Begin Upgrade

As the faint, cool sensation of his soul gradually vanished, a young man sitting cross-legged in a cubic training room slowly opened his eyes. A soft sigh of relief came from the young man as his mouth breathed out a misty stream that extended up to a few inches.

Watching the last piece of soul stone shattering into dust, Pro clenched his fist that was full of strength. He could feel that with a couple more soul stones, he would be able to touch upon or even break through the vague bottleneck of his soul body.

Similar to other measurements, the grade of the soul body is split into the three categories of low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade.

Each grade is further split in nine ranks. For low-grade, it would be from F- to D+. Mid-grade from C- to A+. High-grade from S- to SSS+.

Pro didn't have any way to measure his soul body power at the moment nor did he have any soul body cultivation method as reference.

However, Pro speculated that his current bottleneck was the barrier to the E- grade soul body, and there may be some qualitative change once he breaks through it.

As for how Pro got to this point?

After purchasing his god sequence method, Pro went to the bazaar to clear his inventory.

After haggling for a long time, he managed to sell the basket he picked up for 23 merits. It was a decent price as the original offer was only 20 merits.

Next, Pro browsed many stalls until he found the one that sold the cheapest low-grade soul stones. With his remaining merits, he managed to purchase seven soul stones at 10 merits each. This left him with a mere 3 merits.

Then, Pro returned to his dorms to strengthen his soul body. It took a couple of days to burn through the eight pieces of low-grade soul stones he had. It was painful when he watched his money burned, but Pro felt it was worth it.

With the absorption of the soul stones, Pro felt his soul body power almost tripled.

Pro could feel the power course through his veins as his 'physique' was strengthened. This led to a lot of upgrades to unmentioned stats such as stamina, speed, strength, defense, etc.

Now, Pro would definitely not be exhausted even if he sprinted for a day or two. He could run faster and also punch harder. His soul body could also take a stronger beating ...

Of course, the main benefit of his upgrade is the fact that he didn't feel as strained as before.

Ever since Pro used the NE Quick Growth method, Pro could feel a gradually growing pain in his soul.

Although it didn't affect him greatly as he was still growing fairly slowly compared to other traversers, Pro knew that his negative energy growth speed will eventually bring him pain beyond what he could endure.

Fortunately, this issue is now temporarily solved. It had been a long time since he felt so relaxed.

However, it won't be for long because Pro will now store a higher amount of negative energy, albeit not full capacity.

Storing more negative energy can let Pro slowly train his will power and slowly get used to the pain. It would also allow Pro to have more negative energy to use to cast spells in dungeons.

So, if he could bear more pain, he should store more energy.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for Pro to rapidly increase his soul body power in the short term. The reason is the same as always: poor.

Pro sighed as he stared at his empty pocket space, "I'm broke again."

Pro could feel a tinge of pain strike his heart. This time, it wasn't due to negative energy. It was the pain of being a poor man.

"Okay, I have no time to complain here. Classes have ended, and I should grind some dungeons or else I won't even be able to afford rent later."

It was has been many days, and the benefits of the one month training will come to an end soon.

A week before the end of the month of training, classes had been completed. Now, the traversers had technically 'graduated'.

As a newbie benefit, they still had seven days of free time where they can continue to enjoy the school's service. After seven days, they will be evicted and will have to fend for themselves in society.

Let alone renting a room or house, even the cheapest accommodation in inns and hotels are around 5 to 10 merits per day.

As for those who didn't want to waste merit on a safe living space, they might wake up in some ditch stripped clean if they are lucky. If they weren't lucky, they would end up descending without even knowing how.

There are also other factors that one would also have to worry about. With the spiritual spring bath, the soul body is nourished and pain is reduced.

However, this luxury is gone once you are out. So, pain medication or other methods to reduce or suppress pain is also something one had to look out for.

Unless one was like Pro who had a bottomless pit for his negative energy, there will be no way to stunt their negative energy growth in the safe zone.

After all, no one can use spells and abilities to waste their negative energy. Otherwise, the pain from being fined merits far outweighs the pain from negative energy.

Even with a bottomless pit, Pro knew this was something he had to worry about.

With the dangers of a dungeons, it wasn't a smart idea to run it with a low capacity of negative energy.

So, Pro's current usage of negative energy is not a permanent solution, especially once he dives into higher grade dungeons.

Outside of the issue of dungeons, there was the issue of growth. After all, if he wanted to grow his god seed to the next stage, he will have to let his negative energy fill to the capacity and bear the maximum pain while the seed is slowly breaking through to the next stage!

Who knows how painful this would be and how long this would take!

Even now, Pro hasn't experienced the full brunt of pain from his current negative energy capacity. After all, he has been investing his energy into his book in order to stunt his own growth.

Now, that he has gotten the god sequence method, he can no longer stunt his growth.

"And these issues will all be things I have to worry about soon ... I have two more dungeon runs in the safe zone and at least earn enough merits to pay for accommodation ..."

"Meanwhile, I have to make the most of them before I 'graduate' from a newbie status. The wild zone outside the safe zone is much more dangerous and grinding dungeons there is much more troublesome. Hopefully, I can upgrade into a lower-grade god before then."

Peering into his spiritual realm, Pro observed the slowly condensing true name with interest. Wisps of negative energy were constantly wrapping around his soul core as faint, mysterious letters were slowly being engraved on the core.

Pro thought this was his simply his soul core at first, but with the true name condensation method, Pro also speculated that this was his faith core.

Pro wasn't too sure because he hasn't received any faith power that could verify his conjecture. After his mind was opened to a new world with the new knowledge he gained, Pro knew that this was the core that faith power were directed to.

This would explain why absorbing impure faith power could be dangerous. After all, the soul core was the main control for his soul. If impure faith power is absorbed, it would most likely affect this core in one way or another.

A little may not seem to change much, but one can never know when the last straw will come to break the camel's back.

If the spiritual realm is affected, there is chance for repair, but if the soul core is affected, it could be said it is permanent.

"So, it is best that I avoid faith until I build my kingdom of god. After all, it's best that I have an extra layer of protection. However, I'm not quite sure how dangerous it would be to store items into a space merged with my soul core ..."

"Well, if it is true that I can gain full control over my space and maybe be omnipotent in it, then there wouldn't be much worry."

After having his moments of introspection, Pro got up and stretched. He had finally spent all his resources. Now, it was time to earn more.

"I don't have time to wait for the true name to completely condense. It seems that it will take a while even when I dump all my negative energy into it. So, I should go grind some dungeons and hope to earn enough merits to make my soul body strong enough to bear the next stage of upgrades!"

Pro's eyes flashed with anticipation as he left his dorms.

Once again, Pro made his way towards the Tower of Negativity. This time, it wasn't to make purchases.

Blending in with the bustling crowd, Pro took the elevator to the third floor.

Stepping out, Pro was greeted by a town bustling with adventurers. There were old-school ones with staffs and cold-weapons. There were also those with hot-weapons or carrying uncanny tools.

It was a no-fly zone. This made the town seem even more prosperous as it was more crowded. Taverns and bars lined the streets, and there was an occasional inn or hotel.

There was also groups of ladies and men solicitating customers. Some were introducing their guilds to passerbys, while others did 'serious' business as they walked hand-in-hand with adventurers into taverns or 'private' cubicles installed on the streets.

This was the third floor of the Tower of Negativity, a town to serve adventurers. Adventurers can enjoy the social atmosphere here, gather members for their guilds, or seek stress relief. As long as you have merits, many services can be enjoyed here.

Of course, Pro was here for serious business.

He made his way over to a multi-floor, majestic tavern. Unlike the other taverns, this one was unique because there was an orderly atmosphere to it rather than the rough, rowdy atmosphere of other taverns.

A large sign, hanging on the outside wall of the building, gleamed as the artificial lighting from the tower reflected the clearly carved words, "Adventurer's Guild".

This was Pro's destination, the Adventurer's Guild. Although it was called a guild, it was more of an official organization and was more like a general service similar to the Redemption Center.

Stepping through the entrance, Pro's eyes gleamed with interest as he examined the marble statues that lined the walkway.

The statues were of some outstanding personnel of the Negative Zone. They were adventurers who had achieved glory and brought major changes to the Negative Zone.

Basically, this area was like a museum of the powerful, esteemed lords, people Pro could only observe for now.

Stepping out of the museum, Pro arrived in a grand hall where many adventurers were bustling about. There were lines of adventurers waiting to enter reception cubicles while groups of adventurers browsed the holographic posts that decorated the walls of the hall.

This was the quest hall. Here, adventurers can accept quests posted by others. Adventurers can also get info regarding uncleared dungeons here.

After a glance, Pro moved over to line up for a cubicle. He was still a newbie at this moment. Although these quests were rewarding, most of them require leaving the safe zone and heading into the wild zone to complete. Those weren't something Pro could do at the moment.

As Pro waited in line, Pro turned his attention to his spiritual realm and continued to condense his true name.

Everyone was prohibited from spamming spells or abilities in the safe zone, but no one would complain if you cultivate and absorb more negative energy.

After half an hour, it was finally Pro's turn. Stepping into the cubicle, Pro inserted his identity card.

A holographic interface popped up, displaying a list of known dungeons, some general information can be seen for free while more in-depth details could be acquired through merits.

[Welcome to the Adventurer's Guild. How may I help you?]

"Show me the free information on dungeons in the safe zone."

[Request for safe zone dungeons received ... checking qualifications ... qualifications met. Retrieving data ...]

A smaller list of dungeons was displayed on Pro's screen. The general information of each one was displayed in small text.

The Fairy Tale one was obviously the one complete by Pro before. Still, it was a random dungeon, so the general information didn't help much except for mentioning this.

[Ocean Journey (F+): A group dungeon, requiring 2 to 10 adventurers, that takes place on an unknown liner in the middle of an unknown ocean. Survive for four days to clear the dungeon.]

[Seven Wonders (F): A group dungeon, requiring 3 to 7 adventurers, that takes place in an middle-school at night. Solve the seven mysteries to clear the dungeon.]

[Temple Run (F-): A solo dungeon that takes place in an unknown temple. Escape from the temple to clear the dungeon.]

"Fairy Tale, Ocean Journey, Seven Wonders, Temple Run ... which one should I choose?"