Chapter 190: Gold Core
This...
Arthur sure had a unique taste.
Looking around, all I could see were tall trees, and a massive river flowing by the side.
The atmosphere felt refreshing.
"I will wait outside."
Julien spoke from the side.
"Sure. You may head back if you want."
I gave him the option, but—
"I will take a stroll. How about making a campfire here after your rank up? A party of sorts."
I just nodded my head in return.
After arriving at the cultivation area, or the training facility that Arthur had built for himself, all my thoughts were now focused on evolving my core.
Though it was a given that I would be able to rank up... the difficulty of the process was what made me cautious.
Like every other time, I knew that ranking up to the gold core would cause another huge commotion in my surroundings, but—
Seeing the calmness of my surroundings, many of my worries were automatically reduced.
As Julien walked out, I headed towards the centre, where a small square-shaped platform was built.
Just looking at its design, it was easy to tell that the area was meant to be sat upon for cultivating after combat.
Without any reservations, I sat cross-legged on the platform before slowly closing my eyes.
My mana core was currently filled with cracks across the entirety of its surface.
Taking slow, controlled breaths, I began to channel the mana in my body into my core, expanding those already existing cracks.
The moment I willed my mana, the cracks across the surface of my core began to expand as more mana entered it.
I didn’t stop, nor did the cracks.
After what felt like an eternity, I stopped channelling the mana and focused on repairing those cracks, while at the same time beginning to actively compress the core.
As I was at Silver 3, my core had three mana rings around it.
The moment the cracks in the core expanded, the mana rings around it destabilised and began to merge into the core.
It was like after a structure’s collapse—everything around it is attracted to the centre.
The mana rings, after being attracted towards the centre of the core, began to dissolve and completely merge with it.
At the same time, I began to repair the cracks in the core while simultaneously compressing it to even out its shape.
As a result, the semi-merged mana rings got stuck inside the core with no way to fully merge, as the cracks were beginning to heal.
That was where the next step began.
Channelling mana through my core, I began to broaden those cracks once again, while at the same time accelerating the merger of the mana rings, then repairing the cracks along with increasing the compression of the core.
All of the processes were carried out at the same time, resulting in harmony between them.
This time, there was no formation of a vortex or any sort of accident, as my mana control and experience in evolving the core were far greater than what they had been at the start.
When I was evolving from Iron to Bronze core... my core was in a unique condition at the time, as it wasn’t used to absorbing the mana essence from other living beings.
That was the main reason behind the process going berserk and resulting in massive consumption of mana, leading to the vortex that had literally caused a disaster around me.
Now... my mana core had already adapted to foreign mana essence absorption, and after repeated practice, I had grown decently proficient in evolving my core.
Though a small vortex had indeed formed when I was evolving from Bronze to Silver core.
But that experience had broadened my skills, resulting in such a normal rank up.
At the beginning, when I had tried new things like compressing the mana core to a crazy extent... though it had led to an increase in my power, it was later that Arthur had explained the risks of what I had done.
The increase in my power was real, but it wasn’t necessary—at least according to Arthur’s logic.
Though he had indeed commended my courage in building a strong foundation, Arthur had since then banned me from trying anything like that.
And to some extent, I had to accept Arthur’s advice, as I knew that the only reason I wasn’t dead back then... was due to my skills to a certain extent, but the main factor being my extremely good luck.
My mana rings had now merged into the core, while the cracks had nearly been repaired.
There were still some micro-cracks left, but they were on the smaller side, and with the continuous compression of the core, even those cracks had begun to disappear.
The size of my mana core had returned to its original state after bulking up from the merger with the mana rings.
Though I tried my best to compress it to the maximum extent possible without risking my life.
My mana core was now glowing slightly, as the process of evolving it had nearly been completed with no accidents whatsoever.
The entire ordeal took no more than five minutes.
I could now sense my core changing its colour and emitting a faint golden light.
Gold...
I was now a Gold core.
Though the outcome was already decided, even I found it weird that no accidents had occurred during the process.
It had always been a normal occurrence for me for things to go the wrong way, but this time, I seemed to have lucked out.
After emitting a faint golden light, the intensity of the light began to increase as another change took place in my core.
Slowly but surely, my first mana ring in the Gold rank began to form around my core.
Taking a deep yet steady breath, I channelled more mana through my new core, accelerating the formation of the mana ring.
A minute passed as I continued supplying mana to the newly formed core, and—
I was now a Gold 1 ranker.
Exhaling slowly, I opened my eyes, only to be greeted by the same scenery as before.
Standing up, I began to inspect the changes in my core.
My mana reserves had once again increased fivefold, compared to normal individuals whose mana reserves only increase twofold until reaching the Diamond rank.
All of this increase could be attributed to my strong foundation, which had been set the day I evolved from Iron core to Bronze 1.
The hardships that I had to experience at that time had led to such an easy power-up for me at the moment.
There were some more changes to my body, but that would have to wait... as live combat was the only way to gauge the increase in my combat prowess.
As the work here was done, there was no need to wait longer.
Arthur would soon return from his expedition, and it was now time to speed things up.
Thinking about the plans that I had to set in motion going forward, I made my way out of the training facility.
The moment I stepped out, my eyes landed on Julien, who sat against a rock, a bonfire lit before him.
Walking in Julien’s direction, I took a seat beside him, resting my back against the rock that felt surprisingly comfortable—
"That was quick!"
My thoughts were interrupted by Julien’s raised voice as he looked at me with wide eyes.
"..."
"I mean... doesn’t it take an hour or so to rank up? Compressing the core and all those things should take more time, right?"
Julien asked, though his hands were already in motion, adding more firewood.
"The person in question is me."
Julien paused his actions the moment the words left my mouth.
"Fair enough."
Shrugging his shoulders, Julien adjusted a grill over the bonfire, which had some meat spread across its surface.
"Isn’t it too early—"
"Boss, why limit ourselves to the schedules of ordinary people?"
Julien interrupted my sentence before I could complete it.
Now that I think about it, he has been interrupting me many times, though I chose to turn a blind eye to it.
I mean... I wasn’t silly enough for my ego to get bruised over such petty things.
There was a long silence between us, with the only sound being the wood burning underneath the grill.
"I forgot to mention, but Arthur had just made contact with the headquarters. The teleportation passage on his end is nearly complete, and now they are connecting it to the one at the headquarters."
Sigh.
The mana stones would now arrive here, and that meant the time to heal Arthur’s daughter and Arthur himself was close... very close.
Thinking back, it felt like yesterday that I had negotiated the deal with Arthur, with him pledging his allegiance to me.
Two years... the time had passed in the blink of an eye, and now I was a Gold core, far stronger than the brat who had a pathetic body of a mere sixteen-year-old.