With the new information in hand, Jason used the next three days to clear the beasts from the second floor before he spent an entire week cultivating.
This was not enough to construct the second solidified prismarine crystal, and it would take at least three more weeks of fully focused cultivation.
Because of that, Jason advanced to the third and fourth floor, killing all beasts first before doing the same to the guardians.
Afterward, he would only enter the next floor, just before he would stop receiving the speed bonus.
Through this, Jason could cultivate while receiving all possible bonuses, which was exactly what he wanted.
In the end, entering the fifth floor took him an entire month, but it was definitely worth it because the second solidified prismarine crystal was finally created!
With that, Jason's combat prowess almost doubled in an instant, and he knew that he could further increase the speed at which he enhanced.
However, that was only something Jason realised after advancing to the fifth floor.
The increase in difficulty he had expected turned out to be minuscule, and it was mostly the Guardian that had become stronger.
Yet, Jason's increase in strength was much higher than that of the Guardian's because not only his own strength had been enhanced, but that of his soulbonds received a boost too.
Spyro's spirit veins had fully recuperated, and owing to the enormous amount of spirit force and the spiral cricula Minatra flowers that had been planted inside his soul world, it had already reached the 8th Lique stage.
Meanwhile, Petri was relentlessly absorbing primordial energy in order to liquefy and solidify it afterward.
Artemis would still need some time to evolve, but Jason was already awaiting it eagerly.
He assumed that his soul energy and the number of soul crystals he would have accumulated until then would be enough.
As such, they would be able to advance through the tower at a much faster pace after her evolution was completed.
Jason could wait for her to finish evolving while cultivating, but that wouldn't be interesting because the opponents from the 5th to the 9th floor were not really a threat.
In a single month, Jason had cleared these five floors, only to realise that he had been too excited to fight again. Thus, he had forgotten to focus on cultivating in the time he had in hand before the speed bonus would have worn off.
Nevertheless, Jason couldn't complain.
From the fifth floor onwards, the base reward increased to 1.5 merit points, which meant that he received a total of 4.5 Merit points for every floor he cleared.
This was exceptional, but before Jason realised it, he was already standing in front of the gate that had faint silver engravings all around it.
Yet, at the same time, there was something that bothered him a little bit.
Before, there were no clues about the next floor's dangers, but now there was the skull of a human-like being engraved in the center of the gate.
If that was not a warning, Jason was not sure what else he was supposed to think.
As such, he realised that he had to pay attention to what he was doing on the 10th floor.
However, instead of being frightened, Jason realised that the dangers of the tower had gradually decreased with each subsequent floor.
That was not how it was ought to be according to the danger level which the artificial intelligence had assigned beforehand.
Not only was he facing the highest difficulty level of the entire dungeon, but, in fact, the dungeon had created a new difficulty level just for him.
Because of that, Jason had been worried beforehand, only to overcome the basement level and the first nine floors of the tower without any real issues.
In the end, he had spent more than two months inside the dungeon, yet, it felt as if he had just entered it.
At the same time, he was yet to witness the overwhelming strength of his opponents that the artificial intelligence had mentioned.
Instead, the common beasts he faced were weaker than him, while the Guardian had barely been on par with his prowess.
And that was before he solidified his second prismarine crystal!
As such, the skull on the 10th floor should either be an exaggeration or a symbol of true dangers, which was the way Jason perceived it.
It should be dangerous, but owing to his combat prowess that exceeded the peak of the Prismar stage's first threshold, he was confident of defeating the Guardian on the 10th Floor.
And even if he was too weak to defeat the Guardian, the common beasts shouldn't be strong enough to survive his onslaught.
His combat prowess was too high, after all!
It was unlikely that the common beasts had reached the peak of the Prismar stage's first threshold, while the possibility of them advancing to the Initial stage of the second threshold was infinitely small, but not zero.
As such, Jason couldn't help but feel his hands tremble in excitement as he entered the portal that led him to the 10th Floor.
Within no time, he emerged on a plain with blueish flourishing grass and extremely dense mana that permeated the surrounding area.
Meanwhile, the primordial energy and spiral force were much lower in comparison, which astonished Jason a little bit.
Before there had never been a difference between the amount, purity, and density of the three energies, but that seemed to have changed now!
'With that amount of mana, I wouldn't even need a single cultivation stone to reach my highest cultivation speed!' Jason thought, only to sense something from the corner of his eye.
It was only a moment later that a barrage of icicles shot towards him, almost killing him the moment he emerged out of the portal.
Fortunately, his Emperor Eyes had sensed the mana fluctuations from more than a kilometer away, giving him the required time to duck and lay flat on the ground before constructing a gigantic wall of ice himself.
The last time he used his ice affinity was quite some time ago, and he couldn't help notice that it had become much weaker than it had been before.
Yet, what Jason had to understand was that his affinities were not becoming weaker, but that his strength and the opponents he faced were becoming too strong.
Every few months, Jason could solidify one prismarine crystal that had the same potency as four common solidified crystals.
That was simply an insane feat and not something others were able to achieve under normal circumstances.
In the end, it was something that belonged to the Celestia race's innate traits, which Jason didn't know for sure.
He simply believed that all stronger races could do what he did, but that was not the case, at all!
Some had unique cultivation techniques with which they could compress and liquefy their mana to a much higher extent.
Yet, Jason didn't even require such a cultivation technique, because his bloodline was forcing him to liquefy mana to a much higher extent, while the solidification process was intertwined with the faint traces of the divine energy he used.
However, right now, this didn't matter because Jason understood that he had underestimated the 10th Floor's dangers.
That was not difficult to realise when he saw a total of more than 10 Jackals that had each eight solidified prismarine crystals within their mana core!
This astonished Jason because the jackals' strength was on par with the Guardian of the previous floor.
With that intel, Jason realised that the dangers of the 10th floor were obviously much higher, and he was eager to encounter the Guardian.
However, first, he had to defeat the jackals that had almost killed him the moment he emerged from the portal!
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