Chapter 28: Five Days
An hour passed by, yet Rohan saw no progress. Every time he absorbed a bit of Origin Energy from the surrounding air, he tried directing it towards the Evolution Gene, but it always rejected it every time.
"That basically confirms that I can’t."
For whatever reason, there must not be any Elite Origin Energy in the surrounding atmosphere. Which Rohan was expecting.
If you could obtain it that easily, then the Awakened sitting at the peak of F rank wouldn’t be so desperate to get their hands on every Elite Origin Crystal that shows up on the market.
"I guess it makes sense, kind of. Otherwise there would be a whole lot more Elite beasts walking around if you could simply just absorb it from the air..."
Rohan’s thinking slowed once he reached the end of his sentence. ’Or maybe that’s exactly the case? Are Elite tier beasts so rare because you can only absorb stronger Origin Energy in specific locations?’
He knew that there was likely much more to it than that, but it had to be somewhere along the right lines.
’That must be a big reason why they care so much about territories! There must be some special place in the Firestone Forest where Elite Origin Energy could be found lingering in the air, or something similar.’
He lacked far too much knowledge about the Origin Realm to make a firm judgement on the subject, so he left the experiment there. There was no point in asking Elane about it either, as she had already made clear that her knowledge was limited to all things Normal tier.
If it came to anything Elite and above, she knew as little as he did.
’Damn governments, keeping all the important information to themselves.’
Considering there were insanely powerful S rank Awakened at the helm of the human race, they definitely knew a lot more than they were letting on to the public.
’That’s a problem to figure out once I get back to Earth though.’
He gave up on that avenue for now, choosing instead to use the rest of his Origin Crystals for his own cultivation.
"Let’s see how far I can progress with this."
Eight crystals remained in his stash, and he intended to use them all that night.
***
"This is going to take forever..."
The next morning, Rohan got out of bed in a terrible mood. He didn’t sleep a wink last night but felt fine. Another perk of being an Awakened. He could last a week without getting any sleep before it started to affect him.
Instead, he spent the whole night absorbing Origin Crystals.
And was majorly disappointed by the results.
"I can see now why so many people take years to advance ranks."
Not only was the process of absorbing an Origin Crystal painfully slow, the energy gained was a pittance compared to what was needed to reach E rank.
’At this rate I’d need over a thousand Origin Crystals before my genome is sufficiently nourished.’
His pace was considered fast as well! Not everyone could use Origin Crystals every night to cultivate; the vast majority of people could only use them whenever they had the chance, relying instead on atmospheric absorption to fill in the gap.
If he continued hunting every day and absorbing during the night, averaging about five Origin Crystals each time, it would take him over 200 days before he could attempt reaching E rank.
That was an amazing pace! Taking less than a year to go from F to E rank was something only the nouveau riche and talented Awakened could achieve. ’I won’t just be satisfied with that. I aim to max out on Elite Origin Energy too before even thinking about ranking up.’
With his Evolution Gene, something like that should be considered the bare minimum. In truth, his goals strived for even greater heights...
***
The next five days continued just like that.
Nothing exciting happened like the first day, and the duo had yet to encounter another Elite tier beast.
Rohan and Elane’s teamwork had improved leaps and bounds during this period, and they were even able to take down groups of up to nine Worker Ants at once before things got dicey. Though encountering a group that big was rare, and only happened once.
Their efficiency in earning Origin Crystals was even better than expected; on average they killed between 12-14 Worker Ants a day before heading back to Erenhot for rest and cultivation.
In a fifty fifty split, that was over 6 Origin Crystals each! Rohan was happy with that pace for now, but Elane was ecstatic! How could she not be? Her father always talked about how hard his first few months of the Origin Realm was for him...
Yet here she was, practically living a life of luxury just days after entering for the first time. ’And I came here completely unexpectedly, with no preparation.’
Elane sometimes wondered if people missed her during the five days she disappeared. Did people think she ran away after failing her chances at Awakening? Or maybe even worse...
One thing she definitely looked forward to was the expression on people’s faces when she returned as an Awakened. Just that moment alone would be priceless.
Rohan, after listening to Elane’s advice, decided to only use half of his Origin Crystals for cultivation and stored the other half away, using the rest of his downtime to absorb Origin Energy from the atmosphere instead.
Once they were kicked out of the Origin Realm, the density of Origin Energy in the outside universe was much lower than in here, so keeping some crystals in reserve was a wise idea if they wanted to keep up the same pace.
"It’s not much further from here." Elane informed, glancing backwards as Rohan trailed behind her.
At the moment, they were currently a few hundred kilometres deep inside Firestone Forest. After thirty minutes of nothing, Elane had finally picked up on another Firestone Ant trail.
Finding Firestone Ants required them to travel further and further inwards in Firestone Forest the longer they hunted. By the fifth day, it reached a point where they spent over half their time just travelling there and back.
"I hope it’s a big group!" Rohan was itching for another battle.
If it wasn’t, they’d be heading back to Erenhot with a lower quota than average that day.
However, when the closed in on the trail, what they saw wasn’t a group of Firestone Ants.
It was a group of Humans...