Edward's eyes snapped open. He looked around and saw that Robert had already finished his cultivation session. He had broken through to the Eighth Level of the Body Metamorphosis realm.

"Well done. You had a breakthrough.", Edward praised.

"Yeah. What about you?", Robert asked.

"I wasn't cultivating. I was checking on something, and I found out what I needed.", Edward said.

"What did you find out?"

"A lot of things. But what is important is we have nothing left to do in this forest now. We will return again when the time is right."

"So, are we leaving?"

"Yeah. We're done here."

"Ok then."

They soon started heading back. After facing all those obstacles they faced while coming here once again, they finally came out of the forest.

At the moment, Edward and Robert were in Tulip Village, standing in front of Edward's old house.

"So, we still have around five months before we head back to the academy. What do we do till then?", Robert asked.

"We train. obviously. I have already figured out our training routine. First of all, we will have to go near a mountain with strong beasts. Every day, we will start by meditating for six hours, for cultivation. For the next six hours, we will spar, for combat training and honing our skills. Don't worry, I'll hold back. In the next six hours, we meditate to recover and to digest our results from the spar as well as progress our cultivation accordingly. For the final six hours, we will sleep or cultivate, depending on our remaining stamina. Every ten days, we will climb up the mountain and battle against the beasts. After a day of surviving in the mountain, we will come down and continue our daily routine.", Edward declared.

"Nice! That's quite great a training routine you planned.", Robert praised.

"This is the most suitable training routine for us to get as strong as possible in the next five months."

"Okay, then. Let's head out.", Robert jumped in excitement.

***********

In a vast mountain range with forests and rivers, at the foot of a mountain, two shadows were clashing in battle. One of them was Robert, and the other one was Edward. Robert was holding his sword, Edward was barehanded. This was to make things even, as Edward was on a much higher level than Robert.

"300 Consecutive Slashes!", Robert rushed towards Edward and attacked.

"Mountain!", Edward defended by creating a physical essence shield. this was the second level of the Great Eruption Art, only more perfected.

Boom! A powerful clash occurred, and Robert was bounced back many steps.

"I'm using very little of my power, but that's the difference between our levels.", Edward said.

"Well, I guess you are right.", Robert said as he sheathed his sword.

"This is it for today. We are almost at the end of our five months of training.", Edward said.

For the last five months, they have been training in a place called the Hundred Beasts Mountain Range. It was a place full of powerful beasts and also surrounded by mountains. The location as well as the terrain was suitable for harsh training. They chose this place after a lot of thinking.

They have hunted a lot of beasts in these past five months. Fighting against these powerful ferocious Grade 2 and Grade 3 beasts in this mountain range has raised their skills and combat instinct to a very high level. Their cultivation levels haven't fallen behind either. Robert has already broken through to the Shell Shattering Realm with the help of Edward, and currently, he is at the Third Level of the Shell Shattering Realm. Edward, on the other hand, has progressed quite fast due to the Seed of Origin Life and now he is now at the Ninth Level of Shell Shattering Realm.

"Tomorrow, we will be going for the final hunt of our training regiment. Tomorrow, I plan to hunt the Hundred Beast King.", Edward declared.

"The Hundred Beast King? Can you handle it?", Robert asked.

"I believe I can. You just handle the King's Subordinates, I will hunt the king."

"Okay then. Leave the subordinate beasts to me."

The Hundred Beast King was the King of the mountain range, as well as the strongest beast here. It was at the very peak of Grade 3 beasts, comparable to someone at the peak of the Shell Shattering Realm. It might even be slightly stronger. The Hundred Beast King had many subordinates. These subordinate beasts were all at least Grade 2. it was like having an army of Body Metamorphosis realm cultivators. A few of the subordinate beasts were even Grade 3. They have been ravaging and dominating this mountain range for quite a while. Edward and Robert had already taken down a few of the Grade 3 Subordinate beasts during their past five months of training. This has made the Hundred Beast King go on a rampage, trying to finding the culprit. But he never managed to find them. Although the Hundred Beast King had a decent amount of intelligence due to being a peak Grade 3 beast, it was nowhere near human intelligence. These past few months, Edward and Robert avoided clashing with the Hundred Beast King but two weeks ago, Edward broke through to the Ninth Level of Shell Shattering realm, and in these two weeks, he has reached near the peak of Shell Shattering Realm. The nine physical essence rivers inside him were about to merge into a sea. With his current strength, he believed he could take on the Hundred Beast King.

Edward and Robert kept meditating to recover to their peak condition. they were preparing for battle. finally, the next morning, when the first sunlight slowly shined upon the world, Edward and Robert woke up from their deep meditation, and stretched their arms and legs, heading towards the mountain. At the peak of the tallest mountain of the Hundread Beasts Mountain Range was where the Hundred Beast King resided. That was their prey.