green Giant when he was a child with his uncle. Rumors said they come here after their family got attacked by enemies. But that was it. Kayson was an average child from the beginning who cannot even cultivate. The spirit root inspection hall confirmed that. He was constantly bullied. His earlier friends abandoned him after learning he could not cultivate. Everything about his life was sad and depressing. It seemed like the person he saw in the jungle was a totally different person.

After accepting that he could not work out the mystery shrouded around Kayson, he decided to follow Kayson's order. After all, a tribulation was looming over him if he did not. First, he sold some of the pills at the city market. Then he left for the next nearest city and sold some pills. And kept on the same routine.

Doing so did nothing to highlight him among other sellers. No one had a special reason to remember him. To them, he was just a regular cultivator who came to exchange a few regular grade pills for money. That was a quite common occasion because cultivators use pills as a form of currency. Within a month he visited dozens of different cities. For a cultivator, it was nothing much.

At a random place in the biggest jungle reserve.

Within a month's worth of time, Kayson managed to upgrade his Qi cultivation to the sixth level using various herbs he acquired from the jungle. His body was refined to the seventh level. It was a technique he followed, every time to advance in body cultivation first before qi cultivation follow suit. It was easier and much more efficient.

Kayson was sitting on a branch of a huge old tree. He was attempting to break through to the seventh level of qi cultivation. Time passed and suddenly his body shook, he opened his eyes.

"Sigh… seventh level. Not bad for a Die rank spirit root. But still, after reaching higher levels, I can sense the qi absorption speed is slowing down."

One of the reasons lower rank spirit root cultivators cannot reach for higher realms of cultivation was their qi intake rate slows down with each cultivation level they advanced. For Die rank spirit root holders, the Nascent realm was considered as their maximum potential. And to reach that stage they normally had to cultivate for years. The only reason Kayson was able to advance in a short period of time was he used a superior cultivation manual coupled with the understanding he had about his own body.

But every trick has a limit and his trick also will be outdated soon. When that time come he needed to be ready.

"I must find one of the Orbs after I reached the nascent realm. If not, it will take so much time to advance in cultivation with this spirit root."

He rested for an hour or so, then slowly climbed down.

'Hope that tiger was not around.'

The tiger he was thinking about was the Black Tiger King of the jungle. Kayson encountered it one time. With one look he could say its cultivation was far above his. If it wanted to kill him he could do nothing. Tiger king looked at him and observed him for a while and left. The whole time Kayson held his breath thinking how low he was fallen where he needed to vary of a little cat.

'Looks like it's not around here.' He observed the surrounding for a while and confirmed. Then he used his soul perception to find a spirit beast near his cultivation to fight. The best way to stabilize his cultivation after a breakthrough was to fight a hard battle.

For the next month same routine followed. Fighting, cultivating, and gathering herbs again and again. A day before the two-months period was up.

Kayson was sitting near a slide rock. He was sitting in a lotus position with his upper body bare. Ripped muscles could be seen as perfect as they were sculpted. There was a frown on his angular face. All the blood vessels in his body were expanded like snakes running all over his body.

It was evident his body was under huge pressure. Kayson was attempting to expand his dantian for the third time. His body cultivation already reached the ninth level. Only qi cultivation was stuck on the eighth level because he wanted to expand the dantian before he advanced.

"Bang"

A breaking sound occurred within his body. He felt extremely lightweight and airy. Blood vessels were reduced to their normal size. Then he took a pill out from his clothes and gulped it down. It was a cultivation pill that came from the cave. He felt the sudden rush of qi energy in his body created by the pill.

He circulated all the energy in his body according to the Pathways of the Sacred Trinity's qi circulation section. All his acupoints started to vibrate. This was the most important step for a cultivator on their cultivation path. At the ninth level, the elementary level cultivator had to fuse both their dantian and qi paths perfectly with their fleshly body. Each cultivator used different cultivation manuals to achieve that. The quality of the used manual, amount of unlocked meridians, and refined state of the fleshly body built the foundation of the cultivators for their future.

Blood started to flow from his eyes and ears. Minute by minute his body became bloody. Suddenly black smoke started to pour out from his vibrating acupoints. This continued for a few seconds and stopped. Slowly vibrating of acupoints subdued.

Kayson felt as if his body got unchained from inviable shackles. He entered into his consciousness. There a huge change had occurred. His figure made out of red lightning had expanded and was floating over the boundless soul sea. Within the red figure, white lightning had spread representing his qi paths and acupoints. The place where the dantian was supposed to be, positioned the figure made out of white lightning.

"Finally, the perfect resonance of qi paths and fleshly body."

He tested the strength of his elevated cultivation.

"Bang" He hit a rock big as him while utilizing only half of his strength. The rock turned into dust.

"Not bad. This strength is enough. Let's visit that old friend."

He walked along the slide rock site and reach a place where looked like a rockslide took place. There he removed some rocks out of the way, and a tunnel appeared. He crawled through the tunnel to reach a place he was familiar with. The flame fruit field near the underground lake. He reached the lakeshore and shouted.

"Hey Gator face come and get me!" The provocation went on for a few minutes. Suddenly he got ready.

"Splash"

A massive wide opened mouth came at him breaking through the water surface at lightning speed. If he was not ready for that he might have been caught. As it came at him, he suddenly ducked and punched hard with all the strength he could muster at its lower jaw.

"Ding… crack" A metallic sound and a breaking sound came. The spirit alligator fish bellowed. It clearly felt pain. So did Kayson. Its hide was hard as metal, his skin ruptured and blood started seeping. But he was satisfied with his perfectly aimed punch which landed on its jaw hinge. Now probably broken.

He knew as he had to fight it in the water, the best move is to disable its most dangerous feature which is its jaw. With its strong jaw muscles, it could snap a limb out of a nascent realm cultivator. Not to talk about a peak elementary level cultivator like him. He might be arrogant, but not stupid.

Gator fish snapped back into the water. But Kayson was not ready to let it go. He took a deep breath and jumped in.

"Splash"

The lake was freezing cold. As he jumped in, he instantly brought his arms up to block his head. Next moment something like a tree truck smashed onto his arms. The impact was so strong it pressured his bones near the breaking point. The only reason it did not, was his perfectly refined body sturdy as a rock and surrounding water slowed down the force a bit.

At that moment he realized the fight was going to be harder than he thought.

The water was dark he could only see dozens of feet ahead. He had refined and cleansed his body to the limit it was the reason he was able to see that far without utilizing his qi energy. When he started circulating qi energy his vision increased further.

With his increased vision he saw a huge dark shadow coming at him fast. Even though he was restricted within the water, he could still swim fast. His whole refined body perfectly fused with qi meridians helped him to maneuver within water like a fish. He started swimming right back at the incoming figure. The alligator fish's mouth was only half opened. Clearly got damaged by the previous confrontation.

Kayson suddenly turned and kicked right on its nose.

"Bang" Kick landed hard. Both of their initial speed intensified the impact. The whole lake got stirred up and violent. Clearly was showing the massive force of the impact.

Gator fish's face smacked aside. Yet it was managed to clench onto his other leg. It started dragging him down to the bottom of the lake. It clearly wanted to choke him to death.

But Kayson did not panic. In fact, the opposite, he was elated. He was thinking about how to get near the gator fish without seriously injuring himself. Even though his leg was clamped between its jaws. It could not break it off due to its damaged jaw. Its ability to exert inhuman strength on his leg was compromised. So he grabbed hard onto it and started hitting its head where its brain was located.

"Bang… Bang… Bang…"

One blow after another he kept on going. The Lake was oddly deep. The water got colder and colder. The pressure of the water intensified which started to lag his movements. Yet he still held on owing to his perfectly refined physic.

Little by little the gator fish also lost its energy.

"Crunch" At one point its metallic hard hide gave away, his punch pierced through and crushed its brain. It became still. Kayson let it go. It slowly started to sink. Kayson also calmed down and observed his surroundings. He was surrounded by freezing cold water. He could faintly see the stone walls of the lake from all four sides but not the bottom.

He was amazed by its depth. Even though he was curious to explore the unknown depths. His cautious nature warned him not to. His body was already at its limit. Even though he could go beyond his movements were restricted by water pressure so it was harder to fight in any case. If there was any life form living that deep, it was probably stronger than him in a few folds. It will be suicide. And he was anything but suicidal.

'Maybe another time then.'

He grabbed the sinking figure and swam towards the surface. He dragged the still body of the alligator fish to the shore. Then he said while glancing at it.

"I told you, I'll be back for you!"