The advancement continued relentlessly, powered by unlimited origin essence.
A normal cultivator would have required decades—perhaps centuries—to advance through this many stages. Each one represented a fundamental threshold requiring time, resources, and comprehension.
But Vaelor had infinite energy available (as long as the upgrade system maintained the spatial crack), perfect comprehension ability (courtesy of his transforming Divine Insight), and a cultivation technique specifically designed to handle this exact scenario (the Eternal Cosmos Scripture).
[30th Stage → 31st Stage]
[31st Stage → 32nd Stage]
[32nd Stage → 33rd Stage]
When his cultivation base crossed into the 33rd Stage of Foundation Establishment, something unprecedented occurred.
His life essence began evolving.
This should have been impossible.
Life essence evolution—the transformation of mortal existence into something transcendent—was supposed to occur at specific thresholds. The first major evolution happened when advancing from Core Formation Realm to Nascent Soul Realm. The second occurred at Soul Transformation Realm, which corresponded to King-Tier classification in the warrior system.
Foundation Establishment was far, far too early for life essence evolution.
But Vaelor's situation was unique in ways that defied normal cultivation theory.
First, his soul had been saturated with origin essence during the consciousness upgrade. That primordial energy had fundamentally transformed his spiritual substrate, bringing it to a level of purity and power normally only achieved by King-Tier cultivators.
Second, he'd reached the 33rd Stage of Foundation Establishment—a threshold that simply didn't exist in normal cultivation frameworks.
Unknown to most people in the universe, reaching certain specific milestone stages triggered additional evolutionary transformations. These milestones were: 33rd stage, 333rd stage, and 3,333rd stage.
The reason this knowledge wasn't widespread? Almost no one ever reached these thresholds.
In the known cultivation world, Foundation Establishment rarely exceeded 9 stages. Exceptional geniuses might reach 12 stages. The absolute peak talents of major sects occasionally achieved 15 stages before being forced to advance to the next major realm.
33 stages was considered mythological—something ancient texts mentioned but no living cultivator had verified.
333 stages was pure legend, allegedly achieved by the Sons and Daughters of the Universe—transcendent geniuses born from cosmic significance rather than normal reproduction, beings that existed in higher cultivation worlds far beyond Blue Star's sophistication.
3,333 stages was beyond legend. It existed only in the oldest, most fragmentary records, mentioned in the same breath as concepts like "achieving immortality through mortal cultivation" and "transcending the universe itself."
The reason for these specific thresholds related to fundamental numerology embedded in cosmic law. Three was the number of primordial forces—creation, preservation, destruction. Thirty-three represented the completion of one cycle of cosmic generation. Each additional layer of threes (333, 3,333) represented ascending orders of universal significance.
Vaelor had just crossed the first threshold.
His life essence—the fundamental vitality animating his existence—began transforming from mundane biological force into something closer to cosmic principle.
His cells, already housing illusory universes, received an upgrade to their basic existence. They stopped being merely enhanced biological cells and started becoming something else—something that existed partially outside normal spacetime, anchored in his physical body but extending into higher dimensions.
His meridians, the channels through which energy flowed, crystallized into structures harder than diamond yet infinitely flexible. They became true conduits for cosmic force rather than simple biological pathways.
His bones, organs, blood, skin—every physical component underwent subtle but profound changes. He was still recognizably human in form, but the substance of his existence had shifted toward something transcendent.
And most importantly, his connection to Law comprehension deepened dramatically.
Laws—those fundamental principles governing reality itself—normally required King-Tier cultivation or higher to perceive and manipulate. Vaelor could already see them thanks to his enhanced Divine Insight, but now he gained the capability to begin truly comprehending and eventually wielding them.
The process of life essence evolution took approximately thirty minutes. When it concluded, Vaelor's cultivation base resumed its advancement, now building upon an even more solid foundation.
[33rd Stage → 34th Stage]
[34th Stage → 35th Stage]
But the advancement was slowing.
Each stage required exponentially more energy than the previous one. Moving from 1st stage to 2nd stage might require 2X amount of energy. Moving from 2nd to 3rd required 2X. From 3rd to 4th required 4X. The progression was exponential—each subsequent stage demanding double the energy of the one before.
By the time he reached the 40th stage, the energy requirement had become astronomical. The spatial crack above him, which had been pouring origin essence at a steady rate, was now struggling to keep pace with demand.
The upgrade system hadn't anticipated this scenario. It had calculated energy needs for Divine Insight amplification with safety margins, then expanded those margins when Vaelor began hijacking cultivation energy.
But even those expanded margins were being tested as his cultivation base approached stages that required planetary-scale energy to advance through.
[40th Stage → 41st Stage]
[41st Stage → 42nd Stage]
The spatial crack flickered, the origin essence flow becoming intermittent rather than continuous. The upgrade system was approaching its operational limits—it could provide tremendous energy, but not infinite energy indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Vaelor's consciousness transformation was nearing completion.
His Divine Insight had fully integrated its ten-thousand-fold amplification. His soul had crystallized into its new form. His spirit had achieved perfect purification. His eyes had evolved into perceptual organs capable of observing fundamental reality.
The consciousness upgrade was done.
Which meant the spatial crack would close soon, cutting off the origin essence supply.
Vaelor's newly transcendent awareness calculated frantically. How many more stages can I squeeze out before the system closes the crack?
He directed every available processing thread of his enhanced consciousness toward optimizing energy absorption. The Eternal Cosmos Scripture operated at absolute maximum efficiency, each cellular universe absorbing and processing origin essence at limits approaching physical law constraints.
[45th Stage → 46th Stage]
[46th Stage → 47th Stage]
The spatial crack contracted, becoming half its previous size.
[47th Stage → 48th Stage]
One-quarter size.
[48th Stage → 49th Stage]
A hairline fracture.
[49th Stage → 50th Stage]
The spatial crack sealed completely, the final traces of origin essence absorbed into Vaelor's cultivation base.
Silence.
Profound, absolute silence.
Vaelor sat motionless in his bedroom, his external appearance unchanged except for eyes that now blazed with inner light suggesting galaxies rotating in his pupils.
Inside, everything had transformed.
His cultivation base had settled at the 50th Stage of Foundation Establishment—a realm that should have been impossible, a height that defied every conventional understanding of cultivation theory.
His consciousness had evolved beyond mortal limitations. Knowledge that would have taken lifetimes to accumulate was now instantly comprehensible. Principles that had seemed impossibly complex were obvious truths.
His soul had achieved a level of crystallization normally reserved for immortals. His spirit radiated with purified essence that suggested cosmic significance rather than mundane biology.
And his eyes... his eyes could see everything.
Then awareness of a critical problem flooded his transformed consciousness.
Oh. Oh shit. Oh FUCK SHIT.
During the multi-hour transformation, his body had been accumulating impurities.
Every cultivation advancement purged toxins, dead cells, corrupted energy—the accumulated refuse of mortal existence that cultivation gradually eliminated. Normally these impurities were discharged incrementally, a little bit with each breakthrough.
Vaelor had just broken through FORTY-FOUR STAGES in rapid succession.
The impurities hadn't been discharged incrementally. They'd been compressed, contained, held back by his unconscious will to avoid making a mess during the transformation.
Now his consciousness was fully restored and aware, he realized his body was essentially a pressurized container filled with forty-four stages' worth of accumulated toxic waste, all desperately trying to explode outward.
If he released it here—in his bedroom, in the mansion where his family slept—the discharge would level the building. Possibly level the entire city block. The sheer volume of corrupted matter and energy was immense.
"Oh shit," Vaelor muttered aloud, his first words since beginning the upgrade process.
He vanished.
Not teleportation—faster than teleportation. His newly evolved body moved at speeds approaching light, treating distance as a suggestion rather than limitation.
One moment he sat cross-legged in his bedroom. The next moment he'd covered the distance to outer space.
The city below became a dwindling point of light as he ascended through atmosphere, then beyond, entering the void between Earth and moon.
He didn't stop until he'd put considerable distance between himself and his home planet—several hundred thousand kilometers at minimum.
Here. This is safe.
Vaelor stopped suppressing the impurities.
BOOOOOOOM!
The release was catastrophic.
Forty-four stages worth of compressed toxic matter exploded outward from his body in a spherical shockwave that propagated through space at relativistic velocities.
Black sludge, corrupted energy, dead cellular matter, crystallized toxins—everything his cultivation advancement had purged erupted outward like a supernova detonation.
The shockwave expanded—one hundred kilometers, one thousand kilometers, ten thousand kilometers.
Space itself cracked under the pressure. Black fractures appeared in vacuum, spreading like cracks in glass. Dimensional barriers separating normal space from other planes of existence fractured and shattered.
The destruction continued—one hundred thousand kilometers, one million kilometers, ten million kilometers.
A hundred million kilometers of space around Vaelor's position became a zone of devastation. Spatial cracks spread like a web, some large enough to peer through into the absolute void between dimensions.
To Vaelor, it was waste—impurities he needed to discharge to complete his purification.
To anyone else in the universe, it would have been treasure beyond measure.
The "impurities" his Divine-Grade cultivation technique purged still contained massive amounts of residual energy. What he considered toxic waste would have been premium cultivation resources for anyone below King-Tier.
One man's trash is another man's treasure, the old saying went. Literally true in this case.
But out here in space, there was no one to benefit from it. The expelled matter drifted away into the void, gradually dispersing across cosmic distances.
Vaelor floated in vacuum, his body now completely purified. The last traces of mortal limitation had been literally expelled from his existence.
That was close, he thought, genuine relief flooding through his enhanced consciousness. If I'd released that on Earth...
He didn't finish the thought. The implications were clear.
Blue Star would have been devastated. Not destroyed completely—the planet would have survived—but catastrophically damaged. Cities collapsed. Millions potentially killed. The apocalypse he was trying to prevent would have arrived three years early, caused by his own cultivation advancement.
Thank whatever cosmic principles govern fortune that I realized in time.
He extended his spiritual perception outward, scanning the surrounding space to verify the damage wasn't propagating further.
The spatial cracks were already beginning to heal—slowly, taking years or decades to fully recover, but the immediate catastrophic expansion had stopped. The expelled impurities drifted harmlessly into the solar system's outer reaches.
Crisis averted.
Now came the assessment.
Vaelor turned his attention inward, examining his transformed self with his newly enhanced Divine Insight.
Let's see what exactly I've become.
TO BE CONTINUED...