Over the next few days, Brandon White kept grinding his mastery of Armament Haki, using the endless parade of mutated beasts in the nature reserve as live sparring partners. Naturally, he didn't let their corpses go to waste—if anything, the meat just kept getting better as the world's spirit energy revived.
With every meal, both Brandon and Yue Frost found themselves becoming pickier. Ordinary food was starting to taste bland, even unappetizing. It wasn't just the flavor: the satisfaction—body and soul—that spirit-infused beast meat provided was on a whole different level.
For Yue, the changes were even more obvious. Days of devouring mutated beast dishes had powered her up quickly, her internal spirit energy rising until she could feel a bottleneck forming.
Today, as she sat cross-legged on her bed, doing her best to refine the energy in her body, something… shifted. Her face went from confusion to concentration, eyes closed, when she suddenly heard a faint crack—like something shattering inside her.
A tidal wave of spirit energy in the air rushed toward her, flooding her body. It didn't last long—maybe half a minute at most—before fading away, everything going still again.
"…Was that… a breakthrough?"
Yue opened her eyes, looking puzzled.
"Looks like it."
Brandon had appeared in her doorway, arms crossed, studying her with interest.
"You don't even have a proper cultivation manual, but your body still hit a limit, and when you'd accumulated enough energy, you just… broke through. The way the local spirit energy surged into you means your strength's gone up another notch. Interesting."
"You've never had a breakthrough before?"
Yue shook her head, still dazed. "No. I didn't even know that was a thing."
"First time, huh?"
Brandon made a mental note to ask Firewing about it later.
Yue was talented, but without all the beast meat she'd eaten lately, it would've taken her much longer to reach this point. Firewing and the others, though—they'd probably gone through this a while back.
As for himself? He'd stopped thinking of himself as 'normal' a long time ago. He doubted he'd ever hit a bottleneck again—at least, not until he started treading the path to godhood.
"Breakthroughs? You're telling me that's a thing?"
Firewing, when questioned, looked genuinely baffled. "You can get a breakthrough without even having a cultivation method?"
"So you haven't experienced it either?"
Brandon tapped his chin, mulling it over. "Maybe it's a talent thing. People with higher aptitude might start at a higher level—like you, for example. When your powers awakened, you could summon beasts that could flatten most average ability users."
"Yue's pretty talented, but she's still way below your tier. Honestly, it's only because she's been eating so much mutant meat that she even managed to break through now. If she were stuck with her natural aptitude, she'd still be waiting a while."
"No news from the higher-ups about this?"
"There might be something," Firewing admitted, rubbing her neck. "I've just been swamped with training and Bureau work. I'll check for any new files when I'm back at HQ."
She glanced at Brandon, eyes narrowing. "Speaking of beast meat, you have been saving my share, right? We talked about this! You and Yue didn't forget me and eat everything yourselves, did you?"
"Cough… It's still there," Brandon said, a little embarrassed.
(Truthfully, it was there—but not as much as she might have hoped. Appetite was a tricky thing.)
"Hmph. That's what I thought." Firewing rolled her eyes. "You and Yue both… I sent her to the reserve to train, not just to pig out."
She paused, then went on. "Honestly, she doesn't need that much meat. What she really needs right now is to hone her mindset, her skills. Less meat, more practice. Tell you what, halve her share from now on. Save the rest for me."
Brandon gave her a look. "You sure about that? If she finds out, you'll have a fight on your hands."
Firewing ignored him. "Is that stuff actually tasty?"
"You don't even know what it tastes like, and you're already trying to steal Yue's share?"
Brandon rolled his eyes.
"It's amazing. Have you ever watched 'Cooking Master Boy'? It's on that level."
Firewing's eyes lit up. "Wait, like, the glowing dishes?"
"Exactly. It's that good."
Firewing didn't hesitate. "Alright, cut Yue off from beast meat. Too much meat isn't good anyway—she should eat more veggies. Save the good stuff for me."
Brandon shrugged. "Up to you. If you can convince her, go ahead and try."
At this point in the spirit energy revival, there still wasn't any official system for measuring supernatural 'realms' or 'ranks'. But the military districts were already seeing some gifted individuals break through, albeit not at the same level as prodigies like Firewing, Skyler Quinn, Ethan Yates, or Charles Longfellow.
Still, those prodigies were operating on an entirely different level from everyone else. Even though they hadn't hit any bottlenecks, their sheer power was so far beyond ordinary 'breakthrough' warriors that it made the concept feel almost meaningless.
Brandon's theory—once confirmed by Firewing and the others—was that certain people just awakened at much higher levels. For people like them, breaking through would mean entering a whole new domain entirely. But until someone reached that domain, nobody could say what it looked like.
One thing was certain: whenever someone else caught up to Firewing and the rest, they would simply push the boundary even further. That's what being a true prodigy meant.
Throughout all of Vantora, no one—except maybe Brandon himself—could match their talent.
And as for Brandon… at this point, nobody really considered him human.
The era of spirit energy revival was destined to see a flood of new supernatural systems: new martial arts, unique cultivation methods, and techniques nobody had even dreamed up yet. Martial arts manuals, mystic formulas, physical enhancement techniques, battle arts from every legend or fantasy—they weren't out of reach anymore.
With enough talent and creativity, nothing was impossible. The only thing holding anyone back now was the limit of their knowledge.
(End of Chapter 47)
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