Damaged core, new found strength.

Adam fell on his knees with all his reserves drained and feeling tired. He took a couple of minutes to regain his breath and let out a deep sigh.

" Really again?" He thought internally as he felt all his reserves drained once again.

He just aimless laid and looked at the sky with his hand on his forehead. As soon as he placed the hand in its position he felt a sharp pain.

"Oh f#ck! What the h*//? When did that happen?" He exclaimed looking at his swollen right hand.

He couldn't fight at his best with his dominant hand injured. He didn't know any healing magic or had any potions on him, the place he was in seemed to have no signs of efficient herbs either. So, he did some quick first aid with the things with him. He found a herb in the surrounding grass after meticulous searching. He was very familiar with it. It was

He walked to the dead beast and started to cut it with his daggers. It took quite the effort he had to say. He was searching for the beast's core. A beast's core os very useful. It can be used to power various things such as vehicles, houses etc. They can even be used as a source of magic/energy for a seal. The beast's core can also be used to create weapons, the stronger the core the stronger the weapon. The same can also be said to the beast's bloodline. Sometimes the special abilities or traits get transferred into beast gear, these abilities or traits or skills which are transferred are called 'active skills' and 'passive skills'.

Adam finally was successful in extracting its core. It had a strong energy around which was slowly seeping out and deminishing slowly. He was very intrigued, what could even hurt the beast to this extent. From the looks of it, it must have been at the early stages of the advanced plane 4-5 days ago or a week at best buy now it was a mere intermediate beast. He could tell the beast cores were quite strong and it was of a pretty high bloodline, so he could only imagine some strong beast accidentally damaging it or a human specialising in astral or soul type attacks must have done it. The former was better and actually more believable. This was a forest used for training and examinations. So it must have been a beast in the deeper areas of the forest and the wolf must have recently relocated. If it was an examiner or an employee of the forest's owner, the wolf should be already dead by now. It was actually terrifying to think that the beast wasn't even at its best and was actually being weakened by every attack. It was the main reason why the beast was on the defensive rather than being on the offensive even when Adam just broke through. If it was at its peak no even if its power weren't constantly diminishing in the battle, Adam would have been dead by now. The fire beam which it performed even worsened it, there were slight signs of it sub-consciously using its Qi which just made it worse.

Aam was dumb struck by his own luck. Although he was a bit hurt, he wasn't dead.

He reluctantly collected the core, hoping to absorb it right now. First, he used some of its mana to draw an array and then, he sat right in the middle of the array and placed the core in front of him. He swiftly entered into a meditative state and started absorbing the core without wasting a second, it would be of a great help. It could give him a quick break through and would greatly increase his strength. However, it would require some time to get used to his strength and abilities and use them at their best.

Soon, 30 minutes had passed and he finished his first break-through. He was sweating but he still kept going on.

Soon, another 30 minutes passed and the sweat on his body drastically increased. He was soaked it sweat.

" Should I keep going on?" he questioned himself. " No, I should probably stop now." And with this he reluctantly stopped his cultivation.

His condition was worse than what he had expected, his body was completely drenched. Even the grass around him seemed to be wet. He was panting heavily and it took a couple of minutes to regain his breath. The beast's core was stronger than he expected, the wolf must have been of a high bloodline. If he were to continue, he were to continue, there were even chances that him mutating.

He took a deep breath and started meditating again but this time he wasn't absorbing the core but rather, he was circulating the energy in a particular manner. He was doing this to let his body gets used to the mana he had right now and the strength he currently possessed, his energy was running wild previously although it may get to normal after a while, he would be in quite a bad condition if he chose that road.

He did this for around 30 minutes. He was completely set now. He got from his meditative state and looked at his first, he clenched it tightly. He could feel the force behind it right now. He moved towards a nearby tree which was quite large than the othes, although it wasn't the largest it was the nearest which he opted for. He could tell that it was strong, sturdy and durable from the looks of it, hence his choice. He clenched his fist tightly and punched the tree but surprisingly nothing major happened.

He gulped, recalling the attack of the wolf which burned multiple trees like this. If the attacks had hit him, he wouldn't be standing here right now if there was intervention from the examiners or employees.

He looked at his fist again and clenched it. He infused it with flames. He pulled his arm back and punched the tree as hard as he could. This time a couple of leaves and fruits fell on the ground and one of them fell on his head making him look quite idiotic. But this wasn't the only thing that happened, the barks of the tree fell off and there were clear burn marks which were caused due to he attack. Despite his failures, he tried yet again infusing his fist with even greater mana. The flames on his fist grew bigger and bigger until his fist appeared five times bigger in size. He punched the tree with all its might and the same thing happened again but this time even more of the barm fell crumbled. He wanted to try one last time giving it all before moving on to absorbing the core again. His fists which were extinguisherd just before a few seconds suddenly roared with flames. The flames grew larger and larger untill the flame on both of his fists partially covered his face. The intensity of the heat was high. He pulled his fist back for some momentum and then proceed to punch with all his might. He didn't stop to look for the after but rather punched it with the other fist in the same manner, he didn't stop there he continued punching it until he felt like there was nothing there. His sheer strength prevailed and the tree which stood pround and strong had now crumbled with clear burm marks in a specific region