Chapter 7 - Igrit City

Daren decided to put the tiger's beast core inside of his inventor as he started to take the safe path northward.

His inventory tab is updated with the new item.

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Inventory

Storage Space = UNLIMITED

Currently Stored Items: Partially eaten Blupa tiger x1, Body Strengthening Level 1 Peak Grade Beast Core x1 (Blupa Tiger)

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The entire forest was covered in an eerie fog all year long and the safe path was no exception. Even though the beast's had a pact of not attacking anything on this path, Daren kept his senses heightened to the maximum.

Daren was used to keeping such high vigilance. This was due to people always aiming at his life when he was a CEO. People in high positions always had rival companies trying to eliminate him. That's how cutthroat the interstellar business world was.

To not be bored during his long walk, Daren went through how the cultivation of force works.

There are 7 major ranks in force cultivation that represent major bottlenecks that make it harder for one to progress. They were, from weakest to strongest:

Body Strengthening

Core Condensation

Core Refining

Elemental Siphoning

Elemental Cancellation

Aura Formation

Divine Aura

Each of these ranks could then be split further from Level 1 through level 9, each level representing a minor breakthrough. Each level was also split into lower, middle, and peak.

The tiger that Daren killed was quite weak since it had only been born recently. It was on the verge of breaking into the second level of Body Strengthening. All it needed to do was consume two more Body strengthening cores and it would have broken through.

Daren realized that he was currently Body Strengthening level,1 Lower Grade. he could also feel that he was fast approaching Middle Grade.

This meant that he was 1.5 times stronger than the best athletes that regular humans possessed. Due to beast force being stronger than humans in the first place, he was sure that he is closer to 2.5 times stronger than the best athlete.

Add in all his assassination skills and techniques from his previous world, he was sure that he was invincible against any human that was less than Body Strengthening Level 3.

'With my perfect human and beast talents combined, I will have no hindrances in breaking through levels since the system removed the weaknesses. Plus I'm cultivating two cores at the same time with the same pace. Hahhaha.'

Cultivating two cores inside his soul meant that he would have at least twice the stamina that other cultivators of the same rank.

'I can just tire my opponent to death. Toying with my prey will be very interesting.' Daren thought while imagining his tired and broken down opponent while he was towering over them, fully energized.

Daren found that the worse state his opponent before he finished them, the better the feeling of satisfaction.

At this point, Daren's thoughts were interrupted by a 5-meter tall rabbit staring straight at him.

The rabbit's fur had metallic, gray fur which had a similar luster to actual steel. Its eyes were protruding out of its eye sockets and looking exactly like a pair of blood-red rubies.

Daren did not dare make any sudden movement as this gigantic rabbit was more than 3 times his height. Its metallic fur also spoke volumes about how strong it was. There was no way in hell that he was beating this monster.

Just like Daren, the rabbit did not make any sudden movements. It just stood there for a while until slowly started smelling the air while facing him.

The rabbit then made a face of disgust and turned away while speeding out of sight in an instant. Daren could not see its movements at all.

Daren did not want to take any risks so he started rotating between lightly jogging and running to test the limits of his stamina. He also did not want to remain in this scary forest for long where he could lose this new life that was filled with unlimited potential.

It only took Daren about 25 minutes to get out of the forest. In front of him was a vast, open plain with a massive, enclosed city that could be seen glowing brightly under the moonlight.

That was Igrit City.

It is known that the maximum human running speed is supposed to be somewhere around 45 km/h. Daren's speed at his current state of cultivation was 2.5 times greater than that at 112.5 km/h. This meant that as long as he had the stamina, reaching 37 kilometers in 20 minutes is easily doable.

Since force was entering Daren at a very fast pace, he seldom ran out of stamina while running. This was also true for most beasts.

This is why humans had to be a decent bit higher in level than their beast opponents. Humans had to finish their fights as soon as possible and not go in a battle of attrition against beasts or they would most likely be fatally injured or lose their lives.

Since Daren was having his body strength amplified by beast force, the human opponents of his also had to be a couple of levels higher than him. They also needed to have well-polished skills like Daren or they could forget about even coming close to finishing him.

As an assassin, Daren was most adept at running away.

Outside of the glowing city walls, there were countless tents put up alongside carriages pulled by tents. These were the merchant carriages that would enter Igrit city to do business once the sub had risen.

It was Igrit City's rule to not let anyone enter the city at night unless it was a dire emergency. This was done to keep the markets within the nation stable and so that goods would not overflow.

This was a basic principle that the Gigantus Empire kept within most of its borders cities.

Daren decided to wait until morning so he could take his time to solidify and strengthen his cultivation.

According to his current pace and knowledge of cultivation, Daren estimated that he would be Body Strengthening Level 2, Lower Grade by dawn. At dawn, it would have been 12 hours since he had first felt the energy of force entering him.

Taking into consideration that most cultivators that started at the age of 10, had the best talent, great techniques, and good resources still took about 2 weeks to reach such a level.

That was if they put in the effort and cultivated for 3 hours a day for a total of 42 hours. It would take them even longer if they could not break through bottlenecks.

Daren being able to accomplish that in 12 hours without having to put in any effort was already beyond unfathomable.

"Even though I am behind all those same ages, hardworking geniuses, it won't be long until I catch up to their 7 years or progress.' A slight smirk started to form on his face as he sat down in a meditation pose. 'At that time, the gap between us will start to decrease and I can start my personal hobby of slaughter once again.'

Daren started laughing maniacally in his mind again, this time, he was trying not to attract the attention of the sleeping travelers with his loud, yet smooth voice.

After calming down, Daren tried using a force cultivation technique that was passed down to him by Alex's parents before they sent him to run away.

Daren started to feel the bone-chilling energy enter his body at a significantly faster pace than before. Daren was using a technique to convince the ice elemental energy around him that he was going to provide them with the coldest home they could ask for.

Daren did this until the sun started to shine and the ice elemental energy started to dissipate.