.......
"I see how you bastards want to play!! But if you think this is enough to stop me, then you really are just clowns playing around in the skies!!"
Azmond was furious at the mysterious beings who were playing with him from behind the scenes, but he didn't have the luxury of feeling anger right now as his breakthrough came a little sooner than he expected.
He wasn't one to take offenses against him lying down, but there really was nothing he could do to get back at whatever mysterious forces were playing with him from beyond the heavens.
...
'I will remember this, you bastards.' An emotionless expression formed on Azmond's face as he took one good look at the skies before returning to his breakthrough.
A breakthrough was coming like the tides of the ocean, as he was given no breather.
Azmond was bleeding out of every hole in his body as he sat in a meditative position with a pained expression.
That was when his maniacal voice echoed across the skies as he started speaking with a look of gratitude on his face. "I should really be thanking you guys for speeding up my breakthrough!! I was just thinking that it was a little too slow before, but luckily I have you guys to help me out!!"
A shit-eating grin emerged on Azmond as he smiled a bloody smile at the heavens above.
"...."
WHIRL!
The same phenomenon as the last two times once again tried to form, but to no avail...
'Heh. I will settle with that as payback for now! Don't think it will end with just that, though...'
Azmond's expression once again turned to one of indifference as the breakthrough from the 12th Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation to the 13th Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation came crashing down on him.
'This breakthrough should be the biggest one yet,' he thought.
'My combat power should increase by a very large margin after I make it through this breakthrough in one piece. I just need to persevere till the massive amount of Qi being absorbed by my body subsides,' Azmond thought to himself as he let even more Qi into his dantian.
He was at risk of dying right now, and he thought it would be a good idea to increase that risk even further by inviting even more of a seemingly harmless energy into his body.
Azmond really was a madman...
....
2 days later...
Azmond was seen kneeling on the ground beneath a deep pit that stretched even further than the pit he made the last time he broke through.
His entire body was shattered, and it was unknown whether Azmond had a single bone in his body that wasn't chipped at by the insane amounts of Qi he absorbed.
"HA!"
His crazed voice resounded in the area as he waited for his hand to heal before he pointed his middle finger straight into the sky.
"It looks like even that wasn't enough for you bastards to kill me, huh?!??" Azmond's shit-eating grin came back in full swing as he ridiculed the empty air.
And once again...
SWIRL! SWIRL!
A phenomenon tried to show its head in the skies.
Azmond obviously didn't miss such an odd disturbance, as his ridiculing face only changed to one of utter disdain as he clicked his tongue.
"You bozo's really need to learn some new tricks. This little charade is just getting sad at this point."
He gave his piece before checking on the gains from this most recent breakthrough.
Ripples were formed in the air again, but nothing happened, just like every other time...
'It looks like I have the all-round attributes of a normal Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in the Early-Middle rank Stage.'
A small smile almost formed on Azmond's face before it quickly dissipated and returned to his usual neutral look.
'This is no time to celebrate my progress. I need to continue cultivating... Celebration before absolute victory is the downfall of all kings...'
He started mulling over the subject with a hardened expression.
'Even though I am no king, the point still stands. This amount of progress is not even worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things.'
'I bet there are cultivators out there in the Qi Condensation stage with combat power in the Soul Transformation Realm.' Azmond continued to think to himself with a contemplative look.
'I need to remember that my base stats aren't the only things that matter, as the techniques a cultivator uses also affect their combat power. And on that note, my highest-level technique, excluding the Quantum Gate Skill, is merely of the late-Mortal Rank... A skill not even worth mentioning to the super big shots of this world,' he thought.
'I think I will leave this area after I reach a sufficient cultivation base and go out into the world of humans. I need to find some higher-level cultivation books.'
After deciding what he would do sooner or later, his mind focused on something else as he thought, 'The Divine Devil Arts should be superior to anything capable of being produced in this world, but it only shows its true colors once I reach a high enough cultivation realm and unlock the highest sections of it.'
'The first few sections of the Divine Devil Arts Scripture are only really there as an introductory manual into the world of cultivation, as it's mostly filled with basic elemental technique manuals and auxiliary type books.'
"...."
"So, it's decided. I will venture out into this vast world of Asterion with my Little Ice Flower to acquire the most powerful skills this planet has to offer!" Azmond exclaimed with a small smile, as expectation for the future that lay ahead of him filled his heart.
He relished in the path in front of him for a moment before he came back to reality and looked over the rest of the gains he got from his breakthrough into the 13th Stage of Quantum Qi Condensation.
"As expected... It looks like I have 13000 Qi Cyclones surrounding my Dantian now. 11000 of those 13000 are 900 meters in diameter, while the last 2000 are a minuscule 1 inch in diameter." Azmond pondered for a few moments before he came to a decision.
........