"Just two weeks…" Bolt had been repeating that phrase for the last entire minutes as he watched Kayden advance in rank. He knew the boy was at the bottom of the eighth realm and had reached the top in just a week. The hardest part has always been the advancement.
Getting to the top of a rank became easy for Kayden after discovering his path. The most difficult thing was to consolidate the basis for the advance, which was done at an absurd speed.
"Two weeks without sleep or rest." Bolt had never seen this before. This was inhumane, it shouldn’t even be possible.
He wasn’t that fast even to advance to the initial levels, but on the other hand, he needed to sleep at that time and the fatigue accumulated. Furthermore, he didn’t have a mage pulling mana at a density of 35 times the environment at all times for him.
With his path, no mana was wasted. He could use every fold of mana at his disposal. Another thing was that Kayden dropped out of classes those two weeks and stopped going.
He knew it had been a hasty move and maybe not so smart, but he needed to end this soon to be free. Now it would only take him a few more days without classes to max out the ninth rank.
"Let’s go." Kayden was stepping onto a plateau he had never reached before. The boy was curious to know how far his strength would go at this moment. As soon as he began the process of advancement, he felt the world trying to take over, and… he once again denied that control to the universe.
The boy himself began the changes in his heart. First, he decreased his size as much as he could and then began increasing his stamina to accommodate and pump mana. He went as far as he considered acceptable.
This process was incredibly painful, as again Kayden was messing with something on a macroscopic level. It felt like he was changing his DNA. The boy spent at least an hour regulating the size and strength of his heart.
One thing he noticed was that when he was in his normal state he couldn’t do this. It felt like something was missing and he found himself unable to touch the macroscopic level of his foundation, but when he was on a breakthrough, everything seemed clear.
Kayden called it an impulse. With every advancement, he received a boost and could do things he was not capable of before. This made him wonder if he could use this drive for another task.
Without knowing the consequences of this, the boy left it aside at that moment and just focused on his advancement. Now he would improve his veins. He needed something resistant and at the same time large, as his path allowed him to use a lot of mana, and for that he needed to have the corresponding structure to do so.
His veins were entirely modified, from the smallest one that reached the tip of his smallest toe to the ones that were coming out of his heart and were much larger.
This time, the boy was determined to raise his base to perfection, especially considering that the amount of mana he had available would not run out, unlike when he advanced with the king.
The entire ascension process took twelve hours. Kayden improved every inch he could and when he finally finished, the boy gave a smile that sent a shiver down Bolt’s back.
Kayden still didn’t respond because he was in the only moment where he couldn’t control anything. His flesh, blood, and bones began to be remodeled. The pain would once again be unbearable for an ordinary person, but Kayden didn’t even flinch.
"Perfectly." Kayden did some tests on his body and once again he had no way of qualifying. Kayden one rank lower would barely last 10 moves against him now.
"Let’s continue to the top of the ninth master rank," Kayden ordered and instantly sat down.
The boy closed his eyes and only opened them every 48 hours to feed. This madness lasted four days and he had reached the peak of the ninth realm. He could no longer gather mana.
He could. But every time he did this, a feeling that he was going to advance would take over his body. Kayden knew that his path could be used as a concept for his advancement and he confirmed this hypothesis now.
Even though advancement as a mage now seemed excellent, Kayden knew not to rush perfection. He still had a lot to learn and could gather more concepts to reach a much greater degree of strength.
The boy performed some tests on his body and couldn’t wipe an insane smile off his face. His speed was at least four times faster, his strength was close to five times faster. Kayden was slowly taking his steps to break out of his weak human shell and ascend into something greater. He didn’t know it.
Controlling lightning had always come naturally to Kayden, but now he was able to keep his path open much more comprehensively and for a longer duration of time. This allowed him to reach levels very close to the level he reached during the admission test.
The main factor here was that getting to this stage didn’t cost him anything. He had no sequelae. His body could hold the weight of his path. He still couldn’t use it at full strength, but the boy thought that was normal.
Even though it was a difficult truth to swallow, Kayden knew that he would have to climb many kingdoms to be able to use 100% of the path of the monarch. His intuition told him that, or rather, screamed it every time he appreciated that he was breaking a limit that shouldn’t be crossed...yet.
"Professor, I need to fight someone at my level, in the coliseum. What belt do you think I can find someone like that?"
Bolt closed his eyes and extended his spiritual sense to the files. In just a few seconds, he saw dozens of fights and found the people Kayden was looking for. The boy was strong. Bolt saw him using his path and almost salivated with envy. His level of strength when he was young was nowhere near Kayden’s, but that was normal. New generations would always surpass the previous ones. This was the theory of evolution being applied in reality.
"Only those in the top 10 can pose a challenge to you now as they have all discovered their paths too."
Kayden was surprised for a moment and then mentally slapped himself.
"The smart man’s mistake is to think that only he was born smart."
Kayden thought the path made him unique, but his vision was the same as a frog stuck in a well. He was better than 99% of people, but there were still others who could surpass him.