Chapter 291 : : Breaking Through

Mid-Night….

Core zone of the forest…

A figure was sitting below a giant tree with his back resting against its large roots, he had several bloody cuts all over his body but surprisingly his ripped dress was restoring its damage on its own.

Rex was painting at the moment, he was using the passive mode of his cultivation technique to channel Yang Qi all over his body to force out the monster Qi from his body and fasten the healing of his injuries.

At the start of the chase, thanks to Shadow-Dive + Assassinate, he was able to avoid getting caught by the wolves, but after he used it several times the wolves got used to it and could catch up to him in no time. He could hide or travel in the shadows but once attacked he would be thrown outside automatically. To make it worse the peak stage wolf had a special ability that lets him track Rex by tracking the monster Qi that entered his body when he was attacked.

'Dammit, I will never judge any old woman by their beautiful faces again, that damn woman is a maniac in particular. Easy training my ass, it's the hellish mode of survival, does she think I am a divine beast like her who would fight with claws or bite the enemies to death? I am fukking Huma- Lamiarious Carbonite Human,' Rex was just thinking but suddenly he looked up and saw that a black leopard hiding between the tree branch was staring at him with his two pale yellow eyes.

The second their eyes met, the leopard leaped at him,

'Accel'

Rex barely dodged the attack in time, originally Accel was very fast but with his cultivation base being suppressed its effectiveness decreased.

'Damn my luck, a Monster Elite at a time like this? It's the worst,' Rex thought, just when the thought flashed in his mind he regretted it because the three black wolves chasing him earlier caught up and ended up blocking his escape route from behind.

'Why did I even think that?' Rex lamented.

The three of them didn't back off even when the leopard stared at them and gave a low roar as a warning, their hormones had long climbed up to their head making them lost most of their remaining rationality, they were moving on their instincts by now.

Rex's body tensed up.

"Hmmm, It's Over For Today I Guess," The domineering voice of Zakiya in her beast form sounded at the moment, freezing all the four beasts in their spot.

The bloodline pressure of a divine beast was more than enough to scare them out of their wits, especially when they were just in their early stages of spirit beast lineage.

The shadows on the ground fluctuated then turned into two cages that imprisoned the three wolves and the black leopard, then the cages flew away in her direction.

When Rex saw that the leopard was also caught, he had a feeling that they gonna meet again soon enough.

{Todays' training is over now, you can rest and recuperate for tomorrow then come again on the day after tomorrow. Keep the training uniform with you, wear it when you come to train next time, by the way, if you don't come over then I will drag you here and double your training time as a punishment,} Zakiya's indifferent voice rang in his head.

Rex felt that the world lost its color.

Now he truly understood why he had even days to train and odd to rest, it was like that so he won't go crazy or suffer from a mental breakdown in the long run.

[Your situation just feels like a lion in a circus, the trainer whip him while training him to keep his behavior in check and if the lion obeys then the trainer give him some food as a reward,]

Rex nodded.

[Your situation just feels like a donkey carrying the load, it's owner uses a carrot and a stick to…]

'Stop right there you bastard! I am already too exhausted to curse you right now,' Rex sighed.

He was about to ask Zakiya how to take off this dress but just at this time the dress lost its effect and the cultivation base suppressing effect disappeared, the dress lessened on its own making it easy to remove.

Rex's lips twitched, he felt that the cultivators of this world have already comprehended the timer setting feature.

Rex then went back to the castle, like yesterday he took a long bath to refresh himself after the bath he obediently headed to his room, tonight he had no energy to spend with Ria. He felt like if he did then he might not wake up in the morning and it won't look good if the news headline on the next day would be something like… The Mysterious Shadow Lord Died In The Bed.

Before going to sleep Rex meditated using the Transcend Heart Tempering Mantra technique that helped him in recovering some of his mental strength, he used it to summon some clones and handed them the blueprints to work while sleeping.

Snake Sister's room….

Ria was enjoying her good night sleep with a supposedly good dream, she had a faint smile on her face, at the moment she was gently hugging Mia from behind while sleeping.

At the same time, Mia had her eyes shut closed as she counted snakes up to a thousand, she was finding it hard to sleep in her current situation.

When they were younger they did cuddle with each other while sleeping all the time but as they grew up Ria became strict, colder, and more of a serious type to not let herself and Mia become the chess pieces on other's game board.

So now Mia found her actions really embarrassing, now that they had grown up the same action carried different meaning and feeling. She won't say that she hated it or anything but whenever Ria shifted her hands a little while cuddling, her wild imagination woke her up instantly not letting her sleep peacefully.

Mia sighed, she felt that this night will very long for her.

...…..

New Morning…

Today, Rex was free now that he had so many clones he didn't need to worry about doing anything himself. The thing he wanted to do most right now was to study the teleportation portal but he knew that with his current strength, it was almost impossible to even make a prototype similar to it so he decided to increase his cultivation base before researching it.

At the moment, Rex was cultivating on the ground floor of the spirit tower.

'Rose check and give me an estimation of my current life essence with a comparison for better understanding, and also tell me how much life essence I had lost when you made changed to my body in reference to the new cultivation technique if I really lost any that is,' Rex said.

[Theoretically speaking, A normal person that cultivated to Core Forming peak stage should have around 1620 years of life span at best but after your three evolutions including you gaining the Gamer's body, your current lifespan is 2700 years. There wasn't any problem when reestablishing your meridians but just to make sure I used 20 years of lifespan in strengthening them and relieve the strain from reestablishment.

Because you only lost 20 years of lifespan, it won't have much on an impact while breaking through, we can regain it later,]

Different cultivation stages result in different increases value in the lifespan depending on what that stage is actually meant for.

For example stages like the Soul Strengthening stage and Dao Comprehension stage wouldn't add much lifespan because the former is meant to temper the soul and strengthen its connection with the body and open the Sea Of Consciousness of the cultivator while the latter adds the power of Dao to the cultivator by comprehending the concept of their way of life.

Unlike them, the cultivation stages like the Spirit King stage and Sky Body Formation stage bring tremendous changes to one's body increasing the lifespan of the cultivator by a big margin.

The increase in lifespan differs according to the race and cultivation technique, there are also other ways to increase one's lifespan and one of them is longevity pills.

'I see, looks like a divine beast's blood can really make a big difference. I have decided I won't commence the next evolution before getting the blood of at least three divine beasts. For now, let's breakthrough we have delayed it for quite a long time now,' Rex thought.

[Ready?]

'Yeah,' (Rex)

[Commencing breakthrough…..]

The Exp or Life Energy flew from his core, spreading all over his body then getting channeled through his meridians according to the path defined by Black & White Forbidden Lineage Art and finally ended up in his dantian.

At this time, when the cultivation technique was moved to active mode, an unusual phenomenon took place.

A strange octane diagram resembling the Yin-Yang symbol appeared on the floor with Rex as it's center.

Countless shining energy particles similar to snowflakes appeared above the diagram, surrounding Rex. The twinkling particles looked like stars in the night sky, they had an extraordinary presence to them and the most strange thing was whenever the particle fell on Rex, they would get instantly absorbed by his body.

Only special cultivation techniques that are fully mastered to Return To Nature state produce such a strange phenomenon, that's why usually only cultivation maniacs with high comprehension talent could achieve that and these people are far from young.

Rex was focusing on his dantian at the moment, inside the dantian all the Qi was now transforming and merging into a single point at the center forming a tiny core, with time the core was becoming bigger and more stable.

There was one other place that was going through tremendous change, it was his Sea Of Consciousness. The hazy fog in his Sea Of Consciousness was being cleared slowly, furthermore, he could feel his Sea Of Consciousness expanding at a fast rate.

Just at this time, the main door of the ground floor of the tower opened and Lucia walked in.

Because of her busy schedule, she didn't have much time to cultivate so Rex allowed her to cultivate on the tower's ground floor whenever she wants, but of course, she was very sincere about her work and only came here when she had free time so her cultivation base hadn't progressed much all this time.

There were only 5 people except for Rex that were allowed to enter the ground floor- Lerna, Little Aru, Jiang Shuang, Jiang Qing, and Lucia.

Rex didn't tell them not to disturb him because all of them were smart enough not to interrupt him after seeing that he was cultivating.

When she walked in, she felt someone else's presence so she walked to the other side only to see Rex with the strange phenomenon occurring around his body.

Even when Lucia saw it, there was not much change in her expression, she only widened her eyes a little in surprise.

Just like how people in the lower realm knew of stories about divine beasts, people of the middle realm also knew about things like these even when they haven't seen them in person.

Lucia wanted to leave this place when she saw that Rex was at a critical point in breaking through.

She didn't know his cultivation stage but unstable Qi fluctuation around someone means that they are going to break through to a higher cultivation stage.

She wanted to leave but the shining light particles deeply attracted her attention not letting her eyes move away from them.

Just at this time, a light particle flew towards her directions just like a soft feather going with the flow of wind. Lucia subconsciously reached out her hand to touch it.

The second her finger came in contact with the light particle, the latter got absorbed by the former in an instant. Lucia suddenly realized that the Qi in her body got stimulated a little after the absorption of the light particle, it only took a second for her to realize how beneficial these light particles was for a cultivator.

But instead of trying to absorb more, she stepped back. In her view those particles were there because of Rex so if she absorbs it then it would be like snatching the fruits of his hard work, she turned around intending to leave for now.

{It's all right, these energy flakes are not much use to me but they are highly beneficial to you. If you cultivate here with me, while being near me, you can absorb these then your speed will be a few times faster than normal, you have done a lot for the organization these days so you deserve at least this much,} Rex sent her a message using Telepathy.

Rex knew that it was Lucia the second she entered the tower, not because of Spider-Sense or Spiritual-Sense but the smell her body releases because she had a special physique, Rose was also keeping a check on his body while cultivating so he wasn't worried about cultivation deviation.

As for having no loss, it was a lie. If someone else cultivates near him by absorbing the light particles then he would need to use more Exp to maintain a uniform input rate of Exp but he didn't lack Exp so it was fine even if Lucia breakthrough from Core Forming peat stage to Golden Core peak stage.

Lucia stopped in her tracks, she thought for a while then nodded. She didn't argue because it would act as a distraction for Rex.

She walked near Rex, stepped on the octane diagram then sat behind him with her back against his.

'I said near, but… is she trying to distract me,' Rex thought when he sensed her sitting so close to him.

Lucia was more of an open-minded type, so this much was not a problem for her as she already knew Rex for a while now and had a good impression of him.

Rex didn't think about it more and focused on his breakthrough. When he cultivated and the light particles fell on her, she finally realized how strong this cultivation buff was.

The particles were so pure that she didn't need to refine them at all and could directly absorb them.