Over the course of the next few days, it was a series of test. They had to test me for this, they had to check me for that they wanted to make sure i had everything all ok. It was annoying but i have to let them have their way. I have 3 pairs of eyes staring at me at all times. Almost. Toilet break and showers were the only time that i was freed. My meals were tonic after tonic. Muscle growth, that was what the focus was. I was skin and bones and the tonics really helped. By the 3rd day i could stand on my own and walk on the fourth. The technology for feeding had improved. That incident had opened new doors for everyone. It was still pretty interesting to see food flying about. You could say it has become an art form to appeal to the kids. Too bad i only got to enjoy 2 days of it. On a side note, some inns even hired them to help with food arrangement that would have been impossible without. Kitchens used to the domain of the flame elementalist. Now, even the water elementalist have stepped up to the challenge. As for those who had both elements and have a passion for cooking, they are now the best paid amongst all.

Everywhere i go, i was being watched. I am the miracle boy. The boy who lived.The one who was thought to be dead. People would gawk and watch wherever i go. There was almost no place where i cannot be spotted. i now have only 2 places of solitude. The biblioteca and my personal room. In the biblioteca i have a room to myself. Not that i want to but i have to. I even have a dedicated assistant to bring me all the books. Perfect recall. I can remember everything. I would end up opening book after book digesting everything. After seeing the speed that i read on the first day, they called me the walking biblio. As long as it is a book i read i could even recite it backwards. There was just that one cookbook by a guy named Nicholas Flamel that really got to me. It felt like that was a big secret hidden in it and the truth seemed to elude me.

Cultivating has become second nature to me. I would be cultivating even as i walk. It has become instinctual. 2700 cycles or so a second and that is just me not focusing. I am hitting 4000 cycles a second already. Peers of my age are still at 5000 cycles a minute at best. I was light years ahead of them in this regard. The only irony is was that my drain when using my tree was huge as well. I still could last 50 times longer than those my age thankfully. It would really suck if i end up pretty average.

One month. In one month i finished reading all the books the biblioteca has. Or at least the branch i was in at the school. The school is split into 9 zones. I have finished all the books in my zone. the other 8 zones are a distance away and there is a stiff competition between the different zones. it would take some effort before i gain access to them. All the cultivation books that were available had been read by me and i now i am trying to formulate a better one for myself thanks to that. The method of cultivation that Joyce originally provided for me was a fairly efficient one this new one that i am formulating for myself right now is an upgrade of that. Using this half modified one i could already feel the difference. It was just a matter of time before i gift this to Joyce. Knowing my parents’ tree, i formulated a simpler cultivation method for them. Hopefully one day something good will come if they become tier 1 novice master.

I look back at myself and laugh. I am still a tier 0 as well. I may be a tier 1 lord spirit master but with no skills to support it. It was a curious situation now. I need to gain abilities. Being tier 0 meant plenty of dangers. Especially now that i am a universal target. Stupid spy networks. Thanks to that though, i get plenty of resources. I have enough stacks of core and core fragments to sustain me for 3 months at least. Or at least that is what i thought.

I finally started on core absorption. Fresh core would have been best but given that fresh ones are hard to get so i had to make do. I began absorbing the first core fragments i ever got. The wren cores. Not that i needed more chaos element to my already crazy life i needed it for the multiplication ability that it was known for. I needed it to make me use less spirit energy. I may be able to use spirit force to fight but it is very draining for my spirit. The wren core allows me to split my unit of spirit energy into smaller bodies. Meaning instead of lasting 50 times longer, i can last much much longer than others. Irony is that to most people it is a support ability and there is zero combat capability or so to speak on its own. Most people would think it would be a waste to use it as the tier one branch and that i should use it as a fruit and recommended me all kinds of better cores.

I had an interesting concept in mind. Based on the various books i have read, there were some diaries that spoke of an interesting situation. Using support is actually better than an offensive branch as a starter. It is totally different from the system that everyone one was using but it was not just written by one person but over the course of 5000 years of history, there were actually over 100 authors who said that or suggested that. The only issue was that the support ability had to be similar to the innate ability of the tree itself. The level of the core obtained had to be similar to the user as well. You can only use cores from beast 1-2 tiers higher than you. Any higher you may die from just even absorbing the core. The core would be too potent.

The wrens are lower tier 2 beast. They are actually tier 1 but they usually are found in large numbers and only those who reach tier 3 would hunt them. They are also usually farmed for their cores. Amy’s family now has a big farm of them. They are like the literal only farm for wrens in the region now. They bought over all the others. They had the best wren after all. The king and queen wrens. Of the hundreds of wrens born, only 1-2 royals are born. You can search through hundreds of wren nest but you will not find royal wren eggs. We were really lucky to get them on that trip. A royal wren is a upper tier 2 beast on its own and a nest with them would be mean a tier 3 nest. It was really lucky for everyone for that trip. Even those “hunter”. They survived, we got free cores and Amy got royal wren eggs. I now have lifetime supply of free wren cores.

Focusing on the wren cores and core fragments, i began drawing the spirit energy in the core and started assimilating them into my spirit as according to the books. With that many people’s diaries telling their insights on absorbing the core it had become an easy task. After the tenth core fragment, i despaired. Due to my extremely large spirit container, i needed an extremely large amount of spirit to make it work. Meaning i need way more cores than what i have. At least eighty times more. I am going to be using up 1 week’s worth of core in 1 hour. There is the good and bad about it. If i need that much to make a branch, it meant my tier 1 ability would be deeply rooted and the ability will most likely persist into my other branches. But that i think would not be enough. I need the speed to go with a tier 1 branch. I needed the lightning Gonzales. It is a small mouse with little combative ability. It is the fastest tier 2 beast. Hard to catch and reproduce very fast as well. It is a pest in for most farmers. Put a pair in a farm and by the end of a season there would be hundreds of them in the farm and you would be left with half the harvest. There are many eradication request all year round so it is still not that hard to obtain.

In each element there are beast and monsters that hold only just those element in lower tiers. To advance from one tier to another it would require plenty of cores. It is like a piggy bank. You need to fill it up before it overflows and you need to get a bigger piggy bank. Most people would use them as a filler cores. Using them to support their growth while waiting for the core that they need to advance.

A week has passed and i can feel myself at the critical point.i am waiting for the final piece of the puzzle. I am about to break through to being a tier 1. I have to keep suppressing it. I needed to hold back. According to one theorist amongst the books, there was a way to make abilities stronger. It was a very limited ability. It is supposed to be very hard for people to achieve unless unless they are rich. And even if they are it would still be very hard for most people to do it still. It involves having to use all the same type of core when growing a branch or a fruit. It would be hard for most people but not for me. Or at least not the case for my first branch and fruit. I have chosen the most common of cores that can be found. A pest and a farmed beast. Cheap and suits my needs. Now all i am waiting for is the final wren core. a royal wren is dying from sickness. Should nothing happen a royal wren would live to 10 years at least. this royal wren however is different. It grew older faster than the others. It reached maturity 4 times faster than the other wren. It was also a little bigger than the other royals. It was a lower tier 3 royal wren. Amy’s family had tried breeding it but it did not work. It bore no kids. They had no idea who were the parents either and could not make another like it. You could say it was the perfect wren for me to rank up into tier 1. It is the only reason why i am holding back my rank up.

*Knock-Knock* *Knock* *Knock-Knock-Knock* *Knock-Knock*

“Come in”

That was the code for Amy’s liaison. Everyone who come would have a different code. I can remember them all anyway. If anyone fakes it i would know. The slight difference in tapping is obvious to me. It is like fingerprints to me. Unique. Someone tried to copy the knock and thought that they had done it perfectly. I could still tell the difference. He was not allowed entry. Everyone was entry by invite only so that no bluff worked. Amy and Joyce made sure of that.

Handing over the box containing the core, the liaison quickly left right after. I had to make sure though. I rattled the box.1 sound only. 1 core. That should be right. With that i opened and started to absorb my lynch pin. As i start to absorb it, i felt a trace of something more. Focusing on it, i realized it were the fragmented memories of the wren. i embraced the memories of that royal wren. It seemed that the wren was not just any wren. It was a royal wren with a strong spirit. It is seems to be the reason for its explosive growth. The speed that it has comes from that endless well of energy. No. that cant be right. Something else must have been the cause of its growth. I delved deeper into the memories. Like a researcher i seek the true case of the strength. I sliced and diced the memories into compartments. One by one i observed. Then i saw this memory. Then one fragment caught my eye. The earliest memory. That white glow that it felt when it was still an egg. I scrolled through my extensive mental library, looking for anything of that semblance. There was no records of anything like that for wrens. Amongst the lores of the past, there was just one that had that likeness. Stronger, faster, bigger and smarter. A spritemeld. Thought to be extinct and only in the myths. It is born from the elements and would meld into the nearest living newborn dormant until maturity. It would give power in exchange of vitality. It seemed to fit the case for this royal wren. Good for me bad luck for this wren. If it were in the wild it would have been even stronger and would lord over an area and would have lived for much longer but here it is just cattle to the humans.

Knowing what it most likely it, i focused on the core once again. I need to get to tier 1 soon and this is the best chance. Half way into the absorption, i felt something in me break. A sudden surge of spirit energy surged into me from the core and from the space all around like a fierce torrent. It was pain all over my body as the core turned to dust. It was within expectation. It hurt but i was fine. It was mind over matter. I have endured all those itch that i could feel but not scratch already what is just a little pain. Time ticked on, the flow of spirit kept coming. The very fundamentals of spirit energy is now being reformed. If it were most people, it would have taken 5 hours maximum to rank up. Sadly, i would need more. Having a much higher reserve, much more dense spirit and higher purity, it would mean i need many times more than others. Not only that, i have been suppressing the ranks to increase the quality of the rank up. It would mean that it would take at least a day or two before i complete my rank up. A record for anyone’s first rank up anyway.

Outside, people were gathering. If it were the usual, rank up, the upheaval of the spirit energy all around would not be this great. The spirit energy that was gathering had become so dense that a low mist was starting to form. Thankfully i was the only one in the room. There was no one else to spot its existence. All or nothing, i decided to pick up the pace. 1 time, 2 times, 3 times, the pain doubled each time. 4 times the speed but 8 times the pain. If i increased again by another time that would be 16 times the pain. I could endure the pain but the amount of reward i only 1 time more. Not worth the pain i am going through. Also, i do not want Joyce to kill me. She lectured me for at least an hour everyday when i first woke up just to ingrain it into me. She did not know that i can’t forget at that point but thanks to that she has become a waking reminder to not do stupid things. All i can do is impatiently wait.