When he reached the fourth cycle, after three semi-failures, Ronan was losing hope in the cultivation art being worth losing an opportunity at an item. However, as the cycling shard energy reached the halfway mark, and he attempted to guide it to split, the feeling shifted.

The first split came with ease, and by focusing, Ronan was able to maintain two separate streams of shard energy throughout the remainder of the fourth cycle. It was almost impossible to tell the difference, once the energy had settled, between cultivating with the art compared to without it.

Persevering as he consumed the rest of the energy in the shard, and that of his other shards, Ronan tried to continue to master the art and improve his cultivation. As he did so, he was trying to better gauge the difference.

By the time the boss shard crumbled into glittering dust, he had found the answer. Along with earning himself another realm in mystic energy cultivation.

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

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

All forms of energy regenerate 40% faster

Energy costs are reduced by 12%

Efficacy of endurance and regeneration +20%

At present, using the cultivation art wasn't that much more efficient than he'd been without it. The increase was perhaps in the single digit percentage range, if that. However, Ronan had only managed to split the shard energy into four streams before it returned to one and settled inside him.

Knowing that there were likely to be nine streams he could possibly generate, that meant he'd barely reached the halfway mark for the cultivation art. He estimated that once he had reached 100% proficiency, or close to it, the art would prove its value.

Not only that, but he was now going to hope for more cultivation arts in future. If he was able to collect high rarity arts for each of the four forms of cultivation, then he would be able to skyrocket his progression rate.

With every new advantage he gained, he would grow even faster. It was like compounding interest, but instead of increasing his capital, Ronan was directly improving himself.

With all of his shards consumed, there was only one thing left for Ronan to do in this branch. He fought his way up the boss tower once more, and was able to hold out against Veloxis for a few seconds longer than the last time. Each fight was an improvement. He couldn't wait for the moment he stole the fox boss' skill.

In the third branch, it was time to take the final skill from his temporary allies. Alyssa wasn't a flashy fighter, using her shortsword and darting in and out of combat. However, she was effective when her strengths were utilised correctly, and Ronan hoped to find out just what made her such a confident combatant.

He used the guise of a sparring session to get her to drop her guard long enough for him to use the skill-stealing mirror. It worked well. Not only did Ronan acquire her skill, but the spar was actually informative—Alyssa beat him on pure technique, and he only won the overall spar due to his excessive stats and experience.

Skill Stealing Mirror (Epic) has been successfully consumed!

You have obtained the skill [Accumulating Agility (Uncommon)]

Accumulating Agility (Uncommon): Gain +1 to agility for every 10 points of agility you possess. Does not include stat bonuses.

The skill that Ronan acquired from Alyssa was both surprising and expected. Surprising because with how she moved and fought, he would have thought she had a skill backing her. Expected because she was damn fast.

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Still, he wasn't complaining. Gaining another of the stat boosting skills was a major buff. It also brought him one skill closer to collecting them all, and potentially alloying them into a super stat boosting skill.

He was able to push himself further along in cultivation once again. However, with only the few shards at his disposal, Ronan was unable to push for the next realm of mystic energy cultivation. That didn't mean he made no gains.

He would keep a third of the progress made when he died. That meant next time he should reach the fifth realm. Not only that, but he was able to improve his proficiency in the Nine Mouths Delta Mystic Energy Art even further. He could now split the shard energy into six separate streams before they returned to one.

Oddly, despite it only being a small increase on his previous iteration's limit of four, the improvements in energy absorption efficiency were huge. He suspected that once he fully mastered the art, achieving even the sixth, or perhaps seventh realm might be possible on just this branch path.

When he died to the boss this time, Ronan survived nearly a full twenty seconds. It was a huge improvement.

Unfortunately he didn't get the notification regarding mutations while he was in branch paths. That meant he had no idea if learn through suffering was working each time Veloxis killed him.

It should be. The skill wasn't called 'learn through dying,' after all. It was just his heritage interacting with it and twisting it in strange ways.

Regardless, Ronan was excited for this iteration. He had already obtained the skills of his three teammates, and it was finally time to start hunting bigger prey. First on the menu, Vulparis the Trickster.

Ronan had already broken the fox mini-boss' illusion. Instead of napping in the middle of the street, the oversized fox was actually cultivating while watching the surroundings for threats.

Despite its caution, the fox in the level 50s would be no match for him. Not that Ronan even needed to kill Vulparis in order to steal its skills. All he had to do was distract the monster.

He made sure to enter loud and hot. Vulparis took note immediately, but rather than rushing to put him down, the fox seemed to cast an illusory spell before slowly approaching Ronan, who was acting disoriented.

In fact, he had used the skill-stealing mirror the very moment Vulparis came into view. Now it was a race against time.

Would he be able to hold off the voracious fox to buy time for his epic item to work, or would the creature figure out his game? Ronan didn't even know if monsters were aware of items. Did the monsters go through a tutorial? Do they know what an endless treasury token is? Perhaps they'll have some innate way to break the magic…

Even with those thoughts running through his head, there was no choice for Ronan but to fight the fox. Even though the five-tailed fox and the man were about similar levels, and heights, the difference between the two was night and day.

Ronan had an epic class which gave him an absurd quantity of stats, plus he was sort of cheating. Thanks to his heritage, he had sorcerer as a subclass and it had provided him with stats ever since level 0.

The fight was far easier than he'd expected. The first time Ronan had defeated Vulparis, it had been bloody, strenuous, and violent. This time around, he was far more methodical.

His excessive stats gave him the freedom to slice the monster apart before it even had a chance to fight back. The skill stealing mirror pinged him, ready for assimilation.

Skill Stealing Mirror (Epic) has been successfully consumed!

You have obtained the skill [Light Manipulation (Rare)]

Light Manipulation (Rare): Allows the user a basic grasp of light mana and the ability to manipulate light and shadow to pass off any image they so desire. (Cost: Variable Mana Cost).

Now that was a skill worth stealing, Ronan thought to himself. While it was fairly basic as far as magic went, it was exceptionally valuable. The first reason being the obvious applications—Vulparis had first appeared to them as a sleeping fox. The second reason would prove far more complex, but potentially had even greater potential. Turning light manipulation into a skill he could practice freely.

In this iteration Ronan wasn't able to push his proficiency of the cultivation art forwards by as much. At least not visibly. He improved from six streams of energy to seven. A step forward was still worthwhile, even if it was one's only advance. What he did gain this time was perhaps even better.

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

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

All forms of energy regenerate 50% faster

Energy costs are reduced by 15%

Efficacy of endurance and regeneration +25%

Having accomplished everything he set out to do, Ronan made his way to the final boss once again. He was getting better acquainted with the boss. Soon he might even figure out how the annoying little fox was killing him so fast each time.

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