Vergil hovered slowly towards Gwen’s waiting tentacles while Hank Williams Jr played in the background. It was a tradeoff; she taught him to use basic telekinesis to hover while he translated the song.

 

He lost control of his levitation and hit his head on a rock as he dropped 6ft. He hated translating songs; because there were too many questions.

 

Pain had become his friend in the hours before dawn while he tried to sneak in body refinement. Vergil felt that if he managed to get to the initial realm, then his strength could match up easier against the ape.

 

What would have killed him not long ago only gave him a headache. Vergil used Black Goat’s Embryo while lying on the ground, letting the soothing liquid treat his wounds. It was his most used technique besides Ostrich Oscillation. If he continued using it, the technique would naturally evolve with his cultivation. Eventually, he might be able to manifest a portion of the Black Goat Shub-Niggurath as an avatar. It was a summoning technique that was considered almost castle-like in its abilities.

 

“Why do humans drink this whisky? Does it improve body cultivation?” Gwen asked.

 

She liked to compare what he translated to her own people’s values. If an action wasn’t beneficial for cultivation, it was considered bad by the elders of her society. A fascination with humanity's preconquest culture made Gwen a Hippy.

 

It honestly made her feel like less of a brain-devouring monster.

 

“I’m not dead, thanks for asking,” Vergil said.

 

“Oh, is whisky a taboo subject to discuss with outsiders. Then why is it in your music?” Gwen asked.

 

“I could be hurt,” Vergil said.

 

“The steady frequency of your transmissions who evidence of the opposite. But is your noggin ok? Do you want me to kiss it like human parental units do in films?” Gwen asked.

 

He imagined her beak smashing his skull open in an attempt to kiss him and shook his head.

 

“I’m not hurt. Why don’t you keep searching for a leviathan vein while I hunt something to eat?” Vergil said.

 

“Those apes roam in troops, and we have only been here for a few days; what’s the rush? There is music to listen to. I’m making progress in my understanding of human culture.” Gwen said.

 

“Whisky is something humans drink to get drunk or forget about emotional pain,” Vergil said.

 

“So it's recreational and medicine,” Gwen said.

 

“No, I wouldn’t call it medicine,” Vergil said and licked the crack in his tooth. It had gotten worse and needed to come out. His mouth felt like a mess; he didn’t know if he wanted to tangle with the apes again.

 

Last time he barely survived one, and while he could talk a good game with Gwen, he still had flashbacks of the fight. The night before, he had a nightmare about it, and Gwen decided to hold him all night. It was emasculating.

 

The apertures made by his Burst technique still hurt even as he used his healing technique to soothe them. Raw pain still shot through his body when he moved the wrong way. He probably needed days to heal fully from them at his current rate. So instead, he decided to jump off the cliff and hope there weren’t too many rocks on the bottom.

 

Initial stage prenatal ki cultivation and intermediate stage mind cultivation had increased his strength to a ridiculous degree. Each type of cultivation built off the other, drastically improving his body over time. If he waited and let time and steady progress in cultivation work its crazy magic, he would be ridiculously powerful in no time. But like the leviathan veins, there was a resource he absolutely needed.

 

Void pearls increased his ki cultivation. Holding one in his hand gave a 25% increase in the spirit energy of heaven and earth he could cultivate. So, what if he had hundreds or thousands. Like the leviathan vein with mind cultivation, a large number of void pearls could give him hundreds of times his normal progress.

 

He left the cave and headed to the smallest source of the void pearls. Three apes lounged around a campfire roasting a fish. He followed their void pearls like a moth to a flame. He coveted them for the power they promised when he gathered enough of them.

 

Burst activated, and he felt a rush of psychic power increase his physical strength. At the same time, more apertures were drilled through his body. He floated a few inches off the ground in his approach. It's hard to hear his footsteps when there are none.

 

This time the rock was already in his hand. He planned to kill the first one before laying into the other two. Then, he would eat the fish before cultivating with their void pearls.

 

He could scarcely imagine a 100% increase in his ki cultivation speed. It was a shame that after 6 hours, the pearls he used to cultivate would dissolve.

 

Vergil got in close and smashed the rock down on the ape’s head once, and the others screamed before the second blow crushed bone. He threw the dead ape at the other before the third ape tackled him in the side.

 

He couldn’t allow the monster to put him on his stomach. That would take away all his offense and put him squarely on defense. But, on the other hand, it would have also protected his vital organs. Fortunately, he didn’t let go of the rock.

 

The chunk of granite in his hand bashed against the ape’s ear with the power of his trinity of cultivations. It stumbled before opening its mouth and lunching with its massive black canines. Vergil threw his arm in the path of the bite as the other one rushed him. He threw the rock with all his might hitting the ape in the face as pain lanced up his arm. It gripped his arm with both hands and shook its face delivering a savage bite.

 

Vergil grabbed the side of its head to stop it from doing more damage and ruptured its eye with his thumb. Then he poked in deep, stabbing into the ape’s brain. That’s when he felt the rock he threw smash into his face. Four of his front teeth broke along with his nose.

 

He managed to move the stunned ape on top of him into the second swing to shield himself. However, the hit pushed his thumb well into the ape’s brain, sending it into death throws. The other ape dropped the rock, grabbed Vergil’s hand hanging out of the dying ape’s mouth, and bit one of Vergil’s fingers.

 

The bone split before he lost it in the ape’s mouth. He saw the ape swallow it before Vergil removed his hand from the dead ape’s eye socket and found the ape’s balls. It howled and tried to pry Vergil off them while Vergil threw off the dead ape’s bite. Then, with a second hand free, he pulled down on the ape and used his elbow to get up to a knee.

 

Blood didn’t pour out of his arm; thanks to taking the embedded canine with him, it still spurted out of his finger stump. Vergil let go of the ape’s testicles after crushing them into gore and clapped the ape’s ears. Then, while it was dazed, Vergil found the rock and began beating the monster to death.

 

Once the ape was dead, he ripped open its throat, grabbed its esophagus, and began pulling out its innards while using sharp rocks to cut when needed. Vergil felt around the ape’s stomach and found the finger.

 

All the while, he kept burst going for the pain and anger. He needed it so he wouldn’t panic over losing a finger. Vergil didn’t want to know what he looked like at this point. Five teeth were broken, his nose was crooked, and he lost a finger. The fight couldn’t have lasted longer than a minute or two, but it felt like more.

 

He found its finger and pressed it against his still bleeding stump before dropping burst and activating Black Goat’s Embryo.

 

Vergil felt the finger stick to his stump and held it in place while he stared at the fish still on the spit over the fire. His stomach rumbled, and he felt the vital energy in the fish. Eating it would definitely help his body refinement.

 

He felt himself charge toward the initial stage of prenatal body refinement. After getting his ass handed to him in most of the fight, he started recovering. An odd sensation passed through his finger before the feeling began to return. Vergil let go of the digit, moved to the cooked fish, and took a bite.

 

After weeks of protein bars, it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. Vital energy flooded his veins, and it felt like a weight he always carried but never noticed lightened by a tiny fraction. Strength surged to his limbs as he crossed the first barrier into the initial stage.

 

It was the fight.

 

That much was obvious in retrospect. It was the deciding factor that let Vergil reach the initial stage of the prenatal realm.

 

He lifted his hand, snapped his nose back into place, and felt tears roll down the corners of his eyes. Then, after eating every bite of fish, he removed the void pearls from the bodies and moved on; there were more monsters to fight.

 

If he ever wanted to see his home again, he had to get strong and search the entire world for the sarcophagus.

 

With his increased strength, he was able to hunt the apes easier. He started using his mind more than as a punching bag for the apes that got a lucky swipe in. Vergil hovered a little over a group and threw a rock to get one to separate from the others. Once they were apart, he beat them to death with his rock before hovering over their heads and attacking those who investigated. Sometimes he wiped out troops of 10 or more like that.

 

Vergil rested and recovered his psi when he knew no apes were around. His energy detection technique proved invaluable time and time again. He wouldn’t risk taking a rest out in the open without knowing where the enemy was.

 

Before sundown, he returned to the cave, but Gwen was gone. With her cultivation at the silver rank and shield technique, there shouldn’t be anything that could hurt her. So, he cultivated with 150 for 6 hours and barely edged into the intermediate stage of the prenatal realm. Of course, he wouldn't have made it that far without the sheer number of void pearls. In a sense, he spent the equivalent of 15000 human lives for a little more than 9 days’ worth of constant cultivation.

 

Cultivating on the giant’s shelf for 10 minutes was worth all the concentrated cultivation with the pearls. That was without using void pearls there to accelerate cultivation even more. He didn’t know how much time Dante and the others had to cultivate, but it couldn’t have been long. That meant Vergil was much further behind than he thought.

 

With two of his three forms of cultivation in the intermediate stage of the prenatal realm, he felt much better. In addition, two technique slots were available, and he felt comfortable enough to advance his mind cultivation into the advanced stage of the prenatal realm.

 

This comfort only lasted until he opened his eyes and didn’t see Gwen. It was starting to get dark, and she wasn’t back yet. So instead, Vergil concentrated on his Ostrich Oscillation and felt its range stretch further after increasing his cultivation by a stage. He felt the familiar aura of her silver-ranked psi next to three other psions, dozens of humans, and Tyson.

 

She wasn’t moving, which was odd, and she was near a Leviathan vein but not close enough to cultivate. That meant she was trying to bargain for its use or was captured for some reason. Vergil couldn’t help but wonder if he could kill one of them with a rock.