After a couple of days of adjustment to his new stats, Lucien continued hunting around the area, attacking only when he was sure of the outcome and only if the targets were easy kills, most of the time it was just common bandits, and sometimes Rank 0s.
In a blink of the eye three months passes, during which Lucien accumulated about 12 000 existence points, it was about a couple of bandits every 3-4 days and with the random Rank 0 here and there, sometimes he would get injured during his escape from the sudden appearance of stronger foe, but with his 50x common healing speed, a broken arm heals in half a day, so it was completely fine.
The moment he hit 2 000 existence points he brought the Ghoul Path manual for Rank 0 to Rank 1, and used the spare 1 000 points in his breakthrough, since he knew he needed about 10 practitioners of the same level for the Vampire breakthrough, and he already had some spare flesh energy he calculated it would be enough. For emergencies, he had high level soil, which he was converting when traveling around.
Since his breakthrough in the Vampire Path, he could transport a lot more soil, the only problem was the 20 strength, but he could do transfers more often, because of the high Vitality which helped him recover faster. He had about 5-6 tons of it, or 5-6 square meters in the Crimson world, on in other words around 4500 existence points.
Due to that the breakthrough was smooth and Lucien finally became a Rank 1 Copper Ghoul.
And since he had broken through to 100% external body control, due to his high soul, the adjustment to his new stats was instantaneous.
-Lucien BloodMoon-
-Age: 8 years-
-Race: Human-
-Paths:
Copper Ghoul(Rank 1)
Darkness(Rank 1)
Vampire Viscount(Rank 1)-
-Strength: 50.00-
-Agility: 40.00-
-Vitality: 50.00-
-Soul: 50.00-
-Control over internal body: 60%-
-Control over particles: 70%-
The Lucien now could look down on Rank 0s, there was not even 1 stat that was within their reach, even against Rank 1s, he was so balanced, that it would be a big headache to fight him.
As he already had the 10 000 points for Rank 1 to Rank 2 manual, he decided that hiding his presence and Soul attacks were very useful, but he can't use conversion from All Existence during his breakthrough so he would need to find an environment with dense Darkness particles. The breakthrough between Rank 0 and Rank 1 was child play compared to the one between Rank 1 and Rank 2, area specialized for the Path was needed. The Particles existing in neutral areas were not enough for the sea wave tactic, Lucien was using.
'I'll still go for the Darkness as when breaking through it gives an immense boost to Soul and that helps a lot with breaking the boundary of the other Paths.'
'As for the special area, the Dusky Woods should be enough for this time.'
'Give me the Darkness Path manual from Rank 1 to Rank 2.'
Small light shined in the eyes of Lucien, looking closely enough you could see those strands of crimson light that exist in the Crimson World separating in two, one big and one small, with the big shooting in the mind of Lucien, transmitting the diagrams and notes on how to train Soul, Agility and Strength up until 100.00, using Darkness Particles.
This bandit infested zone was not suitable to Lucien anymore, there were too much common bandits and Rank 0 were a rarity, not to mention Rank 1s, you would need to dig 10 meters underground to find a hidden Rank 1 bandit, they were very cautious in this area, more like a hidden weapon.
Last time Lucien picked a Rank 0 area, and it fit the description, the chance to encounter Rank 1 was minuscule, it happened only once during the three months and Lucien escaped with small injuries, since that bandit was a Fire Path, investing his time on Strength, he was like a tank, no speed at all.
So this time he picked Rank 1 area, it would have a lot of Rank 0s and a moderate amount of Rank 1s, he just hoped the he wouldn't encounter Rank 2 for the time being, because even with his balanced build, the minimum stat of Rank 2 would be one stat of 500.00 depending on the Path, the difference was too big. When an extreme difference was reached, it didn't matter what stat it was, it would be overwhelming.
He continued converting high level soil while traveling and practicing his Strength and Agility while resting, the plan was like last time. Get Soul to 100.00 with existence points.
'How long will it take me to get a stat to a 100.00, just by practicing with the manual?'
'By the way, if it costs 5-10 existence points for the information, just take them don't ask me.'
-Deducting 5 existence points-
-To increase 1.00 in any stat other than Soul took you about 3 months, before Rank 1, after Rank 1 to increase 1.00 in any stat other than Soul would take you about a month, so to reach 100.00 or an increase of around 50, would take you more than 4 years-
-Soul progress is faster on the Darkness Path, it would be half a month for 1.00 increase-
-Getting familiar with the promotion diagrams and managing to breakthrough for the first time into Rank 2, would require about 1 year in the correct environment based on the manual methods, Host could use his method to speed up the breakthrough-
'So that is why, the first time takes much longer than what it took for the Vampire and Ghoul, it was because my Soul was not strong enough and I didn't have the experience of the first time going into that Rank.'
'I wonder why aren't there more people doing this, using stronger Soul gained from a breakthrough to practice more Paths, maybe it has to do with Middle level Paths.'
'Whatever, if I have some problem later on, because of multiple Paths, I'll mend it with All Existence.'
Lucien kept going through the hidden paths cautiously, progressing toward his next destination, where he would seep terror in his foes.