26 You Wanna Join Our Squad? (1/2)

According to Tzatziki's instructions, now that Jam reached the Muscle Realm of Body Refinement, he could return to Energy Cultivation. Jam would now reform his Dao Palace, with the help of the various arrays he had previously prepared.

Jam's Dantian Space and Dao Palace had an overwhelming amount of stellar energy. That was, after all, the energy Jam had previously been using the most, in an effort to hide his affinity talents.

Jam would need to dispel some of his stellar energy. Only then could he allow space, time, fire, and thunder energies occupy space in his Dantian Space. While dispelling some of his stellar energy, Jam would be replacing it with the other four types of energies.

He began with space energy, then time energy, fire energy, and finally thunder energy in that order. After redistributing his energy types to be equal and evenly spread out over his Dantian Space, Jam could begin to reform his Dao Palace.

Fortunately for Jam he had enhanced his resistance to pain through his recent training with Body Refinement. Otherwise, reforming his Dao Palace would be a truly miserable experience for him.

To reform a Dao Palace, one would have to destroy the current version. The pain of crippling an already made Dao Palace would be one of the greatest pains imaginable, never mind destroying it completely.

Jam took several deep breaths and began imploding his Dao Palace. He chose to use a Barrier type superpower, to make the destruction in his Dantian Space limited to only his Dao Palace.

Compared to training in the Muscle Realm of Body Refinement, destroying one's own Dao Palace was a bit more painful. Jam himself almost passed out before completely destroying his Dao Palace; which was very dangerous. The rampaging energy within him might escape out of the barrier he set up if he lost consciousness.

Fortunately, Jam only passed out after confirming with the last shred of consciousness he possessed, that his Dao Palace was completely destroyed. When he woke up again, he felt miserable. A feeling of weakness accompanied the destruction of the Dao Palace, and Jam once again found himself at the start of the Palace Creation Stage; regressing an entire Stage in cultivation.

After regaining his bearings, Jam weakly sat up and activated all his energy attracting arrays to recreate his Dao Palace. Since Jam already had the experience of creating a Dao Palace, making another one would be faster this time around. His first Dao Palace was created in one and a half days, but this time it only took half a day to complete.

The recreated Dao Palace had the same dimensions as the previous Dao Palace, but that was pretty much the extent to their similarities. From the atmosphere of the Dao Palace, to its colors scheme and runes, everything about Dao Palace had changed.

The original Dao Palace was dark and evil, while this new version was uplifting and inspired feelings of worship on those who could sense it. Before, the colors of the Dao runes matched their Dao's natural color, but now, all the runes that covered the Dao Palace where tinted gold and purple.

Additionally, the runes changed from pure Dao Runes, to Dao Runes slightly modified to the shape of the runic structure of Jam's Dantian Space. In a way the Dao Runes had changed to become more like Jam, instead of becoming more profound towards the essence of their respective Daos.

After reconstructing his Dao Palace to equally fuse five energies, Jam became countless times stronger than before. At the very least, challenging Saint Realm experts should be possible now. However, Jam would at best only be able to handle False Saints, those at the first Stage of the Saint Realm.

Jam could only challenge these beings at the Saint Realm, because the gaps in strength that come from cultivation disparities, only start to ramp up after the Saint Realm. In the first two Realms of Energy Cultivation, a cultivator is focused on building his foundation, more so than gaining strength.

At the Saint Realm, cultivators can start to manipulate the Daos significantly, which is what contributes the most to their strength; unless they are a demonic beast, or if they focus on other cultivation systems.

Jam wanted to continue cultivating to reach Core Formation, but a knock on his door woke him up from his cultivation session. After a couple cultivation sessions, and the memory of Rina unsuspectingly intruding on his house, Jam had learned how to divided his senses in a way that made him aware of his surroundings while cultivating.

Outside of Jam's house Rina, Cynthia, Kirin, and Alex were talking to one another as they waited for Jam to answer the door.

Cynthia: ”Are you sure you want to bring him along with us?”

Kirin: ”Why not? He's reached rank 2.”

Alex: ”Yeah? Did you forget how he fights? He has barely any experience. He might hold us back.”

Rina: ”Oh really? I wouldn't be so sure about that.”

Alex: ”Oh? What makes you say that?”

Rina was going to continue talking, but Jam opened his door.

Jam: ”Can I help you guys?” Jam was very confused as to why his classmates were outside his door. Jam once again checked with his internal clock and made sure there were still several days before the next class; a sense of déjà vu hit Jam.

Rina: ”We're here to invite you to be the final member of our squad for the Biannual Academy-wide Hunting Competition.”

Jam: ”?” Jam had a look of total confusion on his face. 'Cecily didn't mention this event along with the other important events to me on the first day. The fuck is this?'

Kirin: ”Mate, only people in the top 200 of the power ranking can enter the Biannual Hunting Competition. You only recently entered the power rankings, so you've probably never heard of this competition.” Kirin read Jam's face, correctly guessed what question Jam was deliberating over, and answered it.

Jam: ”Oh? Well, what do I have to do?”