CHAPTER 83: OLDEST IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Leon held the Baseball Bat in his hands tightly and closed his eyes. As ridiculous as the Galactus Shatterpulse Technique was, it was equally difficult to master.

According to Amber, there were only two Stages in it. Stage One would allow him to use the Baseball Bat as a proper weapon and adapt to the enemy’s attacking pattern.

Stage Two, however, would give him the ability to produce vibrations that could be transferred into his opponent’s body and affect their Pathways.

How those vibrations could affect Pathways when normal vibrations never worked, he didn’t know. When he asked Amber to explain, she just responded with a single sentence that irked him.

"You’re too weak, so you won’t understand."

And he truly didn’t.

All he knew was that he needed to produce vibrations in his bat and use them during battle, to enter Stage 1. The only small relief in this step was that the vibrations could be random, as long as he was in control.

But those vibrations had to be made in such a way that they didn’t affect the strength put behind the attack. Only then would he truly reach Stage 1.

For Stage Two, he needed specific vibrations and had to battle while using them. Only then would the Galactus Shatterpulse Technique show its true might.

’Whatever it is, I’ll master it.’

Leon was determined to reach Stage 1 of this technique at any cost. Once that happened, it would become his strongest weapon since the Baseball Bat was indestructible.

’She did say that the Second Stage can only be used with this Baseball Bat.’

She had even demonstrated by practicing with other weapons, and even a Tier 6 Sword had shattered immediately when Amber tried to use the technique on it.

The loss of that Sword definitely pained his heart...

Only the indestructible properties of the bat allowed the technique to be performed.

’Just Stage 1... that’s all I need.’

He kept his hands steady and tried to swing the bat with very minuscule movement. The shaking of the Bat would produce vibrations upon impact, and that was the goal.

But it was easier said than done.

Leon managed to create a steady shaking of the Bat and tried to smash the ground with it. As the indestructible bat hit the grassland below, only some dirt scattered, and the ground itself remained intact.

Leon clicked his tongue and brought the bat back up. ’I didn’t even get 50% of my strength out with that attack.’

The problem was that he could either keep the bat shaking to produce vibrations or put his strength into the swing. Doing both at the same time was far too difficult.

So, he continued to practice and exhausted all of his Essence in just a few hours. He tried everything as usual, but the results were minimal. Essence was consumed the fastest because he attempted to pour his Essence directly into the bat to control the vibrations from within.

But he couldn’t control the Essence once it was inside the bat, so this option was also impossible for the current him.

He even tried smashing the bat on the ground first and then immediately attacking since the top of the bat would be shaking. But this damned bat was so tough that it stopped shaking almost instantly.

That also meant he had to double his efforts to keep the bat vibrating continuously, even during battles. But how could a shaking hand produce full strength?

At least, he didn’t know a way to do that.

But he wasn’t someone who gave up easily. It had only been a few days, how could he give up so quickly? The path to becoming strong was never easy.

He knew it better than anyone.

So he continued to practice and only stopped when his hands were screaming in pain and his Essence was running dry. His body was beyond exhausted from the Galactus Shatterpulse Technique.

Leon threw the bat back into his inventory and let his tired body drop onto the soft grass. He only put in the effort to roll over onto his back and gaze at the warm cyan sky.

"I’ll need to change tactics," Leon muttered to himself. "This will take too long to master at this rate, even with Time Dilation."

He wasn’t scared of putting in effort or time, but he was terrified of being weak at the wrong moment. The future was going to be terrible, and he needed to be as strong as possible.

Putting all his time into a single skill wasn’t a good decision, even if it was a crazy skill like the Galactus Shatterpulse Technique.

After all, he had to use the Dungeon time to hunt too.

"Whatever. I’ll think when I’m out. For now, I’ll rest for a few hours and then practice again. I might need to find ways to expand my Soul Core without actually leveling up. That way I’ll have more Essence to waste on this. Yes, that’s the only way I can actually achieve Stage 1 of this Technique."

He continued muttering to himself as he tried to relax his tensed muscles along with his whole body. But due to his exhaustion, he couldn’t even move an inch, so he just lay there and tried to calm his mind.

Minutes turned into hours, and before he even realized it, his breathing turned even, and he began to lose consciousness. He once again felt himself floating in a dark plane towards the purple portal.

However, unlike previous times, his consciousness paused at the portal instead of passing through it.

Then, he had a dream so vivid that he felt he was there in person.

In his dream, he saw a tall volcanic mountain with its tip touching the grey sky covered by dark clouds. The peak of the mountain couldn’t be seen clearly, but lava poured endlessly from its summit.

The thing that stood out about this vast mountain, which seemed to be thousands of meters tall and so wide he couldn’t even see its end, was the fact that its slopes were perfectly steep, without a single bump or natural platform.

Unlike the mountains he was familiar with, this one didn’t have jagged surfaces, making climbing on it seem impossible.

Yet there was one person attempting this impossible task.

A man wearing only torn lower garments, his muscular body exposed, was pushing a boulder ten times his size upward with a determined look on his face.

His silver hair danced in the air as his crimson eyes burned with the same lava that flowed at the peak of the mountain. He was already doing the impossible by trying to climb this steep mountain, but he added even more impossibility to it by pushing this boulder.

His motives were clear. He wanted to bring this rock to the very top, even though his bleeding muscles already told him the truth of the matter.

Golden blood leaked from his eyes, ears, nose, and even from his flesh itself as he neared halfway up the mountain.

Before the man could take another step forward, his feet slipped, and he fell to his knees. The boulder slipped from his control, rolled back under gravity, and trampled the man in the process.

Yet the man didn’t die.

With a body that should have killed him ten times already, the man stared at the sky with despair etched into his crimson eyes.

"One more failure!"

The dream ended there.