"About cultivation, I have been a little stuck on advancing for a while now..." Ryuk mused silently as two Polar Essence Cubes appeared in his hands, and Isha's eyes flashed.
With speed, it opened its maw wide and devoured the ice cubes, giving a satisfied hiss before disappearing into the Primordial Gate.
Raising his hands, a holographic panel appeared in Ryuk's line of vision, and quickly, he began typing onto the board. Not long after, the various broken robot parts started disappearing back into the walls.
The room became sparkling clean once more.
"Activate System Interface!" Ryuk ordered.
[Class: Beast Sovereign]
[Race: Half-Knull, Half-Unknown]
[Cultivation Stage: Perfection Stage - Origin Plane Cultivation]
Ten days after his class change, Ryuk had been able to advance to the Core Stage of the Plane of Origin, and just five days later, he moved to the Peak of the stage.
But never would Ryuk have expected that, just three days after, he would reach the fabled 'Perfection Stage.'
With his bonding with Isha, Ryuk's comprehension of the Frost Veil ability had massively increased.
Its effects had evolved from previously allowing him to slow down opponents and reduce visibility around him to completely turning the world into ice.
He could stop opponents entirely, pausing even beams of light around him, forcing them to freeze.
Just as the Apex Codex had mentioned, once a cultivator reached the Perfection Stage, they would naturally undergo an evolutionary change in their awakened skills.
His Frost Veil technique had undergone considerable differences, and even Ryuk's strength had been enhanced so much so much he had even been able to punch through robots at the Initial Plane of Ascension with relative ease and pause their laser beams completely.
Right now, his power rivalled that of an Initial Plane of Ascension cultivator, even though he was only a Perfectionate Origin Plane Cultivator.
But then the problem came when the system informed him that he wouldn't automatically move up to the Plane of Ascension.
Unlike his previous natural progression, entering a new realm of cultivation required conscious effort, like opening the Primordial Gate.
In this case, Ryuk would need to form the Apex Realm to successfully ascend.
That was where the problem lay—he had no idea how to form the Apex Realm.
He couldn't remember the Apex Codex ever mentioning the process.
Not that he could even recheck, as he had returned the book to Duke Thalion.
"Just how... I need to find a way," Ryuk mused to himself.
Worthy of mention is that now that he had reached the Perfection Stage of the Origin Plane Cultivation, he could finally see the cultivation stages of the Fallen Geniuses—something he had only barely sensed before.
He could easily see that the majority of the Fallen Geniuses were actually at the Initial Plane of Ascension stage.
None were still at the Plane of Origin, not even Quinn himself, the 59th-ranked.
All of them were in the Plane of Ascension, though their powers vastly differed due to awakened abilities and training.
Ryuk had noticed that the majority of the geniuses were just like Quinn, choosing to give up and losing all hope due to the existence of the ten Ultimate Geniuses.
Some, however, still secretly held hope in their hearts.
These were the ones filling up the rankings and competing for higher positions.
Still, Ryuk knew his strength wasn't enough.
The top ten Ultimate Geniuses were all at the Core Stage of the Plane of Ascension, and some were rumored to be at the Peak of that stage—just one step away from reaching the Plane of Dominion!
Ryuk knew well that even if he went all out, he would only be able to battle Fallen Geniuses at the Initial Plane of Ascension. If he joined forces with Isha, they might be able to defeat a genius at the Core Stage of the Plane of Ascension—or at least not lose outright.
But the Peak of the stage?
He knew well how vast the difference in power was when he was in the Initial Stage of Origin compared to the Ultimate Peak of it, the gap was as wide as the heavens.
There was no way he would be making that leap in strength.
And right now, there were only ten days left before the test began!
To improve his chances of earning a top-ten spot, Ryuk would need to reach at least the Core Stage of the Plane of Ascension and fight together with Isha.
Only then might he have a hope of defeating a Fallen Genius at the Peak of the stage.
He couldn't even say he was 100% sure because, up until now, Ryuk still hadn't laid eyes on a single Ultimate Top 10 Genius.
It was as though they were all in hiding.
But to be fair, he barely saw any other geniuses due to his strict schedule of class, training room, and cultivation room.
He had also stopped receiving the stats boost from the Rejuvenation Energy around 15 days ago.
Close to that point, he barely received any stats at all, even during the last days, but he had managed to level up several times and distributed his stats with attribute points.
Now, his level and stats looked something :
[Attribute Points: 0]
Due to the upcoming test, Ryuk had been incredibly stringent with his points.
From the advice he had gotten from Morgaine, the test would be all about battle strength, so Ryuk tried improving his stats in areas that would best help with combat.
This made his Intelligence and Charisma lag behind significantly since he never placed any stat points into them.
His Intelligence wouldn't help much in battling the brute strength of the Fallen Geniuses, and his Charisma only affected beasts wanting to bond with him—not other races.
It wasn't efficient to put points into those areas, so he focused on his combat-related stats instead.
Yet somehow, Ryuk hated his Intelligence being so low. It felt like a mocking stain on him.
'Tch, I can't wait for the test to just be over...' Ryuk was thinking when suddenly—
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!