BUILDING MY OWN EMPIRE - My Journey from Nothing to Overwhelming Power-Chapter 63 – Training Arc (Ali)

"Hahaha!" I laughed, my voice roaring loudly... above the corpse of the Calamity Beast, the brown gorilla.

If strength is not enough... then tactics will compensate for it.

Merging my attacks together made the beast unable to endure.

In defense, the Flame Art was extremely useful as a solid shield.

As for offense, the wind blades in their various forms took care of it.

In the end... the beast fell lifeless, its massive body collapsing.

And for the first time... I felt that my power had risen above the level of a Minor Calamity.

In the outer hall, I looked at my body... it seemed as if it had grown heavier.

"Maybe I got taller?" I whispered.

Then... I remembered.

"The rewards?"

I looked right and left... there was nothing.

"Can you hear me?" I said.

The voice did not respond, but the yellow light shone.

I stepped out.

"What is it?" the beast whispered. Its voice was very close... yet the surroundings were completely empty.

"Why didn’t I receive any rewards? In the tenth stage, and now as well..." I asked again.

"Who said you did not receive rewards?" the beast replied mockingly.

I could not endure its sarcasm. "I didn’t," I said.

The beast did not answer... but something else happened.

From the void, a small cube of light appeared. Inside the cube were tiny points of light.

"Do you see it?" I asked the beast. I did not know whether it was a question or a confirmation.

"Don’t you?" I asked to be certain.

"Of course not," it replied. "Those are your development points. No one other than you can see them."

"My development points??" I said quickly.

"Do you know, boy, what is the most sought-after thing by Masters?"

"What?"

"Development points," the beast answered coldly.

"The higher the rank rises, the more useless ordinary training becomes for Masters in obtaining development points for their ranks."

"In truth," I said,

"even at my low rank, I find it difficult to obtain points. My rank advanced thanks to a secret mission. I don’t think it would have happened if I had continued training in the village."

"Hahaha. If you think, little egg, that this counts as difficulty in obtaining points... then you have seen nothing yet. But let me tell you what Masters seek to ease this matter."

"What?"

"Special caves. Three hundred years ago, a group called the Ashen Cave Sect conducted long research on exploiting cave time acceleration to obtain development points. At that time, our paths crossed... they offered guidance.

And I granted them a thread of the solution. But before I gave them the full garment, they tried to deceive the Deception Beast, hahaha. In the end, I obtained the guidance, and they gained nothing valuable."

The beast fell silent briefly.

I did not respond... I waited for it to continue. And it did.

"I... am the entity with the fastest time acceleration."

Its voice resounded with pride, and a cold wind surged and struck my back.

"Boy, I have given you a year of intensive training... continuous combat. In real life, do you think you would achieve what you have in less than ten years? You would not."

"True," I replied in agreement.

"But the most important thing... that prolonged, intensive training against powerful and diverse beasts pushed your body to its highest limits. And when the body is pushed to its highest limits... it gains development points."

"I understand," I said.

But the next question came quickly, and before I could voice it—

"But there is a problem," the beast said.

"The training dimension itself is a game with conditions.

If I granted you guidance within it like your leaders, then your acquisition of development points would be nonexistent.

The game is difficult. Its rewards are precious. And its rules are clear."

"I see..." I replied.

Only now did the vision become clear. I had hoped to obtain material rewards as well. But of course... I would not exchange them for development points. The beast knew that well.

"So how many points did I gain? And why are my points inside this thing?"

"As for your second question, this is a Time Cube. Anything placed inside it is halted in time and unaffected. Development points cannot remain for long, so they must be preserved."

"Alright. What about the first question?"

"Let me finish the answer, little egg. The reason you did not receive the points inside the dimension... is simply because I wanted it that way, hahaha."

"Haha... damn you," I sighed, then added,

"In truth, it was a good decision from you. It would have made me lose focus in training."

"That is exactly what I mean," the beast replied.

"As for your number of points... it is 30 points."

"Ooooh... that is quite a large number. But..." I whispered,

"It won’t be enough to make me reach the third rank."

"Yes. You must surpass the thirtieth stage."

"Alright," I whispered.

Then I returned once more to the training dimension.

I left the points with the Deception Beast. I could have used them to increase my abilities.

But—

I wanted to see how far I could reach with what I had achieved so far.

My steps led me directly, without hesitation, to the twenty-first round.

The moon was full.

The cold struck my face immediately.

I shivered involuntarily.

At once, I wrapped myself in the Flame Art.

Warmth returned to my body... warmth in the midst of freezing cold. Is there any better feeling?

My eyes began searching right and left. The place I stood... was the peak of a mountain.

Scattered clouds were closer to me than the flat ground below.

Suddenly... white sparks began descending from one of the clouds.

That cloud was dense and completely black... unlike all the others.

The moment I saw it, I suspected something was wrong. Now my suspicion was confirmed.

The light sparks struck the mountain... without sound.

Then... from more than a hundred meters away, a group of black shadows appeared.

Seven. Eight. Ten shadows.

They approached.

They had no legs and floated in the air.

Little by little... their true forms became clearer.

"Shadows?" I whispered in surprise.

They were nothing else—true shadows. For the first time, I saw such beings.

A mass of black vapor or smoke, formed into the shape of a being without feet...

And without hands.

Just a body of shadow without a defined shape... moving toward me.

I extended my left hand and released a wind blade.

Swoosh.

It passed through them.

Swoosh.

Swoooosh.

Many blades.

The same result... all of them passed through.

The shadows reached me.

I raised my left hand, wrapped it with threads of flame, then—

Booooom.

Like the wind, the shadow evaded my strike.

Then—

It collided with me.

It was thrown away more than ten meters.

"What?!" I shouted in shock, followed by quick understanding.

The Flame Art... was something that shadow could not resist. That was why it avoided the strike, and for the same reason, when it collided with me, it was repelled.

I smiled.

But the smile quickly faded as the shadows retreated.

The one that struck me... dissipated.

Nine remained.

I ran toward them. They were too fast for me to catch.

They could also fly. It was impossible to grab a shadow that rose high into the air whenever I approached.

I began thinking, searching for a solution, taking advantage of the fact that they were not attacking.

But something else struck my mind.

The Flame Art was receding faster.

I had wrapped my body with it to protect against the cold, so its consumption was continuous and heavy.

While the shadows retreated... I was losing over time.

"Think," I whispered inwardly, analyzing the situation.

Minutes passed.

Until now, I had not discovered what damage the shadows could inflict... but I did not want to find out.

To preserve the Flame Art, I deactivated it.

Suddenly—

The shadows rushed toward me again.

They approached one after another.

They were not fast... more like brisk walking rather than running.

Before they reached me, I activated the Flame Art again.

Then—

Booom.

One collided with my body.

Then—

It dissipated like dust.

The other shadows retreated.

I smiled.

I let them retreat several meters.

Then I deactivated the art.

They attacked.

I activated it.

Booooom.

Another shadow dissipated.

I repeated the process.

Then—

{ Mission Completed Successfully }

I had not imagined it would be this simple.

Quickly, I headed toward the next stage.

There were more shadows in number.

But I defeated them the same way.

The stages continued.

And the difficulty began to show.

The shadows grew faster.

Once... twice... I was struck by their attacks.

They were not attacks in the literal sense, but more like electric shocks so painful they caused paralysis.

In the two times I was struck, I was under unbearable torment. Drool filled my face as my body curled on the ground.

In the advanced stages, the shadows were extremely numerous—more than fifty.

And they hovered close to me.

I had to return to earlier stages to train.

I sought to speed up the activation and deactivation of the art.

After many days—

I became more understanding and faster in control.

I stood before more than eighty shadows in the twenty-ninth stage.

Then my switching between activation and deactivation became faster than the shadows themselves.

Then—

I stood in the outer hall... before the great gate of the thirtieth stage.

{ Minor Calamity Beast – Shadow of the Raging Mountain Monkey }