*The chapter turned out a bit too long so i split it into two parts.
The moment the evolution began, Thiago felt a tearing pain in his whole body and immediately fell to the ground, where his body began to wriggle and convulse. "Ahhh, it hurts like hell!" cried Thiago with anguish as he felt the unrelenting pain.
Thiago's body continued to writhe and convulse on the ground, the energy coursing through him with a fierce intensity.
He felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out, every cell in his body exploding with power and energy.
The pain was almost unbearable, as if his very being was being ripped apart and pieced back together again. He could feel his bones cracking and reforming, his muscles stretching and contracting with a ferocity that defied explanation.
It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He fought to stay conscious, clinging to the faint thread of awareness as the transformation continued but ultimately his vision blurred, and he felt himself slipping away into the darkness.
Meanwhile a huge mana storm had already been generated around him that was frantically sucking in all the mana in the vicinity. The reason for this, despite the fact that Thiago already had far more than enough essence stored in his body to complete his evolution, was obvious. Firstly, all the external mana would be used to support his evolution as much as possible, so that more of the stored mana could be saved for a higher level and more mana and essence demanding part of the evolution, which the external mana could not provide, since essence was the purest and strongest form of energy for Thiago.
As the minutes ticked by, Thiago's body was slowly enveloped in a cocoon of a mixture of corrosive darkness, sizzling poison and crackling lightning, mana, for these were all his current affinities and would probably influence his evolution to some degree. Ultimately, how high or low that influence would be would depend on certain as yet unknown factors, or rather luck.
In addition, at that moment, three apparitions that he had condensed in his Soul Palace the last time he cultivated the Heavenly Demon Soul Transformation Art unexpectedly appeared.
These were the Archdevil Mephistopheles, the God of Death King Yama, and finally the Monster God Typhon.
Although they were supposed to be in his soul space, they had somehow flown out and come to the material world at that moment, something Thiago would have never expected.
They surrounded the cocoon in a triangular formation, just as they had done when Thiago had cultivated the art of Soul Sense and they had injected their various energies into his soul.
When they were all in what seemed to be the right position, they all injected their respective evil and chaotic innate energy of the Archdevil, the God of Death and the Monster God into the cocoon, which instantly lit up with red and evil looking patterns.
If a cultivator were to see this scene, he would surely be terrified, firstly due to the terrifying appearance and dangerous as well as evil aura these three apparitions radiated and secondly because there has never been a precedent for spiritual and illusory entities condensed solely through a soul-cultivation art such as the three apparitions we have just seen to participate in Thiago's evolution and possibly influence it in unpredictable directions.
At present, it was unknown why those three entities had suddenly left the soul space in the first place, but a big reason could be that the Heavenly Demon Soul Transmogrifying Art had something to do with it, perhaps something had been triggered by the evolution and the art had automatically controlled those three to do just that, or it was the system, who knows.
...
By the time the fifteen minutes or so had passed since the start of the evolution, there were noticeable changes in the mana cocoon, which now looked extremely evil, chaotic and strange, as many different energies had coalesced within and around the cocoon to create this new appearance.
But we can't just look from the outside, we need to look inside the cocoon as well.
Just like the cocoon outside, Thiago had several different red and evil looking patterns pulsating on his black fur, or rather under his fur, more on his skin.
His eyes were closed for the moment as he had fainted earlier, so they were not visible, but you could still see a faint red glow through his eyelids.
Thiago remained unconscious and still on the ground as the cocoon around him began to creak and crack. The transformation was in its final stages, and the energy within the cocoon grew more intense, practically pulsing with power.
Suddenly, the walls of the cocoon shattered into countless pieces, dissolving into the mana that had created them. The energy of the transformation washed over Thiago's body, suffusing him with a new strength and vitality.
Thiago's body began to expand and contract, his fur bristling as his muscles grew more defined. His senses, already heightened from his time in the inner world, were slowly returning. He could feel a faint sense of warmth and energy emanating from within him.
As the shockwave spread out from his body, the air around him began to vibrate, the ground not, for it was the floor of the inner world, made of some kind of basically indestructible material. Yet Thiago remained unconscious, his body in the final stages of transformation.
It was a rather quick and steady process, with each passing moment bringing Thiago closer to his final form.
His body continued to expand and contract, until finally, the transformation was completed with a "booom!" emanating from his body and resounding inside the inner world.
What also happened at this moment was that his body automatically radiated a certain fluctuation that beasts would when they advanced towards the superior student realm.
This fluctuation per se was nothing special, but luckily for him he had decided to absolve his evolution inside his inner world. Why luckily? Well certain human cultivators residing in half-moon city had placed detection instruments inside the exact forest where Thiago was currently in, in order to specially detect this fluctuation when a beast advances towards the Superior student realm.
They did this, so they could then come to the forest and capture said beast that had advanced and take them forcefully as their slave for various uses. Now you may be wondering why they did not capture the Lightning Bear, the Ice Serpent and the Golden Basilisk. The reason is that these three beasts were too powerful and would surely unite under the leadership of the Golden Basilisk if attacked by humans, even though they hated each other.
And the Golden Basilisk alone was already too powerful for the younger generation of nobles in the city who were behind it all, and who had to carry out the capture without the help of their elders as a test. So, they set their sights on beasts that had just ascended to the superior student realm.
It wasn't that nobody ion the city could defeat the Golden basilisk and the other two beast's, it was just that nobody did bother with them as they had not that much value for the powerful cultivators in the city other than being used as slaves or spirit beast. So, one could say that it was purely due to luck that these beasts had been able to live there for such a long time almost unbothered, well, until Thiago appeared inside the forest.
In light of the above, if Thiago had been evolving outside in the forest, those nobles of the younger generation would have noticed the fluctuations with their instruments placed near the forest, and they would have immediately entered the forest to capture Thiago.
Although Thiago might not necessarily lose to them, depending on their realm, or if his evolution was already complete at that time, but even if Thiago was able to defeat them all, whether he killed them or not, they would surely have some secret treasures for protection and distress signals on them that would alert their families, Just like in those novels, every time the protagonist fought a young master, the young master would have a lot of secret techniques, treasures and so on, which he would use to inform his family, and then help would come and the protagonist would be in dire straits.
In Thiago's case, even if the families did not immediately send a stronger powerhouse to help the younger generations and capture him at the same time, which was the most likely outcome, it would still put him on the radar of the city's noble families, which would make things difficult for him if he decided to enter the city soon.
So, it was just as well that Thiago had chosen to evolve in his inner world, avoiding this troublesome matter altogether.
Back at Thiago's side, his body had grown to seven metres in height and seventeen and a half metres in length, an incredible increase from before.
He was now almost as tall as an average-sized detached house, not to mention his length, which at this point was as long as a bus.
It was at this moment that he also began to come to his senses and to wake up from his dormant state.