498 Forced upgrade

In an instant, all my senses stopped responding. While I went through this process a few times already, the moment when my mind was suddenly enveloped by the complete darkness was still as shocking as when it happened for the first time. 

Yet even less than a split second later, I regained my vision with the only difference being the fact that it felt as if I was just a third person spectator of what was going with my body!

"KILL!"

With the voice clearly coming out from my throat yet sounding as alien as if it was shouted by someone else, my body rushed forward. In some unexplainable way, rather than riding the shockwaves like I always did, I could detect them erupting right inside my body, only for the wave of the condensed energy to be pushed from my back, accelerating my momentum just like in a real-life rocket!

Before I could even blink my imaginary eyes, my body already appeared right in front of the source of that thick energy that managed to keep existing even in face of the entropy covering my body. 

And once again, I could just sit back and watch the events, hoping that I could have a notepad and something to write in order to learn how I could achieve the limits of what my body could do!

Rather than using the snakesbite as a blunt weapon, a quick current of energy flew from my core to my hand and from it through the handle of the staff all the way to the blood crystal located at its top. 

With how fast the events were going on, I could only catch the glimpse of the elaborate dress of my opponent, before the tip of my staff touched his body.

Swiss!

As if a powerful acid was fed directly to the point where my blood core touched the powerful ancestor body, it instantly started melting, even long after my hand retracted and my body moved on to another opponent. Looking through my postal tool, I could see that this man I just killed without even the slightest effort was actually a collapsing spirit cultivator!

From what I could tell from all the knowledge amassed from my time back in the cultivation city and the resources obtained in the library, that was the highest one could get before breaking through the spiritual realm!

If that was the level of the average cultivator in this place, I might be unable to survive my attack even with my predator's mindset on!

Seeing that the situation wasn't as nice as I initially thought it would be, I realised that I had no other choice than to increase my own strength!

With the attribute points only waiting for me to use them and raise all my statistics to their current maximum, I decided not to use them so far only because I wanted to use those visions that appeared the last time I increased my wisdom statistic to comprehend everything that I learned about the entirety fo the world all at once. 

*Bonger, notify me when any real threat to my health will appear.*

Sending this order into the depths of my mind, I instantly dropped the idea of watching the events myself and immersed myself into the assets plundered from the library. 

One by one, bits of knowledge nicely sorted by my tool were soaking into my brain, while I attempted to make any sense of them. While I initially wanted to go through all the techniques that the library offered, I realised that there was a lot more, way more usefull knowledge that would be way harder to understand if I were to attempt to claim it mine.

Starting from the simplest idea of the cultivation realms, I could finally make sense of what those prideful names meant. 

Developing core? Enriching essence? Expanding sense? Establishing dominion? Or the finally, collapsing spirit? 

It was nothing more than just steps that one had to finalise to expand the energetical core of his spirit. During the development stage, one would just reinforce it to make sure it was capable of expanding without collapsing in itself. 

Then, the essence of one's soul that made the core, the semi-corporeal manifestation of one's soul would be enriched as to further elevate one's ability to control the even greater quantity of the energy due to the higher quality of his own essence. 

On the other hand, expanding sense was quite a peculiar step. No, it wasn't a mistake where due to the old age of the books one letter was scrapped turning senses into sense. 

With how one's core was basically the entirety of his soul condensed into a semi-corporeal core, by expanding its sphere of influence, one could claim that the real size of his core was even greater than that of his body, despite the core being hidden deep where one's dantian once was!

On this basis, establishing dominion seemed like the most logical step. With the sphere of one's influence already outside of the border's of one's body, by solidifying this area and infusing it with one's essence, one could create an area that would be inherently filled with the attribute of his spirituality.

But looking at those stages and after confirming one fact, I managed to realise something way more important.

Why Bonger never proposed the solution for Eve's problem before? Why did he keep silent about it for as long as it took me to break through the previous system limitations and reach the stage I was currently at? 

If my guts were not lying to me, my current upper limit was that of expanding sense cultivator, meaning that while I followed a different path of growth, my soul, despite being confined to the core, was bloated way beyond its boundaries!

Ignoring the fact that this duality was hard for someone as logical and enlighted in terms of modern science as me to comprehend, the fact that I was suddenly capable of the housing part of Eve's soul in my sphere of influence suddenly made sense! With how the attribute of my spirituality was based on my connection with my beloved one, it couldn't be any simpler!

But it was the collapsing spirit stage that made me worry to no end.

While bits of knowledge about this stage was greatly fragmented and not even close to wholesome, from what I found in my library it would seem that by reaching this stage, one would prepare to collapse his own dominion, his own expanded spirit back to the core! 

Due to the fact that I had no means of knowing what kinds of cultivation realms lied beyond that point, I wouldn't dare to even strive for that point without saving Eve's first! What if collapsing my spirituality back to the core would mean swallowing the part of Eve's soul that was residing in my core?! 

"BRO! IT'S NOW OR NEVER!"

With my thoughts wrecking my brains into pieces of anxiety and worry, I was unable to even perceive Bonger's anxious attempts to get through to my conscious part. Yet hearing his shouts, I realised I had no time to learn or hesitate any longer.

*MAX ALL MY ATTRIBUTES!*