Rule

Ace tried and could use his newly opened soul sense to "see" inside himself clearly, it was much better than just using his soul power to sense things and gave him a sense of higher control.

During his breakthrough, his body automatically refined a great amount of purer and denser mana by absorbing the spiritual energy around him crazily. It was the first time his body refined mana without his active urge, but it stopped after his breakthrough ended.

His total capacity of mana tripled in comparison to before, and his soul power and biological energy also proportionally increased, it was something Ace didn't completely understand.

His biological energy transformed and turned into a more powerful kind of energy but with similar properties to before, of nourishing and stabilizing the body's vital functions. Ace thought for a while and decided to call it "Vital Energy."

This vital energy constantly nurtured his body to a higher level, making Ace feel like he is truly transcending mortality. His blood marrow and blood were the most immediately affected by it.

His blood marrow was pure white, just like snow, and the blood born from it was crimson red like a raging flame, and much denser than before. The new blood was rapidly replacing the old blood, accelerating his body's transformation even more.

His internal organs were constantly nurtured by his vital energy and the new blood, turning more resilient and powerful. His bones were being constantly tempered and strengthened, along his muscles, tendons, nerves, and skin.

Ace knew that the fast speed of transformation was just because he just broke through and didn't completely stabilize in the new Realm. His body would eventually reach stability after the explosive transformation and return to normality.

But to summarize, the greatest change was that not only his mana was tempering and strengthening his body, but his vital energy was also doing the same just as efficiently.

When the vital energy was still ordinary biological energy, it just maintained and stabilized the body's functions, but now it gained another powerful effect.

Ace analyzed and discovered the mystery, his vital energy was passively absorbing part of the spiritual energy and using it as fuel, instead of just refining it into mana along with the soul power. It shocked him and opened his eyes, many flashes of inspiration came to his mind.

Since his vital energy could do it, why not his soul power to strengthen his soul? But he had no clue how to do it. He guessed that he would need to reach a higher realm first.

After analyzing what he could, he tried another thing, to externalize his mana. He waved his hand and a wisp of mana left his hand, it was colorless and almost invisible to the naked eye.

He once tried to do it but his mana would immediately dissipate after leaving his body, but now his mana could support being outside without dissipating immediately.

Ace pondered and was sure that it was possible because his mana was numerous times purer than before, and his control over it also skyrocketed. However, the cost of externalizing mana was high and the consumption was terrifying.

After playing around for a while, he stopped.

[What does the host think?]

"I'm too powerful compared to before, and my body didn't even complete its transformation," Ace shook his head and said emotionally, "I'm afraid I could beat five of my old self."

[Do you want me to transfer the gathered data now?]

"Hehe, are you in a hurry?" Ace grinned, "Don't worry, you are as useful as always."

The system was silent and just transferred the information gathered to Ace.

Ace had to admit, that the system's ability in information gathering was insane, it was so good at it that Ace felt he would never be able to rival it.

Many subtle changes and almost invisible transformations began to be understood by him as he browsed the new information. He felt enlightened and happy.

First of all, the system calculated that his expected natural life span increased to a hundred and fifty! That's too unbelievable to him, it was a full fifty years jump!

According to the system, it was because his new vital energy had exceptional capabilities in healing and stabilizing vital functions, while it also refined the marrow and blood to a higher level.

Just like this, Ace felt that he wasn't a middle-aged man anymore, but a young man! He grinned like a fool and the system was speechless.

Except this, the system gathered much other sensible information that confirmed Ace's own experiences about that breakthrough.

[Does the host have any idea for the name of this Realm?]

"I don't know!" Ace shook his head, "I don't even know how to advance further... I already opened all meridians, could it be that I only need to continue increasing my mana's quantity and purity?"

[According to previous experiences, it is likely that the next breakthrough requires a qualitative change, so the host should focus on quality over quantity.]

'"But can't I achieve a qualitative change through quantitative means?" Ace didn't agree, "I depended on opening a high number of meridians to reach a breakthrough, didn't I?"

[You didn't understand my words. What I meant is that the key is quality, not quantity. You can try various means to reach qualitative change, but you need to focus on the goal.]

Ace was silent and pondered deeply over the system's words. After many minutes, he had an idea.

"Since a quantitative change on meridians and mana caused a qualitative change in my biological energy, that turned into vital energy... should I try increasing my vital energy now?"

[I don't understand.]

"Forget about it," Ace sighed, "Being hurried is not good, I will just practice and refine more mana for now, perhaps I will have another idea later."

He got up from his bed and went to the river to take a bath secretly, he was so fast that an ordinary human would have difficulty reacting at a close distance.

After taking a bath, he wore a set of leather clothes he made from the leather of the animals he hunted before. He learned this from other villagers in the years he spent there.

But just after the bath, another round of impurities was expelled from his body and he had no choice but to wait.

After a day, his body finally completed its explosive transformation and he could take a bath with a tranquil heart.

He looked at his reflection in the water and the long hair that grew over the years, he sighed and decided to cut it shorter. He didn't like to maintain very long hair.

He cut it so it just reached his shoulders, he then made a messy man bun in the back of his head and was satisfied. Although he didn't plan to marry anyone at that time, he still carried some zeal from modern society.

After the transformation of his body was complete, he analyzed and found that he was about three times physically stronger than before the breakthrough, and he could run almost three times faster as well.

He was already very strong before, and now he felt he was finally fit to be called a strong warrior in that dangerous world. He never saw or heard of wild beasts as strong as him, only monsters and intelligent spiritual creatures could threaten him.

He was proud of his achievement and was tempted to give a name to the Realm he reached, but held back. He still didn't how he could advance, so it would be too rash to name it.

He spent the next few months living as usual, doing what he could. During the day, he would help the villagers as he had always done, and during the night he would practice.

Because he learned many different things, he ended up being a jack of all trades but a master of none, and the villagers also treated him as such. When they needed help, they wouldn't hesitate to call Ace.

However, Ace never ate other people's food for free, he always did something in return when he didn't go fishing himself.

After eight months of hard work, Ace was disappointed with the slow progress and wanted to change ways. During those eight months, his mana only increased by about 5% in quantity. He was dumbfounded by the slow progress but also knew why it was happening.

His vital energy and soul power actually grew more than his mana, and it gave him some inspiration.

His mana always had the property of nourishing the body and soul power, and this always made the other two energies grow strong. And by growing stronger, those two energies could in turn refine more mana. However, the way they were growing was different after the breakthrough.

Instead of depending on the nourishment of mana, both his soul power and vital energy were absorbing spiritual energy directly, instead of refining all of it into mana, only less than one-third of the spiritual energy absorbed in his body was eventually refined into mana by fusing it with soul power and vital energy.

The gains those two energies have by absorbing spiritual energy directly were above the cost of refining mana. That was the reason those two energies grew more than his mana in the same period.

Moreover, his mana never stopped nourishing his soul power and body, but it was just less effective than the two energies absorbing spiritual energy directly to strengthen themselves.

When he summarized everything in his mind, Ace got an idea.

"Perhaps... the next step will be to further transform my mana?" Ace proposed.

[Why?]

"Remember how I first refined a wisp of mana? I used my soul power and biological energy to fuse together with the spiritual energy and thus the result was mana.

"After my last breakthrough, it still costs me soul power and vital energy to refine mana, but they never showed signs of depleting and were even showing signs of surpassing my mana in terms of quality and density...

"Perhaps the reason is that those other two energies need to be stronger than mana to be able to transform it to a higher level."

[That's an interesting hypothesis, but there's no evidence for it.]

"I know, but can't I think positively?" Ace chuckled, "And if I end up being right... won't it mean that my being has some sort of instinctive mechanism to grow stronger in a supernatural way?

"It will mean that the knowledge that the human race body has no mechanism of growing supernaturally stronger is wrong!"

[Actually... you just don't know about a few things...]

"What?"

[You probably already noticed it, but it's indeed a bit illogical for a living being to grow stronger like you without a proper foundation.

[My creator once tried to explain it like this: life can instinctively seek a better position, no matter what kind of life, it's a rule, like the rule of cause and effect, it can't be challenged.]

"You mean that the world has a rule that makes it so life is always seeking a better position for itself?" Ace was dumbfounded, "I never thought or heard about such a thing."

[It's natural since rules are high above and we are way below.]

"But if this is the case, then my body is automatically seeking a better position for itself, huh?" Ace was amused, "It makes things exponentially better for me."

[I hope the host doesn't lower his guard. Any kind of mistake while pioneering a path can and probably will lead to death or worse.]

"I know..." Ace nodded, "After all, I'm always the one brewing ideas and testing them. It wasn't my body that automatically opened all meridians."

[Does the host have any idea about the name of this Realm now?]

"Did you read my mind without my permission?" Ace was caught off guard, "I truly have an idea.

"What about... Energy Refining Realm?"

[...How old-fashioned.]

"You know nothing! In the good old times, I would have called it Qi Refining Realm!"

[It actually sounds better.]

"Hah! Who is the old-fashioned now?"

[...]

"It's your fault for peeping my thoughts so constantly," Ace snorted, "Anyway, I didn't name any energy as 'Qi,' so it makes no sense for me to name this realm as such!"

[Then what about... Essence Refining Realm?]

"No... wait! It actually makes sense!

"Soul power is a kind of essence, and so is vital energy... and mana as well!"