WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 45

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Mudflat

Kyle closed his eyes and focused his mind.

Resonating with Fragment, the Dokkaebi of the Sword Tower, required no complicated spell or ritual. Kyle had already met Fragment, and he had already heard Fragment’s “proposal.”

He imagined knocking on a door inside his mind, and soon something like a clear bell rang in his head.

When he opened his eyes, the scenery around him had completely changed. Fenris planted in the center of a cold marble floor, the throne, all of it was gone. In its place was a wide, lavish room.

A soft red carpet covered the floor, and a crystal chandelier cast a gentle glow from the ceiling. Kyle stood with his hands behind his back and slowly looked around.

Of everything he had seen inside the Sword Tower over the past six years, this was the most extravagant room. Is this what an emperor’s bedroom looked like? He studied the abstract paintings on the walls, paintings whose meaning he could not guess, then spoke.

“So you like fancier things than I expected.”
“This is not my taste.”

Fragment, seated on a large red sofa, said it while sweeping his red hair back and staring at Kyle.

“It is the taste of the Dragon King who made the Sword Tower.”
“Isn’t the Dragon King’s taste your taste?”

Kyle grinned and dropped onto the sofa opposite him. Just as the Sword Tower was no ordinary artifact, Fragment was no ordinary Dokkaebi. He introduced himself as Fragment, and whenever he spoke of the Dragon King, he called him the True Body. Which meant he was a being settled in the Sword Tower as part of the Dragon King.

“I am not the Dragon King.”

Fragment said it with a deep frown.

“Do not treat me as the same as that old monster trapped by obsession. Yes, I split from him, but I am different.”
“Hm, if you say so.”
“Did your little family game end well?”

Fragment tilted his head and asked.

“Calling warm family affection a game is too harsh.”
“Hmph.”

Fragment snorted and flicked a finger. A full-length mirror appeared in midair, then slowly lowered in front of Kyle.

“Look.”

Kyle looked at himself in the mirror. A handsome boy with golden eyes and crimson hair, carrying a wooden sword, neatly dressed. It was the same face he saw every day, but one thing was different now.

From the crown of his head, a single pure white thread had sprouted and stretched into empty air. It looked like a string hanging from a puppet, yet the light of the thread felt strangely sacred.

“What is this?”
“A Lifeline.”

Fragment stood up from the sofa, moved beside the mirror, and pointed at the thread of light growing from Kyle’s crown.

“You ignorant brat. You came into the Cultivation Floors without hearing a thing about them.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Not unusual. Your age is unusual, though. Anyway, most of you Alastor fools have more muscle than brains, and you enjoy reckless challenges. To accommodate idiots like that, entrants to the Cultivation Floors are usually given a guidebook.”

Fragment flicked his other finger, and a thin red-covered book appeared.

“Normally, you read all of this and sign ‘I understand’ before you can enter. But in your case, since you can commune with me... I will personally explain the rules of the Cultivation Floors.”

He waved a hand, and the red-covered book vanished.

“Listen carefully, brat. The Cultivation Floors are part of the Sword Tower, but unlike the Sword Tower where you lived for six years, this place is not kind. Dangerous and lethal trials await here. Anyone who enters must become a cultivator who overcomes those trials with life on the line.”
“Hm. You said this is a Lifeline, right?”

Kyle tried to grab the thread above his head, but no matter how he waved his hand, he felt nothing.

“You can tell me about lethal trials and staking my life, but the fact that something called a Lifeline exists already sounds very kind to me.”
“Do not speak arrogantly. Without even that, the Cultivation Floors would have been sealed as a forbidden zone, even among muscle-brained Alastor fools.”

Fragment looked straight at Kyle, eyes serious.

“The place you are about to enter is land that does not permit the living. Bodies being shattered is ordinary there, and minds are easily polluted until madness.”

He tapped the Lifeline in the mirror with a finger.

“The Lifeline is a safety device. If, in the Cultivation Floors, you suffer a fatal wound leading to death, or your mind collapses and you face loss of self, the Lifeline will forcibly summon you to this room.”
“Hm. So if I die, you revive me? Convenient and kind.”
“It is rescue, not revival. It pulls you out right before death.”

Fragment added in a stern voice.

“But the Lifeline is not infinite. Once severed, it takes one week to reconnect.”
“One week...”
“Yes. If you die like a dog in there, it means you can do nothing for a week except wait in this room sucking your fingers.”

Kyle fell silent in thought at that. It was not one-time use, but there was still a safety penalty. Chances were limited. If he made a mistake and died right after entering, he would waste a whole week.

His eyes turned serious.

“What happens if I go in while the Lifeline is severed?”
“Do not enter.”

Fragment’s eyes flashed. Golden light burst from them and pressed down on Kyle.

“The Lifeline does not only protect your body from death. Its true role is to protect your mind.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“I do not feel the need to explain that myself. Even ignorant savages will understand naturally once they step inside.”

Fragment paused, then looked at Kyle with a strange gaze.

“Maybe you will understand it even better. Not that it is a good thing.”

So I’ll understand once I enter. Kyle nodded, heart pounding. Seeing that, Fragment withdrew the glow from his eyes, but still looked at Kyle with displeasure.

“You look like you twisted my words however you wanted.”
“No, no, I got it.”
“If you do not want to waste time... value your life. If you do not want to come all this way just to throw away a week.”
“So in the end, I just need to not die, right?”
“You do talk well.”

Fragment sighed deeply and waved his hand. A door appeared on one side of the room.

“I am not saying this to scare you, but remember it anyway. The ice spirit root girl who entered before you barely lasted one month here, and for half of that time she had lost her Lifeline and just sat in this room.”
“Puhahaha! Aunt Erika said she’d give me advice, but she spent half the time just sitting around?”
“That is not an achievement worth mocking. Most of your relatives were the same on their first entry. To survive here without dying, you need at least twice your current age. And even that is only if you follow the rules.”
“What rules now?”
“In the Sword Tower, the Cultivation Floors run from the 6th to 9th floors. Each floor has a different environment and different rules, and the place you will enter now is the Mudflat.”
“Mudflat?”

Kyle blinked. Since it was called the Cultivation Floors inside the Sword Tower, he had pictured some kind of tower-climbing format. The name Mudflat sounded absurdly out of place.

“Mudflat as in... that one at the seaside?”
“Yes, that mudflat.”

Fragment smiled oddly at Kyle’s baffled expression.

“The Mudflat has two times. Flood Tide and Ebb Tide.”

Fragment raised his hand and drew a circle in the air. A vision of a mudflat filled with gray sludge floated before them.

“It is Ebb Tide right now. The water has receded and the ground is exposed. At that time, you fight the monsters in the mud. Fight, kill, survive. That is the rule of Ebb Tide.”
“Then what about Flood Tide?”
“Run.”

Fragment’s voice sank low and cold.

“When black-violet mist swirls and you hear waves, run without looking back. Run where? To the white bone pillars rising around the mudflat. Jump onto one and take shelter.”
“If the water rises... can’t I just swim?”
“Ha, swim?”

Fragment snorted as if it were ridiculous.

“That water is not seawater you know. It is toxic fluid that pollutes everything it touches. And that ‘everything’ includes not only the body, but the mind.”
“...”
“But the water itself is not the real danger. Under the water move things that humans must never dare to meet eyes with. Beings that can make your mind collapse and sever your Lifeline from one glance.”

Kyle silently held Fragment’s gaze. There was not a trace of playfulness in Fragment’s face.

“So remember this. During Ebb Tide, fight. During Flood Tide, hide. That is the top survival rule on the 6th-floor Mudflat. The best option, really, is just returning to this room.”
“Hm...”

Kyle tilted his head slightly.

“I get the basics, but what about meals?”
“Normally, you return to this room to eat.”
“I don’t see anything edible here...”
“In this room, rewards are granted based on how many monsters you killed in the Mudflat. You can get drinks too.”
“If the Lifeline gets severed, do I starve for a week?”
“It is not that harsh. You are given the minimum food and water needed to stay alive. Raise your hand and ask for food.”

Kyle did as Fragment said, raised a hand, and thought about food. A loaf of bread the size of his forearm dropped out of thin air. He let out a hollow laugh and picked it up. The bread was so hard it felt like a club.

“If I get dragged back after a Lifeline sever, I won’t be able to fight properly from hunger alone.”
“You do not need to worry about food.”

Fragment walked past the mirror and came closer to Kyle.

“Originally, the Cultivation Floors give fair trials and rewards to all who enter. Kill monsters, absorb their energy, strengthen your body. That is the reward here.”

Thud. Fragment’s hand pressed against Kyle’s chest.

“But you are not like ordinary humans. You carry the unprecedented, malformed spirit root called chaos.”
“Yeah.”
“So kill the monsters in the Mudflat, and eat them.”
“What?”
“I told you yesterday, did I not? As you pass the trials, build the body that can learn the cultivation method I will complete for you.”

Fragment slowly raised his arm. Kyle’s body, still touched by that hand, floated into the air.

“The power in the monsters’ flesh would collapse your body if your spirit root accepted it blindly. But if my blessing is added, the monsters’ flesh will strengthen your spirit root further and optimize your body to match it.”

Crackle!

Kyle shuddered as if current ran through his whole body. Golden light blooming from Fragment’s hand pierced his skin and spread rapidly through his blood vessels and mana circuits. This was not simple power injection. It was work that compacted the bottom of the vessel called flesh and reinforced its frame.

“This blessing will refine the foulness in the flesh you chew and swallow. It filters the dregs and leaves only pure power and attributes, then adds them to your body.”

Fragment’s eyes shone gold.

“Be grateful. In five hundred years, among Alastor humans, this is my first intervention to this extent.”

The light faded, and Fragment withdrew his hand. Kyle looked down at his chest. Nothing had changed on the outside, but deep inside his body, it felt as if a hard core had been driven in place.

“Oh...”

Kyle rubbed his chest in admiration.

“It really does feel different. Like... my body’s become sturdier.”
“Do not misunderstand. You did not become stronger right now. I simply gave you stomach medicine so you can digest what you are about to stuff into yourself.”

Fragment answered coolly and dropped back onto the sofa.

“I have told you everything and done everything. Anything else to ask?”
“No, this is enough.”

Kyle answered with a grin, and his floating body slowly lowered.

“Do not die and waste time.”

With those words, the door at one side of the room slid open.

Kyle took one deep breath and stepped toward it.

Squelch.

A wet, foul sensation touched the soles of his feet. The moment his vision cleared, Kyle frowned without meaning to.

“What the hell is this smell...”

The stench stabbing his nose could compete with Aslan after locking himself in the Cultivation Chamber for twelve years. Rotting fish guts... no, was this human corpses? Very old ones. That kind of stink bored deep into his lungs.

He looked around and saw endless gray mudflats. The sky was covered in black-violet mist, and nowhere could he sense the breath of life.

This is... the Mudflat...

After scanning the landscape, Kyle glanced behind him. The door he came through had closed on its own and stood there alone.

The Lifeline from his crown was connected to the doorknob. Kyle understood how he could return to that room.

To get back to that room, he could not go too far from the door.

Food and water could only be obtained inside the room. If he wanted to move far from the door, he needed to hunt monsters nearby first, secure enough food and water in the room, prepare, and then go exploring.

But I don’t need to cling to the room’s food. I can eat monsters.

Water was the issue. Could monster blood replace drinking water? Thinking that, Kyle crouched and felt the gray mud with his hand.

Wet and sticky. He had not spent long at sea, but he did know the basics. Seawater could not be used as drinking water.

First I need to catch a monster and get a feel for it. If their blood can’t replace water, I’ll hunt near here today, return to the room to secure water, then come back out.

After setting his plan, Kyle started to stand.

At that moment.

A chill raced over his whole body.

“...?”

Kyle froze. He could not move. Fear? No, something more primal than that, an awful, unsettling sensation that seemed to touch the deepest layer of a creature’s instinct.

He steadied his breathing and looked up. No sky was visible. Above him, only thick black-violet mist churned.

To Kyle’s eyes, that mist looked like a curtain hiding something. He slowly rose and stared hard at that curtain. Something incomprehensible. He could feel the Lifeline from his crown trembling.

Bit by bit, he realized what was causing this feeling. It was a gaze. Something far beyond human understanding was looking down from beyond that curtain.

What is this?

His heart hammered like mad. A disgust he had never felt on any battlefield of his previous life boiled in his gut. It was different even from the gaze of the mighty enemy who had defeated Sword Demon Raikal in his past life. At least those enemies looked with hostility.

That gaze held no hostility. It was not even looking at Kyle. It was simply looking downward. Maybe observing. How tiny insects moved, how they lived, how they died.

A buzzing rang in his head. Unknowable whispers. Wet, disgusting sounds like soaked mud grinding together.

So this is what he meant by, you’ll understand once you go in.

Fragment had said the true role of the Lifeline was to protect the mind. Kyle now knew exactly what that meant. The only reason he could look up right now was because the Lifeline was protecting his sanity.

He also understood what Fragment had meant by saying Kyle might understand it better. When humans awakened a spirit root, they first felt mana. Kyle felt something close to what he had felt a year ago, the moment he first awakened his spirit root and sensed mana.

Kyle’s chaos spirit root was sensing this gaze even more clearly.

“Hrk.”

He held back a dry heave. His insides churned. The ground he stood on no longer felt like the 6th floor of the Sword Tower. It felt like somewhere else entirely, somewhere repulsive and horrific.

Maybe it really was.

The Sword Tower gifted by the Dragon King to Ruin Alastor. The Sword Tower where Alastor pure-bloods lived. Why would a tower like that connect to this insane world?

Where is this place?

His instincts warned him. The name Cultivation Floors felt like deception. Was this really a place for training? Kyle wanted to know where exactly he was standing. Mudflat, Flood Tide and Ebb Tide, even those rules clashed with normal sense. This was not the world Kyle knew.

He felt as if he stood precariously on a single thin plank in vast darkness. One wrong step, and he would fall into a bottomless abyss and be chewed up by the owners of those unknown gazes.

“Ha...”

Kyle breathed hard and grabbed his wooden sword.

“Hahaha...!”

That awful feeling crawled up from within. He finally understood exactly what it was.

Fear. The urge to run away.

“Me?”

It was absurd, and it pissed him off. Kyle suddenly swung his drawn wooden sword and smashed himself in the head. Whack! A dull impact rang out, and his skull throbbed. Only then did his mind feel like it started working properly.

“Fuck that.”

He had hit himself too hard, and blood ran down from his head. Kyle wiped it with the back of his hand and walked through the mud with wet slaps.

It had been a long time since that stubborn, vicious drive had surged up in him.

Running in terror did not fit Kyle’s nature.

Squelch, squelch.

Feeling the foul mud sticking to his soles, Kyle checked his condition.

This place is a fucking hellhole.

He had been born into a great family and raised with love since childhood, so he had held back on the curses he used constantly in his past life. But this place could only be described with that one word.

Mana doesn’t move properly.

The mana flowing through his circuits was as stiff as hardening mud. He tested other circuits, but the result did not change. Calmly, Kyle focused on the mana in his lower dantian. Shockingly, the mana stored there had already stiffened.

Hm...

Frowning, he tried breathing according to his cultivation method. The rotten air was disgusting enough, but surprisingly it tasted awful too. Enduring it, he swallowed deeply, and Jor, curled in his middle dantian, screamed.

[Ugh... ughhh...]

It was a scream soaked in terror. Even while screaming like that, Jor still did his job. The mana refined first in the middle dantian and sent downward was pathetically small.

This world’s... air? Something like that is suppressing the mana in me.

Kyle kept operating his cultivation method with a tight expression. When he raised mana from the lower dantian to the middle dantian, mana control improved at least a little.

Now I see why the minimum condition for challenging the Cultivation Floors is entry into the Will Realm.

If one could not handle the middle dantian, one probably could not use mana at all in this world.

“What a truly fucking hellish place.”

Kyle muttered with a dry laugh. Mana control was stiff, mana gained from breathing was tiny, and this was while Kyle was refining efficiently with both his chaos spirit root and Jor. If he was only getting this much, most people could not build up mana here at all.

If I want food, I have to go back to the room. If I want mana recovery, back to the room. During Flood Tide, I can’t move freely either.

A place plastered with restrictions everywhere. It lived up to the name Cultivation Floors, but honestly, this felt excessive. And this was supposed to be the lowest floor of the Cultivation Floors.

[Ugh... ughhhh...]

A tremor came from deep in his chest. Jor, coiled in the middle dantian, had shoved his lowered head into his own coils and was trembling.

[M-Master... this place... it’s t-too, too scary...]

The stammering voice was full of fear. For a spirit, a mana lifeform, this space must have been a horrifying place it did not want to exist in for even a moment. The only reason Jor could exist here at all was because he was settled in Kyle’s middle dantian.

[Th-this place... it’s full of pollution and distortion... this place is scarier than hell...]

Jor whimpered and burrowed deeper into the middle dantian, like a child trying to hide under blankets.

He really was a child. Kyle tapped his chest and calmed him.

“Don’t panic. I’m the one fighting here anyway.”
[B-but... M-Master. Up there... there are t-terrifying beings...]
“Ignore them.”

Kyle spoke after a quick glance upward. Thanks to the remarkable spirit root he awakened a year ago, he felt those gazes above too clearly. Jor had been influenced by Kyle’s spirit root all this past year, which probably made him feel even more fear.

But Kyle crushed the fear trying to raise its head. Blood ran again from the wound he had cracked open earlier. He scrubbed it off with the back of his hand and kept walking through the mud.

What was that Dragon King thinking, linking the inside of the Sword Tower to a place like this?

Even the 4th-floor residential area of the Sword Tower was so vast it hardly seemed possible to be inside a tower, but these Cultivation Floors were absolutely not inside the Sword Tower. They were connected to a different world entirely.

The Sword Tower said to be a gift to Ruin Alastor, that glorious, convenient, magnificent artifact. Kyle could not help feeling tangled doubts that its inner side was linked to a place this horrific.

Was this really a gift given in goodwill? Or some kind of test? Maybe it was malice meant to screw Ruin Alastor and his descendants. Fragment had called the Dragon King an old monster trapped by obsession. Walking this place now, Kyle honestly felt the Dragon King might have been out of his mind.

Squelch, squelch.

As he walked while thinking that, he felt a faintly strange sensation under his shoe. Not just mud, but something hard buried in an unpleasantly soft mass.

The instant he felt it, Kyle leaped up.

Ruuumble! The mud bubbled, then exploded outward in all directions. Soon black things crawled up from a hole below.

[Kkiiigiiik!]

A revolting sound like nails scraping metal. Clumps of mud that had shot up rained back down, and beneath them, the creatures appeared.

“Wow...”

Kyle landed far back, and his face twisted hard. He had seen and cut many monsters in his past life, but the creatures in front of him felt like a different species altogether. They looked revolting at a glance, yet it did not feel like only an appearance problem.

It felt like fundamental disgust given shape.

Their form resembled giant crabs, but they wore no shells. Their bodies were masses of swollen, rotting gray flesh, and between those split chunks, dozens of eyeballs were jammed in at random, each moving separately.

On both sides of that flesh mass were grotesquely bent legs. If you pressed both hands together and wiggled only your fingers, it would look similar. Their two pincers looked like human arms stuck on.

[Kiii... kiiii...]

The center split wide with a crack, exposing sharp teeth. Yellow slime dripped and ran over those teeth. Just watching that hideous form made his head throb and his vision sway sickeningly.

“You really are horrifying to look at.”

Did it understand his comment? One of them let out a chilling shriek and rushed him. It moved its finger-like legs quickly, far too fast for its size.

Kyle drew up mana. Mana control was still stiff, but he felt no major problem in a fight. Fwaaash! A thin aura wrapped the blade of the wooden sword Lucia had gifted him.

Thin only in appearance. In this hostile environment, the sword qi he compressed to the limit reinforced a sharpness a wooden sword could never have on its own. Swhack! A writhing pincer arm, no, a pincer hand shot in, but Kyle dodged it by moving only his upper body a little.

A vicious rotten stench brushed past right in front of his nose. His nose twitched, and he swung his wooden sword. Stab! The blade cut straight through, following the exact shape of the split in its flesh.

The monster’s body split in half and collapsed. Kyle leaped over the corpse and headed for the rest.

This was his first time fighting monsters since reincarnating, but whether the opponent was human or monster, once he held a sword, what he had to do was the same.

Thrust, slash, thrust, slash.

Mana control is limited. I can’t replenish mana through breathing. Here, not aura, but how well I use the sword matters.

This was only the entrance of the Mudflat. What kinds of monsters would appear? For now, all he had met were those grotesque crab things. They might have real names, but Kyle decided to just call them Hand Crabs.

He carefully dismantled Hand Crabs and looked for their weak points.

Split the body in half, they die.

Most things would.

Cut off the pincer hands and legs, they regenerate. No point aiming from behind. The eyeballs in the flesh turn to the rear anyway.

He thrust the wooden sword.

Pierce the center of the body, they die too.

That was enough.

Ten Hand Crabs were slaughtered in an instant, yet Kyle’s breathing was perfectly steady. Standing in the middle of stabbed and carved flesh, he shook chunks off his wooden sword.

Ssssss...

Black smoke rose from between the flesh pieces. It did not scatter into the air. It moved toward Kyle.

No special breathing or cultivation method was needed. The black smoke clinging to his skin seeped into his body on its own.

“Hm...”

For a brief moment, pain stabbed his whole body like red-hot needles. Then the pain turned to cool clarity.

So this is how it works.

He was not tired from swinging his sword just now, but it was not like he had spent zero stamina either. That slight stamina loss recovered.

My body feels a little stronger too. And... the mana hardening is weaker, just a little.

This place did not only hold trials. The more monsters he killed, the stronger his body got, and the more softened his hardened mana became. In other words, the longer he fought and the more he killed, the better he would be able to fight here.

The difference is slight... but even the air doesn’t feel as disgustingly revolting as at first.

As Fragment had said, the reward of the Cultivation Floors was bodily strengthening. Kill monsters, absorb that smoke, and grow stronger. Slowly adapt to this environment too.

That reward applied to everyone who entered the Cultivation Floors, but Kyle could go further. He crouched down and looked at a Hand Crab flesh chunk within reach.

“...”

Fragment had told him to kill monsters and eat them. Kyle closed his eyes for a moment. In this life he had eaten only excellent, delicious food, but in his past life, back when he had nothing and was poor, he ate all kinds of things just to fill his belly.

“Maybe it only looks like this. Maybe it tastes fine...”

He muttered that like self-hypnosis, opened his eyes, and felt the problem clearly. The Hand Crab was not a crab with a shell like real crustaceans. It was rotten flesh shaped like one.

“Ugh...”

A sigh slipped out on its own, but Kyle’s eyes settled into calm. After a few blinks, a strange madness lit inside his golden irises.

It looked like something that could make you sick or kill you if you ate it raw, but that would not happen. Fragment’s blessing was now in Kyle’s body.

He reached out and picked up a piece of flesh.

“Urgh...”

It tasted horrific. Kyle held his lips still and forced his jaw to move.

[Ugh, ughhh! M-Master! What are you eating?!]

Jor screamed in horror. The chunk slid down his throat and disappeared, becoming pure power that reached the middle dantian.

“Do your job.”

Kyle spat it out. Master-servant contract since Jor was a baby spirit, and a year of mana he had fed him.

Jor had no right to refuse.

Fwaaaaa!

Heat spread out from the middle dantian and crawled down to the lower dantian. Energy far denser and stronger than what he absorbed through skin reached the lower dantian, then spread through all his circuits.

He felt his spirit root being stimulated. Crack... something twisted deep inside his body. His mana was still hardened, but the circuits inside him had moved a little.

Aha...

Mana circuits spreading from the dantian center. Because Kyle had a special spirit root, his circuits were far more numerous and complex than most people.

Even if many and complex, circuits were still individual lines. But now, Kyle felt those individual circuits shift slightly.

If I keep eating this flesh and move the circuits, do the individual lines cling together... and connect to each other?

If that really happened, he would no longer need to pick the most efficient, shortest route when operating a cultivation method. If all circuits connected, no matter which circuit he pushed mana into, it could instantly carve the most efficient, shortest, fastest route.

“Looks like I need to eat a lot.”

Kyle chuckled and reached for another piece. The taste was filthy, but the effect was certain. This revolting chunk of meat was a tonic more special than any elixir he had eaten so far.

A taste he doubted he would ever get used to, no matter how much he ate.

The Mudflat did not have only crabs. It had all kinds of truly varied, truly horrific monsters.

“Taste-wise, Hand Crab is the best. Does that even make sense?”

Amazingly, it did. Kyle let out a long sigh, feeling disgusting fullness, like his stomach was packed with sewage.

I can’t even guess how long I need to keep eating these things.

He had eaten over ten of each type. There were changes compared to before, but the circuits that shifted little by little still had not connected at all.

Even so, physical strengthening at this point is definitely noticeable.

His swordsmanship was already excellent, so hunting was not very difficult. Even the gains from just today were probably better than what he would get from a full week of sweaty training outside.

And for the past year I spent a lot of time in the Archive trying to create my cultivation method, so I couldn’t focus on physical training either.

Fragment would handle the hard cultivation method development for him, so now Kyle just had to hunt monsters and eat them.

“Hm?”

His belly was full, but it felt like he could force down more. Just as he tried to move again.

Ruuumble...

The mud beneath his feet vibrated. It was not the vibration of monsters coming up. The whole Mudflat began to shake as if an earthquake had struck.

Swoooooosh!

From far away, he heard the sound of waves.

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