The Jester of Apocalypse

Chapter 107: Growth

Things weren’t different this time at all.

Well, it depended on how one defined ‘different.‘ They were much tougher this time, and with their crazy regeneration boost, even Neave had to hit hard to finish them off.

However, that was about it. No further effort was required on his part.

Hunter bent his body back, trying to avoid a kick to his face. However, Neave’s foot instantly shot down and smashed into his chest, smacking him against the ground. On his bounce back up, he received yet another kick, and that was it.

Gabrias tried defending from a strike, and despite holding back considerably, Neave still carved through his defense with ease and snapped his neck with a precise kick.

Harel was almost capable of getting out of the way until Neave used an utterly unpredictable hip smash that threw her off balance and followed it up with a kick to her leg, wrist, and, finally, head. It was impressive that he even needed three strikes to compromise her guard. She was growing quite nicely.

Dukean had eaten a lot of monster meat, and his physical capabilities could nearly rival the weakest cultivators on the platinum path, which was a mind-bogglingly insane level of strength for someone on the second step of the golden path.

His resilience, coupled with his regeneration, made it so that Neave had no choice but to use true strikes. Even though Neave could land as many regular attacks as he wanted at full force, without a weapon, spirit powers, or burning his life force, someone of such resilience could easily brush all of his strikes off, regardless of how precise they were.

When true strikes were added to the mix, things quickly changed. Dukean’s guard was significantly more solid than any of the others’ prior, and even though Neave could find the openings, it wasn’t easy to exploit them.

It wasn’t a challenge either, but it was an impressive guard nonetheless.

Marven was a different story, however. His power was somewhere between the second and third steps of the platinum path. The gulf separating those steps was gigantic, so jumping a step at that power level was horrifying.

It was achieved through a copious degree of meat consumption, and even Neave found it challenging to face him. It wasn’t that fighting Marven was hard, per se. It was that he was so damn tough that only heavier true strikes could harm him, yet, if Neave tried using those, Marven had an absolute speed advantage.

The solution was to pelt Marven with dozens of precise strikes to accumulate an imbalance so that he couldn’t defend himself from a more decisive strike on time. Once that imbalance was achieved, Neave moved on to bigger true strikes, where he gradually slowed them down as the damage accumulated, and eventually, Marven’s body was a pile of mangled meat.

As dramatic and complicated as that process seemed, it rarely took longer than ten seconds.

Although their power had grown frighteningly, their skill wasn’t lagging too far behind. It was difficult to tell, given who their opponent was, but if they faced any regular enemies, even Gabrias could display a relatively high degree of competence for his power level.

Neave was thoroughly dissatisfied. He had spent a lot of time training physically and eating tons of monsters whole, yet, his power was still lagging behind the growth the others had shown.

Yes, they couldn’t even begin to compare to him outside this spirit realm. For now. Yet, Neave knew the difference a few spirit powers could make. They wouldn’t be making the same mistake he did with his spirit powers and would pick carefully before choosing. Coupled with their superior cultivation, Neave was beginning to feel vaguely threatened.

At first, he thought that the idea of them surpassing him was absurd. As if! That was a stupid thought to have. But… Was it really? What if they reached the diamond path? What if they reached the second step of the diamond path?

What if they reached the third?

Little was known about the third step of the diamond path. The reason why was simple. For eras, there hadn’t been one third-step diamond path cultivator in this realm. Whether they even existed in the first place was frequently debated.

Neave had assumed that Hosolar was above the diamond path entirely, but it wasn’t impossible that he was on the third step. There was no way to tell since Neave simply didn’t know. Nobody did.

Nobody knew what it really meant to be a ‘demi-god’ to begin with. It was easy to assume that meant power above diamond, yet, it was uncertain, especially given that Hosolar and any of the higher powers would probably prefer ‘lower-realms’ to believe they were infinitely high above them.

Still, for Neave, this presented a complicated situation. Regardless of whether they reached the third step, if the others reached the second step, they would likely be able to easily kill him. Hell, with a set of suitable spirit powers, weapons, and improved skills, even as low as the third step of the platinum path, they could be a threat to him.

His own power, without any spirit powers, was approaching the first step of the gold path in capability, although ‘approaching’ may be slightly exaggerated.

There was a significant jump between the third step of silver and the first step of gold, and he was only around a third of the way through crossing that ravine.

As far as Neave's or any of their bodies were concerned, placing them on a step of the path was difficult. True, judging by simple characteristics like strength, speed, and toughness, they could be placed relatively simply, but countless other aspects of their bodies were boosted in ways that would make them decimate any opponents of similar strength.

Of course, there was always the fact that going up a step meant far more than just a boost to physical capabilities, but how much did that matter?

Endurance, perception, sense of balance, cognitive capabilities, reflex speed, regeneration, and even homeostasis, the ability of their body to maintain internal balance, was boosted to an insane degree. These were only some of the benefits they had received, and naturally, no regular cultivator at the identical rank could even begin to compare.

Since they had started, none of them had cultivated past their step on the path. They had reached the point where they were one strand away from moving up but had waited to build their physiques to a desirable degree before advancing.

It wasn’t that advancing down the path made growth more difficult, not at all, but changes to certain physical aspects took more time to achieve.

The main thing they had been concerned about was their musculature. Either growing muscle, reducing mass, or altering the balance of their build. That process became much slower at higher ranks.

That was why Marven’s and Dukean’s physiques had barely changed while Gabrias, Harel, and Hunter looked like different people now.

The reason why Marven hadn’t cultivated yet was another thing they had planned. They would all reach the first step of the platinum path before advancing any further. This was so that they had each other, as well as Neave, as reliable sparring partners.

Achieving that cultivation level would usually be an insane task that could take a hundred or two hundred years. The situation they found themselves in and the resources they had at their disposal made that process a lot more straightforward.

It would still take as long as twenty years to reach that level of cultivation… If it weren’t for the spirit realm. The time dilation they had at their disposal while inside the realm was a precious asset. A mere hour in the outside world could be turned into years within the spirit realm.

Granted, cultivating while inside the spirit realm wasn’t a possibility, even though they had all tried doing it. It was still an invaluable method for realizing potential in skill and knowledge about their style.

Whenever they left the spirit realm, the shroud of strands of potential grew thick enough that they could barely even cultivate it fast enough to keep up with how quickly they gathered more.

The room they were in, or the sealed chamber, was an insane advantage. The energy in the air was thick as syrup, and cultivating went by much faster.

Neave knew it was stupid to be thinking the way he did. So what if they surpassed him? Even better. He would acquire indispensable allies that could solve his problems in his stead. Wasn’t he more pragmatic than this? Solutions were solutions.

Fuck.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth. It wasn’t just a matter of power or a petty superiority complex. They had already spent a relatively long time in the realm together, but interacting in a regular, human manner hadn’t been on the table often.

Trust had built between them nonetheless.

But not enough.

He couldn’t trust them enough to defer so much power to them. And, even if he trusted them, he didn’t want to be inferior to them. He didn’t want to be the weak one. He didn’t want to be a small helper, the helpful tool in their belt that fed them more power.

The immortal arts, as far as Neave was concerned, had only one practitioner. And that practitioner would never be outdone by others. Not gods. Not devils. Not his own allies.

However. He would not stoop so low to deny them power. Instead, he would do his absolute best to ensure they reached their full potential.

His thoughts were leading him in a terrible direction. That was the way the godsthought. That was the way destroyers operated. Neave wasn’t a destroyer. He was a creator of the highest order, someone who would never resort to something as petty as that.

It was simple in the end. Either he would continue onward, reaching greater and greater heights at speeds nobody could fully match, even with his help.

Or he wasn’t qualified to think so highly of himself.

Neave continued their dodging practice for quite a bit longer. It was easy to get lost in time once one did something long enough. Keeping track of an hour or two was easy. Discerning whether days or months had passed was much more complicated.

After all, they were constantly fighting, and the relatively monotone environment and training left them without any exterior signs of the passage of time. There was no sleep, fatigue, hunger, thirst, or anything inside the realm. There wasn’t even a real desire to breathe.

All of the usual signs that allowed one to at least keep a semblance of a grip on the passage of time were gone inside a spirit realm.

Neave had to instruct the glass shrub to forcefully wake them up if there was any danger.

Still, despite the lack of signs that time was passing, it was clear that they had been inside here for a while.

Gradually, everyone’s skills grew; less and less often did Neave feel compelled to punish someone for making a critical mistake, and, to even his own surprise, once he did, executing that punishment was not as easy as he expected it would be.

They were growing rapidly. Not only were they learning how to respond to what Neave was doing, but as they observed him, they started absorbing some of his tricks and movements. Only a tiny fraction, however. What years? Even millennia wouldn’t be enough to fully imitate most of the stuff he could do.

However, that tiny fraction was, nonetheless, a horrifying one. It was hard to feel their progress since Neave kept compensating for any gains they acquired, but occasionally, they all did something that surprised even their teacher.

Hunter could maneuver quite a bit better now, and the range within which he could defend himself was significantly greater. His dodging was less throwing himself to the side now and more in line with tight movements that allowed for further defense from follow-ups.

Gabrias was similar. His height made it much more challenging to dodge, but his defense was solid. His ridiculously long arms made the range at which he could block attacks absurd, allowing him to maintain a great distance from his opponents, even in what would usually be close range. Neave was somewhat surprised at how insightful his decision to become an archer was.

His style sounded as if it was perfect for a close-combat fighter, but it was much more suitable for a bow. Body size didn't matter all that much when one reached a higher rank. However, the bigger you were, the bigger the target you were, regardless of your cultivation rank.

With a bow, he could use the extra range to keep opponents away and then, as he made distance from them, strike them with an arrow.

Maneuverability in close quarters was an apparent weakness for him, his long arms were optimal for longbow usage, and his talent for defense made it difficult to pick him off in the backlines.

On the other hand, it was hard to say Harel had any defense at all. The way she fought was maniacal yet frighteningly effective. She was still hellbent on hitting Neave, even though she hadn’t managed to do that once. Throughout her myriad attempts, however, she developed a peculiar style. She would lounge into extremely overextended attacks, yet how she positioned herself made it quite tricky to land solid counterattacks.

Rather than closing her openings off, she opened most of her body up to attack, but the attacks her opponents were allowed would always do less damage to her than she would do to them.

Usually, such a style would be plain impossible to train for numerous reasons. Not only would one have to subject themselves to countless life-threatening situations, but if they ever encountered an opponent that discovered an opening that wasn’t meant to be there, that would spell an instant loss. And likely death.

This spirit realm, however, and more specifically, having Neave as an opponent, allowed for optimal circumstances to train such a style. Not only was her life not threatened, but when facing Neave, she would be shown right about every way someone could exploit her style to finish the fight. This, in turn, allowed her to close those gaps swiftly and efficiently.

Neave still maintained that she would do well with a style similar to his own. He wasn’t sure why she chose the spiked ball on a chain. Actually, he had no idea. It seemed so stupid. To the point that it may actually just be a mistake. Could she have chosen that weapon as a joke? Perhaps her reply to Marven was serious, and she was just trying new things?

Or maybe his hunch was correct, and she, indeed, was insane?

Well, eventually, he would see her use it in a fight, and then he would decide which of those was correct. Something like twin daggers would likely work better for her. That got a frown out of Neave. Could that work? Would the two daggers interfere with one another if they both had a quasi-spirit? Something to check on later.

Next up was Dukean. Despite it being the least obvious, he had made the most considerable progress out of anyone here. The kid was hellbent on imitating Neave’s techniques and incorporating them into his style, and heavens be damned, he managed to achieve a bit of what he was trying to do.

Not a lot, but far more than what the others were capable of.

As for Marven… He had made the least progress out of anyone here, but the little progress he had made was crucial. Finally, after who knows how long, Neave had beaten his old habits out of him.

Now, Marven could finally get the chance to develop a new style from scratch. His growth was also slowed considerably due to his power, which made it difficult for Neave to teach the old man anything since he had to resort to extreme methods to disassemble his guard.

Still, this worked just fine since Marven did get to tighten his foundation further and hone his battle instincts.

And finally, surprisingly, even Neave had managed to grow from this experience. He had updated his fighting style to be far more appropriate to his base physical strength. That could be a bit of a hindrance when he was back outside and had to adjust to his absurd power once again.

That wasn’t a big deal, though, since he had much practice with his full power anyway. Neave was far from the best he could be. This was why he was terraforming the realm, to begin with.

He needed a true challenge to see himself grow further.

Abruptly, Neave stopped, and the others took a while to realize what was happening. Neave grinned and spoke to them, “You pass, somewhat. Step one can be considered finished.”

They all rejoiced and slumped to the ground, feeling strangely drained all of a sudden, as if their spirits had been wrung dry by all the training. None of them would be surprised if years had passed in this place.

Neave continued, “Now, I believe it is finally time for step two.”

They all groaned and slumped further on the ground.