“Come here,” as I sent away my two dragons, I finally got the time to add my final touch to my girl.

Karoline came closer as an obedient girl, lowering her head and her eyes totally avoided mine. Goddammit girl! You were literally killing me with that look on your face!

“Let me see you,” I stopped her one metre away from me and started to examine her body. She was a real embodiment of beauty and alluring that any girl would dream to have.

Perfect! She was simply perfect! Flat belly with two smooth curves up and down. She had no spot of fault, nothing at all!

“Hmm… you lack good equipment,” I thought for a moment while checking my filled to brim inventory, “here, take these.”

“This…” she looked at all the gears I took out and was surprised.

“My girl can’t just go around unprotected like that,” I shrugged, “you have stat points, so use them and raise your stats to two hundred caps.”

“Uhn,” she nodded in obedience and I couldn’t help but come closer, raising her chin slowly as I brought myself upon her.

A soft kiss and a long hug was the end of this. Just after that, humans started to pour towards here from every corner of the city.

“Shall I help them with my stat points?” she asked and I shook my head in return.

“Let them fight for what they’ll gain, it will make them know the value of these,” I explained and taught her how to deal with them.

“But… the city is void of monsters!”

“Send them north,” I shrugged without care, “You can assign elite forces to accompany them in their farming experience. Just don’t give them anything for free.”

“But you just did that with me…” she said it in impulse before our four eyes met and hers shook and evaded mine.

“You are special, can’t you tell that?” I smiled and she didn’t say anything else as she excused herself fast and left the place in wide strides.

Girl… stop shaking like this. It was also my first time in bed, y’know?

As she went down there, I stood for half an hour watching how she dealt with them. A girl that was brought up in such a deeply rooted family in US history wasn’t simple.

She led the others and took charge over them in the early minutes, worthy to be called a natural born leader.

“Now this is settled,” I muttered to myself before I opened my inventory and took out one gigantic bone from it, “and it’s time for me to enter the cultivation world.”

The bone I took was the one with the highest grade ever in my inventory; a red graded bone.

It was supposed to be a humerus bone of that monster. Its arms were short to begin with, compared to its colossal body.

But compared to mine, it was a colossal bone. The bone was so long that it got extended over the edges of my chariot with tens of metres in both sides.

It was simply crazy to try and merge with it. But who said I couldn’t? After all the highest bones I got were from this colossal monster, and the next highest ones came from dragons I killed.

Yet the difference was simply immense! The highest grade dragon bones was a pale gold grade, almost three grades lower than this red one.

“Time to merge you with me,” I touched the bone while opening the interface of my class. Without hesitating any further, I activated the separation skill and a message popped up the next instant.

Do you want to integrate this bone with your body?

Warning: This bone came from a dark realm monster. Dark realm monsters walk different paths than your race in cultivation. Do you still want to proceed?

Warning: This bone’s grade is red grade but the cultivation stored within is simply way beyond what your human body can tolerate. Using it will have a certain risk of detonating your body into shreds if failed

Warning: you’ll need one hundred thousand soul points to integrate with it

“Damn!” I sucked in a cold air of breath when I saw that figure. One hundred thousand soul points for just one bone? How much cultivation did it have inside?

The earlier messages also bothered me a bit. I never expected the two cultures of our races would be this different.

But who said I couldn’t merge with it? Having a fixed chance of dying wasn’t something I’d simply ignore. But it was stated obviously that it would happen in case of failing.

And I wouldn’t fail!

“I agree,” I looked at my current soul point reserve. After all that killing inside the city and outside it, alongside what my dispersed forces were doing all this time, I got slightly twenty thousand soul points over the one hundred thousand threshold.

It was enough to secure me against the backlash of my soulers. Not to mention my widely scattered forces were about to add more points to me as well.

There was no danger in paying such a hefty price for now. Of course that would be a problem if I needed to merge with other bones in my inventory.

After all, I wasn’t planning on stopping at just one bone.

You can add another one hundred thousand souls and get the guidance from the system in process

Do you agree with that offer?

I frowned. “How big will that help be from the system?” I couldn’t help but ask.

A system higher up personnel will be guiding you throughout the entire process. So the odds of success will be elevated from five percent right now way up to fifty percent

“Phew!” I sucked in another cold air of breath. My odds of success were initially this low? Damn! Did that mean my odds of failure and dying were much higher than my odds of success?

“Hmm…” I had to admit, I couldn’t resist accepting such an offer. Yet it wasn’t practical to do it right now. “I’ll have to wait until I have enough soul points.”

I said it while storing my bone away. Yet the next message from the system startled me for a bit.

The higher up was notified by your intentions

He sends you one piece of advice

Try to get as much knowledge as possible about cultivation before starting again

“Getting information about cultivation… Interesting idea…” I had to admit, I never planned to do so in the first place.

I intended to go out, kill more monsters until the first enemy wave arrived. Yet with that piece of advice I couldn’t do that anymore.

“I’ll check the beads then,” I got no other place to look over but inside the memory beads of the old man. I simply opened them as I started to scan the long list of content with impatience.

Inside the apocalypse, and aside from any other race than humans, no one could help me with this issue but the old man.

I could ask the help of Fang, but I doubted he would do it for free. Also I doubted he would tell me enough info like the old man.

“Basic information about cultivation… Intermediate information about cultivation… Advanced information about cultivation… He was indeed meticulous…” I nodded in content while seeing the three records that I desperately wanted in front of my eyes.

“Thanks old man,” I raised my head to the dimly lit sky and shouted in gratitude. The old man kept helping me even after sending me back in time in such a priceless way.

The three records cost me fifteen million coins. The first record, the basic information one, cost one million and it lasted for four straight hours.

It held not much more valuable knowledge than what I already knew. But the next two records were an eye opening. The intermediate one cost five million coins, and took almost six hours to finish.

The advanced one needed nine million coins, and it would take ten hours. But I couldn’t hear it for now.

And the reason was clear… The enemy arrived!

“They are here!”

The first shout that came to disturb my thoughts came from Karoline. She went all the way up to me as she shouted the moment she saw me sitting on the floor of my chariot.

I was immersed in thoughts, trying to link all the info I learnt from the old man. According to the old man’s teachings, each race had different ways to cultivate themselves.

So when using any race’s cultivation, there was a chance of a backlash happening. That explained why I got that death threatening message from the system before.

And that also meant I’d end up getting the same message when using any other bone as well. So it wasn’t that much of a big thing to be honest.

As for how each cultivation differed, the old man gave a few examples.

As a start, humans weren’t blessed by any advantage to their bodies or souls. We weren’t like Berserkers for example who had big bodies and immense strength from their birth.

And we weren’t like dragons who had strong bodies and intermediate grade souls. As for Selvators and Succubus races, they both were blessed with high grade souls, with Selvators having an upper hand with intermediate blessing for their strength.

But humans had another advantage, which was flexibility and adaptability. We could learn any other race’s cultivation and modify these based on our thinking and will.

After all humans’ greatest advantage lies in their minds and intelligence. Also we were famous to be a resilient race, just like cockroaches. Even the old man used the same word to describe humans in his teachings.

So I got to work my mind and try to find a middle solution that would fit my body and soul. Of course learning about my shortcomings before starting the merging process was something good.

At least I now knew the next merging process wouldn’t be that simple and using just force wouldn’t help. Forcing this merge would end with one simple result; failure.

I needed to wreck my brain and try to find a way to solve problems rising during the process. At this point I realised how valuable that piece of advice from the system higher up was.

“Where are they?” as I got interrupted, I stood up and calmly asked, “what about our forces?”

“They got outside and started their training,” she reached me with painted breaths that forced her to lean on her knees to breathe regularly and not collapse, “they are coming from the north and west. Two groups, each is almost ten thousand strong.”

“This much?!” I knew they’d wait to gather up and come in large numbers. But never expected to be this huge.

“They aren’t all humans,” she explained, “many monsters are aiding them. The number might be even larger than what the scouts told me.”

“Have they started their attack yet?” I asked while looking at both north and west. In my eyes, only ruins extended without an end till the river and even beyond.

“Few groups were ambushed and killed,” she said in a bitter tone, “our initial loss is in the hundreds!”

“That’s nothing,” I shrugged, “we might end up losing most of the forces we have here… What about those elites from New York city? Have they arrived yet?”

She seemed perplexed at my simple response and reaction towards such loss. Poor girl, don’t get attached too much with those you taught.

After all, your mission was to guide them, not to protect them. No one could protect such a huge number in the apocalypse. I might be able to do so, but it wouldn’t yield good results in the end.

“They were here hours ago,” she said, “they brought chefs and they cooked the meat of monsters my boys brought over.”

Boys? Good start! I smiled when I heard how she described the humans she trained.

“Alright,” I turned to focus on the horizon, “gather everyone and make them station at the border of the city. The river can’t be easily crossed. After all, only weak water monsters will appear in this stage.”

“So they are coming from the north?” she asked and I shook my head in response.

“Don’t assume anything before making sure of it first,” I slowly taught her, “send a few groups of elites to be our eyes in those areas. We need intel more than anything else.”