Mutant realm

After sitting down in his tent and calming his emotions, Kane drank the core solution in the fourth bottle. He sat for two hours while feeling the cold energy that traveled to every part of his body and into his core.

When the energy from the core solution was completely absorbed, he opened his eyes and sighed. This process was really slow. He had to speed things up.

He opened up three bottles and drank the contents all at once. After a few minutes, he felt an intense cold spreading throughout his body. His teeth started chattering and his body began to shiver intensely in a bid to generate heat. After two hours, he began to feel that he was slowly getting used to the cold. He began to think that his body had already started building cold resistance.

The cold energy began to retreat from all parts of his body and moved towards his core. When the core absorbed all of this energy, Kane was about to sigh in disappointment when his body was wracked with intense pain. His body was constantly shuddering from the pain and popping sounds frequently emitted from his body.

This state lasted for two hours before finally easing up. Kane crumpled on the floor and passed out of exhaustion. The next morning, Kane woke up refreshed and slightly surprised. He thought his entire body would be sore after what happened the previous night.

He had successfully advanced into tier 8 of the grunt realm after using five bottles of the core solution. He sincerely hoped that the remaining would be enough to get him to the mutant realm. He would continue advancing but that would be after he ate something though. He was extremely hungry.

It would appear that his appetite was greatly increased as he devoured his entire store of deer meat. What was left was the wolf meat roasted by his master. He was also slowly becoming fed up with the constant meat consumption and decided to search for fruits and berries but that would be after he advanced into the mutant realm or when he runs out of core solution.

After his meal, he spent two hours exercising before heading back into his tent. This time around, he used three more bottles of the core solution and his experience was different from the previous one. The cold he experienced this time around was not as overbearing as the one before which gave him a sense of satisfaction. His body had developed a little cold resistance.

The only downside was that after four hours he did not ascend to the next tier. That was to be expected. The higher one went, even more resources would be required to step into the next level.

Without rest, he also drank another three bottles of the core solution. The cold he felt this time around was almost negligible. The core energy which was circulating all over his body was absorbed into his core after two hours. The pain of his body violently changing quickly set in.

Unlike before the pain was no longer nerve-racking, it was almost bearable. This continued for two hours more before he broke through to the tier 9 grunt realm. His power rose exponentially once more and he already felt that he was strong enough to give that tier 9 grey wolf a run for his money.

Kane did not pass out this time but he was really tired and hungry after his recent advancement. He stepped out of his tent and decided to eat first before exercising since it was already past noon.

He was really careful when handling the wood for the campfire and his canned beans since he was not yet used to his new strength and nearly squashed the can he was holding.

He spent two hours exercising after he finished his meal. He had not taken a bath in days and was beginning to smell so he went back to the lake to quickly clean himself up before drinking the last bottle of core solution.

When he returned to his campsite, it was already past 5 pm. He quickly entered his tent and took out the last bottle of core solution. He stared at it intently and was seriously hoping that this will help him break into the mutant realm. 'This is a tier 9 beast core. It should be much more potent than multiple tier 4 beast cores, right?' Kane thought to himself.

He took the bottle and drank the contents. After a while, cold energy flowed into every corner of his body. Unlike before when he directly passed out after drinking a tier 9 grunt realm core solution where he began convulsing and passed out shortly, he had already developed a little cold resistance and his core could now absorb that amount of energy.

He endured the cold for three hours before the core energy in his body was absorbed by his core. His body quickly began to modify itself as his bones and organs were continually being strengthened. The pain was on another level as drastic changes were being made to his body. His skin began to turn red as his body was soaked in sweat.

He endured the pain for three hours before it subsided. After having a sigh of relief, he began to examine his body. He was immediately disappointed. Apart from his body's strength improving, there were no other noticeable changes. There was no indication that he had broken into a new realm.

He wanted to stand up but his eyes widened in shock. He suddenly had a strong urge to throw up. He opened his mouth and projectile vomited blood which hit the wall of this tent. He looked on in horror as he began to bleed profusely from every orifice in his body.

He could not breathe and fell to his knees as he was rapidly losing strength and was about to suffocate. His master who was some distance away noticed his condition and arrived at Kane's location.

The pool of Kane's blood which was all around him quickly converged around him and wrapped around Kane's struggling body. When Abel entered the tent, the blood had already formed a hardened red cocoon.

Abel's worry-filled face was soon replaced with that of confusion. He stood at the tent entrance for a while as he tried to figure out what just happened.

He came back to his senses and decided to take Kane away from this part of the forest. He quickly brought the 'Kane cocoon' out from the tent and kept the tent in his storage ring.

He left the clearing and ran deeper into the forest while carrying the cocoon in his hands. He did not take the direction of the lake but he went deeper into the forest non the less.

After hours of running, he found an area that had more grass than trees. He stretched his hand and raw elemental energy landed on the ground and instantly vaporized the grass and everything else apart from the trees in the area. He took out Kane's tent and pitched it before bringing the cocoon into it.

He sat down cross-legged at the entrance of the tent before going into meditation. Anything that enters this zone would consider itself as having deadly luck.

…

One week later.

It had been a week since Kane turned into a cocoon and almost two weeks since they left the RV. Abel was still meditating and no beast hand intruded into their space.

There was a crack sound and Abel opened his eyes. He waved his hand and put the tent into his storage ring. The red cocoon now had cracks forming on it. The cracks grew more numerous before a fist was smashed through it from the inside.

The cocoon shattered into tiny pieces and a butt naked Kane fell to the ground. The red pieces of the shattered cocoon turned into a red mist and penetrated his skin.

The Kane on the floor was very different from the one that entered the cocoon. He now looked like a 12-year-old and was roughly 160 cm tall. He was now a little tanned, unlike his previous pale complexion. It seemed that his adaptation mutation had evolved as it modified his skin to help him handle the Dyssiodian empire's hot climate.

Kane slowly opened his eyes but was feeling lethargic. His vision was heavy and he found it difficult to stand on his feet. "Take it easy now Kane. You are going to be all right" Kane heard his master's soothing voice before he felt a warm cloth draped onto his body. He sat back on the ground to recover.

After some time, he felt better and decided to probe into the state of his body. He felt like he was stronger than the time he vomited blood by multiple times. He observed his body even more closely and noticed a form of strength coursing through his body.

He felt like he could do anything as long as that strength did not run dry. He soon realized that the strength was the elemental energy supplied by his core.

Kane then realized he had stepped into the mutant realm.