While Mira's body was recovering at an extremely fast rate, it'd still take her a few days before she's able to even think about putting up a fight against something that could one-shot a Stage 1 Nascent Soul Realm expert.
It would also take her at least 15 minutes to fill up her core with Qi, even in this environment.
That being said, she stood no chance against whatever was staring at her.
'As the saying goes, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. At this point, I can only hope I don't get attacked and prepare my black tail.' Mira thought to herself while feeling slightly bitter about this whole situation.
'At least I don't have to use my trump card on that idiot. Ahaha…'
Suddenly, Mira felt an overwhelming amount of danger and knew that the creature had decided to attack her.
'Of course, it'd attack…'
Then, with a thought, Mira waved her black tail and activated it.
'Ugh!' Mira grunted, not out of pain but surprise and disbelief. She felt her life force being sucked into her tail! Meaning that her black tail's ability uses her lifespan as fuel!
It kept sucking her vitality into her tail until about 10% of her lifespan was absorbed into her tail.
Then, as if it had a mind of its own, a vortex as black as the void appeared around her tail, obliterating everything in the surrounding area. The rocks, walls, ceiling, floor, minerals, and even the shadow that was about to attack Mira were sucked into her tail!
If one looked closely, one'd be able to see that this black vortex was entirely made up of the same black runes that had etched themselves into Mira's existence.
The shadow wanted to run as it felt its life flash before its eyes, but death isn't so easy to escape.
It tried sinking further into the ground, but death had already locked onto it!
The black vortex absorbed everything in the way between it and the shadow and eventually reached this so-called shadow. The shadow was actually a chimera-looking beast that seemed to be a combination of a bear, bat, cat, and some kind of mist-like creature.
It had a bear body, cat legs and tail, and bat wings. However, a black mist seemed to cover the outside of its body, making it look like some sort of formless entity.
The chimera tried sinking further into the ground, fully utilizing its mist-like body, but the vortex had already reached it.
Once the black vortex touched its body, all it felt was unbearable pain, but sadly, it wasn't even able to release a sound as the black vortex consumed its body and soul.
After killing the chimera creature, the vortex continued rampaging, destroying, and absorbing everything around Mira until it was satisfied.
The vortex shrunk and quickly returned to Mira's black tail.
However, although the vortex was gone, the ability wasn't over. Part of the vitality that the vortex absorbed from the chimera was returned to Mira. Unfortunately, this vitality didn't go towards her missing lifespan and was instead used to heal all the injuries in Mira's body.
Aside from that, Mira also felt a few more changes inside her body. For one, her core was completely filled up, and Mira felt her cultivation rising at a rapid pace as well.
Sensing this, Mira knew this was an opportunity, so she didn't waste any time sitting in a lotus position to cultivate.
Like the stages before, the Core Formation Realm was all about condensing Qi, but that's not all. It's called the Core Formation Realm for a reason. Although the main reason for the name is because to break through into this Realm, one must form their core, that doesn't mean one's core isn't subject to change throughout the stages in this Realm.
Aside from gathering and condensing Qi inside one's core, one must also use this Qi to expand their core.
Naturally, this is extremely dangerous because expanding one's core too much might damage the core, at best. At worst, one may even die if they aren't careful.
That's also why the Foundation Realm is so important. Not only does it form the foundation of one's cultivation, but it also gives you experience in handling Qi like this. Of course, breaking through Foundation Realm stages isn't nearly as dangerous as the Stages in the Core Formation Realm.
However, Mira is a bit different compared to other people. Her core is extremely strong. While this is great because only someone much stronger than Mira even has the capability of crippling her, it has its downsides as well.
One of those is that perfectly breaking through to the next realm needs an abundant amount of Qi and time. Of course, Mira could just fill up her core with Qi, barely expand her core, then condense it all and break through to the next Stage, but she would be wasting so much of her core's potential if she did that.
In the end, Mira could only keep absorbing Qi into her Core to slowly expand her core. It's also at this time that Mira realized she would be unable to rely solely on atmospheric Qi for her cultivation.
Well, she could, but it would drastically slow her cultivation, especially when she's ready to break through to the next realm. Just like right now, if she didn't suddenly receive a large influx of Qi, part of which was absorbed from the chimera and the rest from the cave that was destroyed and absorbed, it'd take her forever to break through!
After an unknown amount of time, Mira had finally digested all the Qi that her black tail absorbed, but even then, she wasn't able to break through perfectly. She still felt like her core hadn't reached its limit, even though she absorbed enough Qi that should be more than enough for a normal person to break through at least 2 Stages.
Fortunately, she expanded her core by about 25%, allowing her to store more Qi than before.
Mira finally opened her eyes and released a turbid breath, but then she felt overcome with weakness. Despite being full of energy and having all her injuries healed, she felt even weaker than before.
'It must be because I lost so much of my vitality at once. Now that I think about it, I just lost 10% of my lifespan in a few seconds. Fucking hell… No wonder I always felt apprehension about using my black tail. Although it's definitely powerful, using my lifespan as fuel is a bit… Should I say ironic? Using my life to bring about death, huh.'
While Mira thought like that, she also felt like it was a fair trade. She only had to use 10% of her lifespan to save her life.
But at the same time, with such a strong ability, what is there to fear?
'NO! What the hell am I thinking? This isn't an ability that I should rely on. I should only use it when death is certain, and there's no escape. Other than that, I shouldn't even think about using it.'
Mira regained her bearings and began checking her surroundings but was shocked by what she saw.
***
Thank you, Nyviria, for the 15,000 coins!
