33 Chapter 33 - Level 2

Now that everything was back to normal and only occasionally one could see someone flying through the air at an incredible speed, Kyle went into his tent and started working out the plan for his next move.

He had to break through this time, that would let him reach Foundation Establishment as well reach level 2. The problem was that Lighting Step was bottlenecking his progress with Dominion Technique. The book said that the layers of the dominion technique were not related to the cultivation level, but it would ease the understanding of the Dominion Technique. Plus it would make it much easier to cultivate. Each higher layer had more profound and more perfect systems that would boost cultivation speed by multiple times as well as reach speed and power multiple times as well.

He own understanding and insight would have to be used in order to ponder and understand the techniques, the pearl and the system couldn't help him with this directly.

Kyle's main way to improve would be to grow in levels and search for any lighting elements and beasts that would provide him with it. In reality, Kyle thought that it would be quite easy considering the number of different beasts that existed, but lighting was rare to begin with. This meant that Kyle had to travel to specific forests or parts of the world to find the correct environment for beats to get insights into the lighting element.

Kyle was still happy to reach higher levels, so he took out the hedgehog body outside of the tent. It was massive, and the place where Wave of Conviction passed didn't even bleed, it was a simple and very surgical kill. Kyle was happy that his proficiency started to improve, and he can hunt so efficiently. Looking at the empty back with no spikes reminded Kyle of all the spikes. His body still didn't recover and was hurting all over with qi constantly repairing the skin and tissue.

As Kyle started rotating the qi inside of his body, he accepted the absorption of the hedgehog energy.

The Qi Condensation realm required to make their qi into a vast and strong lake that could annihilate cities with its power. This was done by allowing the natural energy of the world to get into one's body and to accumulate and purify it in the already existing qi. This is exactly why Kyle practised the movement technique as well as breathing technique every day with absorbing and refining his qi. This was a quantity process.

The next step was Foundation Establishment that would take all of the qi in the body and would make it much richer and smaller in size by cultivating with the movements described. This was a quality process.

After the Foundation Establishment is at its peak, the Golden Core realm would follow. That realm was one of the breaking points for most of the beings in the world of Game. If one reached the Golden Core, they would already be in the top of the food chain.

The Golden Core allowed one to extend their life to at least 500 years which was more than enough to live comfortably and also it gave incredible powers that allowed one to dominate an entire region and even become a king in some. This realm asked from the cultivator to take all the high-quality qi they have acquired and shape it into a solid sphere of qi. It was a tough process, the one that took countless lives from this world.

Kyle stopped his line of thought as at the moment. He had to focus on what is at hand for him. That was breaking into the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Kyle looked at the hedgehog, and the qi and energy started to get into his body. The small whirlpool appeared above them. Even though it was shocking, after Kyle saw the level 3 energy of spider and ogre and what absorbing them have caused, this was considered nothing for him.

Kyle felt that the energy that he was absorbing was going into his dantian, but he couldn't understand why his qi level and nor the purple EXP tank inside the pearl are not going up. It was as if the energy was disappearing. It was already considered confusing why he was stuck at level 1 and 99% for so long even though he was consuming so much energy from the beasts.

'Oh I remember, there was something about the bottleneck that system said when I reached the peak.' Kyle tried to remember.

[ Congratulations on reaching the peak of Level 1, break the bottleneck to Level 2 ]

'This means that I need to force my body somehow to level up; let's see if this hedgehogs energy would be enough.' As Kyle looked at the body that was disappearing and only a little bit of energy left, he felt down.'It would be hard to hunt stronger level 2 beast considering how cunning and powerful they are. Maybe I can bulk up the level 1 beasts?'

Just as Kyle was already down and contemplating how he should go on about this, three notifications have resounded.

[ Lucky Charm has been used! ]

[ Bottleneck has been resolved! ]

[ Congratulations on reaching Level 2!]

As the notifications resounded, a huge change started happening inside Kyle's body. The biggest one coming from the pearl. It was pulsating and giving out the power that Kyle has never felt. It was something raw and untamed, something that gave Kyle goosebumps. After the pearl has been pulsating for one minute, it suddenly stopped. Kyle was about to carry on to see what were the results of his breakthrough, but after a careful search, he didn't see anything different it was is if he didn't break up just yet.

Kyle withdrew from the spiritual sense to walk around and wait, but when he opened his eyes, he was shocked. There in front of him was the same forest, but the leaves and everything around him suddenly stopped. It was as if the time has stopped. 'This is just like when I fought with the Lion and was able to touch on to the concept of time, but this is taking it to the extreme. Kyle stood up and tried to walk around, but at this exact moment, the pearl pupated one more time and released this raw energy out. It used Kyle as the medium and released it to the outside.

Unbelievable pain that caused Kyle to scream in agony released. Kyle couldn't control or do anything. He thought that his body is about to explode. He couldn't be able to bear it any longer, and so he lost his consciousness. The orange energy kept on releasing from the pearl. It was as if an atomic bomb has dropped, with Kyle being in the centre of the explosion.

Everything surrounding Kyle has been wiped in an instant; everything was dead and scorched.

Kyle couldn't see anything; he was unconscious and was travelling right now in the depths of his mind.