Chapter 10: Cultivation

AN: [Imperial Core Realm] changed into [Imperial Lord Core Realm]

[5 days later...]

"Wow. I'm not even surprised anymore." The Divine Emperor said, as he removed the pressure, and King got off. He drank enough water and ate enough food to probably feed a whole platoon of Navy SEALS for a whole week, so he wasn't thirsty this time, nor was he hungry. And apparently in-game foods turned into pure chemical energy since the food was so 'effective' no waste was left behind. That was actual canon-lore for in-game foods. Seriously. But King was now had the physical body of a level 100, enough to crush stars like the sun. And that was PHYSICAL BODY ALONE.

"Well, now you just need to cultivate either in nebulae or a black hole. Rotational black holes can impart energy faster, though, but for you any black hole is fine." The Divine Emperor said, as he gave King a helmet. It was mainly glass and looked like a space helmet. "It has around 3^(24) kg of air inside the miniature cylindrical compartment in here, so you don't need to worry about suffocating." The Divine Emperor said, as he pointed to a small cylindrical object that looked as if it was part of the decorations. "So where are we going to?" King asked, which prompted the Divine Emperor a snap of his fingers, which to King's knowledge, could be a signal to- yep. a [Teleportation] spell.

"I was busy in between times, which was why I usually left quickly. But within that time frame I made an artificially fed black hole." King and the Divine Emperor appeared on a dead planet, and above King's view, the sky was completely black, with no stars in the vicinity. "How busy were you? The stars are no longer even visible here." King said, peering into the infinite abyss of space. Cultivation was still weird, though. Apparently black holes were a source of super-pure Qi, however that works.

"What? No. The whole horizon above is a black hole. I fed it with around 50,000 neighboring galaxies." The Divine Emperor then revealed that this black hole... was located inside the Boötes void, and it was around the mass of 50,000 galaxies. "If you absorb the entire black hole, you might be able to break through straight to the [Sovereign Lord Realm] instantly."

"Is it just me, or am I kind of going too fast?" King asked. He was going to break through into a realm unbeknownst to him already. "Actually, this is pretty slow once you get to the [Exterior Greater Realm]. Children at the age of 3 there are already at the [Qi Condensation Realm]. At your age, a normal cultivator should be at the [Imperial Lord Realm]." The Divine Emperor then dropped another bombshell. Wasn't that the realm that the first human cultivator reached before leaving the original game-world? And that was ordinary? And he managed to be called 'Invincible Under The Heavens'?

"Yo bullshit. That's bullshit." King said in response to the [Exterior Greater Realm]'s level of cultivation. "Whatever. Just get in there. I'll protect your physical body with this talisman I refined in the meantime." The Divine Emperor then handed King... not a talisman. It looked more like a weird alien artifact. "How is that refining?" King asked. He thought that the Divine Emperor just engineered it. "Well I absorbed the matter of a few planets to make the base material and engraved 100 suns worth of energy in it."

Ah. That does indeed stick to the definition of refining. "Place it on your chest, by the way. And make sure it doesn't go off unless you've safely reached the [Golden Core Realm]." The Divine Emperor said, as he then set up what seemed to be a launching formation. "This formation should have enough energy to send you right to the very core. The talisman lasts for 10 seconds so get ready to start absorbing the Qi within that time-frame. Any questions?" The Divine Emperor asked as he finished the formation in a split-second.

"Nope. But if the talisman fails, is there a backup-plan?" King asked. "Well, yeah, of course." The Divine Emperor said as he pulled out a weird trombone-shaped instrument. "Also, take off your shirt. The majority of your meridians are located on your chest, and almost 90% of all your meridians are on your upper-body." The Divine Emperor said, pointing to a chair. That was probably where his shirt goes. King took his shirt off, leaving a nicely-chiseled musculature. His body-tempering was really showing. "Well, good luck." The Divine Emperor said, as the formation glowed, and King was sent off at light-speed into the black hole.

...King had arrived at where the singularity of the black hole was after just activating the 'talisman'. A light-shield appeared around King's body, and it dimmed every second. And so King willed himself to cultivate, and soon after he closed his eyes... a suction power greater than that of the black hole's appeared from King's body, and the King Engine roared. Basically his heart was absorbing Qi crazily. King had set the time to be at an hour of absorbing the Qi, but he had no idea... at this rate, he was absorbing more than half of the black hole in a minute.

...On the outside, the Divine Emperor was crazily working to continuously feed the black hole with more and more galaxies, stars, everything he could get his hands on. He assumed this black hole was enough for King to last around a month or so, but he heavily underestimated how powerful the [Absolute Perfection] grade was. So the Divine Emperor dragged galaxies left and right to feed the diminishing black hole before it gets fully absorbed into King. "What the hell! [Absolute Perfection] is way beyond perfect! It's broken! Broken~" The Divine Emperor whined as he flew at greater-than-light speeds and quickly fed the black hole more and more matter. And so after one agonizing hour, King woke up from his cultivation, and when he did, he was greeted with seemingly normal space. It looked like an average night-sky. Then King remembered... he shouldn't be able to see anything at all. He then caught the image of the planet he was on... which was supposed to be a couple light-minutes away. He could even see the dust particles on the planet from this distance.

"...Is the [Sovereign Lord Realm] really that great?" King asked himself, as he saw the Divine Emperor's figure on the planet, panting. He was in his ethereal-golden-glow form, and he was splayed over the ground as if he was liquid and suddenly became a human figure. King flew to the planet unconsciously as if it was a normal thing, and arrived before the Divine Emperor. "Uh, you alright? I thought you were just supposed to wait for me to finish absorbing the black hole or something, not run a huge marathon." King asked.

"Run *pant* a marathon? *wheeze* BULLSHIT! I had to *breathe* throw in so many *breathe* galaxies to *breathe* feed the black hole *gasp* before you absorbed everything in the surroundings and cultivate with impure Qi! You were absorbing more Qi than the black hole could produce, *breathe* and due to the lack of Qi around it, *breathe* the black hole was creating more Qi with its mass, *breathe* making it lose more mass with each coming minute! *breathe* More than half of the former black hole was absorbed by you in less than a *pant* minute!"

Now isn't that something. "So.. you were doing this for a whole hour." King asked. "BLOODY YES! FLYING AT 3000 TIMES LIGHT-SPEED ISN'T HEALTHY FOR ME NOW! I DON"T EVEN HAVE MY OLD BODY YET, AND YOU'RE MAKING ME DO ALL THISsss... *cough* *cough* *wheeze*..." The Divine Emperor looked like he was going to get a heart attack. "Um... maybe get into my body and absorb some energy to help you energize?" King offered. In an instant, the Divine Emperor dispersed into golden mist and entered King's body, and the next second, King felt his Qi get absorbed, and when 25% of all his Qi was absorbed, the Divine Emperor left his body, looking refreshed. "Ah... Chaos Qi really is the best type of Qi..." The Divine Emperor said, as he breathed in deeply.

"Also, what's my cultivation level then?" King asked, since if the original black hole could probably take him to the [Sovereign Lord Realm], where was he now? "Well, I miscalculated something. As someone with the [Absolute Perfection] grade constitutions, you naturally require more Qi to cultivate compared to others, since your [Absolute Perfection] grade body is incredibly amazing, but it requires more Qi to strengthen. But it strengthens much more efficiently compared to other grades. You may need 10 billion times more Qi, but you get 10 trillion times the benefit!" The Divine Emperor said. "Oh, it's just an expression, by the way. I'm not too sure about the reality of the actual [Absolute Perfection] grade constitutions." The Divine Emperor added.

"How does one tell?" King asked. "Well thankfully, like the [Heart] of the three constitutions, this is simpler to understand, so I'll explain it briefly." The Divine Emperor said, as he then pulled out the whiteboard from nowhere. It was probably a benefit of cultivation. "Firstly, in the [Foundation Realm], you're simply absorbing the Qi to strengthen your body. Your body can also still be strengthened further even with the cultivation. But in the [Foundation Realm], you can activate your cultivation to strengthen your body, or to deactivate it and your original body strength will be present. But the main reason is to allow your body to adapt to the Qi. Some races are already used to it, so they skip the [Foundation Realm]. When specific amounts of Qi is accumulated, it becomes more efficient and faster at assimilating the Qi. That's the stages of the [Foundation Realm]."

"After the [Foundation Realm], the body has adapted enough to start accumulating Qi, hence the name [Qi Accumulation Realm]. You start absorbing the Qi and storing it in a specific region of your heart, known as the [Dantian]. It's the main region of where Qi can be stored. Before, the [Dantian] was located below your abdomen and above your crotch. But after the [Heart] was discovered, the [Dantian] slowly moved upwards and into the [Heart] for convenience purposes. But in some cases, some [Dantians] were already in the heart to begin with. That's your case, which is why you can cultivate 10 times faster. And then another 10 times that from the Qi density of your planet. But in a extremely Qi-dense area like that black hole I made, the true power of your [Heart] is released, which absorbs Qi at the same relative pace, at half of all the Qi every minute. Or that's my theory. Maybe your [Heart] can actually absorb faster, I don't know. So anyway, the Qi is stored inside your [Dantian] every time you cultivate to be used to further strengthen the body whenever you want, or to accomplish other feats such as walking on water, flying, etc. But that requires the right amount of Qi, or else trying to do so will just result in failure. After a specific amount, your [Dantian] can strengthen itself and expand. That's the stages of the [Qi Accumulation Realm]."

"After your [Dantian] is upgraded 9 times, it undergoes a change, where you can condense the Qi in your [Dantian] to store more Qi. That's the [Qi Condensation Realm]. Like the [Qi Accumulation Realm], specific amounts are needed to upgrade the [Dantian Further]. After 9 changes, you rank up again."

"Past the [Qi Condensation Realm] is the [Foundation Core Realm]. It happens once the Qi in your [Dantian] gets too full and your [Dantian] cannot condense the Qi further. The [Dantian] then undergoes a metamorphosis and changes into a [Core], by using all the Qi in your [Dantian] to improve itself. Then, you no longer have a [Dantian] in your heart, and the entire heart itself also undergoes a metamorphosis. Your heart's shape undergoes no change, but the [Core], like the [Dantian], can store and condense Qi, but the [Core] is a separate realm itself. In the [Core], you have a 10 meter diameter spherical area which can store and absorb Qi, but you can also store other things within your [Core], such as other items. It functions like an [Inventory] in the game, but the game's [Inventory] is much larger in size. But enough about that. Same old same old, once your [Core] has a specific amount of Qi in it, basically just almost full amounts of Qi in it, it'll upgrade itself up to 9 times, and after that, the [Core]'ll undergo another metamorphosis. But this specific stage is called the [Foundation Core Realm] simply because this is the very beginning of the core, and you're fleshing out the insides, the absorption speed, and hardness of the [Core]."

"Following the [Foundation Core Realm], is the [Common Mortal Core Realm], [Noble Mortal Core Realm], [Royal Mortal Core Realm], [Imperial Mortal Core Realm], [Heavenly Mortal Core Realm], [Divine Mortal Core Realm], [Supreme Mortal Core Realm], and the [Great Sage Mortal Core Realm] respectively. Each core improvement also enlarges the size of the core, by 10 each time, with 1 million kilometers in diameter of the [Great Sage Core Realm]. Each core realm has 9 stages each, so there'll be 81 stages you need to overcome to finally break past the [Mortal Hurdle], which is the mortal core realms. Following the mortal stage is the [Foundation Ascendant Core Realm]. In the [Ascendant Hurdle] it is the same as the [Mortal Hurdle] but much, much harder to surpass. with the [Common Ascendant Core Realm], [Noble Ascendant Core Realm] and such following the same as the [Mortal Hurdle]."

"There are 9 hurdles of the core to overcome, which are the [Mortal Hurdle], [Ascendant Hurdle], [Transcendent Hurdle], [Lesser Expert Hurdle], [Greater Expert Hurdle], [Immortal Hurdle], and [Celestial Hurdle], before getting to the final hurdle, the [Monarch Hurdle]. But at this hurdle there are some things which are different, with more stages, numbering at 3 different hurdles themselves, called [Monarchies]. The starting is the [Lord Monarchy], starting at the [Common Lord Core Realm] instead. After the [Common Lord Realm] is the [Noble Lord Realm], [Royal Lord Realm], [Sovereign Lord Core Realm], [Imperial Lord Core Realm], [Heavenly Lord Core Realm], [Divine Lord Core Realm], [Supreme Lord Core Realm], [Great Lord Core Realm], and changes into the [King Monarchy]. It's the same thing, with [Common King Core Realm], [Noble King Core Realm], etc. But the final [Monarchy] is called [True Monarchy], with only three stages, being [True Monarch Core Realm], [Celestial Monarch Core Realm], and the [Great Monarch Core Realm], the last cultivation stage before breaking through to the next cultivation stage."

"It's basically the same as the core realm. But it is called [Monarchy] for a reason because you can incite intelligent life to grow in your core. Every second living, intelligent lifeforms remain in your core, you gain Qi from them. This is because their life force helps absorb more Qi as they are in your [Core]. But as they do not cultivate, the Qi goes to you. Of course, you can also allow in cultivators to train there, if you ever think of getting a disciple." The Divine Emperor finished. King laughed at this moment, which incited a look of puzzlement from the Divine Emperor. What was so funny, the fact that a single stage was that hard to upgrade, or the fact that he thought he was powerful when he was just a [Qi Accumulation Realm] cultivator?

"I know what you're thinking. No, I know that there are many different realms above me, and I know the difficulty of each stage." King replied. "Then why're you laughing?" The Divine Emperor asked, befuddled. "I'm laughing because this is considered simple." King pointed above. "This explanation took around 1000 words. And this is much, much easier and simpler to understand compared to the 3 hour rant. Author. I pity your explanations in the future chapters."

"...You're mocking me, aren't you?" The author responded dejectedly before disappearing through space-time. "Well, so what cultivation am I at?" King asked, as if the author had not appeared at all earlier. "Well, you're currently at the [Celestial Hurdle], a [Great Sage Celestial Realm]. But due to your three constitutions, your [Great Sage Celestial Realm] is on par with an ordinary [Great Lord Realm] cultivator. You can skip exactly one whole hurdle from your grade. Meaning you can probably fight [Sovereign Immortals] at the cultivation of a [Supreme Overlord]. But at the [Great Sage Celestial Realm], you're currently at the 5th stage instead, meaning you're on par with a [5th Royalty Great Lord Realm] cultivator. When you reach the [Monarch Hurdle] the stages are changed into Royalty, instead of stage. Like [5th Stage Foundation Realm], and [5th Royalty Heavenly King Realm]. After that it should be counted in skies, but I'm not too sure about that. I haven't gotten there, yet." The Divine Emperor once again explained with a wall of text which was a pain for the author to type.

"Well, that's cool and all, but what's the point of this again?" King asked the Divine Emperor. "Well, for one, cultivation's cool. And, you can ascend to other worlds and even travel through other dimensions." The D.E explained. Yes, D.E is going to be what he's called because 'The Divine Emperor' sounds weird and is a pain to continuously type. "So, I just need more Qi." King concluded. "Not actually, you have enough Qi to break through to the [Monarch Hurdle] but you need something else. If Qi was all you needed I'd have just sat in my room all day cultivating without stopping." D.E corrected.

"Well, what's that? Don't just say something's missing but not explain." King complained. "For one, if all you did was cultivate and absorb Qi, you'd be at the [Great Sage Celestial Core Realm] at most. You need ONE living being in your core to break through. Any living being will do, as long as it is intelligent. But the stronger the living being, the greater the Qi you can absorb from their presence in you [Core]." D.E explained. "Well then, how do we get back?" King asked. "I'll just take us back-"

"-to the teleportation node." D.E snapped his fingers, and they returned to his room. At the time, Saitama was knocking on the door. King knew since his cultivation made him stronger, so he could do something as simple as see-through objects. But there was a difference with Saitama. King could tell, even though he already knew it...

Saitama was strong. Around Saitama, the Qi was heavy, dense, and had a feeling of overwhelming power. "W-what frightening power!" D.E exclaimed mentally, while he was inside King's [Core]. Now King didn't need to deal with the stupid effect of being D.E's avatar. Since it was no longer in-game, whatever works. But D.E settled on going into King's [Core]. "Yep. That's my bro Saitama that I've been telling you about..." King responded with a hint of smugness. Being friends with someone who could pressure even a [Great Sage Celestial Core Realm] cultivator without a drop of cultivation... that was something.

King opened the door, to see Saitama stand there in his hero costume instead of his regular-casual clothing. "You know that day you told me about your powers, the next day a woman and her coworkers visited me and tried to 'rookie-crush' me, but I beat them. Now the lady keeps calling me, trying to recruit me into her group or something. Now, she wants to fight with us through a group or something." Saitama explained. "Okay, nothing to do anyway." King then simply replied. "I'll be done in a minute, let me clean up the place in a minute." Afterwards, King closed the door, and activated his gaming powers and used the spell [Clean]. The apartment then got cleaned like in a scene-break where all the untidy things were gone and in the next moment everything looked like it was shining.

King kept the gamer-power, since it was more convenient and had a mini-map, spells he could access at any given time, etc, and left with Saitama, not before getting Demon Cyborg and Bang.

[30 minutes later..]

...The Blizzard Group were waiting in their headquarters, for Saitama and his group. Everyone was relaxed, thinking that the baldy couldn't have amassed that impressive of a group. But Fubuki knew otherwise. But it was all part of her plan. And when they arrived, she expected Saitama to bring in some heavy-hitters. And when he arrived... it looked almost- no, it DEFINITELY LOOKED comical. The main leader of the group was Saitama. Yet those following him... all three of them were S-Class. Demon-Cyborg. He claimed to be Saitama's apprentice, or disciple. Then, there was Bang. Master of the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist. She didn't expect him knowing Saitama, but who she was waiting for this whole time... he was here. S-Class Rank 7, King.

She had only met him when she wanted to look for Saitama, yet instead of Saitama, the face of King stared down at them. King ignored them after their silence from being too scared to move. The day after however... they returned. Since King wasn't there, they resumed their plan. But they failed miserably as Saitama knocked out both her subordinates cold, and he endured her [Hell Storm] with ease. And was even protected by him, no less, by an explosion from the S-Class Demon Cyborg who was battling a ninja who's abilities could also be ranked S-Class. Who would be faster between that ninja and Flashy Flash of the S-Class, she didn't know.

But today, they were once again graced by the presence of the World's Strongest Hero. But to Fubuki's planning... they are going to get those four as subordinates of the Blizzard Group...

...King was checking out the capabilities of his Gaming-Power from which he has access to his avatar in-game, and one of them was access to an opponent's stats. In the game, one could disable their own status and etc. for covert playing, or whatever, but since this was real-life, no one should block their status and stats anyway, so King would have information he could access. Saitama was same-old, same-old, Genos changed from level 20 to level 26, must be an upgrade. He also had the titles [Demon Cyborg], [Disciple Of Saitama], and [The One Who Chases Revenge]. Okay, there's one lame title out of three. Bang was level... 28 (+12)? So he's level 40 in total... the extra 12 levels must be his martial arts. His title was [Master Of The Water Stream Rock Crushing Fist] and [Master Of The Hero Hunter]. "Who's the Hero Hunter?" King thought inwardly.

King then noticed the Blizzard Group and saw that they were pretty normal, with stats of a level 15 and above, but Fubuki herself... was level 1...(+18). Well, she was mainly a psychic combatant, and levels were used to calculate HP, MP and ST. HP and ST being physical traits, which psychics usually tend to... not have great amounts of physical strength nor endurance. Well, that's their level. "So, there's your group. Now, Saitama, if you'll sign this contract..." Fubuki then pointed to a contract on a table with a seat in front of it. It was as if she planned it- oh please. She DEFINITELY planned it. But Saitama being a knob-jockey didn't read the contents of the contract at all and just signed it.

"The loser of the fight will answer the requests of the winning group, no matter how bizarre or large! I can't believe you actually signed it!" Fubuki smiled as she read the contract. "Ah, that was on there?" Saitama asked, sweating. "You really need to read your contracts, bro." King advised the nervous Saitama. But then again, this was a fight, so there was no chance they would lose.

"GAME OVER!" The announcer of the game sounded out. It wasn't a physical fight. Well, how else did they plan to defeat them? "Still, video games? If it was in chess Bang could beat them easily, and in logical thinking, calculations, etc, the robot'd win instantly. And if it's in finding the best sale then Saitama-bro'll win in three seconds flat. Video games... well, since they don't know about my fearsome abilities in this section, it actually seems plausible to win easily against us. And a team member of theirs is a former professional gamer. Too bad... I can't reveal my status as a ultra-pro gamer..." King inwardly thought. He really was planning to lose. He couldn't afford his secret of his video-gaming skills out loose. Well, how bad could helping the Fubuki-group ascend be? As soon as everyone on their team, including Saitama was defeated, Fubuki laughed haughtily. "Ahahahahaha~! Now only King remains! But your life is of stoic battle, you can never defeat us!" She says with a look of disdain. Now, King was pissed. The King Engine roared, but this time, not of fear. It was wrath. No one disses his gaming-skills and survives. King picked up the controller... and crushed the very minds of the players with his skill.

...They were shocked. They thought they were about to win, and gain 4 new allies who were utterly powerful. Three S-Classes and someone with unknown fighting strength. One of them being the World's Strongest Hero, whom could not possibly win this game, since his life was that of stoic battle and training. But yet... there he sat, demolishing everyone in his path with brutality, skill, and beauty. His skill was overwhelming, and his prowess captivating. And when their group-leader sat on the cushion, they knew better than to hope. All 29 players before her were demolished without a single scratch to his HP bar. But as their group leader assaulted the tyrant... he wasn't moving. His hands were crossed, and controller placed on the ground. Fubuki, seeing this, took advantage and battered his in-game character. And as his very HP reached its last drop...

Despair befell them. He had grasped the controller with such blinding speed and defeated their group-leader in less than a blink. A second before that, full HP. The second he grasped the controller, her HP bar fell faster than her face did when she realized she wasn't going to win. And as the announcer did its job... Fubuki fell to her knees. Sheer shock that the person she assumed would be the worst at the game since he was mainly a fighter, and she had never seen him play any games at all! Never! And yet... she lost? Why? Why!?

But nothing could be done, they had lost. That much was obvious. "W-we lost..." Fubuki said shakily. Today was the day that she was going to show off to her sister that she got 3 S-Classes under her belt, 2 of whom she respected, through an unorthodox method! But yet today... one of those S-Class heroes took on the entire Blizzard Group in less than a minute! And that S-Class was... King! The said person however felt bored after beating them all. "Only that professional-gamer was somewhat interesting. His style was..unique, so to say. Everyone else was like Saitama. Literally had no idea how the game worked. Fubuki was okay, though. She has potential..." King deduced.

But at that moment, something shook on the outside of the building. "W-what was that?!" A Blizzard Group member questioned. Soon after, a... man's top half on a spider rushed out through the building? Or more like crashed through all of the walls. "It's a mysterious being! Let's give chase!" Bang said, whom ran after the mysterious being first, followed by Genos. Saitama and King simply looked at each other, and disappeared from everyone's view. Fubuki stayed on the pillow for a good while, before getting up shakily, and followed soon after.

When King and Saitama caught up within the span of a single millisecond, Bang had already made contact with the mysterious being, who had taken down 2 A-Class heroes, and 2 C-Class Hero, being Stinger, Great Philosopher, Red Muffler, and Dark Blade. Bang already started attacking it, and Genos was blasting it with energy blasts. "Well, Saitama, you wanna take it, or do I kill them?" King asked Saitama, pointing at the mysterious being. "I think they can handle it. Or if you want to you can take it." Saitama answered nonchalantly.

"Alright. Stand down, you two. Time to do some exercise after a while." King said, requesting for the two other S-Class heroes to stand down. King was in his gaming-mode, where his strength was his avatar's. The huge spider-person-thing then looked at the two heroes that weren't attacking, then taunted, "So you know it's useless to attack the mighty Jumping Spider? Kneel before my strength!" The two S-Classes then retreated... behind King. As the mysterious being turned behind... it saw death incarnate staring down it, despite itself being much taller than the person walking towards him. The second it turned around, it felt the temperature drop several degrees. The face of a nightmare for all monsters and criminals alike was in front of his very eyes. King, S-Class rank 7.

"Well then, King. If you want to take it, then you may have it." Bang said, as he politely stood down. "S-Class hero King. He had to go to the toilet so that his fighting-strength wasn't affected, and was willing to help a mysterious machine gain battle-data, but I had to stop it before it killed civilians. How does he fight?" Genos thought to himself. Even the sheer presence of King was great. Without fighting, Genos knew that King was strong. But truth be told, King was just walking normally. That 'presence' was a natural thing from his face. His intimidation from his face alone was enough to scare demon-level threats into submission. But this time, he was actually strong.

But even before King did anything, the mysterious being stepped backwards. King sighed, and instead of attacking physically, King used magic. As in magic spells from the game. 5 magic circles appeared overhead, which puzzled the mysterious being and the two heroes who saw them. Only Saitama wasn't shocked, since he knew what were those. Then, five separate weapons flew out from the circles, and pierced the mysterious being, quickly ending its life. The weapons looked incredibly exquisite, as if carved by an artisan instead of use for battle. Yes, yes he was copying someone form a certain anime.

"Well, that's that. It works, I suppose." King said normally, but the two other S-Class heroes were shocked. "K-King! What in the world is that!?" Bang asked excitedly. In all his 70+ years of living, he has never seen anything like it. And no, no Bang doesn't watch anime. How King killed that mysterious being was cool. Though Bang doesn't know that King just stole it from another anime. Genos on the other hand was taking notes. "So King actually isn't a physical fighter, and instead launches weapons from an unknown source, though King's method of such a thing is unknown all together. He could also be a physical fighter, though there is no way to find out, unless King himself reveals it, or that there is another mysterious being that he can use it on. According to my sensors..." Genos continued theorizing in his mind, calculating the most plausible answer with his sensors, logic, etc.

In actuality, King just used his spell [Launch Mystical Weapon], which creates a weapon which is randomized and attributes usually selected by King himself, unless he sets the range of the levels. The weapons King had launched were level 30 on average, and the highest-leveled one among them was a level 37 halberd. Thankfully King launched the weapons with just the force of a gunshot, or else if King used the maximum power, King may have launched the weapon straight into the core, and the surroundings would quickly melt due to the immense force and speed from the weapon. The maximum speed of the spell was 10% of King's maximum speed. And that was near-escape velocity. But that was nothing compared to King when he is in his [Great Sage Celestial Core Realm] cultivation. If he was, he could've just killed the spider with a thought. Literally. Cultivators at that level were basically gods, and can move galaxies on a whim.

But still, the weapons King had just made were capable of cutting through diamonds like butter- actually pretty much anything. If a diamond fell on the blade, it'd cut like the diamond was made of nothing. That was how high-quality the weapons King made were. And King had no plans to take those weapons back. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if someone discovered it. But now... King turned to the two heroes. Bang just asked a question on what just happened, and Genos looked like he was going to watch his every move. "Well, I just got something from the huge construct I fought the other day, and I wanted to test it out." King explained, as he moved his hand to his pocket... and quickly cast [Time Manipulation].

Everything in time stopped, Genos, Bang, the little spiders crawling out of the spider- he'll deal with that later, everything stopped. Except... well, not like King didn't expect it. "Huh? What just happened?" Saitama asked, looking around. He wasn't affected. "Well, I cast a spell which stopped time, but you're unaffected. Not like I didn't expect it, though." King replied. "Ah. But I remembered from the game, that specific spell you just cast was a [Launch Mystical Weapon], wasn't it? I fought a random player who tried to kill me while I just exited the city. He launched shit weapons on level 10, though. I killed him instantly." Saitama mused. He knew King's ruse. "Well... I'll create something, no worries." King said, as he sat down, and entered the menu which was needed to create a weapon.

King was then creating an item which cast the spell [Launch Mystical Weapon] and set the range of the levels from level 35 to level 40. The mana was drawn from a level 200 item, [Supreme Magic Stone] which was a common drop at that level. King also created it with a [Self-Replenish] passive effect, which, lore-wise, was supposed to draw in the mana from the surroundings. It could also absorb solar energy, electrical energy, any sort of energy, really. If it was say, thrown into magma with a 2% left in the [Supreme Magic Stone] battery, the magma pool would cool instantly, and the battery would charge until... 6%... if said magma pool was on Venus. In fact, it could fully charge... by turning Venus as cold as Pluto.

But either way, King had set the solar-energy efficiency to 20 times, so it was slightly cold to the touch. But the device was more efficient than an actual plant. So King modeled it after a smartphone, which could adjust the settings of the weapon launched. It could fire 100 level 10 weapons at once for 100 years straight, or it could fire a level 195 weapon, but only 20 times. It was level 195 since the device wasn't all that efficient, at 85% efficiency of a mana to output ratio. The speed was also adjustable. If say it was set to the lowest possible speed, and the highest possible quality, it would fire exactly only one level 200 weapon, at a speed so slow it could be just grabbed.

But King wasn't planning to let it go...easily. King wanted to set a really high price, at minimum. A level 200 weapon was capable of literally slicing apart the entirety of Earth. EASILY. King could breathe in space, but he wasn't going to just sit back and see the world get destroyed. Well, his [Time Manipulation] could let him reverse time, but only up to 5 to 6 minutes. A single minute for every 100 levels. And since King was level 543, he could go about 5 and less than half minutes. How the computers at the gaming company could do something like this, King didn't know, neither did he care. It was cool, so it was cool. Literally. No, not actually cold in temperature literally, King was fine with it, not it was cold in temperature- no, nothing to do with heat! Heat's temperature, so there is no heat, no cool, it's just- NO! It's cool as in 'it's amazing' kind of cool- OHFORGOD'SSAKEDAMMITJERRYFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Please excuse us, technical difficulties on our end. Please enjoy this image of a potato. (Insert potato)

Ignoring the earlier rage-session of the typist, King finished it, and it looked more like a tablet, around the size of 3 inches wide and 5 inches long. It was obviously, plated gold and the screen, or rather, the entirety of the item was indestructible, or at least, impossible by today's standards to destroy. It's melting point was higher than the temperature of the core of the sun, and would still work even when subjected to around 3 million degrees Kelvin, since it's easier to use Kelvin. It also would work in absolute zero conditions, and it was unlikely to scratch even with the force of say, the power of a supernovae compressed onto a needle's head in surface area. King really spent something on this one. But still, the main reward item in his dungeon was also level 200, and it was better than King's tablet-device in terms of practicality. King's tablet-thing was just for show, really.

So King was about to end the time-stop, then he saw Saitama poking Fubuki in the sides. "The hell are you doing!?" King yelled. If Saitama wasn't careful, he could end up actually making a black hole from ripping time-and-space! "What? I'm just poking them to see if they really have no reaction. I mean, your spell could just hold everything in place, instead of really stopping time. After all, if you're stopping time, technically you shouldn't be able to move, either, and even if your spell excluded yourself, why am I moving instead? Chances are that this spell just holds everything in place, can't it?" Saitama reasoned.

"True, but let's not take any chances! If you end up making a black hole, I'm not sure I have enough mana to turn back time!" King had spent almost all his mana currently on the time-freeze spell. King still had low mana since the last time he was using it, he had froze time already. He then used the mana regenerated during that period earlier into making this time-freeze zone. He had no mana left, and even if he regenerated enough to turn back time, more than 10 minutes will have definitely passed. King also could only go back up to 5 and a half minutes, so that was a big no-no.

"Well, you could just be going super-fast. I mean, I just saw some field appear, and then you started moving faster and faster. I then kept up. I usually never go this fast, but since you were, I thought why not?" Saitama blurted, which reminded King of something; Einstein's Theory Of Relativity! Experiments showed that if two atomic clocks were set at exactly the same time, one placed on solid ground, while the other was in space, when brought back, the clocks would be different from each other. When set back to original settings, the clocks worked normally, instead! So it was theorized that the faster you go, the slower time is relative to you! So chances are, like Saitama said, he's probably just accelerating really fast! After all, Saitama himself said that he was just going faster! So that was why!

[You discovered the true process of the spell [Time Manipulation]! Spell name is changed to [Velocity Manipulation] If you discover another 10 spell's real process in a combo, all EXP gained is increased 100 times for respective players of your area! Combo chain time: {00h:10m:00s}]

Well, it WAS true after all! "Huh, but still, act as if nothing happened, okay bro?" King asked Saitama. "Alright. Do your thing, King." Saitama responded, unknowingly rhyming it. And as the [Velocity Manipulation] spell wore off, King went back to his original pose, and started moving in tandem to the speed change. "Here." King handed the tablet to Bang, acting as if he didn't just break a few laws of physics. Going faster than mass-less particles literally was physically impossible, but who says physics worked here? Saitama's a prime example. Who gains such power from doing strenuous exercise? No one gets more than 4 in a 2+2 equation, but look at Saitama. But then again we have been known to break the laws of physics every now and then and get a Nobel Prize. And also 1+1 isn't necessarily 2, but the author hates this branch of mathematics, and so he shall ignore them and continue writing the story instead of ranting about Pure Mathematics. (This subject is NOT fun).

"Oh, so the strange circles and those weapons come from such a small tablet?" Bang asked, holding up the tablet. He was inspecting it for anything strange, but it looked like every other tablet, with the exception that it was gold-plated. And when opened, only had an option to change two settings, which were [Projectile Quality] and [Speed Of Projectile]. There was also a blue bar on the top of the screen which was 98% full. 5 level 35-40 weapons didn't even cost more than 2%. Genos then stopped overthinking and inspected the tablet. "It is room temperature, so that was why my thermal sensors didn't pick up on it. But to think those weapons came from a tablet... so King's true power is still unknown. It cannot be the tablet alone since he had taken down that construct which he had taken a second one down, reported by Tornado Of Terror and other heroes on the scene. It was still unknown how he did, since he had walked out of the rubble unharmed. Tornado Of Terror herself refuses to speak after the incident..."

After stopping to overthink of a small while, Genos started overthinking again. While that King had secretly cast a [Pure Death] spell which killed everything which was below 50 of King's level. The chance was just 10% at 50 levels, but every 50 levels increased another 10%. Those small spiders would probably be even less than a level 1, so it was a guarantee that the spiders would've died instantly. The spells which King had gotten were actually pretty useful, considering he just bought every single spell at the beginner shop. [Pure Death] was one of the more expensive ones, though. He had bought it at a 50,000 gold price. That was actually 400,000 yen. Expensive, considering it's a spell which was caused instant-death but only to those 50 levels below yours. But it was also capable of targeting individuals, and the success rate was much higher... at 1% chance at opponents the same level. But it rises per level distance, at 2.5% for those 5 levels below, 10% for those 10 levels below, and after 20 levels, it's a confirmed kill.

Then, Child Emperor appeared. "Huh? Is the spider thing dead?" He asked. King gave him a glance, which said 'you don't say'. Child Emperor, getting King's meaning, apologized, "Sorry. That was a dumb question." -bowing, as the machinery went back into his backpack. "Question. How heavy is your backpack?" King asked, remembering Child Emperor's backpack... with four spider legs, and a LOT more. "Well... around 200 kilograms..." He responded, which King was actually not so surprised at. It contained four huge spider legs made of probably at best aluminium, though even though it is lightweight, is pretty soft. So King's best bet was titanium. And even that was 4 tons per square meter. But since it fits in a small bag, it should be around 40 kilograms worth of titanium. But machinery, stuff, etc, would probably not be pure titanium, so adding in extra weight, the most efficient and probable weight would be 150-225 kilograms. But he was after all, strangely, physically stronger than a bear. Somehow.

"Well, that's that question solved." King said, as he turned away, to see Saitama reminding the recovered Fubuki that she still owes them a request. "Well then, I don't really have something I want. Saitama, anything you want from them?" King asked, to which Saitama replied with "Lunch." Well, Saitama was a simple man, he'll give him that. "Oh, by the way, King. I created this mask which measures physical strength. There's numbers where strength can be measured." Child Emperor said proudly, as he held a weird mask which had 8 eyes for some reason. "And the reason it was designed that was was..." King asked, pointing at it. Child Emperor was slightly embarrassed, since instead of being praised like usual, he was questioned about the design, and now that he looked at it, was rather childish. Child Emperor then held the mask slightly closer to himself. Despite his intellect, seems like he still had the mind of a child when it comes to some things. But King didn't pick up on that.

"Is it practical?" King asked again. "Well, uh..." Child Emperor tried to answered, but instead was more embarrassed, and couldn't answer. "Are the eyes the ones which measure the strength of the body?" King asked again, and this time Child Emperor could answer. "Y-yes! The eyes are the sensors which detect the muscle-mass and development of the nerves and balances it out with the mass of the target-" Child Emperor wanted to explain, but was interrupted by King again. "So why are there 8 of them? Surely one is enough? What if the opponent isn't a physical-fighter, but fights with other things, like machinery, or psychic power, or controlling the surroundings, etc?" King fired another barrage of questions unfeelingly without noticing the apparent growing blush of Child Emperor's face, and after the 12th question after that barrage, Child Emperor broke in tears. "I-I just made it to measure fighting strength! I didn't take into account other things! But I'm am trying! I am!" Child Emperor then cried as he ran away. Then, and only then, did King realize that Child Emperor was actually getting more and more embarrassed every time he asked a question.

"Ah, crap. I actually wanted to know how it worked, not make him cry. I even vowed to myself not to interact much with the two of them. Yet I already made one of them cry, and I think I pissed off the other, or maybe made her feel inadequate, who knows. I DID defeat that statue I made myself which she was struggling against. Well, those were probably strong enough to take a beating from even Superalloy Darkshine. And attacking with projectiles would actually be kind of useless to it. Dammit. I swear if there's more doujins I'll take down the entire website." King thought to himself. "So, where're we heading for lunch?" King asked, turning to Saitama. "I know of a place I wanted to go to. Let's go." Saitama said, as he started walking. Nothing else to do, King followed, along with Genos, who usually just tags along with Saitama. Bang left early, since he wasn't hungry.

[After lunch...]

"Well then, that was good." King said, as he walked out of the restaurant. Saitama had ordered the most expensive item, which actually didn't really phase Fubuki at all. Her source of money wasn't that bad, after all. And she would be able to make it into Class-A if she wanted to, but if King remembered accurately, she didn't because she wouldn't be able to get to Class-A rank 1 due to Sweet-Mask. Well then, King didn't have much to do, so he went home. Then, he got a message from his transmitter he got from the Heroes Association. It was something about a 'Hero Hunter'. "Huh, wasn't [Master Of The Hero Hunter] one of the titles of Silver Fang? Hmm, wonder if that's something to do with Silver Fang... nah, that's definitely something to do with him. But what? Oh well, that's not important." King thought, before turning into an alleyway, and after making sure there were no witnesses, King teleported back home.

As he returned, D.E appeared from his [Core]. "I've been thinking. Once you get all my armor and fully assemble my weapon, create a body for me. When I was just starting out, I had the worst of all three constitutions, all of them being [Mortal] grade. I want to see what I can get once I have the [Transcendental Constitution]. Its a constitution where all three constitutions, the [Heart], [Natal Physique] and [Natal Talent] are all [Transcendent] Grade." D.E asked. "But I thought you said you couldn't choose the grade of one's [Heart]?" King asked.

"You can't. But what I mean is it cannot be improved, there are no known variables which are known to be able to manipulate them, and neither can it be chosen at birth. But you CAN do on the other hand is simply create a heart yourself. A [Heart] is literally just a heart, so the stronger the heart, the better its grade. The grades are [Mortal], [Earth], [Sky], [Heavenly], [Divine], [Noble], [King], [Emperor], [Imperial], and so on, and [Transcendental] is the highest grade discovered, not including the [Absolute Perfection] grade. But each living organism has its minimum grade of a [Heart]. A human has a minimum of a [Mortal] grade, that old man has a [Earth] grade, demons from the game would have [Sky] grades, dragons would have [Heavenly] grades as a minimum, and the so called 'gods' of that game have [Divine] grades. But as they don't cultivate a heart is actually just an organ which pumps blood for them. Only that Anthonio could understand it. Then again, he did manage to research back to even a few hundreds to thousands of years ago."

"So once you finally assemble my entire set, there should be coordinates which would bring you to my secret vault realm which contains materials great enough to create [Transcendental] grade constitutions if they were refined into bodies." D.E explained. "Alright. But I think I'll not focus so much on the game first. I'll improve my cultivation, first." King responded, which D.E nodded. "That's a good way of thinking. One must always improve one's cultivation as much as possible." D.E nodded. "Since your [Core] is now as large as a continent, I'll hide in a small corner, and let that friend of yours, this 'Saitama' into the core. That much should be able to improve your cultivation to a [Sovereign Lord Core Realm] cultivator. And every second he spends in there would improve your cultivation speeds immeasurably."

"Sure, I'll get Saitama to stay in there for a bit." King said. "Oh, and you can enter your own [Core] and customize it to your own will. You can add in continents, skies, etc to make it look like a normal place, at the cost of a little Qi." D.E explained, before entering King's [Core] again. King also thought of entering his core, and suddenly he felt as if he was thrust into a new place. And that was his [Core]. Even though he was right in the middle, he could tell that the core was incredibly beautifully engraved. From D.E's explanation, a [Mortal Hurdle]'s cores are always red. [Ascendant Hurdle]'s cores are pure white, [Transcendent Hurdle]'s are a deep purple, [Lesser Expert Hurdle]'s cores are deep purple with streaks of gold, [Greater Expert Hurdle] cores have five times more gold streaks, [Immortal Hurdle] cores are pure gold. A [Celestial Hurdle] core state would be pure gold, and beautiful engravings and patterns.

Which was why King's entire field of view was a massive wall of shining bright gold, with many complex patterns and dazzling engravings. As King was in the exact middle, King was floating. D.E then appeared before King. "You can't feel it at first, but you can use the Qi from the [Core] we are in now to make a world. The gravity is also centralized at your exact location, due to it being at the very center of the [Core]. Once you reach the [Mortal Core] stage, you are actually already able to cultivate anywhere, as the [Core] acts like a black hole which turns the Qi absorbed during cultivation and turns it into the Qi you used to build your foundation. If you had cultivated normally, it would be much slower, since it is a mix of everything. But cultivators who do this can utilize any type of art, and can easily focus on a single role later on. Those that focus on a specific type of Qi like cultivating in a pure Yang-Qi atmosphere, they would then be very attuned to Yang Qi, and their core would take all forms of Qi they absorb and turn it into Yang Qi."

"In the future, people who do that can only utilize Yang-type attributes and those only, and changing them is basically akin to starting all over again. So the majority of all cultivators just absorb the mixture of many types of Qi. It may be slower, but is more flexible and has more variety. But cultivating with Chaos Qi, or what I prefer to call it, Primordial Qi, is basically cultivating with the very base of everything. It is as flexible and malleable as cultivating with a mixture of Qi at the beginning, and goes as fast as if you specialize in a type of Qi, since you technically are. But, Primordial Qi is the very base of all Qi, is the most powerful, and can turn into any form of Qi. Your [Core] also turns all kinds of Qi you absorb into Primordial Qi, so you don't need to go to space every time you cultivate anymore. I just wanted to clarify." D.E explained.

"Well then, I suppose I'll make a core or something. Heh, a core in a [Core]. Isn't that something. King said, as he immediately thought of a spherical, minimized version of his core, the size of a planet. As he did, it appeared. He had planned for it to be a control center of sorts, so it was hollow on the inside. Inside, it was just an emptied out sphere, with a pedestal in the middle, placed right in front of the spot King would appear at whenever he enters his [Core]. On it was a terminal which allowed King to edit the world as he sees fit, since changing it would probably be quite some work if he had actually used the conventional method of turning Qi into physical objects. So that was why King had instead placed a terminal right at the very center for convenience. Cause he didn't want to spend a lot of time refurbishing the place.

"Now, to make a planet." King said to himself, as he operated the terminal, controlled a few variables, set a couple parameters, and a second after King had hit 'enter', the planet surrounding the very core was formed. King went to the surface, and saw that it was barren. King then accessed the terminal remotely, and willed for water. And then there was water. And King saw that it was good. He then thought of wildlife, plants, and the like. And so they appeared. And seeing that the very base of the planet was done, King saw that it was good, and so he rested on the seventh...second. But in all seriousness, setting the laws of physics again wasn't all that fun. In his [Core], anything goes, if not specified. Meaning King literally needed to set every single parameter in the laws of physics, known thermodynamics, etc.

After everything was done... King finished. That was all. Only thing left was for Saitama to be in here, until intelligent life appears on the planet on its own. And no, plants don't count, considering they aren't exactly the definition of 'intelligence'. And so King exit his [Core]. How it worked was by projecting an image of himself which could act on its physical plain. King could also open a gate to his [Core] and leave it open... but why? Only reason he'd do that is to get Saitama in. And what greeted him when he returned from his outer semi-conscious state, was a ringing on his phone.

Preview Of Next Chapter:

King picked up the ringing phone, not really caring much. "Hello?" A voice responded, which to King's annoyance, and expectations, was a request. "Ah, Mr King! We were hoping that you were able to go on a mission to protect some executives of the Heroes Association?" A voice on his phone asked. Usually he would reject it, since you know... he was actually weak, back then. But now, since he had some power, why not do it? Might not take longer than a minute. "Fine. When?" King answered. "Great! We've actually called beforehand to inform you, but you will actually only accompany them on the next day. Thank you for your time, Mr King." The voice on the phone then hung up.

Meh. He didn't have anything to do now, so it was time to go and find Saitama. But suddenly, there's a rumbling in the ground. King looked with his cultivation, and...

"That's one big centipede."

End Of Preview.