[Thank you Tyler_Hotker for your generous gift]


    Lloyd spent the remaining time he had sparring and struggling against a dummy with 9 topaz seals.


    While Lloyd didn''t truly understand how the seals of the secondmandment worked, he knew a few simple things that almost anyone with a formal education knew.


    To reach the firstmandment one needed to make a single Topaz seal as they broke through, or right after they broke through. They could not proceed with their cultivation otherwise. A seal is a runic circle created in the center of a person''s chest when that person enters the secondmandment.


    Scientists have found ways to break down these runes and decrypt them to create their own artificial ones. In the past, however, people would be forced to follow their instincts, each person creating a unique rune for themselves which increased not only their talent, but also their chances of reaching newer heights.


    Just like a cultivation technique, one could not surpass the creator of a technique without fundamentally changing the technique itself or creating apletely new one.


    Nevertheless, the seals were put into 6 categories. The topaz, amethyst, ruby, emerald, diamond, and half-step thirdmandment with is pink diamond.


    One needed 10 seals from the previous category to make one of the higher categories. For example, Lloyd would need 10 topaz seals to make a single amethyst seal, and 10 amethyst seals to make a ruby seal, and so on.


    This only went up to the diamond seal, since making a pink diamond seal required you to only use 5 diamond seals rather than 10 like the others.


    *Ding Ding*


    Lloyd looked down at his watch and saw that his session in the gym was over.


    Leaving his little arena, he tried to fix his disheveled hair, but touching it only seemed to worsen it.


    Looking around, Lloyd quickly realized that there was no one in the gym anymore except a few 2nd and 3rd years who were sitting, working out, or sparring with one another.


    Leaving to his room, Lloyd made sure to have a quick shower before choosing to have a day for himself. It was his first break in months, since he never really rested while in the dungeon as he always took his rest days to train with Veronica, and he never really got to rest afterward since  all he did was grieve for a while, cultivate, and repeat.


    Since they weren''t allowed to visit home during the first term of their first year, Lloyd couldn''t check up on Tina.


    So, since he didn''t really have anything else to do, he simply left to check out the military academy''s city and its markets. Lloyd wasn''t able to buy most things since he needed points to buy them, but he enjoyed what he could get with the money had had on him.


    Hours passed in the blink of an eye, and before Lloyd knew it, it was almost midnight.


    *Ding Ding*


    Looking at his watch, Lloyd couldn''t believe his eyes.


    He had prayed for this moment for so long, and now his prayers had been answered!


    [First Year Mock Exam Announcement:


    Dear all first-year students.


    The academy will hold a mock exam for all first years within the following groups: D, C, B, A, and S.


    The groups will be put into teams of five. Each team with have equal or around the same strength as the others. We will be departing for Alexar 52b at 1pm Monday. The journey will take approximately 50 minutes, and we will be staying there for 14 days total.


    Individuals within the foundation and X group can ignore this message.]


    Lloyd felt like leaping into the air, but he quickly controlled himself. Even though he was now able to kill monsters, he still wasn''t sure how he was going to cultivate since there would be no way for him to do so without exposing himself.


    However, he quickly caught himself before that thought could go any further. He had only cultivated his body before, not his core. While body cultivation broke his shell and allowed some energies to escape, Lloyd doubted the same thing would happen with core cultivation.


    After all, cultivating the core wouldn''t break his shell/skin; it would simplypress and amplify his mana core itself without leaking any of it to the outside.


    Cultivating the core wasn''t an act of onlypressing mana; it was the act of amplifying the mana core itself and using it like any other nd in his body.


    Yes, a nd...


    The core was a simple tool, yet a very delicate andplex one simultaneously. The mana core was a tool with only one function: storing and purifying mana. Of course, its functions became a lot moreplex when body and core cultivation became two different things.


    For a body cultivator, it was just that. A storage for mana that allowed its wielder to manipte the mana within to either move it around the body to cultivate their bodies or to perform a technique or ability.


    A body cultivator''s main objective is to reach a point where their core bes obsolete, allowing them to both store their mana and purify it within their body without the need for a tool like the core. It was the main reason why the thirdmandment forces you to choose between having an iron body or an iron core.


    Core cultivators, on the other hand, focused on making sure that their core was the strongest ''organ,'' or ''muscle'' in their bodies. While body cultivators had no reason to absorb mana into their cores other than to replenish their energies or to cultivate their bodies, to a core cultivator, the mana core was a purifier, a pump, an organ, and an object to cultivate all at the same time.


    They would absorb mana into their bodies to purify it and make it their own before pumping it out of their bodies to use their spell or ability.


    At the same time, they took mana into their cores to circte it within. Everyone had their own techniques on how to do it, but after circting the mana within, theypressed the gained mana into the walls of the mana core itself.


    The better they did this, the further they would go in the long run since cultivating a mana core was a delicate task that required a person''s full attention, unlike body cultivators who eventually learned how to circte mana throughout their bodies at all times.


    With that information in mind, Lloyd was certain that mana wouldn''t leak onto the outside when cultivating his core, but he would make sure to try it out in his shadow first when the moment came.


    Since today was his break day, Lloyd decided to sleep for the first time sinceing to the military academy... Of course, after having not slept for a week, his sleep would be far from undisturbed.


    ***


    It had been a month since the death of the Everdale family. What had been reported on the situation was that the deaths were most likely suicides, yet the bodies hadn''t been shown to the public, and military reports on the situation had not been released either.


    No one except high military officials knew about the evidence of a ''true domain'' being activated within the dungeon. Ever since then, there had been three suspects, Tina being the most likely out of the bunch.


    From the reports that Lloyd and Rex gave, Tina had activated a final spell that had destroyed half her life span in an instant.


    Even though they knew she was from a rtively unknown family, making it close to impossible that this was a thing that had been handed down to her, there was also the slim chance that she had created apletely original ''true domain.''


    It hadn''t happened since the first emperor of Sris, yet the generals held out hope no matter how low the chances were.


    Of course, they also put in mind the chance that the evidence of a ''true domain'' had been something created due to the dungeon breaking down, yet after one of the top royal scientists took a look at it and said that the chances were mid to high, it became the only thing they could think about.


    Anyway, since there were no reports released on the dungeon break, what happened inside it, or how the Everdale family had died out, the only thing everyone knew was that the young mistress of the Everdale family, Veronica Everdale, had turned out to be a traitor who triggered an inteary dungeon break.


    Shortly after, a few conferences were held, and after one of them, it seemed like Veronica''s older brother and fathermitted suicide, followed by her mother and the rest of her siblings.


    Of course, rumors went around the inte at an uncontroble rate. Some were just outrageous, and others were trolls trying to create a rumor for short-term fame. Of course, some of them were spot on, but no one really took them seriously.


    "You think those rumors about the Everdale kid killing her parents are true?" A young man, no older than 20 years old, asked his friend.


    They were both wearing military uniforms and sitting at a control desk that linked itself to the dungeon.


    "Are you stupid? Didn''t you see the leaked reports? The girl barely had a single amethyst seal when she entered the dungeon. Where the hell would she get the ability to kill her parents, who were both at the pinnacle of the 3rdmandment." The other friend scoffed.


    "I mean, what if she got a power boost from almost dying." the young man asked with an embarrassed expression


    "This isn''t dragon ball Z... People don''t just get zenkai boosts whenever they almost die." The other sighed at his friend''s childish mind.


    "Holy shit."


    "Its not that big of a revtion. No need to-"


    "Not that! Look!" The young man pointed at the screen that showed both of them that massive space fluctuations were urring within the dungeon


    "Holy mother of... Alert the military officials now! I''ll stay here to keep an eye on it. Quick." he ordered his friend.


    While the man couldn''t see what was happening, a few seconds after his friend had left the room, he realized that the spatial fluctuations had stabilized, not disappeared.


    It meant only one thing...


    "Someone just portalled in..." He muttered under his breath before looking forward.


    Despite it being hundreds of miles away, the man could still see it.


    A massive purple and ck rift opened up in the dungeon''s sky, causing even the foot soldiers who hadn''t felt the spatial fluctuations earlier to gasp in surprise.


    What they didn''t see, however, was that a muscr man in the distance had left the rift in the sky and descended to the ground.


    His eyes were a bright violet, and his hair was pitch ck as if it contained all of space inside it.


    When the man finally reached the ground, he looked for around for a moment before closing his eyes.


    He had felt their signature here. Well, he felt their signature the moment they had first awakened, but after their breakthrough, the man had an easier time locating them.


    Yet even after going as fast as he could, the portion of space he had traveled through was far toorge to traverse in less than a few months, even if he were to use a void tunnel to reach the ce faster than anyone else ever could with their vehicles.


    After scanning the area around him, he finally came to a conclusion.


    ''I knew it... He is just like master. He must also have the ss.'' He rejoiced inwardly before his attentionnded on something else.


    ''But to create his very own personalized true domain at such a young age... This time, you truly awakened a monster.''


    -------


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