13 Breakthrough

Thanks to the pill and the herbs, Drake woke up with his body fully healed. But today he woke up even earlier so instead of waiting for Doko, he headed to the field himself. When Doko arrived, he saw Drake training on the body movements. Without saying anything, he once again started correcting his movements in the same way. By beating Drake with his tail.

With every day passed, Drake was improving himself in a tremendous pace and by the end of the month, Doko has stopped correcting Drake. Now he was just paying attention while Drake was training and he was trying hard to find a mistake. But, he appeared to have mastered the movements.

It was the last day and Doko was planning on taking Drake to take the soul test the next day to make sure his soul passed the required power to learn the cultivation technique. The sun was setting and just as he was about to call it off for the day, he noticed something peculiar with Drake. In particular, he noticed something strange with the Ki around Drake. It was being absorbed by him at an increasingly fast pace, to the point of forming a vortex with Drake being the centre of it.

The disturbance in the surrounding Ki caused by a breathing technique is minimal at best, one needs to pay very close attention to feel it. The disturbance caused by a spell when it is being cast is noticeable from a certain distance, the stronger the spell, the greater the distance.

Yet there are four situations when the Ki can go berserk and it will be noticeable from very far away. The first situation is when an ancient treasure appears, the second is when a portal to a secret realm first appears, the third is when a long-lasting sealing technique breaks and the last one is when something or someone breaks through to one of the seven major cultivation realms. The more powerful the situation, the further the ripples can be sensed or even seen. The only disturbance that can be masked among these. Is that of a breakthrough to the next cultivation realm.

Drake was now in the middle of breaking through to the first stage of the Body Refinement realm.

'Oh? That is a nice surprise. I thought it will take him at least two more weeks to enter it. I guess the pills he was consuming daily, helped him a lot'

When someone is breaking through, they are in a very delicate situation. They enter an ethereal state paying no attention to their surroundings and they only get out of it after they succeed or fail. During the breakthrough, if one gets disturbed, they will receive a major backlash, injuring themselves internally. There is also the chance of dying. If one fails to breakthrough, the backlash is way lighter and they will only receive minor injuries. Thankfully for Drake, he was in a safe environment where nobody would disturb him.

Unbeknownst to Drake, villagers were gathering around the grasslands to see and congratulate the person that was breaking through. All of them were surprised when they realised that this person was a kid who was barely one year old.

"Doko, it seems your teaching capabilities are way higher than I gave you credit for. Haha!" laughed Darth when he arrived along with Gillian and Ginna. "His progress is even faster than I imagined."

"Darth, don't joke like that, I did nothing more than showing and correcting his movements. It was Ginna's pills and his hard work that achieved this result." Doko replied but he was clearly happy as well.

Grandmother Ginna, after checking the situation, she just nodded approvingly and left immediately after, she didn't even stay to congratulate him. Gillian, on the other hand, was ecstatic.

"My boy is a genius!! I need to treat him to some rare fruits tonight! I am the luckiest mother there is."

The rest of the villagers congratulated the three persons and then slowly left since Drake hasn't finished his breakthrough yet and too many people around him, might disturb him. After they left, Doko, Darth and Gillian stayed quiet waiting for Drake to finish.

While all of this was happening, Drake in his ethereal state was feeling wonderful. His body was making crackling sounds and it was feeling lighter by the second. His movements were being perfected down to the last detail and they started feeling natural. The fatigue he had was slowly recovering and he was feeling stronger and faster than ever. The feeling lasted for a few minutes until it slowly vanished.

When Drake stopped his movements, the disturbance in the surrounding Ki also stopped. Drake stood there checking his palms, slowly forming fists with them.

'This feeling is wonderful. Is this how it feels to breakthrough? And this power, it is just great.'

He wanted to test this power. He wanted to see how strong he was. He slowly turned to look at Doko with a smile creeping up on his face and a glint appearing in his eyes. Even though he knew not how to fight, he charged towards Doko trying to punch him while ignoring his parents standing a bit further.

Doko didn't seem to care at all about Drake's reaction and he started dodging the amateur punches thrown by Drake. But he was fulfilling his role of a teacher extremely well. Even though he never taught him any fighting techniques, he was planning to, so even while dodging he was whipping Drake with his tail shouting instructions at him.

"Your left side is open, you need to guard it. Use your tail as well. Are you stupid kiddo? Who will get hit by such a kick."

This kept going on for at least another hour when Doko forcefully finished it.

"Ok kid, that's enough for today. I was planning on taking you tomorrow to test your soul power but we might as well do it today. I am pretty sure you will pass it so it's better to get examined right now and start cultivating from tomorrow."

As soon as Drake stopped, his mother rushed to hug him leaving no chance for him to resist.

"Haha! My young genius! You are way better than your father. He entered the Body Refinement realm only after he was three years old!"

"Congratulations son." Darth smiled. "But you should not get complacent, you are still too weak for the world. Your road to power is just getting started."

"Darth come on! Give him a break. He hasn't rested a day during the last month! He is still a kid and you two will overwork him to death." voiced Gillian while angrily looking Doko and Darth.

"I do not want to rest. The only thing I want is to grow stronger as fast as I can." Drake's voice was heard making everyone's look turn to him.

While Gillian was speechless hearing her son shutting her down so fast, the other two were extremely happy.

"Good resolve. Let's not waste any more time here then. We will head to the monolith immediately." uttered Darth. "Doko, can you please gather three more warriors to start the test? We will be waiting for you there."

Doko nodded and two parties formed heading in different directions. One was with Drake, Gillian and Darth heading to the monolith, while Doko went to call the others.

During the whole trip to the monolith, Gillian was voicing complaints and tried to change Drake's mind since she thought a kid at his age should play around a bit as well instead of training like crazy. Even though Drake completely ignored her, Darth couldn't anymore so he tried to refute.

"Gillian, the training is for his own good. Since he is resolved to do it, you should encourage him instead of preventing him."

"I don't want him to grow like that. He should enjoy his life as a kid! " Gillian answered, refusing to back down. However, after that, Darth started ignoring her as well until she eventually quieted down, seeing that her words fell on dead ears.

After arriving at the monolith, they didn't wait long and Doko with three other monkey warriors arrived. They instantly took their place around it, sitting in a lotus position with their staffs balancing on their legs, waiting for Darth to give them the signal to start.

"Go on Drake. You just need to hold for one hour. After one hour passes, they will stop using their Ki, since there is no benefit in holding out more than that." said Darth and Drake moved to take his place as well next to the monolith.

As soon as he moved next to it, he placed his hand and looked at Darth, nodding him that he is ready.

"Then let's begin testing him once again."

The moment Darth gave the signal, their Ki took the form of golden rays of light, merging at the top of the monolith. The engravings lighted up once again and started circling around Drake.

This time the first ten seconds of pain was barely felt by Drake and the next wave was merely a discomfort for him.

"As we thought, he already passed the threshold. It seems he will succeed easily." Darth said while smiling.

The next hour went by and everything proceeded according to plan, with Drake easily passing the one hour mark. Even though the pain he was feeling on his soul was quite intense at the end, it took only a small effort for him to withstand it.

The four warriors, including Doko, slowly stood up from their positions and the lights around Drake and the monolith vanished.

"The hour has passed. Well done son. From tomorrow you will start cultivating." Darth announced.