The split focus caused his internal energy to waver, making him unable to repeat what he had done just monts ago.
"Tch, forget it," Uhtred hissed, losing his patience. He gave up entirely on trying to balance the two things at once and instead emptied his mind. He surrendered his complete attention to the external environnt, pulling the tallic flakes in the air and sand closer to his skin, letting his core act on pure, ravenous instinct.
Just like before, ti dissolved. The world went perfectly silent until the connection suddenly ceased a second ti.
When he opened his eyes, the second core was gone, dissolved into dust. The sun had shifted very slightly through the sky, proving that ti had truly passed in a blur while he was imrsed in that cultivation state.
But Uhtred’s focus was no longer on the ti. He was now fully focused on trying to actually draw those tallic flecks to himself successfully. Despite devouring two of the high-level cores back-to-back, Uhtred realized he still hadn’t been able to actually move or manipulate the tal fragnts in his surroundings.
He paused, letting out a short breath, then stood up abruptly. A grunt escaped his lips as pain flared from the cuts on his body, however, it was much more bearable compared to when it was fresh. In fact, Uhtred could feel so of the cuts hardening slowly already, a layer of scab forming over them.
With the third beast core in his hand, he strode downriver slowly, careful to prevent any of his wounds from reopening. His target was the fourth wolf beast. He hadn’t harvested its core yet and he needed to for what he was about to do.
He reached the body, harvested the core with the extraction artifact, then sat on the ground right there beside its body.
He was about to begin, when he suddenly shook his head and stood again, walking over to the riverside instead. For this attempt, he wanted to be directly on the sand where he’d felt the tallic flecks rather than on the grassy floor of the sparse treeline where the connection was not as direct.
Now with the last two cores in each hand, he sat and let out a light breath. He was going to attempt cultivating with two cores at once.
Closing his eyes, Uhtred initiated the process. The exact millisecond his core began to siphon the energy from the two cores, he reached out with his mind, latching onto the tiny tallic flecks pulsing through the environnt.
Despite cultivating with two cores simultaneously, there wasn’t the slightest bit of fluctuation. Uhtred had expected so level of difficulty at the very least, but his core accepted the dual input seamlessly, greedily breaking down the boundaries of both spheres simultaneously.
I keep underestimating just how versatile this thing is, Uhtred thought wryly.
Shedding his remaining doubts, he anchored his absolute focus onto the tallic flecks in the sand beneath him and the air around him, pulling them toward his body with unyielding intent.
For what felt like a long, agonizing stretch of ti, the motes remained stubborn, floating heedlessly in the environnt. But Uhtred refused to yield. He channeled the entirety of his willpower into his frustration, tightening his ntal grip around the ambient particles and dragging them inward by sheer force of will.
Gradually, the tide turned. The flecks in his imdiate vicinity began to shift, vibrating slightly before gravitating toward him.
He pushed his focus to his absolute limit, honing in on one single mote — the nearest one, as it drew closer and closer to his bare chest. The mont the microscopic speck of light made contact with his skin, his core drank it in greedily.
The sensory impact was instantaneous. The taste of this tal elental essence was entirely different from anything his core had devoured before. It was very unique and refreshing, sinking deep into the bottom of his core.
The mont that single mote settled in his core, the remaining particles around his body suddenly beca much easier to attract, as if drawn to the tallic signature now humming inside him.
A second fleck entered his body, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth...
By the ti the seventh fleck lted into his center, the connection the wolf cores provided him abruptly cut off, and Uhtred was violently jarred back to the present.
His eyes snapped open. Sweat poured down his forehead, stinging his eyes, and his chest heaved as he panted for air. Yet, a large, triumphant smile broke across his face.
The two high-level Epicyon cores in his hands had completely disintegrated, but this ti, the gray ash didn’t blow away like before, instead they were devoured by his greedy core just like with the Monitor Lizard essence cores.
Right on cue, the blue System interface popped up in his view, sending a stream of notices and ssages, all of his titles and rewards for the achievents he had made.
[Notice!]
[Congratulations! You have successfully created a low level tal cultivation technique]
[Your proficiency in the tallic aspects of cosmic essence has increased significantly]
[New Skill Developed: Basic tal Sense (Level 1)]
[Quest Completed: Trial Of First Blood]
Reward: 300 Multiversal Tokens.
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 9] 2 rits.
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 10] 2 rits.
[Titles Gained]
Pioneering Mind : 3rd in world to create a cultivation technique. ( 60 rits)
Titan Slayer : 1st in world to kill a beast a minor realm above you. ( 200 rits)
Scourge of the Pack : 1st in world to kill four beasts a minor realm above you. ( 600 rits)
Apex Ascender : 1st in world to reach Level 10. ( 200 rits)
Total rits earned: 1,407
Uhtred stared at the massive block of text floating in his vision, his jaw slightly slack. The sheer volu of rits was staggering, completely eclipsing everything he had earned from his entire lizard kills.
But more than the numbers, it was the profound transformation to his body that grabbed his attention.
The mont he received the Level 10 notice, as if his core was finalizing the gains from his cultivation session, a massive wave of revitalizing energy erupted directly from his center.
The feeling was soothing and unique, like a pure, structural restructuring helped by the System itself.
The deep, agonizing lacerations on his back began to itch furiously as the torn muscle fibers knit themselves back together at a visible pace.
The biting pain at his side vanished, and the raw, skinned flesh on his hands and all over his legs smoothed over into fresh, tougher skin.
He could feel his bones reinforcing, his muscles expanding with dense, compacted power, and his senses sharpening to a degree that made his previous Level 8 status entirely pale in comparison.
[One ti World Pioneer revitalization, used]
[Congratulations on crossing a minor realm... Pioneer, continue to forge onward on the Path of Ascension]
Uhtred read the ssage and stared blankly. That last bit by the system had felt almost personal, as if the System had high hopes for him as the number one leveler on the planet.
"Speaking of levels... I wonder how my attributes look like now," Uhtred stood up first, shaking the river sand from his now-bare ass. He was practically buck naked from all the fighting. While the system had helped revitalize his body, his clothes had not received the sa revitalization...
But Uhtred didn’t care. His focus was on the surroundings. The world looked different now. Clearer. Sharper. And through his newly acquired Basic tal Sense, the riverbank felt alive with tiny, glowing pinpricks of elental potential.
Uhtred grinned, feeling the power coursing through his veins, then with a calm breath, he spoke:
"Status."
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