Lou Ben stepped onto the ledge opposite to where he began his walk through the thick liquid lake.
He didn't know what to call it at this point so he kept with the idea of calling it a thick liquid lake.
When he emerged onto the other side, his meridians were full of yellow energy!
Lou Ben felt that all he needed now was a slight push into the direction, his body felt shackled and with just the correct direction he could release this weight on his body.
"This is the feeling of breaking through realms?" Lou Ben looked at the tower and back to his body in curiosity.
He thought that if his brothers in the Xiao clan would see this then they would be full of amazement and jealousy.
Lou Ben laughed to himself: "hah, those guys probably forgot about me by now."
Deep in his heart he was missing his brothers. He felt that these feelings were more stable than his feelings towards Qi Shuang, as if family is a level higher than others.
Maybe the day Qi Shuang bares a child she will be at this level.
The human heart is complex, although he loves his women, he would protect her, but when it came to brothers, this sort of feeling was as if not only would he protect them, but he would also be happy to die alongside them in war.
Lou Ben smirked and put his feelings aside: "Looking at this large tower is many levels different than looking from the metal forest."
Lou Ben looked back towards the horizon and into the metal forest where he came from, it seemed small from where he stands now.
"Alright, each journey starts with a step in the right direction." Lou Ben smiled to himself.
The tower was the size of a mountain, it was round by nature and had many levels, the structure and details looked like the colosseum on Earth.
It was gray and made of the same rock material as everything around him.
He walked toward the entrance, there were two torches that flickered, the entrance was a white fog so Lou Ben knew it was a small world.
That is a seperate space that doesn't conform to logic and uses the techniques of heaven and earth to make a space as large as the user can muster.
For instance right now Lou Ben is able to make his Space Sleeve as large as one-hundred-forty-five square feet. He could not even fathom the space that someone like Master Xiao Weizhe could create.
Just the thought made Lou Ben shutter.
He advanced through the fog gate and opened his eyes to a rather peculiar scene.
It was a flower field!
Lou Ben had many experiences with them, but this time instead of watching from the shoreline, he marched through.
There were no enemies, he kept Atomic Search active to keep himself alert.
In the distance was a hill and on top of that hill was a tree.
It was the only one around.
Lou Ben reached the shade underneath and looked around.
There was nothing.
There was nothing from where he stood and the horizon ahead of him.
There was just an ordinary tree on top of an ordinary hill.
Lou Ben took this chance to sit and meditate. He has not taken a break since his last encounter with the undead knight since he decided to walk through the large lake and get to the tower.
At this moment he was close to breaking through the first realm so he had high expectations in trying to understand something to help him break through.
Meanwhile Wu Gen and Kai Yang were rushing to gather materials for their venture inside the undead trench.
Each person had a list of supplies they had to gather, it included healing crystals that already had inscribed techniques, and healing pills.
Yes, the Xiao clan learned much about pills while Lou Ben was inside the undead trench.
They got this information from Ni Tian as they turned in lots of missions from the Silver Gate Pill Sect into this character.
It cost almost half of the treasury for this information, it included common recipes and a few cauldrons to cook pills and common materials.
Their aura stones were well spent, they learned common techniques and learned that men are secondary to the pill dao. Not that they couldn't cultivate it, but it was seen as feminine.
The Xiao clan learned a lot, and it gave them many ideas on how to take the next step as an organization. They needed a steady supply of pills for both healing and cultivation!
Green consumable crystals cost a lot compared to the materials for pills of the same level.
Another benefit of having pills over the green crystal was that a user could throw a pill in their mouth and continue their fight, while if they had to use a green crystal they had to focus momentarily in activating it and focusing where they want the energy to go towards.
There was also a small chance of the technique not activating and backlash.
This backlash could harm the user internally and if the person was in the middle of combat then they could die from this small mishap.
Wu Gen saw through this and knew that a steady supply of pills would greatly increase the survival rate of his brothers.
Right now each party inside the Xiao clan was completely imbalanced compared to the parties inside the adventurers guild.
They had healers, supports, damage dealers, and people to defend the party.
The Xiao clan only had techniques to deal damage and defend. They were sorely behind on having balanced parties.
Wu Gen spent long hours looking to take care of these aspects, the Xiao clan was his greatest responsibility.
Unfortunately, happenstance doesn't allow for prosperity without challenges.
Not only was Wu Gen worried about the overall Xiao clan but it was time for him to lead a small party into the undead trench to recover Lou Ben.
They gathered healing pills, healing crystals, food pills, stamina crystals, jade slips to transmit their location to the tavern, and most importantly they bought enslaved beast spirit crystals.
These sort of crystals were consumable because they contained a small party of beast spirits that will fight alongside the user for a short period of time.
After hearing about the large undead monster as the floor boss, Wu Gen wanted to be extra cautious. He didn't want to have his brothers harmed in a search party.
He would lose face and most importantly had the chance to lose a brother.
If he lost face then very well, but he didn't want to lose a brother.
He spent all this time gathering a positive reputation for the Xiao clan, but if it meant losing his hard work for the last few months in order to save his people then so what.
Unfortunately this aspect was out of the equation and that's why he looked all around the village for crystals to increase the likelihood of survival.
The party consisted of Wu Gen, Liang Jianjun, Kai Yang, and Su Sheng.
They met at the entrance of the undead trench and nodded at each other, giving eight aura stones to the guards and walking into the thin hallways.
Meanwhile Lou Ben was floating above the ground in lotus position!
He was experiencing a breakthrough in his cultivation!
"The reason we can use dao energy is because we are a catalyst, a master of energy. That is where dao master comes from."
"The accumulation of yellow energy is world energy. Having this build up of world energy allows for us to better our techniques and get close to the energy of the world."
"That's why dao masters live longer than a human, because we shed our shell of mortality and stepped into the world of attaining immortality."
"Space technique - Atom Breath!"
The dark abyss eyes of Lou Ben opened and a spark of starlight glimmered in his pupil and he inhaled the world energy and cleansed his meridians of mortal excess, starting from his toe up to his head going in a counter clockwise direction.
He spent time expelling what he considered toxic energy to a dao master.
He floated above the hill a few feet and a dark aura exuded out from him as a yellow-gold aura went towards him.
He was breaking through and cleaning his body to enter the second realm, the foundation establishment realm!
Lou Ben closed his eyes once more and focused on mixing the world energy into his meridians causing the flow from outside to inside.
He focused on the toxic energy to flow from inside to outside.
When he opened his eyes, he put one foot down to land at a time.
He breathed in and out, his breath containing vicissitudes of world power.
"This is the early realm of the Foundation Establishment realm." Lou Ben smiled as he looked into his body and down at his hands.
He felt power and closeness to the land around him.
He could sense the energy flow faintly, if he focused he could sense up to forty-five feet around him!
This is the special trait of the Foundation Establishment Realm!