Gravis remained on top of the Wind Wall for around two hours until he finally broke through into the tenth level of Energy Gathering. "Finally, the tenth level of Energy Gathering," Gravis said to himself with a relieved sigh. "Now, I only need to break into the Spirit Forming Realm."
Gravis checked his mind to look at how much Energy it still had. By running for multiple hours with his absolute top speed, he had used up a lot of Energy in his mind. When he had started traveling to the Earth Guild, his mind had been filled to 99% capacity. But now, it was down to around 75%. 'This should take me around five hours. In just five hours, I will reach the Spirit Forming Realm. Then, not even Aion can fight me.'
Gravis looked at his completely filled dantian. The pressure that the Energy exerted on its walls was tremendous. If he didn't have a strengthened dantian, his dantian would have probably already exploded. 'No wonder people, without a strengthened dantian, can't reach the tenth level of Energy Gathering. Without that strengthened dantian, I would have been crippled.'
Yet, Gravis was a little wrong on that. To reach the tenth level of Energy Gathering, one didn't necessarily require a strengthened dantian. It was just the most common method. The dantian always grew stronger as the user's power increased, yet it would lose its support starting at the tenth level.
The ninth level of Energy Gathering exerted just enough pressure that the dantian could hold the Energy on its own, yet it became problematic when the pressure doubled again. The dantian itself wouldn't be enough to support the Energy inside the body anymore. So, in order to keep the dantian stable at the tenth level, without having a strengthened one, it needed support from outside. What was this support from outside?
It was the body. If the surrounding muscles had the ability to exert pressure onto the dantian equal to its internal pressure, it wouldn't break. In that case, one wouldn't need a strengthened dantian to reach the tenth level.
Of course, there were two disadvantages to that. First of all, the body had to reach the tenth level of Energy Gathering to exert this powerful pressure. On top of that, one would have to keep their abdominal muscles clenched for as long as they remained at this level. Some hours wouldn't be a problem for such a powerful body, but after some days, the muscles would be too tired to work, and they would relax. At that point, the dantian would explode.
Yet, if someone already had a Will-Aura at the ninth level of Energy Gathering, they could temper their bodies to the tenth level and then immediately start their breakthrough into the Spirit Forming Realm. If they were lucky, they would be able to reach the Spirit Forming Realm while going through the tenth level of Energy Gathering like that. As soon as they reached the Spirit Forming Realm, their Spirit could easily support the dantian's walls. Not many people in this lower world knew about this method.
Of course, Gravis didn't need to do this. The walls of his dantian were powerful enough to withstand this pressure. Gravis didn't know about this particular method, but he also didn't need to know. He already had his strengthened dantian, so why would he need to know about some useless technique?
Gravis dove into the Wind Wall and swam downwards. The low Energy density up in the air hadn't been an issue in Gravis' earlier breakthrough since he had used Energy Stones. But now he had to use his normal Energy storage to move Energy into his mind. He would need to regenerate the Energy from his surroundings, and the higher the Energy's density, the faster his Energy regeneration.
PLOP!
Gravis jumped out of the Wind Wall at ground-height and took his first step into the Core-Continent. Here, the Energy was the densest. Gravis felt the surrounding Energy and was surprised. He knew that the Core-Continent had denser Energy, but he hadn't expected it to be over ten times denser than the Middle-Continent.
If someone had a powerful enough will, they could reach the tenth level of Energy Gathering from the first in about one year by just relying on the natural Energy. Gravis rubbed his chin in thought. "Interesting. With this high Energy density, resources wouldn't be an issue. Plants with the ability to temper the body are probably also abundant around here. Literally, no one below the Spirit Forming Realm would need to strive for resources in here."
Gravis continued pondering. "This would make the whole cultivation journey completely different. Outside, people need to strive for resources to increase their realm, while their will is also tempered in this process. Outside, there are rarely such things as bottlenecks. Yet, in here, everyone has enough resources. The competition in here is probably not a fight about resources but a fight about pure tempering. I wonder if that makes the competition in the Core-Continent more relaxed or fiercer."
Yet, Gravis was happy that he hadn't gone to the Core-Continent earlier. If he had never needed to strive for resources, he wouldn't have such a powerful will. 'I guess this is the same reason why my father sent me to a lower world. If I could have relied on the world to gift me all these resources, I probably wouldn't be able to kill people a level higher than me.'
Gravis sat down and concentrated on his Energy. Initially, he had thought that he needed multiple hours to reach the Spirit Forming Realm, but now, it would only take a single hour. He had already counted the Core-Continent's higher density into his equation, but it was even higher than he had expected.
As time flew by, Gravis got antsier and more careful. He had committed the mistake of losing his vigilance once, and he wouldn't do so again. He was sure that Heaven would attack him in the next couple of minutes.
It was time for him to break into the Spirit Forming Realm!