The heavens were jealous and didn't like cultivators, for they went against the established rules of the universe. Cultivators reached for immortality when they were supposed to die pitiful deaths in less than a century. Therefore, from the Core Formation realm onwards, every time a cultivator reached a new realm, they faced a Heavenly Tribulation.

The Foundation Tribulation, as its name implied, tested one's foundation. It was the easiest one of the lot, yet it had been one of the most lethal for a long time. Not because it had been harder in the past, but out of ignorance and because of how many people faced it unprepared. The temptation of building a core rather than working on one's foundations was too big, for it improved the strength too much.

And the consequence of failing a tribulation was death.

Millions, maybe billions, had died crushed by the very air around them, like ants in front of the mighty heavens.

Nowadays, only fools rushed and built their cores before properly setting their foundations. The Immortal Emperor, in all his wisdom, had ordered all cultivators to be taught the basics for free if they lacked other cultivators to teach them. He had sagely declared that each cultivator who died was a loss for the entire empire. It was no surprise the nation had conquered the planet under his rule.

As qi tried to crush him, he resisted. As qi surrounded his bones and tried to bend or break them, it failed. As qi created tiny tumors in his body, his blood cleansed them away.

His foundations had been rushed with the system, but they were solid and held firmly.

Three hours later, he passed the tribulation.

At then, qi infiltrated every single inch of his body.

The heavens were jealous and ruthless. They made the cultivation journey harder from the beginning by making mortals' bodies so weak they couldn't take too much qi, and by obstructing their meridians from birth. Yet, when cultivators proved themselves, they were also rewarded by the same heavens.

Shen had asked his father about it once, and the answer was that the heavens were also prideful. If those that resisted Heavenly Tribulations could be easily disposed of even by those who didn't, wouldn't it mean the heavens were just weaker than mortals? Wouldn't the heavens' honor suffer a big hit? How could they accept that? Thus, they provided extra strength to those who proved worthy of going against them.

There were so many holes in that theory that Shen didn't even know where to begin, but that's the explanation he had gotten, and no books in the library offered an alternate explanation.

The fact was that after failing to kill a cultivator during a tribulation, the heavens rewarded them with extra power. The qi entering his body wasn't the raw qi he usually found around him and used, but Heavenly Qi: qi in its most pure and refined form. If common qi was gravel the size of mountains, the Heavenly Qi was sand so thin it might as well be liquid. It penetrated every part of his body to the smallest degree, removing impurities, improving him, strengthening him, and giving him extra lifespan.

A black oily substance left his body; they were the impurities being removed. Some books left by powerful cultivators suggested merely breathing made the mortal body release and accumulate substances that were harmful to it. Moreover, mortals came with many imperfections even at the surface level such as pimples and spots. Those were being cleansed, and the resulting substance smelled terrible.

His muscles got slightly bigger and stronger. His bones became more resistant, too. His very blood was also improved beyond what he had already done. His skin got so slightly more resistant that it would make no difference in battle, but his body elasticity improved by leaps and bounds, and so did his reaction time.

Lastly, and more important for any cultivator, his lifespan more than doubled.

Core Formation cultivators usually lived up to two hundred years even if they didn't consume any special medicine. The richest among them could even reach three hundred by using mystical treasures. Anyone who started cultivating early enough had the time to reach the Core Formation realm and live much longer than mortals, no matter how talentless they might be, though it was also the realm where most people got stuck. Entering the next realm required more than time or effort.

In any case, that was his first step toward true immortality, the goal of all cultivators, and Shen couldn't help but feel elated at reaching it.

The process took about an hour, and when it was done, there were four notifications in front of him.

Health Regen | 6 → 12/h

Stamina Regen | 3.3 → 6.6/min

Strength: F- → F

Agility: F- → F

When one entered the Core Formation realm, they became much stronger, and it was nice to get visual confirmation of that.

Despite his expectations, he was still ecstatic to see cultivation and system synergizing so well once again. When he had improved his stats, his regens had already reached double their previous limit. Now that they had doubled again, they were twice what they should've been without the system.

Shen clenched his fists and was impressed by how much power he felt in them. He would need to, once again, train to get used to his new strength and speed. However, he had one very important thing to do before that: clean himself.

He stank.

He unclothed himself and spent 10 AP to buy "cleansing equipment" from the Guardian Store. It gave him a towel dripping some liquid that easily removed the impurities from his body and left it feeling fresh. Then he bought new clothes for another 10 AP, as his were beyond repair. That left him with 9,011 AP.

The next few hours were spent getting used to his power. That made him realize the elites had had F tier stats, though on the lower end. Even as he trained, he got used to his potential enough to surpass them. He wished he could summon new elites to test his new power against, but no matter how he phrased it, he couldn't get the Guardian Store to sell him an enemy to kill.

While training, he also pulled qi from the environment into his core.

It felt almost painful to absorb such low-quality qi into himself after having a taste of Heavenly Qi, but there was nothing he could do unless he was willing to spend days improving his core. He would have none of that though. He reckoned he should be strong enough to deal with this tutorial stage's enemies already, and he needed to get himself some AP.

Investing in his power now to have an easier time later was wise, but wasting too much time now was stupid.

The only thing he did was impose his will upon the qi to compress it as much as he could. That left him with a reserve big enough to improve his entire body with qi for about two minutes. Compressing the qi gave also him extra power over it, so he could push the qi outside his body in harmless bursts that reached few inches from him, but it had no real application in battle.

About four hours after ranking up, he decided he was ready.

"Time remaining," he said.

2nd Stage ends in: 25 days, 3 hours, 12 minutes

Things had taken longer than he had expected. It was past time he finished with the fortress and found another place to get AP.

Shen moved to the fortress's last room door and pushed it full of expectation.

It was time to probably kill a middle boss, and maybe find the new limits of his power while at it.

On the other side of the door, Shen found a big room containing a throne of bones just like Uk'Gaar's, this time on a dais at the back of the room. There was a Minotaur Elite Spellcaster on each side of the throne, three sharpshooters on the middle steps of the dais, four assassins on one corner of the room each, and five defenders in front of the dais.

And sitting on the throne was a minotaur unlike any other.

"Inspect," he said at once.

Suktuk-amorak (F) — 1 / 1

Unlike every enemy until now, Suktuk-amorak wasn't classified by their race. Instead, the system let Shen know that was his true name being shown. That had only happened when inspecting fellow humans before. Did that mean the minotaur was a proper living being rather than a Shadow or Incarnation?

There was a distinct feeling to him, even without the system's assistance. It wasn't in the minotaur's redder skin when compared to the brown of the others, or in how his horns curved back rather than to the front, or even in the luxurious black and golden clothes he wore. At first, Shen thought it was his look of pure disdain visible even in his cow face, but after a few moments, he realized the truth:

It was his aura.

Before the powerful developed their domain, they started affecting the world around them in subtle ways. Their Paths almost exhaled from them. After a domain was formed, one could rein their auras in, but not before, which explained why Uk'Gaar's hadn't shown his own aura.

Suktuk-amorak's aura gave Shen a feeling of a... parasite? No, something different, more terrible. Hunger. An all-consuming hunger.

The minotaur was also the only being with a single health point Shen had met until now. Was he weak, then? Just a symbolic target for Shen to deal with after killing the others, making dealing with tactics the real middle boss of sorts?

Something in his clothes suggested so. The black jerkin and pants were made of beautifully worked-on pieces of leather from a strong being. The golden shirt below looked like silk, and there seemed to have some runes in a lighter shade of gold giving it a beautiful and mesmerizing pattern. The few golden metal bits on his jerkin's shoulder and buttons complemented the look well. He also wore black boots and black gloves—the first gloved minotaur until now.

If he wasn't a figurehead but a fighting enemy instead, he should be a spellcaster, for he had no visible weapon nearby. Shen concluded this room was a trial, an easy-to-kill spellcaster protected by elite fighters. There was only one issue: he didn't want to kill an innocent living being for points. That was no Shadow.

The middle boss even smiled when he saw Shen, so the boy cupped his hands before himself and nodded his head. "Feng Shen greets Suktuk-amorak."

Against Uk'Gaar, Shen had given a simpler greeting that bordered on disrespect, if not been outright offensive. Cultivator culture put a lot of emphasis on rank and status, and Shen had been at the G rank back then, while the orc had been at the F rank. Yet, the orc had been arrogant and disrespectful first, so Shen wasn't obligated to be polite either.

Now though, Suktuk-amorak had even smiled at Shen, so he was acknowledging Suktuk-amorak by name, as etiquette dictated. If he had known the middle boss's profession or rank, he would've avoided using his name directly, but that wasn't the case.

Suktuk-amorak reply was as opposite to Uk'Gaar's as the first impression he gave.

"Kill him," he ordered his subordinates.

And just like that, Shen's misgivings about killing the minotaur disappeared.

He clenched his spear and rushed at the closest assassin.

When the human entered the throne room, Suktuk-amorak analyzed the inferior being. A single glance revealed the human had upgraded his resistance to F- tier.

That would require Suktuk-amorak to cast slightly stronger, and thus more mana-consuming spells to do proper damage. That, in turn, would require greater focus and willpower. Those would've been no issue if he had all his power at his disposal, but his brain had also been limited in this prison, and unlike Shadows, who could throw fireballs all day long, he had an actual limit on how much he could stress his mind.

He had enough willpower for three attempts at one-shotting the trainee, so he would wait for the perfect moment to do just that. Or, if the fool let himself get damaged by mere Shadows, he would use weaker spells to finish him.

Of course, he would also keep some mana in reserve to cast the most important spell of all: a soul lock. Capturing a living trainee, even for a few seconds in battle, went directly against the tutorial rules and would see Suktuk-amorak instantly killed once discovered, but he was an expert in finding loopholes to abuse and avoid direct system punishment. That's how he had found a way to hide his rituals from the system.

Unfortunately, that loophole had been patched after his capture. Revealing it had let him avoid the death penalty directly and given him a chance to be in community service instead.

The loophole he had found in this tutorial required him to kill his target first. Then, he would stop their soul from leaving their dead body. While a soul was still in a corpse, the latter wouldn't turn into mana, so he would have a taste of meat for the first time in forever. He couldn't keep the soul lock going against the system for more than a few seconds, but being the first to have a taste of a new race was exciting enough to be worth the trouble.

He smiled, looking at the idiot who would soon become his food.

He couldn't wait. The fool greeted Suktuk-amorak, but subterfuge was also forbidden for middle bosses in the second stage. He ordered his Shadows to attack and awaited the perfect opportunity to kill his foe.

That shouldn't take too long. There was no way to go past the defenders without getting stopped, not with F- stats, and the system limited the trainees to that tier in the first half of the second stage.

It was only a matter of time before everything fell into place.