Two Days Later;
Oak opened his eyes, and a smile formed on his face.
"Finally, I have transformed my Essence into Bronze Essence. Now, I just have to temper my body with this essence."
But his smile disappeared when he thought about it.
After all, to comprehend Bronze Element, he had to cross out the scientific knowledge of the element from his mind, just to perceive the Metal affinity of his body.
Because of his metal affinity, he managed to perceive the metal element hidden within his body.
He had to check his body with Essence every single minute for two days, just to find it and understand its properties.
Just as he knew, the human body consisted of five elements. So, he was able to feel the properties of the metal element and comprehend it.
Water was soft. Fire was hot. Wind was sharp. Earth was tough. Metal was malleable.
It encompassed the softness of water, the sharpness of wind, and the toughness of earth. It could even turn as hot as fire.
So, by combining these properties and turning his essence into such properties, he managed to create metal essence.
Of course, that wasn't enough.
He had to then turn metal essence into bronze, which required him to imagine the properties of bronze.
Fortunately, this was much easier since he knew the properties of bronze.
It was almost the same as metal. Metal Element's properties were similar to bronze element.
So, with just a few thoughts and concentration, he managed to turn his essence into bronze essence.
In these two days, he had to spend two hours each day refining more essence, otherwise he would run out of it.
So, he didn't have much essence in his body.
After comprehending Bronze Essence, he began to use his Martial Spirit to refine more essence and turn it into bronze essence.
The process was the same as before.
After finishing this process, he started transforming essence into bronze essence.
Upon doing so, Oak took a deep breath and started pouring the bronze essence into his cells.
Unlike before, where his essence was absorbed by the cells without his control, this process was not going to be so easy.
Only a small portion of the essence was absorbed by the billions of cells, so it didn't make much difference.
But now, he was putting all of the bronze essence into his cells.
It's like feeding someone so much that their stomach would bloat and burst open if not careful enough.
Thankfully, he was careful enough to put a limit on how much bronze essence he would use in a single cell.
This required so much concentration that he didn't even realize that it was already evening by the time he finished this process.
"It feels strange. Even though I should be hungry by now, I don't feel hungry. I should be tired, but I don't feel it. Is this the power of essence?"
Oak muttered.
Since he wasn't feeling hungry, he didn't need to go out and eat.
But out of habit, he did so. He went to the restaurant outside the sect. This restaurant was the only cheap restaurant in the Core Region.
It was made for the sect disciples who couldn't afford a high-cost meal.
But even so, every meal costs five bronze plates. That was much expensive than his usual meal.
Fortunately, his parents were cultivators and could afford his daily meals.
"Krishna, same as usual!"
He ordered while walking to an empty table.
The waiter heard him and immediately placed the order. Oak waited for five minutes before a plate full of rice, with curry on the side, and some veggies in a small bowl.
Krishna brought the meal to his table and started speaking.
"Oak, did you hear the recent news?"
Oak shook his head and said.
"Nope!"
"I heard there will be a new Monster Beast Attack on the Outer Region. Fortunately, I am living quite far from that place."
Krishna replied while sighing with a breath of relief.
For a moment, Oak paused and said.
"Is that so? Do you know when?"
Krishna nodded.
"Some powerful people have predicted that it will arrive in two months. This time, the scale of the attack will be at least twice that of before."
"Haa! I am not sure how many people will lose their lives. Just the previous attack took the life of nearly twenty-seven thousand people."
That was almost five percent of the total population living in the Outer Region. Although the Outer Region was almost three hundred miles wide, not many people lived there.
Most of the people living in the Outer Region were either low-level cultivators or ordinary people.
In this world, the population of these people wasn't that high.
Average cultivators with low to mid cultivation had the highest population, and these people lived in the Inner Region, where the population was over several million.
For a moment, Oak felt scared. Not for him but for his parents.
Although he was safe in this core area, his parents would be in danger.
This made his heartbeat soar. After that news, he didn't continue talking. He finished his meal and returned to the sect.
He immediately entered his room and sat on the bed.
He slapped both of his cheeks, coming out of a daze, and said.
"No matter what, I have to get stronger. Mom and Dad can't get stronger, but I can. I must protect them."
As someone who had been reborn in a new world, he was always afraid of losing his parents.
He had already lost his parents from his previous life. The only reason it wasn't heart wrenchingly painful was that they died of old age.
After being reborn in this world, he lived a pretty normal life, but it was fulfilling enough.
As a kid, his mother doted on him and always fulfilled his wishes. Considering he was an adult in a child's body, he wouldn't make ridiculous wishes.
He knew his family's condition, so his mother never got a chance to scold him.
His father would often brag about his cultivation every night when he was a child. Even though he knew his father was bragging, he listened to them carefully.
In a world without multimedia, these stories occupied most of his childhood.
He grew up with them, feeling completely different than in his previous life.
This feeling strengthened his bond with his parents even more.
This news truly shook him to the core.
The excitement he felt for comprehending Bronze Essence faded away instantly.
Now, he just wanted to get stronger and save his parents.
Not to mention the other cultivators, the major threat against his family was those Monster Beasts.
He sat down immediately, began to absorb the primordial energy from the surroundings, and started refining the primordial energy into essence
As essence filled his body, he started transforming essence into bronze essence. At the same time, he also tried to make it an instinct.
Not like when he needed to focus on transforming the energy.
This would take practice, a lot of practice. So, he wasn't worried about that.
He continued the process and kept filling his cells with Bronze Energy. Unlike his first time, he knew how much essence his cells could take.
But at the same time, the upper limit would increase by a small amount. This was the amount he could keep his mind on and increase his spending.
The more he used Essence, the more he felt like shopping.
He was basically using the Bronze Essence as a currency to strengthen the cells and get something in return.
That something was Internal Strength.
Until his cells were strengthened to a certain limit, he couldn't get the Internal Strength, but it was in progress.
Because this process was delicate, he didn't get a chance to think about something else.
He slowly forgot about the Monster Beast attack and put his mind on the strengthening process.
After finishing this process once more, he fell asleep.
While the process did make him less tired, he couldn't get out of his sleeping habit, especially when he had to train this habit for a year.
The next morning, he woke up early and went outside.
He did the usual exercises for an hour. Because it was early morning, there weren't many students.
After finishing it, he went to get some milk from the restaurant.
"Oak, aren't you going to buy the lunch?"
Krishna asked with confusion.
"Nope, I have already started my cultivation. I don't feel that hungry."
Since he wasn't going to feel hungry, Oak thought of saving some money.
After getting his response, Krishna nodded.
He was two years older than Oak, and he was also a cultivator of Second Rank.
He knew the effect of strengthening and told Oak to work hard on his cultivation.
He also asked Oak about his Martial Spirit and showed some envy.
Because he only had a Two-Star Martial Spirit.