Wang Teng ran more than ten kilometers before finally stopping. At the peak of a mountain, he found a cave over ten meters deep and settled inside.
"I've struck it rich… absolutely struck it rich…"
Suppressing his excitement, he exited the deeper space and returned to reality.
His mental power then flowed into the space within his body. There, he saw the pool water lying below him, dense to the extreme, with surging magical energy slowly spilling out.
"So that black strange stone was actually a Shadow Magic Crystal. With a chunk this big, Tang Yue is in for a blessing—this could push her straight to fully mastered Advanced tier, or even Super tier."
"One Water-element Magic Diamond, three ordinary Magic Diamonds. And this pool water is attribute-less magical energy… not bad, not bad. I can actually use all of this!"
Feeling the vast magical energy stored in his personal space, Wang Teng grinned from ear to ear. Pulling off this job would let him live off the gains for three years.
"Cultivate—now!"
He immediately guided the liquid magical energy into his body. His physique was like someone who had been starving for a century, greedily devouring the magical energy that flooded inside him.
His previously stagnant demon realm began to rise at an astonishing speed. For demons, resources were simply too important for cultivation.
As a Space-type demon, the magical energy he could absorb was either Space-type magical energy—also called Dimensional-type—or attribute-less magical energy. The first two were essentially the same.
Attribute-less magical energy was relatively rare. Because it lacked any attribute, it was extremely gentle, allowing all magic systems and demons to absorb it.
Magical energy was easily influenced by the environment, altering its nature—this wasn't just talk.
During the daytime, Light and Fire magical energy were highly active. Under intense sunlight, magical energy activity was even stronger. But at night, especially deep into the night, Shadow magical energy became extremely active, while Light magical energy almost vanished.
At its core, attribute-less magical energy, influenced by environmental changes, manifested as elemental magical energy.
Compared to attribute-less magical energy, elemental magical energy had distinct characteristics and provided certain bonuses to mages or demons of the same element.
Simply put: it was absorbed faster and could be used directly.
After absorbing attribute-less magical energy, it would automatically convert into corresponding elemental magical energy based on the attributes already present in the body.
That was the difference.
This cultivation session lasted several months.
Then, the demonic power accumulated within his body suddenly shattered its restraints. An incomparably intense wave of demonic power exploded outward.
The surrounding space rippled like water under the impact, spreading outward. Everything in its path twisted and was destroyed.
Even the cave was warped by spatial ripples. The originally solid rock emitted ear-piercing cracking sounds, splitting apart layer by layer or being ground into powder…
As Wang Teng abruptly opened his eyes, his gaze seemed to take physical form, leaving behind two distorted streaks in the void!
"So this is the Commander level! This is insane—completely incomparable to the Warrior level!"
Wang Teng was overjoyed. Lowering his gaze, he casually picked up a small rock. With a light rub between his fingers, its former hardness vanished, crumbling like dry soil into dust.
"And even my demon arts have changed. If operating demon arts at the Warrior level felt like forcing a small horse to pull a heavy cart, then at the Commander level it's as effortless as eating and drinking."
His eyes focused, his body flickering in and out of existence. The Void Stealth demon art had become an instinctive innate ability. At his current realm, its demonic power consumption could practically be ignored.
After adapting to Void Stealth, he once again sank his consciousness into his personal space—Void Treasury. Demonic power surged, and the space rapidly expanded.
It only stopped once it reached a radius of a hundred meters around him. The stability of the entire space also increased dramatically.
A personal space wasn't about being large for its own sake. Stability came first—ensuring powerful absorption capabilities and perfect control. That was the core.
"This breakthrough from Warrior to Commander skipped over Great Warrior, Advanced Warrior, and Sub-Commander—three entire stages in one go."
"The consumption was massive. All the pool water is gone, one ordinary Magic Diamond has been used up. What's left are one Water-element Magic Diamond, two ordinary Magic Diamonds, and a large chunk of Shadow Magic Crystal."
"But it was all worth it."
Wang Teng took stock of his assets. Even though there were only a few items left, each was immensely valuable.
"Let's see how much time has passed…"
He casually took the phone out of his personal space and powered it on.
"Still works—good."
Seeing the screen light up, he let out a sigh of relief. To conserve battery, he had deliberately turned it off.
"Hm? Tang Yue sent me messages…"
Each message was spaced far apart. She probably knew he was deep in demon territory and couldn't be disturbed.
Five months ago:
"Are you okay?"
Two months ago:
"The academy has started field training. You're counted as absent this time—no training points."
Half a month ago:
"The training ended. The academy is basically on break now. I'm just teaching classes occasionally. The Black Vatican's traces are appearing more and more frequently."
Seeing this, Wang Teng immediately sent her a reply.
"My objective is complete. I'll be heading back in a few days. I'll call you when I return—got a surprise for you."
After sending it, he turned off the phone again and placed it back into his personal space.
With his strength having surged, his combat style needed adjustment. His close-combat abilities had barely been developed so far.
Now that he possessed such a powerful physique, martial arts needed to be picked up again. Demon art development also had to continue—walking on two legs.
As for magic, there was no rush. That could wait. There was plenty of time. His two magic systems were currently stagnant anyway.
Wang Teng adjusted his condition and began roaming the demon lands alone. At the Commander level, he had more than enough ability to protect himself.
Unless he encountered a Monarch, his demon arts would keep him undefeated.
Since there was still time, he might as well earn some essence fragments on the way back.
After consecutive breakthroughs, he had gained a deep understanding of the demon path.
Demons specialized in the physical body, which resulted in generally weak mental strength. Every major breakthrough caused mental strength deficits—or rather, the realm advancement raised quality requirements, leaving mental strength insufficient and producing remnant souls.
These required long periods of natural nurturing to recover. Of course, this process also gradually strengthened a demon's mental power.
That was why killing demons rarely yielded full essence souls—most were remnant souls.
To reliably obtain essence souls, one had to target demons in advancement stages: Servant advancement stage or Warrior advancement stage, where the drop rate was extremely high.
In other cases, the chance was very low—unless the demon specialized in mental strength, in which case the probability was fairly decent.
Human mages, however, had a much higher chance of dropping essence souls than demons.
This was also one of the reasons demons were particularly fond of hunting human mages.
Especially top-tier demons—they specifically targeted Advanced-tier mages. Their essence souls contained massive amounts of magical energy and mental strength.
Quite simply, they were the finest delicacies.