Tens of thousands of miles deep into the Great Wildlands Forest, a boy around 13 years of age, with a face so beautiful that even immortals paled in comparison, was seen cultivating under a 2000-meter-high waterfall.
Birds and animals of all sorts played around the forest beneath the waterfall as the boy bled from every imaginable body part, with no sign of the crimson liquid stopping its path down his figure.
....
"Argh!" Azmond grimaced with a pained look on his face.
After a few seconds passed and he was able to catch his breath, he thought, 'That's the eleventh time I've gone through a Cultivation Base Condensing Cycle in the 2nd stage of the Quantum Qi Condensation Realm.'
A small smile appeared on his terribly pale face as he realized that he was approaching the peak of the 2nd stage of Quantum Qi Condensation.
...
Azmond had been cultivating for a total of three months, never once stopping his torturous way of cultivating.
He only paused when necessary for consumption or to drink, which was rare due to Azmond's growing cultivation base and body transformations.
'I will attempt the 12th Cultivation Base Condensing Cycle now! Then I will proceed to advance into the 3rd stage of Quantum Qi Condensation with yet another perfect foundation!' He thought with a small grin.
.....
He continued to cultivate for a few more days until he reached the peak of the 2nd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation for the 12th time.
Afterward, he prepared for a few days before he would eventually attempt to breakthrough into the 3rd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation.
....
5 days of preparation passed.
Azmond began his breakthrough into the 3rd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation with a completely bloodied-up body.
The Qi surrounding the large waterfall was attracted toward his breakthrough, swirling around him in large amounts with a beautiful array of colors.
It was even more beautiful than when Azmond broke through to the 2nd stage of Quantum Qi Condensation.
Such a view truly was one that any mortal would agree was 'the most beautiful thing' they had ever seen!
Of course, that was besides Azmond himself, as his beauty had already transcended the mortal planes!
....
BOOM! WAAA!
Along with loud sounds of Qi colliding and lights flashing, Azmond finally broke through into the 3rd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation!
*Pant* *Pant* *Argh-*
He was in terrible shape—blood was flying out of his mouth in every direction, his body resembling that of a corpse's, with no spot left unscathed; even his face was left nearly unrecognizable with all the blood that covered it.
Fortunately, Azmond soon entered another galaxy-shaped cocoon as he fell into the world of unconsciousness.
......
60 days later.
"..."
Azmond emerged from the cocoon with a body analogous to that of a 14-year-old.
His physique was slowly becoming more developed and chiseled in all the right places. In fact, it was almost as if his body was the result of a god of blacksmithing's entire life's work.
Nevertheless, regardless of his changes, he still had his long raven-black hair and beautiful blue eyes, but his face was more defined than before.
Furthermore, an almost mature face shape started to appear on his already divine facial features.
In addition, his appearance wasn't the only thing that changed as Azmond stood in at around 5'11, with plenty of room to grow in the future.
........
"...Mhmm..." Azmond got up and walked outside of the cocoon with a groggy look on his slightly mature face.
"I really need to stop waking up like this... I always get the biggest headache right after going through another transformation," he said with a small frown on his face.
"Whatever, let's just check on my recent gains for now." Azmond spoke with expectation bubbling up inside him.
Following his proclamation, he started to inspect the inside of his body with his divine sense.
'Looks like it's the same situation as last time...' He thought.
His divine sense was observing the inside of his Dantian space as he examined the 2000 larger and 1000 smaller Qi Cyclones inside.
The 2000 larger Qi Cyclones were 2 feet in diameter, while the 1000 smaller ones were a far smaller 1 inch in diameter.
After glancing at all his Qi cyclones, he thought, 'Looks like I need to cultivate those smaller ones up to the limit as well--a limit which should be higher now that I have reached the 3rd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation!'
Following his thoughts, a small smile appeared on his face as he began to sit down and start cultivating again.
......
15 days later.
Azmond managed to increase the size of all 3000 of his Qi Cyclones to 4 feet in diameter, as his total energy storage capacity was exactly 3 times higher than before.
'They're slowly but surely getting bigger and more numerous the higher I increase my cultivation realm! I wonder what size they will have reached when I achieve the peak of the Quantum Qi Condensation Realm or even the realms above that? I can't wait to find out!' Azmond thought to himself with an overjoyed countenance.
"On top of that, I'm around twenty times stronger in the 3rd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation than I was in the 2nd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation with no Condensation Cycles completed," he began.
"Although that seems good in retrospect, when put on paper, it looks like my gains this time around were far smaller than they were when I first broke through to the 2nd Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation," he added.
Azmond thought over the matter for a second before he said, "The first breakthrough must've been some sort of milestone or something...? That seems to be the case.'
......
If we were to look at this from a wider point of view, then he was indeed correct about the first time he went through a transformation in the Quantum Qi Condensation Realm.
In a way, his breakthrough from the first stage of Quantum Qi Condensation to the second stage was a milestone or an introduction to a new way of cultivating.
On the other hand, the normal increase in strength from the Qi Condensation 2nd stage to the 3rd stage was usually a mere 2-3 times strength boost, with that increase being an even larger 4-5 times strength boost for Heavenly Qi Condensation Cultivators and 8-9 times for Divine Qi Condensation cultivators.
Extending on that note, the reason why Heavenly Qi Condensation and Divine Qi Condensation Cultivators were so revered was because those multiplicative strength boosts increased exponentially with each further realm they advanced.
For example, 'basic' Qi Condensation Cultivators at the 12th stage have a total strength boost of 2048x when compared to the 1st stage, which is to say that a peak Qi Condensation cultivator is roughly 2048 times stronger than a 1st stage Qi Condensation Cultivator.
However, a normal Heavenly Qi Condensation cultivator at the peak of the Heavenly Qi Condensation Realm is roughly 8192 times stronger than the average 'basic' Qi Condensation Realm Cultivator at the 12th stage of the Qi Condensation realm!
This boost is made even larger in the Divine Qi Condensation Realm, which is one of the main reasons why Heavenly Qi and Divine Qi Condensation Cultivators can leapfrog whole major realms when fighting.
The once insurmountable gap that lay between realms could be crossed as long as one was in a high enough 'Body Law Talent Gap' such as the 'Heavenly' and 'Divine' talent gaps.
Meanwhile, Azmond, in the Quantum Qi Condensation realm, possessed an even more insane multiplicative strength boost, especially when concerning his first strength boost from the 1st to 2nd Quantum Qi Condensation Realm.
This 'boost' was one of the 'reasons' that allowed him to fight multiple Great Realms above his own.
The other 'reasons' were still unknown to him, but there would come a day when he uncovered more and more of the 'reasons' for why his talent and subsequent combat strength were so great.
And one of those 'reasons' might just turn out to be quite the handful...
******
"Even though I was really looking forward to punching some mountains who kept on getting in my way, I have plenty of time to test my strength later..." Azmond muttered with a dejected sigh.
He dwelled on the topic for a second before he eventually got over it as he said, "First and foremost, gaining more strength is what's most important to me. I'm now only able to fight evenly with someone half a step into the Peak-Golden Core Realm, and that's far from good enough to fight the Goblin King..."
His expression became a little glum for a second before his fire came back in full swing as he suddenly shouted, "I need to continue cultivating, no matter how painful or how long it takes!"
"......." The mountains were practically sweating buckets of relief when they heard what he said.
......
Azmond continued to cultivate underneath the beautiful waterfall with a determined and slightly maddened look on his face.
"Don't let me catch you lacking, Goblin King, because I'll have already surpassed you before you even know what happened!"
Following his declaration of challenge, his smile became a little creepy as it nearly reached up to both of his ears.