Chapter 554: Profiting from disaster
"Ahn~!"
"Nngh~!"
"Ahh~!"
A mile away from the place where everyone was staying, moans of absolute pleasure reverberated in the area for an hour before gradually subsiding.
In a half-destroyed straw hut, Max moved away from the top of Ella and flopped beside her, unconsciously revealing a satisfied grin on his face. As for Ella, she was half unconscious. Her eyes were glazed over, her face shone with a rosy color and her naked body was glistening with crystalline drops of sweat. The addition of a milky river flowing down from between her legs created an exquisite scenery.
After a few moments, she came to her senses and, while taking in deep breaths, asked, "S-Sir Max... are you alright now?"
Max glanced at her in silence for a moment, causing her heartbeat to rise. Just when she thought her question might have displeased him, he revealed a gentle smile and nodded, "Yes, I'm alright. Thank you."
His gentle smile and soft voice made Ella's heart fluttered. Her cheeks glowed an enchanting red and she could only let out a soft 'Un' sound.
Her bashful demeanor caused his heart to race, and he found himself leaning toward her. Ella froze for a moment before realizing what he wanted to do. So, she leaned her face toward him and closed her eyes, trying to take control of her galloping heart but failing.
Just then, she felt his hot breath on her face before his lips landed on hers. Almost at the same time, his tongue pried open her small mouth, slithered inside and started a sensual dance with hers.
A few minutes later, he reluctantly broke the hot kiss and left Ella breathless, but satisfied.
He then cast a spell to clean himself up, gave her soft breasts a quick squeeze and ordered, "Get up and start your cultivation. Don't waste the energy go to waste."
"Mm~ Yes, sir Max." Ella nodded and sat up, her movements stiff. She then cleaned herself up with a spare piece of cloth, wore her robes, and tidied up her hair. Only then did she close her eyes and started cultivating.
Seeing this, Max also sat cross-legged and started circulating his mana and partly recovered bloodline energy. Under the nourishment of his rich mana and bloodline energy, after half an hour, the remaining injuries also healed. But because he hadn't recovered enough bloodline energy, he was still in the state of weakness.
'I need to find some other way to recover the bloodline energy.' He thought. Although having sex could help him do it, if the other party's cultivation wasn't strong enough, he wouldn't be able to recover enough energy—just like now. Although he did it with Ella for an hour, he only recovered a few percent bloodline energy, barely enough to neutralize the backlash of complete bloodline energy exhaustion.
Just then, Emily's cold yet beautiful surfaced in his mind. 'Maybe... Fuck! What am I even thinking?!' Quickly throwing the thought to the back of his mind, he opened the status screen.
[Status]
[Name: Maxwell Garfield]
[Cultivation: Peak three-star]
[Age: 18]
[Strength: 150]
[Agility: 150]
[Stamina: 150]
[Vitality: 150]
[Intelligence: 287]
[Mana: 80,000]
[Element: Fire (Concentration: 70%)]
[Lust Points: 4800]
[Kill Points: 300,000]
[Shop Points: 1500]
Seeing the result of his hard work for the past few days, Max couldn't help but lick his lips in satisfaction.
"System, sell those two demon cores, too."
[Done, host.] System responded almost at the same time and the shop points got updated.
[Shop Points: 1620]
Nodding, he converted 200,000 Kill Points into Mana points and increased his mana count to 100,000 from 80,000.
Rumble~!
As 200,000 kill points vanished, dense streams of purified mana appeared around his core and slowly flowed into it, filling it to the brim.
Crack! Crack!
Suddenly, the core made creaking sounds, and a few cracks appeared on the outer surface. It seems despite all the tempering and strengthening, it still couldn't endure the collective pressure of 100,000 mana units.
"Crap..." Max's face paled and panic set in. Forcefully calming down, he started using his old method of core strengthening by assimilating mana into the core. However...
Crack! Crack!
More and more cracks continued to appear while the previous ones grew wider and deeper.
This crumbled his forcefully established calmness and, within a moment, his entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
By now, he knew he didn't have time to strengthen his core slowly. Therefore, he turned to the system and opened his mouth to ask for something which can help him.
"System, hurry. Buy something that can help..." However, before he could finish speaking, system's unhurried voice sounded. When he heard what it said, his eyes shone with pleasant surprise.
[Host, would you like to use your remaining Lust and Kill points to reconstruct your mana core? This reconstruction would raise your mana core level to the peak four-star, making it easier to breakthrough to the four-star realm. Do you agree? (Yes)/(No)]
Max knew simply increasing his mana to 100,000 units wouldn't be enough to breakthrough to the four-star, and he had to fulfill three other conditions, two of which were the same as what he did to breakthrough to the three-star realm—transforming three-star mana into four-star one and the core reconstruction. Of course, although they were the same, the difficulty and danger level was tens of times higher. The last one was to strengthen his body to a level where it can endure the four-star mana.
Now that the system offered him to help survive this unexpected disaster and also complete one of three steps in exchange for some points he could simply earn with some effort, he was beyond exhilarated. He knew this was a special case. If it didn't concern his life, he wouldn't have gotten such opportunity. Therefore, he immediately tapped 'Yes'. Just as he did, a pure white light covered him and he lost consciousness. Gradually, the light grew brighter, and he started floating a few feet above the ground.
Boom!
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Suddenly, a powerful suction force erupted from his belly. A moment later, the mana in the surrounding few miles became restless and surged in his direction.
...
A few miles away, two demon groups were rapidly moving toward the capital city when they sensed the sudden change in the mana flow. Immediately, they changed directions and rushed toward the place where all mana was converging.
Similarly, a group of humans were moving toward the capital city when they felt the change. Feeling curious, they also rushed over.
Since people so far could sense such a big change in mana flow, the Elves and Emily also noticed this. After a brief moment of shock, they exchanged glances and could see panic on each other's faces.
"Is he breaking through?"
"Damn! Such a huge commotion! This will attract trouble."
"How reckless! Doesn't he know this place isn't safe?"
"Let's go. We need to make sure he isn't disturbed."
Although displeased by his recklessness, they also rushed over, determined to guard him with their lives.
...
Surprisingly enough, while everyone was alerted, Ella, who was just a few feet away from him, seemed completely unaware and continued to cultivate. As the mana concentration around her increased, her mana absorption rate spiked. Within a few minutes, she reached the peak of one-star and started condensing her mana core.