Lurking Terror (2)

Looking at the mindless undead patrolling around the only path which led deeper into the cavern, Leto felt gloomy.

As he paved his path deeper and deeper by crushing more and more skulls, the number and power level of the undead also increased greatly. No longer could he eliminate them swiftly and without cost with his cheap tricks.

The battle was unavoidable.

His growth had been massive in the past few days, but at the same time, he was running out of food. At this rate, he was afraid when he reached his destination, he'd be greatly weakened due to starvation, and he couldn't afford that.

The undead, who were dumbly staring into the distance moments ago all looked in the same direction. The sound of heavy footsteps rang as the figure dressed in pitch black metal armor appeared, dragging what seemed like a slab of iron, shaped like a greatsword.

The tall undead dressed in silver armor bolted and smashed down with his long halberd at the figure with devastating might.

Leto's grip on his weapon tightened as he waved his greatsword, defensively meeting the ruthless attack.

*Boom!

The deafening sound of collision rang as Leto's feet sunk deep into the ground. He wasn't even given time to breathe as two deadly rotating arrows sprang in his vision, while two thin skeletons holding green daggers materialized behind him.

All the attacks missed as he backflipped and waved his greatsword at the little skeletons' skulls.

As they were about to be hit, the ring on their bony fingers lit up. Leto's body was hit by a massive invisible force, which caused his body to fly through the air and smash into the rock pillar behind him, which was crushed, then crumbled on him.

Despite all that, the skeletons were not content yet. They chased after him. Leto staggeringly got out of the crushed pieces of stones, only to be met with another barrage of attacks.

'Ripping edge!' Seeing normal attacks were of no use, he finally got serious.

The vibrating greatsword made an arc in the air. Its flat edge hummed, resulting in an abrupt increase in sharpness. The Axe wielding skeleton was flung backward as the attack struck its chest. Silver, rare grade breastplate was unable to lessen the attack by much.

The armor was still fine, as only a small cut appeared on its surface, but the force behind the attack smashed the skeleton's ribcage and backbones into pieces. As it fell, it wiggled but was unable to get up.

Meanwhile, Leto had exposed himself after dealing a deadly blow. Feeling the approaching spear and the arrows, he had no choice but to activate one of his life-saving rings.

The steel ring on his finger shone with a piercing light. The repulsive force hurled all his surrounders like kites. Seeing his opponents lose their foothold and fly through the air, Leto grinned as he sprinted after the spear-wielding skeleton.

'Elusive Tread.' His footwork was unpredictable, while his body appeared like a mirage as he chased after the enemy and ruthlessly hacked down on its head, smashing it into pieces. The steel helm was unable to protect the skeleton, as it was only covering its head, but not face.

''One down,'' Leto spoke coldly.

Suddenly, his back felt uncomfortable. Shifting his stance, he dodged the rotating bone arrow flying his way.

''You're next.'' As he went after the archer, the thin and tall halberd-wielding skeleton once again intersected him.

''Fuck off!'' Leto roared ah he once again used the Ripping edge to meet the other's attack. This time, he didn't lose his footing, but instead, the skeleton's halberd rebounded on him as it staggered and loosened the grip on his weapon.

Leto charged at him like a wolf and was about to smash him into pieces when suddenly, he felt his body weight increase.

Mid-jump, his body fell like there was an invisible boulder pressing down his shoulders, wasting his finishing blow.

His face turned ugly as he realized the tall skeleton had regained his footing. There was rippling energy coming from the ring on its finger. Before Leto could react, a kick struck his chest, causing his body to once again fly through the air. Mid-flight, his flank was pierced by the destructive arrow.

In the end, he crashed down, heavily bouncing off the rocky surface of the ground. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stand up. Clutching his bleeding left flank, with armor covered in rubble and dust, heaving in exhaustion...he appeared in a sorry state.

The struggle was far from over...

Ten minutes later...

Leto was lying on the ground, heavily injured. The bone dust and shining flame balls were scattered all around him.

His rare grade armor was torn in many places, from where his blood oozed out.

''Ah, cough, cough!'' He coughed mouthful of blood as he felt his internal organs were a mess. He bit his tongue, fighting against the urge to faint. Unwillingly, he had to spend vitality essence to heal.

''Huff, this was the toughest fight I had in this life so far.'' Sighing, he waited patiently as his internal bleeding stopped, while his internal organs mended. More than feeling pain from actual injuries, he felt pain for wasting precious vitality essence, but there was no helping it.

After a few minutes of rest, he was more or less fine, despite appearing in very bad shape from the outer appearance.

He consumed the undead soul flames one by one before sighing as he stared at the pile of bone dust, which couldn't be fitted in his backpack anymore.

Scavenging through the loot, Leto was disappointed to find nothing suitable for him. The armors were either too big or too small for him. In the end, he had no choice but to go back and once again take out a decent armor from the useful loot he had stockpiled after clearing waves after waves of undead.

From the rings present, none caught his interest. There were only two rings, one inscribed with repulsive force, which hurled his body backward, while another one was the ring which increased gravity. He had a better version of the first one, which made all the surrounding enemies to be forced back, while the use of the gravity ring was very limited. Its effect wasn't strong either.

After deeming the loot 'not valuable,' he piled them up and put his palm on them while closing his eyes. The uncommon and rare grade equipment slowly lost their luster as they turned into ordinary pieces of material. The steel and wooden armor even cracked and broke apart while leather material remained, but lost its sturdiness.

A happy smile bloomed on Leto's face as his vitality essence increased by over a 500!

This was one of the ways of increasing the vitality essence, only he couldn't afford to do it earlier.

Now, the high-quality equipment was dropping left and right, giving him an unforeseen opportunity.

He had the idea of keeping some equipment, as it would amount to a great deal of valuable treasure if he ever reached the surface, but he couldn't afford to be stingy with himself as he prioritized getting stronger. The foreboding feeling was getting increasingly stronger the further he advanced into the black cavern. He constantly had a feeling something was watching him, but he didn't know what or who it was. This feeling creeped him out.

For that, he avoided using his trump cards. He was happy he didn't have to use one in his previous fight, though, he had to battle doggedly in order to achieve that.

In this kind of dark environment, any normal person would have gone a bit mental, as the creepy silence and the lack of communication with someone would have driven some people crazy, but for someone like Leto, who had experienced over a decade of closed-door cultivation and adapted to loneliness, it wasn't that big of a deal.

Besides, he knew he wasn't alone...only, he wished he was...

''Eh?'' His eyes shone as he stumbled upon what looked like a treasure chest for the first time. He looked at the silver treasure chest weirdly as he poked it with his greatsword. After making sure it gave off a metallic clanking sound, he bent down and attempted to open the chest, but to no avail.

''Ah, could it be?'' Suddenly, he remembered something. Withdrawing a skeleton key from his pockets, he once again attempted opening the chest. This time, with a 'clank,' the chest opened.

Vigilantly, he used his short sword to open the lid. Thankfully there was nothing dangerous.

Taking a peek inside, Leto was dumbstruck as he exclaimed loudly. ''Spatial ring! Low-grade spirit stones! This...''

The spatial ring was something he needed the most right now. As for the low-grade spirit stones, they were invaluable.

Spirit stones were the crystallization of qi. Its formation required strict environmental requirements and high density of heaven and earth energy and most of all, time. This is why they were scarce in low-level star areas. For this reason, they were incredibly precious.

There was another fact that made spirit stones much more valuable. Even a person, who hadn't trained his body could absorb them! Of course, their efficiency would be low and they would be wasting over half of the heavenly treasure, but the Qi stored in spirit stones were incredibly pure, which made it possible for people in body tempering stage to absorb them.

One had to know, without sufficiently tempering one's body, the cultivator would have an unstable foundation and hence, the Qi they would absorb wouldn't be as pure, which in turn resulted in bottlenecks.

Body Tempering also called foundation establishment is the first realm of cultivation.

At this stage, the fleshy body has to reach a sufficient level for starting true cultivation. There is not a set method of tempering one's body. One can achieve it in many ways (Taking in nutrients, consuming different sorts of body strengthening pills, forging bones, regular exercise, practicing skills, growth, tempering flesh, consuming rare spiritual treasures, practicing certain cultivation techniques...)

It is recommended to push one's physical growth to the utmost limit before moving on to the next stage, Qi gathering.

In different worlds, the practitioners have different standards of this realm's level division. In richer star areas, they don't start gathering Qi until their body reaches frightening levels. Some races born with inborn physical advantages (Giants tribe for example) have even higher standards for tempering their already terrifyingly powerful bodies.

Currently, Leto's soul-bound treasure was modeled after the standards of this world for body tempering, whereas 1st level has to have 100 strength, 2nd level - 150, and so on...In truth, body tempering has no real limit. Though, it's impossible to go beyond some point without going further into the path of cultivation (First step of which is Qi gathering).

There were far too many people who exceeded the requirements of the peak of their realm but hadn't really stepped into the next realm.

Such people were called to be in 'Overrealm.' For example, in this star area, a person whose strength is noticeably higher than 500 KG (600 for example) will be called to be in the Overrealm of Body Tempering. Meanwhile, in high-level star areas, someone with the fists strength of 600 kilograms can't even be considered as the 1st level of body tempering for giants, as their inborn strength is already much higher than that. In fact, they are so strong, they can easily flatten 2 realms higher human with a swat of their palm.

The reason for such anomaly is related to the power of giants' primordial ancestor and their genetic code, along with their massive body, which is brimming with vitality and power. Nevertheless, giants are only one of the more well-known race to have high physical strength, but they aren't the strongest...

The power is relative, but standards of measuring power differ from world to world...

If Body Tempering realm's measurement depends on a variety of things, Qi gathering realm is universal in every world.

Qi Gathering is the second realm of cultivation

At this stage, the practitioner absorbs heaven and earth energies and refines them into Qi, which is then stored in their body. Their efficiency depends on their talent, perception (Which is determined by their soul power, often referred to as Spirit) and the degree of their tempered body.

Cultivators, who start refining Qi without sufficiently strengthening their bodies, will progress much slower in this realm. Their inadequate physical level will result in an inability to attract, absorb, refine and purify Qi at desired pace and level. In better cases, it will take them a longer amount of time to advance levels in this realm, while in the worst cases, low-level purity Qi will force their cultivation into stagnation, eliminating any hopes for further progress.

In order to even start Qi refinement, one's Spirit has to be about 50% stronger than that of a normal person, as, without sufficient perception, it's impossible to even sense heaven and earth energy, not to mention attracting and refining them.

Some people are born with stronger souls and hence, their talent differs from ordinary people. They will progress much faster than others. They are called cultivation geniuses.

People with weaker souls may never even step into Qi gathering realm unless they find ways to increase their Spirit. The items which increase spirit are relatively rare, which is the reason why the majority remain as normal mortals at the first stage of cultivation - Body tempering.

Qi gathering realm is universally divided into 9 levels. The initial 3 levels are called Early stage of Qi gathering, followed by intermediate (Middle) and late stages. Every 3 levels one is met with minor bottleneck, which leads to major power leap and an increased requirement for further advancement.

The power of Qi gathering realm practitioners is measured by the purity of their Qi. Also, ones with purer Qi have a higher chance for advancing their cultivation realms, while cultivators with a low level of Qi purity will most likely not go much further and sooner or later reach the bottleneck.

In lower level star areas, the heaven and earth energies are more diluted, as it's more or less used up, which reduces the practitioners' cultivation speed in this realm.

Aforementioned variables lead to people with better foundations or purer Qi to challenge stronger experts with weaker foundations.

In high-level star areas, cultivators strive to create a perfect foundation so they can progress further. This is the reason why cultivators in high-level star areas can easily defeat the same or even realm higher opponents from lower level star areas.

Even the lower realm of cultivation was that difficult, as one had to race against time, themselves and try to be not much weaker than others in the same realm.

It was evident how precious Low-grade spirit stones were, which was a kind of shortcut to cultivation.

''Sigh.'' Unfortunately, a lot of spirit stones were required to gather sufficient Qi. Leto knew, that these few spirit stones were only drop in the ocean, but considering they were that hard to find, and he could possess a slight amount of Qi at this early stages of his cultivation, Leto was happy, nonetheless.

He just wondered what 'he' was thinking. Why was 'he' giving him so many resources to get stronger? Didn't 'he' feel threatened even in the slightest? If so then...he was in great trouble.

His intuition told him, the other side didn't have good intentions and hence his unease.

Just what was 'his' purpose? This question constantly haunted him, but currently, he had no way to know, so he could only focus on his cultivation.