Three days had passed since Ryven first set foot in Tianxing's beast hunting grounds, and his approach to cultivation had undergone a dramatic evolution. Gone was the cautious newcomer who fled after each kill—in his place stood a confident predator who had learned to turn the forest's natural hunting rhythms to his advantage.
His current campsite demonstrated this transformation perfectly. Located in a natural clearing surrounded by crystalline formations that amplified spiritual energy, the area had become an impromptu throne room where Ryven waited for prey to come to him. The ground around the perimeter was littered with beast bones and core fragments, while the lingering scent of blood and spiritual energy created an invisible beacon that drew curious predators from miles around.
"Much more efficient than wandering around looking for trouble," Ryven mused, examining his latest collection of beast cores. His spatial storage ring now contained the crystallized spiritual energy of over two hundred Feral Beasts, ranging from Body Refinement equivalents to peak Foundation Realm specimens. The cores pulsed with contained power, their chaotic energy signatures creating a rainbow of colors within the ring's dimensional space.
More importantly, he'd discovered that beast meat from Tianxing's spiritually-enhanced creatures was incredibly rich in yang energy. His storage ring now contained enough properly prepared beast steaks to supply a cultivation restaurant, each cut radiating the kind of pure yang essence that would normally cost thousands of dollars on Earth's black markets.
But it was the change in his combat effectiveness that truly marked his growth. Where individual beasts had once posed genuine challenges, now entire packs barely required his attention. His developing sword intent had reached a level where his techniques seemed to guide themselves, finding optimal strike points and creating effects that exceeded the sum of their technical components.
"Speaking of which," Ryven said to himself, settling into cultivation position as another group of spiritual signatures approached his territory, "time to see if quantity can substitute for quality in advancing to Core Crystallization."
The cultivation breakthrough he was attempting should have been impossible under normal circumstances. Beast cores were notoriously chaotic in their energy composition, requiring careful purification by skilled alchemists before they could be safely absorbed. Attempting to cultivate directly using raw beast cores was considered suicidal—the chaotic spiritual energy would typically cause qi deviation severe enough to permanently damage a cultivator's foundation.
But Ryven's Ancestral Chaos Bloodline thrived on exactly this type of challenge.
As he began consuming the first beast core—a crystallized mass of fire-attributed energy from a Flame Mane Lion—he felt the chaotic spiritual power flooding his meridian system with barely contained violence. Instead of fighting the disorderly energy flows, his bloodline embraced them, using the chaos to stimulate deeper comprehension of the fundamental forces underlying cultivation itself.
The effect was extraordinary. Where other cultivators would experience painful qi disruption, Ryven felt his understanding of spiritual energy expanding exponentially. The chaotic nature of the beast cores wasn't a obstacle—it was a teaching tool that showed him how energy could exist in multiple states simultaneously, how order and disorder were simply different expressions of the same underlying principles.
Core after core disappeared into his cultivation, each one adding not just spiritual energy but deeper insight into the nature of existence itself. His Eternal Origin Physique compressed and refined the chaotic power into incredibly pure qi, while his bloodline used the disorderly elements to enhance his comprehension of advanced concepts that should have required years of study.
By the time Ryven had consumed fifty cores, something unprecedented happened. His developing sword intent, stimulated by the constant exposure to chaotic spiritual energy, suddenly crystallized into perfect clarity. But instead of achieving just the first layer of sword intent as expected, the insight process continued, carrying him directly to the second layer while simultaneously awakening his comprehension of space intent at the same advanced level.
"This is insane," he breathed, pausing his cultivation as he felt the dual intents resonating within his consciousness. Sword intent at the second layer allowed him to imbue his techniques with cutting properties that transcended physical limitations, while space intent at the same level granted limited manipulation of spatial dimensions. Most cultivators required decades to develop even basic intent, yet he'd achieved advanced mastery of two separate intents simultaneously.
The cultivation session continued with renewed intensity. More beast cores fueled his advancement through Core Crystallization's successive stages, while his dual intents created synergistic effects that enhanced both his comprehension speed and the effectiveness of his techniques. The spatial aspects of his sword intent allowed for attacks that ignored conventional defenses, while the cutting properties of his space intent created dimensional effects that operated on principles he was only beginning to understand.
When Ryven finally completed his breakthrough session, he had reached the peak of Core Crystallization—the fourth stage of Foundation Realm—using resources that should have killed him rather than enhanced his cultivation. His qi had become so compressed and refined that casual energy releases created visible distortions in the air around him, while his BPI had increased to approximately 5,000—placing him at the theoretical maximum for town-level destruction capabilities.
More concerning was what this power level meant in practical terms. If he were to fight seriously on Earth, the collateral damage would be catastrophic. His casual sword strokes could now level city blocks, while his serious techniques might destroy entire urban districts. Only Tianxing's massive scale—a planet one hundred times larger than Earth—could safely contain the kind of power he was developing.
"Right," Ryven said, surveying his empty storage ring with mild disappointment, "time to go shopping for more cores. At this rate, I'll need to hunt Spirit Beasts if I want to maintain this advancement pace."
As if summoned by his words, a new spiritual signature entered his awareness—one that radiated power far beyond anything he'd encountered previously. This wasn't a Feral Beast attracted by the scent of blood and spiritual energy. This was a predator in its own right, something that viewed his impromptu territory as an invasion rather than a curiosity.
The Iron Mountain Bear that emerged from the tree line was a true Spirit Beast, equivalent to early Fusion Realm cultivation and possessing all the enhanced intelligence that came with that level of development. Standing fifteen feet tall when reared on its hind legs, the creature's fur had been replaced by overlapping metallic plates that gleamed like armor, while its claws extended into foot-long talons capable of carving through stone.
More importantly, this beast radiated killing intent that spoke of genuine malice rather than simple hunger. It had come to eliminate the upstart cultivator who had been slaughtering its territorial neighbors, and its enhanced intelligence made it a far more dangerous opponent than the instinct-driven Feral Beasts he'd been facing.
"Well," Ryven said, drawing the Void Eclipse Sword and feeling his dual intents responding to the promise of real combat, "this should be interesting."
The battle that followed would have been impossible for him just days earlier. The Iron Mountain Bear's metallic hide was proof against conventional weapons, while its speed and strength exceeded anything in the Foundation Realm equivalency range. Its attacks created craters in the crystalline ground, and when it roared, the sound carried enough spiritual pressure to disorient weaker cultivators.
But Ryven was no longer the cautious newcomer who had first arrived on Tianxing. His dual intents—sword and space both at the second layer—created combat capabilities that operated on entirely different principles than simple physical force. His sword strokes didn't need to penetrate the bear's metallic hide when they could cut through the spatial dimensions that contained it, while his space intent allowed him to reposition instantaneously during combat.
The fight became a demonstration of how advanced intent could overcome raw power differences. Each of the bear's devastating attacks met empty air as Ryven used space intent to relocate himself between dimensions, while his counter-attacks struck from angles that the creature's enhanced intelligence couldn't predict or defend against.
When Ryven finally landed the killing blow—a sword stroke that utilized both intents simultaneously to cut through space and strike directly at the bear's spiritual core—the resulting energy release created a massive explosion that would have leveled several city blocks on Earth. Trees within a hundred-meter radius were simply vaporized, while the crystalline formations amplifying the area's spiritual energy cracked and shattered from the shockwave.
"Definitely need to be more careful about power control," Ryven muttered, surveying the devastation while extracting the bear's enormous beast core. The crystallized spiritual energy was easily ten times more potent than the Feral Beast cores he'd been consuming, pulsing with power that made his cultivation base resonate with anticipation.
As he stored the valuable core and choice cuts of spiritually-enhanced meat, Ryven realized that his hunting grounds would need to expand. Spirit Beasts represented a quantum leap in both danger and reward, but his developing power required increasingly potent resources to fuel continued advancement.
More importantly, he was beginning to understand the true scope of what cultivation could achieve. The destruction he'd just caused—equivalent to leveling a small town—was merely the beginning of Core Crystallization's potential. If he continued advancing at this rate, he would soon possess power that most people couldn't even comprehend.
The thought was both exhilarating and sobering. Great power came with equally great responsibility, and eventually he would need to decide how to use his abilities in a world where cultivation determined everything from social status to survival itself.
For now, surrounded by the devastation of his latest battle and with the taste of victory fresh in his memory, Ryven focused on the immediate challenge of finding opponents strong enough to test his growing abilities. His real cultivation journey was just beginning, and the path ahead promised challenges that would push both his power and his character to their absolute limits.