In Cultivation, foundation was the most important. That's why, in game the more Gates one has opened before their promotion to Bronze Rank, the higher their class. Someone who has a body five times stronger than others can also store five times more Qi.
Samantha probably had broken through to Qi Gathering when she had opened the First Gate, so she had an S grade Talent, and would have the strength of someone of that rank. This means at the same stage, Adam would be five times stronger than her since he was an SSS Talent.
For her to be just a little below in him in Qi quantity, then she was five times stronger than a normal person who just broke through, so that's why he believed she had reached the top of the realm she currently was in, and was probably waiting to open her Second Gate before breaking through.
But he was going off track. If he really was in the Qi Gathering Realm, then what he needed to do was simple, he had to gather Qi.
Normally he would need a cultivation technique, but he didn't have any, and couldn't get any. If he asked for one in the dojos, he would be forced to join them. And there probably didn't exist any in game, since all they needed to do to grow stronger was to kill other beings.
That meant Adam had to create his own cultivation technique. The problem was, experimenting with his Qi could be very dangerous, he didn't want to suffer from Qi Deviation, but it's not like he had any choice.
First, he would just try to absorb the surrounding Qi, if that was even possible, and then slowly try to make the process smoother and smoother.
For the rest of the night Adam trained relentlessly, not sleeping at all. But it's not like he needed to anyway, just opening the Gate of Healing made him capable to go on days without sleeping, and opening the Third Gate and breaking through had pushed that limit farther.
Next morning, once connected Adam summoned Neith back and the two of them once again ventured into [Serpentine Canyon]. This time they were quicker than yesterday since they didn't have to check all the small passageways and just focused on going deeper.
For today, Adam's goal was to find traces of the Serpentine Gang, and possibly the egg in the morning, then at lunch he would have to go fight against Blue Cemetery.
Honestly, the more the moment approached, the more Adam felt like this was a waste of time. But he had to do it, his guild needed the advertisement.
But he had to do things in order. First, find the egg.
It didn't take long for Adam to reach the cave where he had met the snakes yesterday, and was surprised to see a group of adventurers in front of it. It was a team of five Level 50 Bronze, and they didn't seem that powerful.
Adam shook his head and said "I wouldn't go in there if I were you, only death awaits for you in this cave."
The five turned around to look at him, they were a group of Lizardkin. Their leader hissed "Who are you, a seer?"
Adam replied "I don't need to see the future to know you will die if you enter that cave. What's inside will kill you."
The leader sent a glance above Adam's head and was about to make a comment when one of his comrades said in a barely hearable voice "Captain, look at his mount…"
The Captain looked down and looked at Neith status, and was shocked by what he saw. One had more chances to see a dragon than see a Chosen monster, explaining why he was so shocked.
After a moment he bowed toward Adam and said "Thank you for your advice!" This time, he really looked grateful, so Adam nodded to him and he ordered Neith to continue advancing in the canyon.
As for the group of Lizardkin, one of the subordinates asked "Captain, why did you bow to him? Even if his mount was good, there was no need to go to such an extent…"
The Captain suddenly started emitting a powerful aura, one more powerful than what Adam had been able to feel earlier. At the same time, a ring on his hand started turning a little blurry, and his rank changed from Bronze to Silver.
He said "You idiot, we are here undercover, we aren't supposed to get sighted around here. And especially not by this guy."
The subordinate asked "What's up with him?"
The Captain hissed and took his aura back as he said "Will it hurt you to think for a moment? This was a Chosen, they are normally impossible to tame, and they absolutely wouldn't serve someone weaker than them, which means he defeated and tamed this monster on his own. Only one kind of person is capable of doing this, and news about one such person spread through the entire world recently."
The other Lizardkin remained silent for a moment before putting on a shocked face and saying "Captain, are you saying this is the Sovereign that appeared in Fjora?!"
Another subordinate rolled his eyes and said "Of course that's who Captain is talking about. I swear, if it weren't for your strength I would wonder what you are doing here."
The Lizardkin scratched his head and said with a goofy smile "Mom said I should be proud to be a simpleton because that means I'm always honest!"
The Captain patted his shoulder and said "And she's right. Come now, we mustn't stay here."
Another Lizardkin asked while looking at the cave "What about the mission captain?"
The Captain replied "This isn't our main goal, we were told to complete this one only if we can do it discreetly. The Sovereign has already gone inside, so if by chance he comes back and sees something is missing, he will connect it to us, and that could endanger our identity, we aren't supposed to be strong enough."
The rest nodded and the team of five walked away, gradually creating a mist as they walked, slowly disappearing.
Meanwhile, Adam had no idea the NPCs he had just met weren't what they seemed. For the moment, he was focused on finding traces of gang while killing the monsters standing in his path.
Despite having killed many snakes, both today and yesterday, neither Adam nor Neith had leveled up yet, although Adam was getting there.
From Level 20 on, leveling up becomes much harder, especially for Adam since he was three times slower than the average player. If he wasn't hunting Level 50 monsters, but ones of his level, it would probably take him more than a week to level up even once, and that was him being optimistic.
That didn't bother Adam in the least though, because he needed that time. He had to open the 4th Gate before leveling up anyway, and he would need time for that to happen.
After four hours of search, Adam felt like he had been cursed, and his luck stat had become negative, if there was one such attribute.
The Serpentine Gang was said to be an active gang, and that in normal times it would be hard to avoid them. But here he was, searching for them for four hours, and yet no trace could be found.
So it was either his bad luck, or something was going on with the gang, which was actually probable since they stole what seemed to be a special egg.
Because it was made of ice, Adam hadn't seen what color the egg was, but he knew it was bigger than the other two that were actually present. Now, Adam was pretty sure a bigger egg meant that this snakes' grade would be higher than the other two eggs, and that was probably why it was stolen in the first place.
Anyway, four hours of exploring had allowed Adam to go deep in the canyon, and he could see he was getting near the end, meaning he probably would soon get to see his prey.
And as he thought, a few minutes later, he saw a group of three Wood Elves, whose name tags all showed they were part of the Serpentine Gang. Adam grinned, he would finally get to have some real action.