And so the months went by, James's original task had gone without a hinge, the 20-man team was assembled in less than 20 days, and every single one of them reached the Refinement Realm, within 5.
For the next 5 months progress was slow, the remaining 16 team members managed to reach the flowing water Realm, and James became a 3-star mental strength master and improved his physique a ton, but not much else, that was what he thought at least until he got a phone call from Olivia.
"James can you hop into your VR cabin, we have a surprise for you."
Olivia said while profusely giggling.
"All right give me a second, it better be something good."
She didn't reply but simply gave a little evil laugh before hanging up.
"Pff, this girl hasn't changed one bit."
James quickly got in his cabin, life was pretty monotone these last months so he could use a surprise.
When he logged in James found Olivia, Rick, Mike, Livia, and Charlotte all standing in his room.
"So, what's this all about?"
They all looked at each other for a minute before Mike stepped forward.
"let's just spar James, you'll know soon enough."
James started to get an idea of what the surprise was, but he simply dashed forward to initiate the fight.
The group of 5 dispersed in all directions cornering James, they then tried to time their attacks so James couldn't physically block them, surprising a Domain Realm expert wasn't possible after all. Charlotte took the first initiative and sent a barrage of punches flying at every weak point of James's body, at the same time Rick was behind him, aiming for his balance points.
James was quite impressed with this combo move, any void Realm expert would fall to that, but he sure as hell wouldn't, he moved through Charlotte's punches as he had long known they were coming, and moved behind her, exactly so that she would be between him and Rick, Rick had to drastically change the trajectory of his kick less he kick Charlotte, in all this confusion and whit how precise James's movements were, Charlotte lost track of him. Whit this perfect opportunity James aimed an incredibly powerful punch at the back of her neck, planning on knocking her out of the fight in 1 go, but before his punch was even halfway there, her head moved, perfectly out of the trajectory of his punch.
'She reached the Void Realm, perfect!!'
Of course, he could have redirected the punch, but this wasn't the moment for that so he let it pass next to her.
"Excellently done Charlotte, congratulations on reaching the Void Realm."
At that moment he could heard a voice rushing at him with a jealous tone, it was Olivia.
"She isn't the only amazing one."
And just like she said, after another few minutes of fighting James concluded that all of them had reached the Void Realm, James felt amazed, he wasn't sure before, but all of them would reach the Domain Realm by the time gods Domain opened, becoming a domain Realm expert from scratch in 2 years, this was insanity.
"Amazingly done everyone, I guess that you guys are ready to hear about the Domain Realm."
At those words, everyone in the room turned quiet and turned all their attention to James.
"The first 2 things you need to know are, the Domain Realm isn't the final Realm, and it is divided into 3 stages, early, middle and upper stage."
Before he could continue Olivia sprang a question on him.
"What Realm are you James?"
The others looked at her with angry looks but didn't say anything, they were curious too after all.
"I am currently on the verge of breaking through to the upper stage, and before you ask, the stage after the Domain Realm is the beyond Domain Realm, I know nothing about it."
They had all shocked expressions on their faces, something that James didn't know about. For the last 6 months, he had been all-knowing to them, so him openly admitting he didn't know anything about something, especially something gaming related was shocking.
"Anyway, I'll continue, to reach the Domain Realm you have to, you guessed it, create a domain, a domain is a certain area around you where you can perceive everything, you should be able to count the number of rain droplets that come in it in a thunderstorm, now you can do this by pushing all your 5 senses to their absolute limit, more help I can't give you I'm afraid, I have only been in the Domain Realm for a little myself, so I don't have the best insight into it."
Everyone nodded their heads, excited to get started and reach the legendary Domain Realm, but Rick had a puzzled look on his face.
"James, if a Domain is the result of a person pushing their senses to their limit, what is the difference between, the different levels of the Domain Realm."
The others also wondered about this and felt stupid for not asking, but James just calmly explained.
"The difference lies in 3 things, the potency and distance of their Domain, and how well the individual can process end use the amazing info given to them by said Domain, we could give any random guy a Domain, but he would get overwhelmed or at best ignore most of the information given."
All of them, just like the last time stared at James, hoping he had a training method.
"I know what you guys are thinking, but no just fight and try to train your senses to the absolute limit."
The 5 of them grumpily went to train.
And so the monotone life continued again until the one-year point when James had finally broken through to the upper stage Domain Realm, and he was stuck, he couldn't for the life of him think of a way to increase his combat ability, he couldn't imagine what the beyond Domain Realm was, after all, his senses felt like they were honed to perfection, what more could he do. This confusion continued for the next month, every day he would rack his brain, again and again, getting his team leaders' help, and consoling everyone, but nothing, until that fateful day.
It had been a tournament like any other, the only difference was that James could evade some attacks on the 5th floor, but the result was still the same until he stepped out of the cabin.
What awaited him wasn't the same empty room, but an old man sitting in the corner on a red antique chair.
This man would look ordinary to any normal person, but James could tell how dangerous he was, without even saying a word James put up his guard, which the old man seemed to have noticed, and responded with a kind smile.
"Hahaha, you young people are so full of energy, ready for a fight on sight are you? Don't be so on guard young man, I'm simply here to repay a favor."
James looked at the old man with a suspicious look, he couldn't feel any danger from him just yet, so he must be telling the truth, or he could hide his killing intent completely from James, in that case, it was already over anyway, so he decided to take a chance.
"I don't think I did you a favor, senior"
The old man started laughing quietly again.
"nono, you did, I spectated your fight back there on the fifth floor, the way you move and use your body is so refreshing, it gave me a lot of inspiration, and since I noticed that you seemed to be stuck at the upper level of the Domain Realm, I came to help you out, just a small favor from an old monster to the new generation of monsters."
James instantly knew what he was talking about, the realm of truth, he had grasped a little of the Realm of truth by watching him, James was amazed and grateful that he decided to pay him back, he could have never even shown his face and James would have never known.
"Okay then, it seems that you are ready, the way for you to reach the beyond Domain Realm is quite easy, rely on your gut."
James felt puzzled at the old man's words, rely on your gut, he was a goddamn Domain Realm expert, he could pick up your subtle muscle movements and figure out what his opponent would do for the next 5 moves, how would his gut work any better.
The old man seemed to have picked up on James's thoughts and continued.
"Listen here young man, your brain and senses have limits, and those limits you have already reached.
Would you trust the gut feeling of danger of a park ranger while on safari, the gut feeling of a soldier in war? If they relied on their senses, they would be dead, but their gut saved them, you know why? Because there is no limit on experience, the power of your gut feeling is the reflection of your experience, and as an upper Domain Realm expert, I think it's safe to say that it is pretty powerful, so why not trust it."
It all clicked, James finally knew what to do, he was relying on his senses too much, with how honed they were it was understandable, but if he kept relying on them he would be stuck here forever, his senses had a limit after all, but his gut didn't, and he had been fighting for such a long time with these senses, his gut should be able to mimic it after so long. He had been using his gut, or instincts in fighting, but in combination with his senses, making them hold his instincts back, to go beyond he had to stop thinking and only rely on his instincts, a scary thing to do, but it could work.
Deep in thought, James forgot to thank the senior, but when he looked up, he was already gone.
He wanted to talk to the old man some more, but he didn't have time to sit on his losses, James called all of the team leaders and their members together in his VR room so he could quickly put his newfound knowledge to the test.
"So James, why did you call us here?"
Livia asked.
"No time to explain Livia, just attack me, all of you."
Livia was even more confused but didn't ask any further, she just ordered her squad to attack, and so did the other groups.
James then asked the system in his private room to disable all his senses, and black.
He could do this himself as a Domain Realm expert, but he had to concentrate on something else right now.
But when he started to concentrate on his instincts, that concentration felt unnecessary, his instincts felt extremely saturated, he could guess where everything was, even the positions of people who hadn't attacked him, he could just guess what happened around him, now and even a couple of seconds in the future, it was incredible.
James fought like this for hours before finally calling it quits, he could tell that he wasn't yet in the beyond Domain Realm, he could focus on his instincts when his other senses were gone, but to use this in real combat James had to keep all his senses active and try to ignore them, still keeping them in the back of his mind for unexpected circumstances, and in that situation, James simply couldn't yet focus on his instincts enough, but he had a way forward, and that was all that mattered.