Author's note: I have a family member in the hospital, and my head isn't very good for writing, I will release the chapters I have as an emergency, but this week I may have had a bit of a problem with the releases
Normally, the area around the cities was cleared of monsters above the apprentice stage, and most of the beasts left barely reached the 5th rank. But in this case, it was different because of the excess mana in the air.
It was little, but Kayden could tell since he had been warned about it previously. After surrounding the forest for a bit, he found the huge tree that Heimer had mentioned.
The problem... is that it was practically in the center of the forest, about 2 kilometers ahead of where the boy was. Taking courage, Kayden withdrew his katana and moved forward.
Slowly, he covered the distance, being careful not to face any magical beasts. At times, he encountered some beasts, mainly giant boars, but fortunately, he managed to remain hidden.
The boy had read many books to make his mana heart and knew that the beasts were very territorial. Hence, he did not find any high-ranked ones. Most were below rank 5 and couldn't even detect Kayden's presence.
'Shit,' Kayden froze when he saw a lion up ahead. His body was warning him that this beast was dangerous. He couldn't exactly identify his level, but his instinct told him it wasn't low.
Slowly, the boy backed away. There was not a good place for him to fight. Any mistake and he was dead. Even more so when he was surrounded by hundreds of animals. After a few minutes, he managed to retreat a few dozen meters.
It took the boy 20 minutes to have no more adrenaline and no foreboding being discharged insanely into his body. After that, he went around the lion's area. This time, nothing stood in his way.
It took Kayden 2 hours to cover just 2 kilometers, but finally, he found himself in front of the huge tree. Its height easily reached two hundred meters and with numerous branches that covered the entire sky.
According to Heimer, there was an entrance in one of the branches of the tree, more specifically in the third after a mark in the wood. Kayden still wondered how the boy managed to find it there.
And why he was there in the first place. Leaving these thoughts aside, the boy began to climb. As soon as he climbed up, he saw a huge gash in the tree trunk and knew he was in the right direction.
Three branches later, he found himself facing a small hole that could barely fit him standing upright. His torso had to bend over to enter. The inside of the tree was... hollow, completely devoid of vegetation.
The only thing that remained inside was a stone a few meters away. A light shade of green radiated from it, illuminating the place. Kayden felt that he was responsible for the spare mana in the air.
As soon as he got close to it, he felt that he was in an environment with at least three times more mana than outside. Smiling, he would cultivate madly. His expedition to this place was supposed to last a week. Again he used the excuse of going to visit David to convince Han.
But before anything else, he first organized a space using low-level earth magic to shape small things like a bench and a bed. The boy had even brought a pillow with him.
He also used fire to sanitize the small space as best as possible. All of this took an hour because of his low proficiency in any other type of magic besides lightning.
Kayden began cultivating and entered a state of maximum concentration. Quickly, a few hours passed. His only breaks were to eat some basic things he brought, such as dry bread and salted meat.
To drink, he brought a few liters of water and there was a stream nearby with running drinking water. So he didn't need to worry about anything other than progressing in his cultivation.
A week later, Kayden decided his trip was over. He used mana until he no longer wanted it, and even then he only managed to use 3% of the stone's total mana. Kayden had to admit it was impressive how much he was keeping.
Probably, on his next trip, he would be able to advance. This time, he understood how Heimer reached such a high rank without being from the nobility or having many resources.
The next day, Kayden was fighting at the club again, but this time in normal fights. He still needed to consolidate his gains, as a small mistake of putting too much force into a blow could cost him his life in the other category.
The next few days passed in the blink of an eye for Kayden. He had all his time occupied, he was either training with his team or he was fighting at the club. His performance was getting better and better.
His team rose to first place in the school with relative ease, mainly because they were not the same teams from the previous year that were already consolidated. It was new blood that moved up when the old students graduated.
Little by little, the next city championship arrived, and, without Kayden realizing it, there were only 2 weeks left until the middle of the year and he still needed to advance to seventh place before that.
He knew he would be attracting too much attention, but he didn't care. After coming face to face with the best healers in the kingdom and still not being able to differentiate his heart from a common core.
Using the same excuse as before, he went to the mana stone. This time, his path was smooth and he didn't even encounter a magical beast. This was mainly because of his previous care in documenting everything he saw for later use.
The boy decided to use the first few days just to fix all the mistakes he could find. Because his advancement process was very fast, it only took him 7 months to get to the next level.
But what changed his cultivation speed were the illusions he went through, mainly because of his mentality. The prison experience made him accustomed to spending long periods alone.
The war was the main one. It made him develop a level of determination that he didn't have before. It broke the last remnants of ethical limits he had. Mind you, he still had some basic ones, but they were no more than the bare minimum.
If he needed to sacrifice an arm to have more power, he would. If he needed to sacrifice dozens of people, he would do it. This mentality helped a lot in his cultivation, as he didn't let anything get in the way of his focus.
It took Kayden four days to fix all the errors he could find. In the meantime, he spent another 2% of the stone's total mana. Now there was around 15% left. The boy estimated that he should use another 5% to move forward.
This would be his best breakthrough yet. He had never spent so much time with such good neutral mana conditions to just stabilize his base. Every bug he found was fixed and improved.
In the end, just by arranging his base, he felt a 10% improvement in his general strength and especially in his mana conductivity. This time, it would be a huge breakthrough as well, as he would become a superior mage apprentice.
"Come on," Kayden sighed and gathered all his determination for the process of moving forward. Slowly, he was accumulating an insane amount of mana within him. The minutes began to pass as his body screamed in pain from the overload.