26 Why is he still here? (1/2)
Leon's meal was brought out one by one until all 5 dishes was placed in front of him. The lovely aroma easily whets his appetite as he couldn't wait to dig in and demolish it all. However, he refrained from doing so.
He's living in a world full of danger, where he doesn't know when the Great Wall would be breached, and the safety of mankind jeopardized once more.
He had to focus on his cultivation. Sating his hunger and pleasure was secondary.
”Are you sure you can finish it all?” Mary asked with curiosity.
”I will try.” He didn't give a definite answer.
”Mm, good luck. Don't force yourself, if you can't though.” She said with some concern.
Leon nodded, not sure why she cares whether he can finish it or not.
This woman was a strange creature. Making trouble for him one moment then showing concern the next. Maybe she just wanted his attention? Leon wasn't sure but it didn't matter.
Leon tested the tenderness of each dish with a fork. Each dish felt more tender and juicier than the next. When Leon rest his eyes on the beast meat with the metal attribute, he was at a bit of a loss.
Ting* ting*
'Is this even edible?'
The metallic texture made it seem terribly tough. He would probably break his teeth trying to bite into such a thing.
”Hmm... How is this meant to be eaten?”
”Hehehe, if you pour the special sauce on it, the meat will become soft and tenderized.” Mary explained to him after giggling.
Leon did as instructed, and the result was as she said. The meat really did go soft! Such an interesting discovery.
”This is really fascinating. I wonder who came up with such a novelty.” Leon praised.
”It was my grandma. She is a master chef. She likes to research different ways of preparing beast meat.” Mary could not help feeling a bit proud as she commented.
”Her title as master chef is well deserved. Are you going to watch me eat?”
”Eh? No... P-Please enjoy your meal.” She blushed and left.
...
Leon focused on his meal, taking a few bites from each dish equally.
The taste was heavenly and filled him with extreme bliss. He had strong urges to keep eating but he forcefully restrained himself from doing so and focus on refining the energy that entered his body.
He continues repeating the same step of taking a bite then cultivate.
”What is that guy doing?”
”I'm not sure. He seems to be trying to meditate, while eating.”
”Why would you choose meditate when you are eating? That doesn't make sense.”
”Then why is he doing it?”
”How would I know? Why don't you go over and ask him?”
The crowd continue discussing Leon's weird action. Leon didn't care what they said as he filtered out their voices and focused solely on his Divine practice.
There were 9 layers to the tempered body state. After every 3 layers was a small bottleneck, one would need to overcome.
This is due to the limited space within the glabella.
One would need a large amount of energy to expand the space and overcome the bottleneck. Unless special methods were used, one would reach the maximum naturally expandable size after achieving the peak 9th layer.
To promote their strength further, they would have to compress their energy to create more space.
When they successfully compress all their energy strands into liquid form, they would have broken through the tempered body and entered the energy condensation state.
Leon was still far from the peak tempered body layer. He was concentrating on breaking through to the 4th layer.
...
4 hours quietly passed by before Leon finally managed to gather up enough energy to storm into the 4th layer. The process was like flooding a water balloon with extra water causing it to stretch and strain. Leon gritted his teeth and perspire from the pain due to the expansion of his glabella space.