Six months later.
I opened my mouth, and a cloud of thick, turbid air escaped my lungs. It was heavy, hot, and smelled faintly of burning metal and stale Aether.
I stood cross-legged on the cold composite floor, ignoring the aches in my back and the lingering sting in my soul. My eyes were bloodshot, and my face was etched with fatigue, not the crazed triumph of six months ago. Worry sat heavy in my gut.
The effort wasn't a failure, but the cost was brutal.
My Foundation now held two high-quality Pillars. They were small, dense, and pulsed with a clear, steady light—steel where the original Pillars had been rotten wood. A third Pillar, one of normal quality, was nearly complete, currently in the slow phase of filling with Aether.
It didn't take long to understand that I couldn't simply create a condensed Pillar every few weeks. The amount of raw, chaotic Aether required to rebuild a single high-quality Pillar was too immense for my body to pool and stabilize in one go.
The refined, tedious method I had settled on was this: I had to spend weeks slowly building up three normal-quality Pillars first, using the slow, traditional method of flowing Aether until their weak structures were fully saturated. Then, I would intentionally detonate that entire pool—the three saturated normal Pillars and the one existing condensed Pillar—to collect the massive energy release. Only with that explosive pool of Aether could I rebuild two high-quality Pillars simultaneously.
The time sink was agonizing. Six months of constant pain, recovery, and work, just to place a second Pillar.
And the cost of control was skyrocketing. Each rebuild attempt meant controlling a greater surge of chaotic Aether. The pain and the risk of catastrophic soul collapse increased exponentially with every single Pillar condensed. I had nearly lost it several times, particularly during the last successful rebuild, when I had tried to create the second Pillar immediately after the first, only to fail due to insufficient energy.
My original Blueprint demanded four Pillars for a stable Foundation. I now had two.
I was halfway there, but the final leap was the most terrifying.
The last two Pillars required the construction of the entire remaining structure in one final, simultaneous detonation and rebuild. That would require me to control double the Aether I had handled today.
The odds of survival are slipping further below 0.02% now, I thought, a bitter taste filling my mouth.
I slapped myself hard, twice.
"Stop the negativity," I muttered.
Its not like there were no gains. My build was better now. My skin was no longer pale and sickly; it was taut and healthy over dense, lean muscle. The months of forced recovery had stripped away the skeletal look, leaving the sharp, high cheekbones and defined jawline intact. A small consolation for six months of torture, I thought, running a hand over my defined abdomen. The illness is gone, and only the raw, cutting geometry of this damn good face remains.
Though this final jump would take four times the effort of a normal cultivation path to reach the Baron stage, my foundation, once complete, would match the quality of a Soul Architect with much higher innate talent. The sheer amount of chaotic Aether I controlled during the rebuild process had exponentially increased my focus. I could use basic reinforcement easily now, something that had been physically impossible six months ago.
I may have reset my rank to Beginner Knight, but I was confident I could handle ten low-level opponents simultaneously. I had survived six months of suicidal cultivation.
I gripped the cold floor.
Not for long.
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The figure was seated cross-legged on the floor was motionless save for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. Then, suddenly, the movement stopped.
The silence around him was broken only by a low, electrical hum coming from the Aether Focus unit.
In the span of half a second, the man's eyes inverted, the irises vanishing into his skull until only white sclera showed. A deep, shocking purple color immediately bled outward from his spine, staining the skin of his chest and torso.
His body did not shake or thrash. It simply became rigid—a statue carved mid-meditation.
Then, the hemorrhage began.
A thin, dark fluid—not exactly blood, but something viscous and deep red—began to weep from every pore. The fluid flowed rapidly, emerging from the corners of his inverted eyes, his nostrils, and his mouth. His skin, unable to contain the internal pressure, erupted in small, fine cracks that oozed pus and blood, giving his entire frame the texture of scorched, shattered clay.
The grotesque purple figure remained unnaturally still, the agony so absolute that it produced no sound. He was held together solely by the force of his own catastrophic mind.
After an eternal stretch of about seven seconds, a single, terrifying pulse of blue-white Aether energy detonated from his core. The energy was so raw and compressed that it manifested physically: a tangible wave erupted outward, slamming into the apartment walls.
The entire structure shuddered. The overhead lights in the apartment flickered once, briefly going dark.
The figure's rigidity snapped. He collapsed backward, hitting the composite floor with a wet, heavy thud, now nothing more than a ruined, unconscious heap covered in a crust of drying fluids.
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I woke up with a groan. These days, fainting has become routine, but probably the shift is coming. I opened my panel and there.
[ RANK: KNIGHT (PEAK) ][ FOUNDATION: COMPLETE ]
Two years. Two years of constant torture, of fighting my body's limit, and defying the math.
A wave of manic, exhausted triumph washed over me. I looked at my reflection in the dark phone screen—a scarred, blood-caked face—and broke into a grin.
"Peak Knight," I whispered, the sound a ragged wheeze. "Not bad for a junkie."
I let the laughter return, a harsh, triumphant sound in the dead silence of the room.
The celebration was brief.
I looked around the small, white room.
With my Peak Knight Foundation, I could reinforce my body to withstand most low-level threats. I was no longer a civilian.
I dragged myself off the floor and toward the door.
"Two years," I said, a sigh escaping my lips. "Time to go."
I was leaving. Where to? Somewhere. Wherever the odds were best. The only thing that mattered now was climbing.
After all, I wasn't foolish enough to believe that I could handle the detonation of my soul wall by just sleeping. Now to climb I need resources or else forget about recreating the walls again and again. Just reaching a low-tier baron would take me years.