Glaite and the Other Three

Some people accomplished nothing with their meditation methods in the first half of their lives, yet after reaching the ninth level, they suddenly found enlightenment, soaring straight up through the clouds, their combat power shooting into the heavens.

Some achieved extremely high attainments in meditation methods, even improving them to make cultivation more appropriate and much faster. Yet after entering the seventh level, their progress instead became agonizingly slow, and they could not grasp the power of rules no matter how long they tried.

Dole had personally seen many such examples. Akso was of the first kind, while Bal was of the second.

Magical beasts cultivated slowly to begin with, and compounded with issues of talent, advancement became even more difficult. According to Bal, he was already over three thousand years old and still had not advanced to the eighth level. That alone showed how difficult advancement was.

Although Dole himself was not at the seventh level, the Golden Corpse was. He had some understanding of the rules grasped by the Golden Corpse, as well as the rules contained within Babel Tower, and he understood what rules represented.

Rules, too, had ranks, and the depth of one's comprehension was divided into levels. The first through third layers counted as beginner level, the fourth through sixth as intermediate, and the seventh through ninth as advanced.

Naturally, combat power differed according to the depth of one's comprehension of rules. Someone who had comprehended the ninth layer of a rule could kill someone at the first or second layer in minutes. That was the difference.

That was also why Bal could crush the Ancestor Bird—their comprehension of rules differed.

Akso had been able to drive back the Three-Headed Dragon Lizard because, first, she had already reached the upper reaches of the seventh level