Ronan tapped a finger against his chin, deep in thought. He wasn't sure he'd made the right decision, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

Not to say he wasn't pleased with his progress. After the last week and a half of cultivating, resting, and occasionally practicing with his weapons to get used to the knowledge he'd been granted by blade maestro, Ronan had pushed his cultivation as far as it could go.

Unfortunately he'd only managed to get one more realm in soul cultivation, but he'd made the decision not to go any further when he realised just how ridiculously slow his progress had become. His talent multipliers were good, so it must have been a combination of the difficulty and the lacking level of his shards.

There was also the fact that pushing all of the four paths up together would mean earning more chronos merits, which he was hoping would be enough to get him that second sub-class at the end of this iteration.

Congratulations! Your hard work and effort have allowed you to reach the tenth realm of Prismatic Soul Cultivation!

Prismatic Soul Cultivation has advanced from [Orange ★★★★] to [Orange ★★★★★]!

Soul weight is increased by 16%

Cultivation talent is increased by 110%

What he did notice was how much faster the other three paths were to cultivate than his soul, especially crystalline mind. It meant that the lack of a cultivation art for prismatic soul was heavily impacting him, and also that the cultivation talent bonus from the soul path was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Congratulations! Your hard work and effort have allowed you to reach the eleventh realm of Crystalline Mind Cultivation!

Crystalline Mind Cultivation has advanced from [Agate ★★★★★] to [Agate ★★★★★★]!

Mental processing speed +37.5%

Nerve processing speed +75%

Mental damage resistance +87.5%

Efficacy of wisdom, dexterity, acuity, and charisma +120%

Potency of wisdom, dexterity, acuity, and charisma +30%

Congratulations! Your hard work and effort have allowed you to reach the eleventh realm of Mystic Energy Cultivation!

Mystic Energy Cultivation has advanced from [Pulsing ★★★★★] to [Pulsing ★★★★★★]!

All forms of energy regenerate 150% faster

Energy costs are reduced by 50%

Efficacy of endurance and regeneration +120%

Potency of endurance and regeneration +30%

Congratulations! Your hard work and effort have allowed you to reach the eleventh realm of Tempered Body Cultivation!

Tempered Body Cultivation has advanced from [Copper ★★★★★] to [Copper ★★★★★★]!

Reduces chance of tendon, joint, and muscle damage during movement and combat. Efficiency of bodily functions is increased. Durability, muscle memory, and bodily independence are minutely increased.

Physical damage reduction +87.5%

Efficacy of vitality, strength, agility, and resistance +120%

Potency of vitality, strength, agility, and resistance +30%

He had unfortunately discovered that the second threshold took more realms to reach than the first, but Ronan was nothing if not able to break through a stubborn wall. Whatever the case, these improvements would benefit him in the second step of the path.

This time he wasn't giving a speech before the crowds before heading in. Whether that was standard protocol or a result of what happened the last time he'd gone out onto the staging platform, he didn't know. He didn't really care. Given the creep in difficulty he suspected he might die during this next challenge.

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0…

Welcome back to the Path of the Gladiator, Ronan Steele!

The second step on your path is to escape from the Skavarex Solar Prison!

You will be sent in alone and the only assistance you will receive is the sponsorships and gifts you have been given. Between each step of the path your sponsor will be able to meet with you and provide you more resources based on their personal limit.

Please select a starting location for your escape:

General Population Dormitory Cells [Difficulty: Hard] [Rewards: Average]

Dangerous Prisoner Isolation [Difficulty: Harder] [Rewards: High-Highest]

Black Tag Dungeon [Difficulty: Nightmare] [Rewards: Excessive]

Ronan took one look at the difficulty options and realised that he was almost certainly going to die before completing the second step. The only question was whether he wanted to die really fast or only regular fast.

If I'm going to a prison that means whatever is locked up inside will be nasty pieces of work, right? I can probably push my experience multiplier up with a quick brawl… A rather unorthodox and violent method of progression came to him as he considered his options, frozen in time and space.

Ah fuck, what if it's some kind of oppressive government and they're just political prisoners or something? The decision was tough but in the end the desire to progress won out. They'll be back alive when the iteration restarts anyway. No one in an alien space prison is going to be completely innocent, anyway. Gen Pop it is.

The moment he made his decision the system yanked him out of the waiting room and through the shifting void. That only lasted a half-second before he found himself in a cold metal box. There were strange holes in each wall, as well as the floor and ceiling. What the hell?

Before he could even take a look around he heard a loud mechanical whir and was blasted with six jets of ice cold liquid that smelled foul and burned his skin. He spat some out, grimacing as his tongue sizzled. Then the jets started again and he was hosed down with water.

While he wasn't happy about the treatment, the water had at least eased the chemical burns and left him feeling cleaner than he had in… about fifty lifetimes. Fuck me, talk about a power shower.

While flicking the rest of the water from his body, which for some reason was now completely naked, one of the walls opened up like a pair of sliding doors to reveal three towering armoured guards. Their faces were covered completely by masks so Ronan couldn't even guess at their species.

The two on the outside grabbed his arms and lifted him up off the ground while the other waited and then followed behind them. They didn't speak or even look away from the direction they were walking. Ronan passed by at least seven or eight different doors, and all the corridors were simply metal boxes with no defining features.

Eventually they reached halfway down one of the corridors and the two guards stopped and turned to face the wall. The third guard reached out an arm and tapped the wall with a metal rod three times, causing the wall to open.

All Ronan could see was an empty metal cube. The guards tossed him in and before he could say a word the wall shut on him, and the metal cube started to whir. He felt it moving, but couldn't tell the direction. I thought I was going to general population? This seems more like isolation…

The cube suddenly came to a stop. The door opened again and the wall behind him suddenly sprung out and smashed into Ronan's back. It wasn't the force of the push that got him but rather the suddenness of it all. He stumbled out, reaching up an arm to cover his eyes from the blinding fluorescent lights above. He heard a faint hiss and when he turned around the cube that had deposited him here was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, all he saw was hundreds of aliens of all sizes and species standing around staring at him with various expressions on their faces.

Most of them were either excited or… some mix between lust and hate? It was really hard to tell with all these new aliens. Ronan already struggled with the few species that had been added to his home planet.

The space he was inside seemed endless. Looking up he could barely make out the roof. It was a circular area, with the walls lined with endless jail cells. Right now he was on the bottom floor, and everyone around him had desperation written into their bodies.

No matter the species, the signs of starvation and neglect were clear. He doubted he would even need to start the fight he was looking for. One thing he could see on almost everyone were their tags. And despite how weak most of them looked due to malnutrition, even the weakest of them was a higher level than him.

Breaking the silence that had fallen after his arrival, a huge, nine-foot tall alien stepped towards Ronan. It had six strange limbs that ended in what looked like octopus suckers and a flattened head with four eyes and a beak instead of a mouth. It stopped right in front of him and stared down.

"It looks like dinner has arrived, boys!" Ronan's translation skill allowed him to understand the strange clicks and gurgles it made.

There was no way he was becoming some alien octopus' food. Conjuring a shortsword, he took a step back and then thrust it right into the alien's midsection while activating all of his skills. It was time to see just how many levels he could gain before going down.

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