Krune felt helpless.

'My cores...my precious demon cores...gone....just like that...'

​​

The more he looked at the Lizard Dragons, the gloomier he felt. He simply didn't have the heart to get rid of them. Especially now that they seemed to like him so much. As a wisp, Krune had spent most of his time alone, after all. Sure, he did get to know quite a few other wisps since he wasn't the only one trying to survive all the hunting. With time, he bumped into quite a few of them who also had their own tricks to slip away from the pursuers. But he never interacted much with them to start with.

In the end, Krune could only head out of the den to gather more demon cores. Even if he had secured a spiritual vein, he wouldn't risk damaging it because of the lack of spiritual energy. The next meridian was bound to be far more brutal than the last one when it came to the amount of spiritual energy needed.

---

Time passed, and soon, another month went by. Krune had left the spiritual vein to hunt more demon beasts so that he could acquire more demon cores. But soon, he found out that 6th Stage demon cores did not offer much help to him anymore. In this past month, he attempted to create his third Spiritual Energy Meridian, only for it to break apart. The meridian absorbed those 6th Stage cores like they were cheap candy. When he noticed that he was far from being able to form the third Spiritual Energy Meridian, Krune immediately stopped the process so that he wouldn't damage the spirit vein.

At this moment, he finally had a total of twenty 7th Stage demon cores. If his calculation wasn't wrong, he would need less than half of them to finish creating the third Spiritual Energy Meridian. Maybe he would even have enough to form the fourth Spiritual Energy Meridian.

As for the little Lizard Dragons, well, they can't be called little anymore. The biggest was obviously the one who ate his 8th Stage demon core. With all that energy, it had finally achieved the 6th Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. As for the others, three were at the 5th Stage while the youngest was at the peak of the 4th. They also didn't need to care about food this last month since every time Krune went hunting, he would bring back the corpses of the beasts he killed, which was more than enough to fill their bellies.

Krune started to worry about how exactly he would leave this place. Would it be okay to leave the Lizard Dragons behind? But that worry didn't take too long to disappear. The big brother of the group quickly became strong enough to fend for himself, thanks to the help of the 8th Stage demon core. Krune was certain that he would be able to protect the others until they matured as well.

'It's finally time. I have more than enough demon cores to form the third meridian. I might even have enough to form the fourth. I should get ready.'

He gave the largest Lizard Dragon an order for them to stay away from him for now. After achieving the 6th Stage of Qi Condensation, the intelligence of the big brother of the group had gone a step further. Right now, it could understand simple commands and help take care of the younger ones.

Acknowledging his orders, it brought back the younger lizards and gave Krune enough space for him to work.

Gradually, the third Spiritual Energy Meridian took shape. Krune was becoming more familiar with the process, which meant it took less time than before. After some time, the third meridian was complete again.

As expected, it immediately started to absorb the spiritual energy in the surroundings. Thanks to the spirit vein in the lake, it took quite some time to clean up all the spiritual energy. Only when Krune noticed that the light of the spiritual vein started to dim out did he take out his demon cores and feed them to the meridian one by one. Fortunately, everything went just as Krune had predicted. He used less than half of his twenty demon cores to finish the process. By the time he was going to use his sixth core, the third meridian was fully formed. The third meridian shone once more, just like the previous ones, and with that, the process was complete.

Krune let out a sigh of relief after the process was over.

'Everything's finally back on track. If it wasn't for those guys...'

He gave the Lizard Dragons a quick glance but just sighed once more.

'What's gone is gone. There's no point mulling over the past. It's not like the demon core of that 8th Stage Lizard Dragon would come out of nowhere anyway. Let's see if I can try and form my fourth meridian. After the spiritual energy in the cave returns to normal, I'll check and see if it'll be possible to make it sooner. I might as well head out and grab a few more demon cores just in case.'

Two days later, the spiritual vein was as bright as ever, while the spiritual energy in the cave had returned to normal. Krune also took these last two days to cultivate, reaching the peak of the 7th Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. His cultivation speed had increased yet again.

But there was one thing that Krune noticed. When he formed his second meridian, his cultivation speed had indeed become much faster. Then again, it wasn't double the speed. Now that he formed the third one, although his cultivation speed had become faster again, it was far from being three times the speed of a single meridian. The weird part was that if he used any of the three meridians alone, the cultivation speed would be the same for all of them. But when he used all three together, their individual efficiency lowered.

After thinking about it, Krune came up with two hypotheses.

His first hypothesis was that because his cultivation was too low, his energy core couldn't keep up with his high speed of energy absorption. So, the higher his cultivation, the more energy he could take at once. At the moment, his energy core was still at the Qi Condensation Realm. When he breaks through to the Foundation Establishment in the future, his energy core would be upgraded, which would allow it to absorb spiritual energy much faster.

As for his second hypothesis, he thought there just wasn't enough spiritual energy. When all three worked together, the spiritual energy in the surroundings wasn't big enough for all three to work at max capability.

Thankfully, the second hypothesis was quickly discarded. When Krune thought about it, he simply took out his demon cores and tried to use them to speed up his cultivation. But even with that, the absorption rate was still the same.

This conclusion also made Krune understand one thing. Every time he finished creating a new Spiritual Energy Meridian, his own core would be strengthened. That's because, according to the first idea, the stronger his cultivation realm, the more energy he could absorb. However, he hasn't reached the Foundation Establishment Realm yet. Nevertheless, his absorption rate increased every time a meridian was created. It only meant that the meridians also helped strengthen his core.

---

A few days later, Krune had stocked twenty 7th Stage demon cores. Although he thought that he already had enough cores to create the fourth Spiritual Energy Meridian before, it was better to be safe than sorry.

There was also one more issue. Krune noticed that once a demon beast died and its core was taken away, the spiritual energy inside those cores would start to gradually dissipate.

Well, that was to be expected. Demon cores had no life, so there's no one to control the energy inside to start with. Krune could feel that his oldest demon core had already lost almost half of the spiritual energy. Because of this, in the future, Krune wouldn't be able to just take a lot of low-level cores to make up for the quality. The initial idea was to get a lot of easy-to-obtain demon cores, even if it took longer. That's because it would also be safer.

But as of late, it was apparent that such an idea wouldn't be feasible anymore. Krune would have to hunt higher-level beasts if he wanted to have enough spiritual energy for creating his meridians.

'There's no helping it. Let's just start creating the fourth meridian before the energy in the demon cores is gone.'

Unfortunately for Krune, things didn't go as planned. As soon as Krune started forming his fourth meridian, his soul was instantly struck by unbearable pain. Krune almost fainted right then and there. He immediately stopped the process, which obviously meant the creation of the fourth meridian failed as soon as it started. Krune was shocked by that!

'What was that? It felt like my energy core was about to explode. If I had not stopped in time, my energy core would have broken apart. I almost died there!'

Krune then calmed his emotions down and started to ponder over what could have gone wrong.

'The Spiritual Energy Meridians are directly linked to my own energy core. When I cultivate, they convert the energy of heaven and earth at extremely high speeds and deliver it to my core straight away. I have a pretty good idea of why their efficiency goes down when I use all three simultaneously. It should be because my energy core can't take so much spiritual energy at the same time.'

'Could it be that my energy core can't sustain more than three Spiritual Energy Meridians? Three Spiritual Energy Meridians is probably my limit with a core at the Qi Condensation Realm. If I want to create more meridians, I would have to achieve the Foundation Establishment Realm or find a way to strengthen it before that.'

Krune immediately discarded the second idea. Strengthen his core so it could hold more Spiritual Energy Meridians? How the hell would he do that? Maybe after he left the forest and ventured into the outside world, would he find some skill or technique that allowed him to do that. But at the moment, such a thing was impossible. Since that's the case, he only had one solution.

'Time to aim for the Foundation Establishment Realm. But before that, I need to consolidate my cultivation at the 8th and 9th Stage of Qi Condensation first.'

Krune had long since noticed that after he broke through a stage, his cultivation would become unstable for quite some time. In the first few stages of the Qi Condensation Realm, it wasn't so obvious. Though, after reaching the 7th Stage, it started to affect his progression speed. Simply put, his foundations were becoming shaky. Then again, that wasn't a problem as he also found out the best way to stabilize it. There was no better way to do so than through battles! That's also why he was already at the peak of the 7th Stage and could try and enter the 8th Stage.

Though, right now, Krune was facing another issue.

'Since I wouldn't be able to create the fourth meridian any time soon, all these 7th Stage demon cores don't have much use for me. They'd be beneficial if I didn't have the spiritual vein since their energy is much higher than what I could absorb outside. But, because of the limitation of how much spiritual energy I could absorb at once, this spiritual vein is already more than enough for me. Then again, if I don't use them, their energy will simply disappear sooner or later.'

While holding the demon cores in front of him with his spiritual energy, Krune noticed the Lizard Dragons at a distance. They were all looking right at him, their eyes filled with yearning. Krune had ordered them that they must not eat his demon cores. There was even one time when the oldest Lizard Dragon tried to eat one of them sneakily. But how could Krune not notice him? As a wisp, even without his Divine Sense, he could still feel the energy around him. It was way too easy to notice this fella trying to pull one on him.

After getting a beating from Krune for his naughtiness, let alone this guy, even the younger ones didn't dare to approach his demon cores anymore. The sorry state of their big brother was more than enough for them to understand the consequences of such a foolish act.

Krune pondered for a bit but still gave up in the end. What was he going to do with empty demon cores anyway? They're nothing more than decorations after all the spiritual energy is gone. He had a total of twenty core and five Lizard Dragons, so he might as well give 4 for each one of them.

'Come here. I will give you these cores.'

The lizards immediately rushed over, and each got 4 cores. The happiness on their faces made Krune feel a little better. Well, all of them except for one big guy. When Krune looked at the oldest lizard, he could see its gloomy face as he looked back at him. It turns out that Krune had given him the demon cores with the lowest amount of spiritual energy inside. With its 6th Stage cultivation level, it could totally feel that his brother and sisters' cores had much more spiritual energy than his cores. Krune saw that and then smirked at him as he said.

"Haha! 'THAT' is what you get for trying to steal my demon cores back then. Do you think I forgot about that incident? No way! On top of that, 'YOU' were the one who ate my 8th Stage demon core. Do you think I don't know that as well? How could your cultivation be so much higher than your siblings if you obtained the greatest reward? You better be happy that I didn't give your cores to them. Otherwise, I don't mind not giving you anything. Hmph!'

The oldest Lizard Dragon didn't quite understand what Krune said. However, it could still understand that it wouldn't get anything more from him. With a glum expression, it took its four cores and headed to a corner to absorb them.

Here, in the inner parts of Katiu Forest, there was an adult wisp who felt great for being able to verbally bully a 6th Stage Lizard Dragon that couldn't even understand a single lick of what he said.

Krune felt very proud of himself. Yep! He wasn't petty. He wasn't petty at all!