Another year had gone by, Cao Guang was now nineteen years old and he had managed to keep pace with a future Mo Fan, albeit he was a bit faster. He had made his yearly visit to Dunhuang to let his daughter meet her mother.
All four of his element had reached the intermediate level, he could also use those spells efficiently. Which also meant that the Soul Essences he poured into improving his basic spells to fourth tier had paid off. He had also broken through to the second level of Mental Strength. His Space spells were so much more effective now.
Cao Guang literally forced himself to use him Space element to defend himself in front of a Warrior to force that break through because he didn't want to wait for it. As two more of his elements broke through since then he had even gone deeper into the second level.
Unfortunately, The Little Tora pendant had yet to have another break through so he was a bit away from second tier of Intermediate level. His daughter had long broken through to Warrior level that ended Fenrir's strongest run.
Cao Guang then fought together with Fenrir to beat Little Flame Belle barely, but once all of his elements broke through and he obtained a spirit grade seed for his lightning element as well, he had become stronger than his daughter.
Which meant she was annoyed and use the mother pact to leverage better food. Cao Guang could pay for his daughters food with his loot from Battle, even after that he had managed to strengthen all 49 stars of his Fire Nebula. However, since his cultivation wa sway lower he could use the increment. His spending money was now down to 620 million.
His friends were doing as good as him or better. Since they didn't have four elements even if they lacked a Little Tora pendant their cultivation was ahead of him.
Luo Heng had reached the second tier with his Fire Nebula and the first tier with his Lightning Nebula, he was also armed with two spirit grade seeds and he was still the weakest of them.
Gao Xuan's Innate Soul grade seed had awakened further after he reached the second tier of Intermediate level with his Earth element. His Light element had also reached the Intermediate level. Even Cao Guang had to sweat if he wanted to break his defences alone.
Song Xia had the greatest improvement amongst the trio. She brought her Sound element to the second tier of Intermediate level and because of her talent she could use third tier spell already. Her Shadow element had reached the first tier of the intermediate level and she could therefore use its second tier intermediate form and the fifth tier Basic spell of Shadow element.
She had used her loot and money to improve Fleeing Shadow to the fourth tier and then directly accessed the fifth tier spell. She could use a shadow clone that resembles her to confuse her opponents. The group had completely set their foot in the intermediate level and taken their first steps too, leaving Cao Guang to rot in the first tier.
Above all they had bonded this past year. Luo Heng, was no longer a new addition to the group and Gao Xuan was still the social glue that brought them together. He had even took baby steps in his relationship with Song Xia, well that was untill Luo Heng and he was seen by Song Xia after visiting a few seedy places.
Cao Guang even wondered if he was consciously sabotaging his own relationship. Then he realised he was thinking about Gao Xuan, that would no be like him. They had blown their vacation doing odd Hunter jobs and became Intermediate Hunters for fun.
But something other than had changed as well. Cao Guang's invention has been executed nationally, almost all Fortress and cities had this system. Petroleum was now a military resource and this all had brought him an untold benefit as well, he was well connected with a few Generals in the military his future path would also be far easier.
Aside from that they were no longer rookie Sergeants, after completing familiarisation with Ancient Capital their duties and missions would improve to match their new strenghts.
As for what familiarisation meant was simple, they would go around Ancient Capital completing simple missions to familiarise themselves with their base city. It was also something Cao Guang had been looking forward to. He would no longer be remaining in the first tier of Intermediate level either.
A/n: It's 2004 Mid October to clarify, Mo Fan is 11 years old now. The MC is 19. I'll keep mentioning the date after every time skip.