"You really like being mysterious."
June sighed, giving up on probing more about his past.
"When you find out about me, you can give me your opinion on what I should have done."
Noah said, receiving another poke from June.
They continued to talk and drink for the whole night, enjoying their peaceful time together.
As the first rays of the dawn entered the room, Noah interrupted his line of thought and focused back on his surroundings.
June had long fallen asleep on the couch, uncaringly stretching her legs over Noah's waist.
'Is this a habit of her? She sure doesn't care about appearances.'
Noah shook his head, carefully moving her legs away in order to stand up.
June didn't wake up, it seemed that the wine had relaxed her so much that she didn't even pay attention to the environment around her.
A bitter smile appeared on Noah's face as he stared at the girl quietly sleeping in front of him.
'If my situation was different, I wonder how our relationship would have evolved.'
He then turned, going back to the basement to rest.
He woke up in the middle of the night, it was the first time that he had taken a whole day of break from his training.
'Let's see if there are some changes.'
Noah sat in his usual cross-legged position and began to meditate in the Dark vortex technique.
"Breath" converged in his dantian through the vortex in his joint hands and black crystals slowly amassed in that organ.
However, after two hours spent cultivating, Noah felt that he could no longer absorb more "Breath".
He opened his eyes and they shone with excitement.
'Finally, the limits of the first rank of the dantian.'
There was still one month before he became eighteen but he had finally reached the breakthrough point.
'If I compare myself to the other nobles of the academy, my growth isn't that amazing.'
It had taken him four years and five months to cultivate all the way from the beginning of the gaseous stage to the peak of the solid one, which was only slightly above the average time used by noble cultivators to achieve that feat.
However, since he had obtained his dantian at the age of thirteen and a half, he wasn't even eighteen and yet he was ready to become a rank 2 cultivator!
'To think that June actually helped. Well, it was almost time anyway.'
Noah checked his condition.
He was virtually at peak form, he had only been awake for two hours after all.
'No reasons to waste time then.'
An item appeared in his hand.
It was a small bottle with a silver liquid inside it, just by holding it Noah could feel the "Breath" in his dantian tremble.
'I can finally use the Silver reagent!'
The Silver reagent was an item obtained in Eccentric Thunder's separate dimension.
It was one of the most commonly used reagents for the breakthrough in the second rank of the dantian.
Noah breathed deeply for a couple of times before drinking in one sip all the contents of the bottle.
Immediately, the temperature on his low waist rose as the "Breath" in his dantian heated up.
The scorching sensation reached the walls of his dantian causing immense pain to envelop Noah's body.
Nevertheless, his focus never wavered.
Noah enveloped his dantian with his mental energy and checked for problems in the procedure.
Advancing from the first rank of the dantian to the second one wasn't strictly a difficult process but it was a rather dangerous one.
The reagent forced the "Breath" to expel its impurities, refining it in a stronger form of energy.
Yet, a simple dantian could not contain that much power, it had to be upgraded in order to allow higher types of energy to be stored inside it.
What was used to increase its strength were exactly the impurities expelled by the solid "Breath".
They were still a form of energy after all, and they were even in their most simple form so they were easy to absorb.
However, if the cultivator didn't manage to block them and let them disperse in the world, there was the chance that his dantian could break due to the internal pressure of the stronger energy that it contained.
Noah's mental energy was strong and steady, it enveloped the dantian and didn't let any impurities reach the outside world.
They stood on the walls of the dantian, slowly nourishing its matter.
The organ then contracted, as its walls became sturdier and denser, it could not maintain the enlarged form that it had reached in the peak of the stage.
Noah controlled that no impurity left the area of the dantian through the whole process.
There were no problems and, after about four hours, his dantian had returned to the size of a quarter of a fingernail.
Inside, a minute strand of gaseous "Breath" shone with a dark light.
'That was easy, being a rank 2 mage has its advantages.'
The process was smooth since all the impurities were contained in the walls of the dantian and managed to nourish it.
The walls then seemed incredibly durable after the procedure was over.
Noah activated the Dark vortex technique.
A small part of his "Breath" was consumed and a vortex twice as wide as the previous times appeared and began to absorb the "Breath" in the environment.
The absorption speed was many times higher than when he was in the first rank, yet that didn't seem to matter for his dantian as it didn't enlarge at all!
Only when the first light of the day arrived, Noah noticed that some improvement was happening.
Noah stopped his meditation and exhaled loudly.
'About two hours of cultivation and my dantian almost didn't bulge, it will take a lot to reach the peak of the gaseous stage on this rank.'
He stood up and decided to test his new strength.
A saber appeared in his hands and he casually slashed the air.
A brilliant wind slash hit the wall of the basement, making the inscriptions flash to no end.
In the end, they seemed to give up on blocking the attack and turned off.
Noah inspected the area where his attack had crashed and noticed that a vertical cut had appeared on the wall.
It wasn't that deep, only about three centimeters, yet Noah was extremely satisfied with the results.
'Just a casual attack has actually done all this damage. I can make a thousand of these with the "Breath" that I have now! At last, I am a rank 2 cultivator.'