Mortal Leaving Pinnacle Realm (263/800 XP)
My eyes scanned the range of techniques on the bookshelves quickly – I knew I didn't have much time before the Core Gathering Stage cultivator that was guarding this place returned, no matter what was happening it would quickly be suppressed by the people with strength, unfortunately, I still wasn't among their ranks.
My eyes scanned the myriad of Battle Techniques in front of me in seconds – yet there were none that interested me, most of them were fist techniques and sword techniques, I still hadn't come across any techniques to be performed with daggers.
The time slowly moved by and it'd already been a full ten minutes since I'd infiltrated the pavilion and yet I still hadn't found any technique for daggers, I was starting to become impatient but I kept my calm and continued to check the shelves.
"Dammit, there's nothing!" I screamed, I sent a fist at the shelf making it explode in my fury – it was truly hard to remain indifferent despite my heart reaching a profound realm, I'd looked forward to this only to discover what I wanted didn't exist in their collection.
"Who's there?" I detected several guards at the pinnacle of the Mortal Leaving stage come up the stairs, I couldn't be bothered to deal with these small fries right now so I controlled the Abyssal Daggers to kill them.
Screams before silence could be heard from the direction of the stairs.
+60 XP Gained from killing 3 Mortal Leaving Pinnacle Cultivators, the kills put me a little less away from the halfway line for the XP I needed for my breakthrough. I was still brooding when a thought came to my mind, 'What about the abode of the Core Gathering Cultivator?
'
The best stuff had to be kept where he resided after all right? A sly grin appeared on my face as I found the staircase upwards to the next floor, there were an array of rooms which I assume they rented out rooms to cultivate the techniques in, no doubt they made more money off of giving people a quiet environment to practice than selling the techniques themselves.
I heard people cultivating inside the rooms, numerous grunts and pained screams came from different rooms – no doubt they'd chosen a technique that could maim them if they got it wrong and had failed miserably, but I paid no attention to it, everyone on this floor were mortals, close to breaking through but mortals nonetheless.
Quickly I came to a corner cornered off with two guards standing watch, their auras were at the pinnacle realm and extremely close to a breakthrough themselves but they still hadn't taken that final step.
Using the Abyssal daggers I extinguished the lit candles around the hallways and gave myself ample room to move in the Shadow Realm before entering it and moving behind the two guards quickly.
They were confused by the sudden darkness but didn't move from their posts – truly to the end they were loyal guards.
I appeared behind them and in an instant using a blade in both hands plunged it into their hearts – in an instant, they were dead corpses on the ground lifelessly lying there.
+200 XP Gained from Killing 2 Quasi-Core Gathering Cultivators.
'Oh? So there's a Quasi-Core Gathering Realm as well? Hopefully that isn't the next stage for me or I'm really going to be p*ssed, the Tiger King never mentioned it so maybe it's determined by certain conditions?' I thought, but quickly moved up the stairs they were guarding to the top of the building, this building really did seem bigger on the inside than outside.
When I had burrowed in through the roof I had gone directly through until I had reached the technique library and hadn't paid attention to how many floors I'd gone through, if I'd stopped at the first one I probably would've discovered the home of the Core Gathering Cultivator sooner.
Finally, I came to a door on the highest floor of the pavilion, the aura of the Cultivator who lived here was still strong since it hadn't even been twenty minutes since he'd left.
Opening the door I rushed in, it was a spacious room with a multitude of things all over the place: Weapons, manuals, materials and what looked like pills were scattered across the floor like the room of a messy teenager.
I felt a surge of excitement as I looked around the room, then I noticed her. She was a stunning beauty, she sat silently crossed legged on the bed in silence not even noticing my entrance – it seems the reason the aura of the cultivator was still so strong wasn't that she had recently left but because she was still here.
But how?
She didn't even register that I had entered the room as she remained in meditation, I could feel the surging energy from her body which gave an impression of power but the strange thing was she felt powerless.
"Tch, does it matter?" I was cautious and used the Abyssal Daggers from a distance to slit her throat – to my surprise she was instantly killed with no resistance.
+400 XP Gained from Killing 1 Core Gathering Intermediate Cultivator
I just stood there stunned… Earlier I had reached 323/800 XP, after killing the two guards outside I'd reached523 XP.
But now in an instant I had reached the required XP to level up in an instant with an overflow of 123 XP too, I stood there and waited for the notification to appear and the surge of energy that normally came with a breakthrough to come – but instead I was greeted with a new line of text.
"Do you wish to break through to the Core Gathering Realm? Breakthrough time will take one day, during this time the Host will be in a semi-conscious state and will retaliate when attacked."
I was somewhat glad that I hadn't been forced into a breakthrough or else I would've been pretty screwed if I was forced to breakthrough on the spot and died because I couldn't control my body.
Looking around at the empty room, not counting the corpse that laid slumped on the bed after her neck was cut – I was alone, I doubted anyone would intrude on a Core Gathering Experts Room anyway, but just to be sure I walked to one side of the room and covered myself as best as I could, I had no idea if my aura would burst out during my breakthrough so such precautions would be meaningless but just in case I had to take some safety measures.
Now if anyone entered the room and simply gave it a cursory glance they wouldn't be able to discover me unless they were looking for something.
"Let me breakthrough." I somewhat knew how the system worked at this point, I simply willed myself to breakthrough and the process began – an intense surge of energy came from outside and streamed into my body, I'd never felt as much power as I was feeling now, it completely overwhelmed and intoxicated me.
A wave of pleasure rolled over me before I fell into a stage of slumber…
