27 Tier 7

The emperor's face suddenly turned solemn, no trace of his previous warm self could be seen. The air in the room somehow turned cold, Fahrad could even feel an invisible chill down his back. He hurriedly lowered his head, averting his gaze.

'So this is the power of an ascendant, they can even alter the environment purely by emotion.' He thought in a mixture of awe and fear.

It wasn't correct to call the emotion fear, this was because Fahrad knew that the emperor wouldn't attack him, rather, he could almost sympathise with the emperor's enemies. To die cold and alone, frozen as a statue, truly a terrible fate.

Fahrad shivered slightly, before quickly steadying himself. The advisor, Eisen on the other hand seemed unaffected by the chill, his piercing gaze looking directly into the emperor's eyes.

'To avert one's eyes is a sign of weakness, since Eisen is holding the emperor's gaze, then he should be of equal or higher strength. Amazing.'

Ever since they had arrived at the audience chamber, his friend became ever more mysterious. How could he arrange an audience with the emperor? How could he speak on equal grounds with the emperor? Several questions spiralled around Fahrad's mind, but no answers.

The frosty air slowly warmed, until the atmosphere had returned to normal. The emperor sighed slightly, suddenly ageing several years. He bowed slightly.

"Apologies, I have not been able to control my emotions."

The action of an emperor bowing shocked the red eyed man immensely, an emperor bowing was the same as a nation bowing it's head! He quietly controlled himself, he knew that the emperor was simply apologising to Eisen, not Fahrad himself. In reality, he was treated more like an attendant, the emperor hadn't actually acknowledged his presence yet.

'That's to be expected, the emperor would never bow to a commoner, that's simply not possible!'

"It's good that you acknowledge your shortcomings. However, I hope you don't lose control in front of ambassadors of other nations." Eisen remarked.

The emperor shook his head with a slight grin. The scene looked akin to an elder telling off a naughty child, not an advisor speaking to an emperor.

"It must be elder Horatio's apprentice, am I correct?" He asked.

Eisen nodded.

"Which other elder would allow their apprentice to venture alone into dangerous territories and get himself critically wounded."

The emperor's grin only got wider.

"It is an effective training method, he always steps in at the last moment. Just like that time when I was only a prince vying for the throne, ahh, we've gone off topic."

The emperor seemed to be looking into the distance, reminiscing the past, until he realised he had dazed off in front of his guests. He then turned to look at Fahrad.

"And why do you bring this man here?"

"Surely your majesty would not want possible traitors or infiltrators to make their way into the empire's summoner corps. This man is the head of the Bloody Emperor fratry." Eisen replied.

The emperor nodded in understanding.

"Then you plan to put the children into his care and weed out the possible traitors whilst also keeping tabs on the more promising ones."

'WHAT?' Fahrad yelled internally.

The red eyed man glanced over urgently at Eisen. However, such a look did not go unnoticed by the emperor, who sat above them.

"Hah! I guess that Eisen did not tell you about his plans before coming here?" He laughed in a somewhat lighthearted manner.

Fahrad quickly shifted his gaze back to the floor before nodding. Whilst Eisen could speak on equal grounds with the emperor, Fahrad could not. He lacked the status and power, thus he could only stare helplessly at the decorated floor.

"Don't worry, we have all been there at some point. Anyway, I will offer you due compensation for your troubles, I am not an unjust emperor after all." The emperor chuckled, waving his hand grandly.

There was a strange glint in Fahrad's eyes when he heard the word compensation.

"Well, that will be all for today then. I am quite busy, but I will make sure to send details about the compensation to you mister..."

"Fahrad, your majesty. Just Fahrad."

The former nodded.

"Then I shall take my leave."

The red eyed man, Eisen and all of the attendants bowed their heads once more. Well, only Eisen and Fahrad, the attendants had their heads lowered respectfully the entire time. The sound of the emperor standing up and walking away alleviated Fahrad's nerves slightly.

"Announcing the leave of his majesty!" The eunuch cried.

When the party left the chamber, Fahrad turned to face Eisen, twirling his axes menacingly.

"Warn me next time, old fart." He spat.

Eisen chuckled, before waving his hand.

"At least you get compensated."

Seeing his friend's leisurely attitude made Fahrad rethink his stance once again.

'He can probably defeat me instantly right? Well, at least he's my friend and not a foe.'

.....

Deep Wood Forest.

Draylen lay on the floor, asleep. He had fallen unconscious whilst waiting for his body to recover, mainly due to his fatigue but also the wound inflicted by the Sun Blessed Cougar. Whilst in an ordinary situation, passing out in the Deep Wood was suicidal, with the tier 10 Oasis River Drake lurking nearby, no creatures dared come close.

Unbeknownst to the young boy, his body was currently undergoing large changes.

He was breaking through to tier 7.

Whilst it was true that cultivation was the main way for people to get stronger, but why was it that way? This was because cultivation drew mana from the environment into the body and circulated it through the bloodstream, strengthening the flesh and bone.

Now how could Draylen breakthrough when he had barely cultivated at all?

This was due to his unique body type which possessed every single element available to man. The elements in his body coexisted, but not peacefully. Like when he broke through to tier 4 in the past, his body was constantly being destroyed and then rebuilt every waking moment, which meant that the new flesh created possessed qualities of every element.

So in effect, Draylen's body was always cultivating and this is also why he had reached tier 6 expert so quickly, because he had not spent a single moment in his life without mana in his body, and not a single moment after reaching tier 4 wasn't spent cultivating.

When the boy broke through to tier 4, he had leapt through four cultivation tiers, from 0 to 4. This was due to the outrageous density and quality of mana in Gaia's valley, whilst normal people wouldn't have been able to process such high quality mana, Draylen's body could, thus he instantly jumped through many tiers.

This was also why he had a sudden surge of pain breaking through, because his body was exposed to things it had never experienced before. Whilst attaining tier 1 was only slightly painful for normal people, Draylen had utilised mana several times better and had broken through four times as many tiers, multiplying the amount of change which happened in his body at that single moment.

So at the moment, whilst he was unconscious, his body was being broken and repaired as usual but faster and on a larger scale. The reason why some people failed to break through was because their bodies couldn't handle the mana intake required and thus only managed to breakthrough half a cultivation tier.

However, due to Draylen's unique body type, he could absorb mana like a sponge would with water, removing the need to stop at pseudo cultivation tiers.

A small glow covered his body as he lay against the ground. His familiar armaments had long disappeared back into his body and Charcoal and Barong were undergoing similar changes, like their master.

The River Drake noticed that there was a sudden surge of mana in it's area, whilst it's territory already had an unusual amount of mana in the atmosphere, the amount had directly multiplied. He realised that the process of evolution which would normally take several years could instantly be shortened to only a few days.

Thus, the monster began cultivating without delay. Since he was currently a tier 10 expert, an Archaic beast, he had intelligence on par with the Jade Elves, a race well known for their wisdom. He knew that when he evolved, there was a high chance to fully awaken his bloodline, upgrading from a weak draconic bloodline to an aquatic dragon bloodline.

This was because he was descended from aquatic dragons, the sea monsters. How wonderful would it be to have complete control of water in his own domain? Thought the Oasis River Drake. But there was an even bigger reason why he wanted to evolve.

It was because his children would also be born as aquatic sea dragons. The goal of all life was, in the end, to reproduce and thus all parents wanted their children to be stronger. Additionally, having younglings with higher potential meant a higher chance for them to be taken by summoners and possibly reach even higher heights.

(Author note: Wink wink)

So, the drake quickly sank beneath the water.

And thus the oasis was filled with silence and the occasional blub-blubbing of fish. Soon, several days passed and Draylen's breakthrough eventually came to a halt. Whilst almost a week had passed, it had felt like a nap to him, the boy didn't notice the shift in time.

He slowly got up and stretched, as there were slight aches all over his body. Draylen looked down to find that the wounds on his body had all healed and he felt that his mana pool had completely refilled.

'Eh? What's this?'

After checking closely, the boy realised that his mana pool had actually increased from 30 to 35.

'Does that mean...'

He nodded slowly. Whilst the sudden breakthrough to tier 7 novice hadn't been too surprising, as he had been at tier 6 expert for quite some time now, the fact that he had blacked out in the middle of a potentially dangerous area caused his eyebrows to crease.

'I need to fix this habit of passing out randomly when I breakthrough.'

'Well, I guess I should return to the cave then, who knows how long has passed since I left.'

Draylen summoned Charcoal and Barong before making his way through the dense jungle, back towards home. The Oasis River Drake however had not managed to fully breakthrough, he was now a pseudo evolved but it was a breakthrough nonetheless.

The time required for him to evolve had been reduced drastically, all due to the strange youngster, thus the drake nodded it's head in farewell, before sinking below the water once more.