Chapter 80: Leveling Up

With a long howl, a faint smile finally appeared on Rod’s exhausted face! His complexion was extremely pale at that moment. Another two months had passed—two months during which he had continued to engage in intense battles! Over these two months, he had searched every area within a kilometer, except for the region where the Black Dragon was located. By now, he had fully adapted to 2,500 times gravity and had slain a total of 27 magical beasts! Among them, he had obtained eight fire-type magical core nuclei! Including those from the first month, he now had a total of twelve such nuclei. More importantly, the magical beasts he had hunted recently were almost all at the late stage of the Saint class; two of them had even reached the perfect stage of the late Saint class—truly extremely dangerous.

Taking out the lifeless magical core nucleus of the beast lying on the ground, Rod breathed a sigh of relief and smiled in satisfaction. Another fire-type core nucleus! With the five he still had, that made six in total—enough to last for some time.

As he continued his relentless pursuit, his notorious reputation grew, and lately, it became increasingly difficult to track down magical beasts, which gave Rod some concern. Thankfully, Furnace Heaven rewarded those who worked hard. Through his own efforts and those of Furnace Heaven, along with the help of seven pure magical core nuclei, he had broken through to the late Imperial class just yesterday and had even reached the pre-late Saint class. It was likely he would soon enter the Saint class as well!

As for himself, Rod felt that, including these three months of fierce battles, he had been in this place for half a year now, and it had also been half a year since he reached the early Saint class. In such a place with pure elements, he clearly felt that he was on the verge of reaching the middle stage of the Saint class and could level up at any time! So after obtaining this core nucleus today, he planned to take some time to rest and focus on breaking through to the middle stage. If he could enter that realm, his strength would surely increase significantly, giving him an extra chance to survive when facing the Black Dragon!

“Let’s go back!” Rod said with a smile as he looked at the exhausted Fen Tian. The strength this little guy displayed truly surprised him—every time he saw it, he felt terrified. Truly a divine beast, a powerful beast soul fused with the soul of a divine dragon. Its strength at the late stage of the Saint level was already comparable to that of a martial artist at the early stage of the Saint level, or even greater. Coupled with its abnormal ability to master both magic and martial arts, it was no exaggeration to say it could handle a martial artist at the middle stage of the Saint level! Even Rod himself wasn’t sure he could defeat this guy, which left him in awe.

Back at their residence, after ordering Fen Tian to guard, Rod immediately began practicing. While restoring his combat energy, he planned to take advantage of this opportunity to push forward and reach the middle stage.

The combat energy circulated repeatedly within his body, with external combat energy being fiercely drawn in, forming visible red threads that entered his body through his pores.

His pale complexion gradually recovered, and his wounds healed visibly! In no time, he felt his combat energy return to its optimal state. Gritting his teeth, Rod then began to strive to reach the threshold of the middle stage.

Thick streams of combat energy washed through his meridians like magma, then, under his control, strengthened each cell further. Rising in rank required a stronger physique—without a robust body, even reaching that stage would bring numerous dangers and prevent him from fully unleashing his strength. As for mental power, Rod had already met the requirements; it could even be said that he was comparable to a late-stage magician or even a quasi-divine-level martial artist. So he didn’t need to worry about that aspect at all.

As his body was tempered by the combat energy, Rod’s skin took on a strange and terrifying red hue, shifting in intensity. Unbearable pain spread instantly throughout his body, affecting every nerve. Clenching his teeth, beads of sweat emerged from his pores, and his rosy complexion once again turned pale.

A wisp of green smoke began to rise from his head. Although he knew his physique was already strong enough, Rod wasn’t satisfied to stop here. He took this opportunity to further temper himself.

His sweat evaporated instantly into green smoke under the intense fire elements, leaving only a thin layer of black dirt on his body—residual impurities expelled after being tempered inside his body.

In less than a moment, the combat energy within his body reached a terrifying critical point. Meanwhile, under the combined stress of internal and external training, his body also reached its limit. Only then did Rod breathe a sigh of relief, realizing that things had progressed far enough and could not go any further—otherwise, it would not only bring no benefits but also cause numerous problems!

Pulling his focus back, Rod began the journey toward the intermediate level. With renewed determination, he started refining his combat energy. Having practiced here for such a long time, the purity of his combat energy had already reached an astonishing level, so he completed this step with almost no effort at all!

After finishing this step, only one final step remained—essential for reaching the intermediate level—namely, condensing and merging dense elements within his dantian to form a vortex-like liquid rotation. This step was crucial; it prepared him for advancing to the divine level and marked the onset of mastery at the sacred level. Its formation signified achieving the sacred level, representing the minimum standard for a sacred-level warrior and serving as a watershed. Training below the intermediate sacred level could only be considered building a foundation, akin to that of ants—only at the intermediate sacred level could one truly be considered a strong warrior.

To complete this step, not only the purity of one’s combat energy was required but also a strong supply of combat energy as support. Rod already met these standards. All he needed to do was carefully control these dense energies to merge them into a vortex-like liquid state within his dantian. Once formed, this vortex would continuously supply combat energy, allowing a warrior to harness elemental energies from the world around them. Thus, this watershed was extremely important—a milestone of true advancement.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Rod suddenly began to absorb external elements into his body, ignoring completely the existence of the critical point. He then started to gather and merge all his combat energy within his dantian. The already full dantian, suddenly subjected to such a large amount of combat energy, began to feel a slight pain and intense expansion, as if it were about to burst. This was a sign that the dantian was about to collapse. Nearly 70% of early-stage Saint-level warriors remained stuck at this stage their entire lives because they couldn’t complete this step—unable to merge their combat energy or form a vortex, so they were doomed to stay at that level forever. However, if they could advance to the intermediate stage, their strength would grow by leaps and bounds, far beyond what early-stage warriors could achieve, and it would also open another path for future cultivation.

The pain coming from his dantian made Rod’s face turn red. He couldn’t afford to be careless at all, carefully controlling every bit of combat energy, fearing any sudden strange changes.

The relentless influx of combat energy from the outside quickly transformed into more energy rushing toward him. Yet, this amount still seemed one step short of what he needed.

Realizing this, Rod finally understood why high-level magical beast cores were so valuable—they were simply a manifestation of those who had reached this level spending money to level up.

Frowning slightly, he realized that if even this place didn’t meet his requirements, what about the outside world? Taking another deep breath and gritting his teeth, he endured the slight pain and quickly took out a fire-type magical beast core, grasping it in his hand before beginning to absorb its energy in large quantities.

Instantly, an unimaginably pure energy surged into his body, carrying a hint of coldness. At this moment, Rod had no time to worry about anything else or think. With the influx of this energy, his life hung in the balance—extremely critical.

He quickly descended into his dantian and began to merge the energy from the three sources. The pure energy contained in this core was terrifying. Truly worthy of being a core from a late-stage Saint-level magical beast. Gritting his teeth to endure the pain, he carefully guided his combat energy to undergo actual transformation and fusion.

As the energy became more saturated, pure, and compressed, like in a compression bag, the combat energy was gradually squeezed together. Once it reached a terrifyingly high concentration, it began to transform from a gas to a liquid state!

After a while, the first trace of combat energy was finally compressed into a liquid state. Then, as if everything fell into place, success came one after another. Soon, the painful swelling in his dantian disappeared, replaced by frantic absorption! At this moment, fierce winds blew outside, and fire elements swarmed in as if they had found their world. The core in his hand emitted a strange dark-red glow, and a visible stream of energy flowed into his body through his arm. Perhaps due to the ample energy, or maybe because Rod had met all the absolute requirements, this stage, which others considered a dead end, was completed effortlessly. In no time, all the gases in his dantian had turned into liquid! What remained in the dantian after it turned into liquid was merely a wisp of fire-red liquid—very little, unbelievably so! And this was even after continuous energy absorption. After an unknown amount of time, when that wisp of energy reached the size of a small bowl, the final step arrived! A vortex—this step wasn’t very difficult either. With sufficient energy as a backing, it was extremely simple to gather these energies together and then, with the help of the terrifying energy constantly pouring in from the outside, Rod began to operate and rotate them according to the requirements of his mental technique! Instantly, that wisp of energy began to spin terrifyingly fast under the effect of centrifugal force, forming a bizarre liquid vortex! Yet, at this critical moment, just as success seemed within reach, a sudden event caused Rod’s heart to sink to the bottom. The sudden appearance of a cold aura made him inwardly curse.