Of course, I also cleared away their webbing from the cave. That was pretty difficult—their venom could dissolve it even in very small amounts, but the stuff was hard to safely get at. Even though I had poison protection, it was still harmful if it got on my skin, the charm just meant that it wouldn't last long.
From there, I was within fairly easy distance of the Inner Spiral—of course, the Middle Spiral wasn't as long as the Outer, and the Inner was shorter still. However, I planned to stick to the Middle Spiral to advance my cultivation. This was because until Earth Realm 7, also known as the Aura Formation Realm, individual stages of a Realm often required the same amount of Qi to advance as previous stages—9 million, in the case of the later half of Earth Realm 4. Technically Stage 9 took 10 million to advance to, but that wasn't too much more. This meant that a handful of Stage 4 and 5 cores were enough to get me a breakthrough not just once, but for the rest of Realm 4.
Of course, they would hardly be trivial to get at. Even getting five Tier 4 cores and a single Tier 5 in the time I'd done so had come about from some genuinely risky battles, and even considering that, it was still good evidence of my above-average drop luck. Still, we had a total of 3 months in this place, so I could afford to take it slow to a degree. I continued my strategy of assiduous, patient grinding day by day, and in a few more weeks of training in the Middle Spiral, I broke through to the 7th Stage of the 4th Realm. In the process, I took two trips back to the main camp, to empty my inventory of magical beast parts for credits, and to resupply.
Now that I was in the 7th Stage, I figured it was time to attempt to scout the Center. I wasn't able to avoid fighting in the Inner Spiral since I hadn't thinned out the beasts there at all yet, but with my cultivation stage I was well equipped to take out what I could with low risk to myself and shake off any groups, 7th Stage beasts, or more commonly, groups of Bloodletter Crows led by a 7th Stage one, that would have been a riskier fight.
Close to sundown, the valley path, which had been constantly curving in of course, a spiral, became perfectly straight. It also, as I could see, gradually got a lot more narrow. I kept going, and after a while, I could tell something was wrong, and not just because the Bloodletter Crows were clearly staying away. I'd gone for enough distance that let alone reaching the center, the path should have crossed the Inner Spiral by now. Fortunately, I'd figured on staying up and training in the Inner Spiral tonight, but I hadn't thought the sun would be all the way down without me even glimpsing the Center.
I decided to camp instead, but not to go to sleep, backtracking to a point where I was close to, but not at, the end of the Inner Spiral.. It was an experiment of sorts, to try to find out whether the magical beasts avoided this stretch because something terrible would happen beyond the Inner Spiral or if it was because of something the Academy had set up for this place. Nothing happened in the night, so I figured it was the latter, which was a lucky break. The next morning, I went along the path to the Center more quickly, if anything overestimating how much distance I'd need to cover.
At last, the Center came into view. Most of it was dominated by a lake of black water, that from a distance seemed perfectly still. As I got a little closer, though, I suddenly felt an intense burst of fear. It wasn't like how I felt when I was close to where the bear woke up, but I could tell it was the same sort of thing. I guessed this meant that I wasn't as outclassed by whatever the Ruler of the Spiral was as I was by the bear, but I wasn't ready to face them yet.
Since the path to the Center was safe to camp in, I decided it was more convenient to train in the Inner Spiral. This meant I had to bank on my drops luck for cores. Over two weeks, I gained three more Stage 5 cores, and a single stage 6. Actually, I'd obtained the third Stage 5 and the Stage 6 from the same group of Bloodletter Crows, when my inventory was very close to full. The amount of Qi absorbed by the Experiential Physique was also considerable. The Stage 6 Spiders gave a bit more than a quarter million each and they were also more abundant than the Crows of that stage, which gave a bit less.
It'd be foolish to keep going with a full inventory of magical beast parts though, so I once again returned to the main camp. I made a LOT of credits this time, though I spent 10 Contribution Points worth on a Tier 6 Earth Absorbing Pill. They didn't even offer a Tier 7, probably because there was enough Qi in a Tier 6 pill to get all the way from one Stage 4 breakthrough to the next.
After that, I sought out Elder Hasegawa. I doubted there was much he could tell me about the Ruler of the Spiral, but we'd been told by Senior Elder Liam in the start of summer speech to feel free to ask our instructors if we had any questions, so I figured the worst that could happen was a refusal.
As it happened, I got a bit more than that. "I can't tell you much, but I can tell you about that fear or pressure you felt. It's what we call spiritual pressure. You weren't entirely wrong to think killing intent; killing intent can indeed amplify the force of one's spiritual pressure, though only a mass murderer or an extremely lethal beast is usually able to do so by a meaningful amount.
Between the major cultivation Ranks, spiritual pressure is amplified considerably. Because of this, the first Realm of a new rank is usually called a Suppression Realm. In other words, the weakest Spirit Rank being is able to render helpless the strongest Earth Rank being simply by releasing its spiritual pressure.
Usually, cultivators and magical beasts don't exude spiritual pressure until Earth 6, the Golden Core Realm...normal magical beasts, anyway. As for ones beyond "normal", we don't really get into that until third year. However, the, ah, higher order magical beasts not only have spiritual pressure from birth, they can instinctively control it from birth. Of course, a higher order beast would be quite a bit stronger than an ordinary magical beast in the same cultivation realm."
"What about withstanding spiritual pressure, then? It gets easier the more the power gap is closed, right?"
"That's right. However, even someone stronger will feel a weak spiritual pressure, up to a certain point at least. Training to fight while under spiritual pressure is an important step in a cultivator's training."