UNLIMITED SPEED

All the time Noah spent within his soul realm only numbered a few ten minutes, so when he woke up ten hours later feeling far better than he remembered, he could only sigh in relief.

'That was hella dramatic,' Noah thought marveling at the nigh emptiness of the room assigned to him. There were literally only four individuals in there. Five, plus him. Even at that remained an incredibly small number.

The others still looked asleep, a detail Noah found normal. Feeling in a good mood, Noah figured that his brighter side was currently in control, and he didn't hesitate to check his soul realm out.

Feeling his consciousness get sucked into his body, Noah felt himself travel through a strange space to arrive inside a white environment.

Right at the center of the bottomless white environment, was an island.

Arriving on his island, Noah felt another wave of surprise sweep over him at the sight that lay before him.

His yellow-tainted island featured two sides; one heavily stormy, and the other calm and flourishing with the Speed Essence embedded into it. He immediately understood what was going on, but remained stunned anyway.

Moreover, a thin border not more than 5m across existed, where nothing was present not even land, only transparent ground. Noah could only wonder how such an environment was even generated but understood what it was.

'This is unexpected,' Noah thought, staring at the small area that allowed him to become apathetic. It seemed to keep things in a balanced state.

Glancing at his soul core, Noah felt relieved to see that it had merged well enough. Unfortunately, a white line existed on it, perfectly separating it into two halves.

'Is that a scar,' Noah wondered sliding his palm on the line. It felt just like the metallic material that made his core, but instead of black, it remained white.

Noah considered it to be the representation of the empty space on his island, but he also saw it as a scar to show how out of the norm his mind had become.

"Will it ever heal?" Noah asked the system, exiting his soul realm.

[[You'll need to undergo a significant advancement for that to happen]]

"So basically tier 4," he sighed getting off his bed. Feeling at his peak, Noah couldn't help but wonder how the change hadn't affected the system in any way. No panel, no nothing.

Ordering food from the platform. Noah ate to his heart's content. Partially surprisingly, his roommates were all asleep. Noah had further confirmed this after playing around their figures loudly.

"I wonder how long I was out," Noah thought, hoping the system would provide an answer for him.

[[Approximately 10 hours]]

"Oof!" he exclaimed wide-eyed. "We only have a bit more than an hour before the next stage begins. They better recover fast," he snorted.

With over an hour of free time available to him, Noah couldn't help tinker around with his newly gained assets.

"Is there anything I can do with a mana stone?" Noah enquired of the system, while playing with an orange mana core, and lying on his bed.

[[You can convert it into something usable]]

Feeling pleasantly surprised, Noah opened his mouth to speak, "Like what?" He asked now sitting up.

[[Speed force stones]]

Furrowing his brows at the words he read, Noah took a second or two to process it.

"Speed force stones," he muttered. "If it's anything like mana stones do you mean it'll be able to allow me to cultivate outside?" Noah muttered, directing his words at the system.

[[Affirmative]]

"Then let's do that!" He quickly responded.

[[Be aware that it'll be transformed into a rank 2-speed force stone. When you achieve rank 3 it would be useless]]

Noah relaxed at that point, soon falling into thought. The system's words were more of advice than anything. Now that he became so close to joining a guild that would allow him to earn, the gap between tier 4 and now had shortened exponentially.

Although it seemed he couldn't raise his comprehension of the speed force energy with the system, it could pull out something that could help later on. At least he hoped so.

'It'll be useless in a while,' Noah sighed but thought of how inconvenient it was to always have to return to his cultivation room to refill. Or use potions that damaged his core. And he figured he would need to do so soon since he currently had only a little over 2,000SE.

"Let's still do it," Noah eventually replied. "If worse comes to worst; when I achieve rank 4 I'll simply find another one," he shrugged.

[Would you like to upgrade a Mana stone to a Speed force stone]

[Yes/No]

Raising an eyebrow at the upgrade word Noah chose the affirmative option.

[Browsing through inventory for available Mana stone.....]

[High tier Mana stone found]

[Are you sure you want to continue with Mana stone "Yellow"]

[Yes/No]

[Note that you will be unable to reverse the process if you proceed further]

Hesitation couldn't help but seep into Noah's mind at the last panel. "Can't I use the orange one?" he questioned.

[[No. An orange mana stone is not sturdy enough to contain the power of the speed force, You'll simply break it]]

Clicking his tongue at the system's words Noah continued with the process. A large amount of willpower had to go into actually choosing yes, and he tried his best to not regret his action.

[Teleporting mana stone to User's cultivation room where the procedure will begin]

[Estimating upgrade time....]

[Estimation complete]

[Upgrade will take 10 days]

Surprisingly a sigh of relief exited Noah's mouth rather than a complaint. He had honestly expected a far longer period than that and was glad it wouldn't take more than that.

A weird feeling of nostalgia appeared inside Noah when the countdown for the whole process began. The excitement behind the completion of the upgrade reminded him of online orders on Earth.

A chuckle couldn't help but escape his lips when that realization dawned on him. "I seriously need something to do with myself."

A few trips to the food platform before they were summoned occurred, and Noah could only shake his head when he found that the others showed no signs of waking up.

"At least they weren't disqualified," Noah muttered shoving a spoon full of what resembled dumplings; but weren't, into his mouth. The taste of the brown-looking balls sauced with a red stew of sorts reminded him of a hamburger sided with sweet fried potatoes.

How all that flavor could exist inside something so small continued to baffle him.

As expected, a knock on the door signified the end of their resting session. And immediately it opened to reveal the familiar faces of lady Sophie and her team, he got off his bed.

Seeing that he was the only one awake, the expressions of the trio flickered in surprise, and Noah noticed it.

"Are you okay?" one of the males in that group asked him while the other went towards the remaining four, checking them out.

"A bit," Noah lied seeing as the other individual was feeding his still unrecovered roommates something.

His mind quickly fell on mind potions, a very valuable resource in the world of cultivation, more valuable than even mana potions.

"Drink this to feel better," the young man said handing a bottle containing a leafy-green liquid content to Noah.

However, before Noah could even receive the bottle, multiple groans and even a yelp rang out in the room. The others were awake, and they even looked energetic.