While I continue to think, I eat another yellow fragment to continue the process.
Even though it's not quite perfect yet, it's still close to 100 times as efficient as just eating a gem in the open desert without the aid of the trees or my limiter.
Over the next hour or so, I repeat the process, cycling the energy from four more fragments.
It feels as though I've consumed hundreds of yellow cores, and finally, I sense a tiny noticeable difference in the size of my own core. It appears to have grown in size by a fraction of a millimeter in diameter.
While it's not much, and it would take tens of thousands of identical sessions to match the size of growth the Lich King's display showed me, I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.
Even so, I have just under 300 total yellow gems left in my storage. At this rate, consuming them all in this manner wouldn't get me anywhere close to the Sun God's level.
This dormant purple barrier and the obsidian trees are what set me apart from that Director in our cultivation processes.
Even so, I need something that will set us apart even further.
With the new realization from the construct's creator, telling me the abyss in the Dark Continent could potentially become the end of the world if I'm not the strongest one to conquer the trials once it awakens really puts things into a far greater perspective. On top of that, a being tens of times stronger than me, The Sun God, is actively sending their army to try and take me out. I need to get stronger by any means and not waste any resources.
I reach into my item storage and pull out a bright green fruit.
The words of the Lich King repeat in my mind, telling me that if I were to ascend to the next tier without awakening my true core, I wouldn't even compare to other higher lifeforms that have.
So, I don't plan on doing so, but there must be a use for all this energy I managed to farm.
I come up with an out-of-the-box idea that may only be possible for me, considering the mutation I went through when using absorption while farming this green energy from the serpent's aura.
I take a bite out of the massive fruit, then continue to eat the whole thing in a matter of seconds without thinking twice about my decision.
As the bright green divine strands flow through my body and instantly begin eating away at my flesh and bones, I concentrate fully on holding the purple barrier around my body strong.
The energy in each one of these green fruits is the amount of green threads I was able to withstand in my body to the point where I was on the edge of death each time I allowed the trees to tear the energy away from me.
Right now, it doesn't feel any different, but I have a theory that I want to test, and if it works, all this agony will be well worth it.
I eat a yellow fragment while my barrier still holds back all of the green threads to slowly flow within my body.
Portions of my arms, legs, chest, and even face are being burned away, and all that remains is a green holographic energy form while I sit calmly in the lotus position, healing myself as best as I can.
At the same time, my core starts to cycle through the new yellow energy I've introduced, but once it tries to eject the excess energy out, it hits a barrier of greater bright green energy.
The immense pressure of the green divine threads saturating and tearing apart my physical body is so much heavier and more dominant that it makes it nearly impossible for the excess yellow energy from the fragment I just consumed to leave my core.
Small ejections of yellow threads are forced out as my core is saturated to its limit, but the threads have nowhere to go and are forced to cycle right back inside from the pressure pushing down toward my core.
I want to yell out in pain as more and more of my flesh disintegrates away and is replaced with a pure green energy form, but I don't want to break my concentration.
Instead of just two to three cycles maximum like before, when the yellow threads stayed stagnant in my body; now they're being forced to cycle through my core hundreds of times.
After about 10 minutes pass, it gets to the point where I hardly have any physical flesh left on my body, and the pain and fatigue become overwhelming.
I release the seal on my purple barrier and reach out to touch the trunks of the trees by my sides.
There's a violent but satisfying outward rush of energy as the green threads are torn away from my body, and I can finally use self-regeneration to heal my flesh and bones.
I lay on the desert floor beneath my obsidian dome panting, covered in sweat while four large green fruits and a few miniature yellow ones form above my head.
It takes a few minutes before I can come completely to my senses and see what's happened.
Unlike the times before, when the expelled yellow threads were absorbed by the trees, this time nowhere near a full fragment was given back to me.
This isn't because the trees were greedy and took more, it's because in a single cycling process, I was able to increase the efficiency even further; absorbing over half of the yellow fragment's energy in just 10 minutes.
Instead of losing part of the divine energy to feeding the trees between every cycling process, I just managed to cut down my energy consumption by a monumental degree.
Before, over 99.9% of the energy from each fragment was lost into the atmosphere after each time it was expelled from my body. Even with the trees helping me contain the energy to cycle again, not even 1% of each fragment stayed in my core after the dozens of processes over a 2-3 hour period. The majority was still eaten up by the obsidian trees.
Now, in a single 10 minute period, over 50% of a fragment was cycled into my core and stayed.
This improvement is so large, it's hard to even quantify it.
"This changes everything..." I whisper under my breath.
My eyes practically sparkle as I cut down the green and yellow fruits to repeat the cycle again.
Over two hours, I manage to consume five yellow fragments in total.
I start each cycling session by saturating my body with as many green threads as I can, then consume as many yellow threads as I can afterward.
Thousands of cycles go by, recycling almost all of a fragment's energy in just two rounds. Hardly any of the yellow fragment's energy is being absorbed by the trees anymore; it's mostly all being cycled back into my core until it stays.
There is a satisfying hot burn in my chest, and my divine core has grown by a noticeable amount.
Its diameter has increased by a few millimeters, giving me confidence that this method of cultivation is exactly the method I need to use to push me far ahead of what should be physically possible for normal lower lifeforms.
In just mere hours, I managed to replicate the cycles that would take hundreds of training sessions and countless yellow fragments for a normal cultivator.
Most likely, all of this energy would be released into the atmosphere, not kept inside my core.
The only problem I fear facing now, is the fact that every time I release from a cycling period, the green threads are being consumed by the trees.
After just eight cycles, almost half of the green energy has been taken away. However, I've managed to incrementally increase the time that I can hold the green energy in my body. It's moved up from just above 10 minutes to my newest record of 17 minutes flat.
It feels like my control over the yellow threads has grown almost twice as strong since the moment I started this process. I can feel the threads swirling in my chest even now, eager to power my movements, but now isn't the time to test out my improved strength..
There's a long way to go.
I pull out another green fruit from my storage to make sure the pressure stays dense enough to push the next yellow fragment's power toward my core, and repeat the process again.
I've found a method that works, so I'm going to exploit it to its maximum potential.
I take a deep breath and prepare for a long and painful process.
24 hours pass.
I cycle through about 60 fragments, and use up all of the energy in 11 of my green fruits.
Over one hundred thousand cycles have made their way through my core, and the hot sensation in my chest has only grown more intense.
It feels like my core is burning bright with energy, and it's grown in size by multiple centimeters in diameter. It's almost grown by 50% in total size.
I'm able to withstand the green threads even longer, reaching upward of a full 30 minutes per session now. However, as the core grows in strength, more pressure is necessary to keep the denser yellow threads compressed.
I begin consuming two green fruits' worth of divine energy at a time.
Every single fragment I consume adds thousands of cycles of threads to the reality-bending reactor that is my core.
Even sitting here, calm and collected, the natural essence that surrounds me makes the air and ground vibrate and bend to the whims of my mind.
I can only guess what the new strength of my core has become, but there is no time for me to waste playing around until this process is complete.
Another 48 hours pass.
Roughly 150 more fragments are fully consumed, and 29 more green fruits are used.
I have to use the divine energy of three to four fruits at a time to keep the yellow threads contained now.
The core grows over a full 10 centimeters in diameter further, tripling in size, and giving off gravity waves so intense while just sitting here that the ground below me caves in after every cycle.
Hundreds of thousands of cycles go by, mimicking the act of passing decades, and I feel my core grow larger and larger in real-time just like the Lich King showed me three days ago.
Another 22 hours and 58 minutes pass...
71 additional fragments are consumed while 16 green fruits are used up.
My energy supplies are hitting their limits, leaving me with a few dozen yellow fragments remaining and a single-digit amount of green fruits left in my storage.
I've grown used to the horrible pain that the green threads give me, ripping my body to shreds, to the point where it feels like a natural state. I'm able to sit for over an hour straight with over five fruits' worth of threads in my body.
It feels like I've mutated even further, allowing me to temporarily stay in a limbo state between flesh and a pure divine energy form.
The yellow core in my chest circulates energy so fast, with hundreds of fragments compacted into it, it gives off a reality-crushing aura that makes me feel like I can rip this entire desert in half if I wanted to.
I feel powerful, but I also feel like this violent energy is not well contained. The core is growing too large and it needs to take a more stable form soon. It feels like it's about to reach its critical mass.
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Author's Note:
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