Chapter 141: Chapter 141: The Breakthrough
After Julian signed the contract and David was gone, Crest was already on the phone, her tone sharp and commanding. She spoke to people he didn’t know, arranging his place in Germany with precision.
Julian pinched the bridge of his nose and finally shouted, "Make it normal, Crest! I want to live alone."
His voice carried the edge of defiance. This time, he needed to try. No shadow of Crest, no Ashford wealth, no chains. Just Julian—living like a normal person, earning it himself.
The air buzzed.
Ding.
[System Quest Alert]
Call Up
Objective: Earn a call-up to the senior team.
Reward: Varies depending on grade achieved.
— S: Automatic call-up + Special Reward
— A: 80% chance of call-up + Reward
— B: 50% chance of call-up + Minor Reward
[ Accept Quest? ]
[Yes] [No]
Julian’s lips curved faintly. "So the S doesn’t just mean senior call-up... it means a better reward too."
Without hesitation, he pressed Yes.
The screen blinked out, leaving silence—and the pounding of his heart.
So this was the path forward.
First, he had to break through to the next realm. The pressure in his body was already coiled like a storm, ready to burst.
Second, he had to use the medicine wisely—the Potential Syringe, the Attribute Surge—timed with perfection.
And third, he had to ready himself for Germany.
The medical check-up loomed. The U21 debut was waiting. The senior squad beyond that.
Two weeks. That was all the time left before the flight.
Two weeks before his battlefield changed forever.
...
Night fell.
The clock read past 10:00 PM.
Julian sat cross-legged in the middle of his room, body bare save for a pair of shorts. A towel was clenched between his teeth, already damp with spit.
The lotus position anchored him, but it couldn’t soften what was coming.
Even though he had already faced his heart demon, the next step in cultivation was never gentle. The process would still tear him apart.
He drew in a breath.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Each inhale churned the soul power caged within his chest.
Faster.
Faster.
Faster—
Until it roared like a river against its dam.
His skin flushed red. Veins bulged like cords beneath the surface, glowing faintly under the lamplight. He looked less like a boy and more like a vessel about to explode.
The air grew heavy, thick with something invisible. The lamp on his desk flickered once, as if the electricity itself was choking on his presence.
His muscles quivered, the bones beneath them groaning like iron beams under pressure.
Even the walls of his room seemed to pulse with each ragged breath, as though reality itself was shrinking from the storm in his chest.
The pressure mounted. Pain knifed through every tendon, every muscle, every nerve. His teeth sank into the towel.
Ten minutes.
Fifteen.
Thirty.
His breath turned ragged, the sound of air tearing from his lungs filling the room.
Forty.
Fifty.
The minutes crawled by, each one stretching like an eternity. His entire body felt swollen, trembling as if it might split at the seams.
But Julian didn’t stop.
Couldn’t stop.
This was the price of breaking limits.
For hours, the night breathed against the walls, and still he sat there, body trembling, veins blazing red as fire.
Fuck... how long is this supposed to last?
From what he knew, it shouldn’t take this long. The breakthrough should’ve already ripped open. Instead, the power just kept pressing against him, crushing, strangling, as if the world itself were holding it back.
A thought clawed through his pain.
The world’s rule...
He remembered. In his past life, buried in the ancient texts, there was always a whisper. That in the beginning, countless cultivators could stride through the nine stage like it was nothing. But as time passed... fewer and fewer broke through.
Why?
The answer had always been shrouded, but one conclusion remained:
The world forbade it.
Every world had its own will, its own law.
Here, it was physics. Gravity. The limits of human flesh.
And now? He was tearing at that law, trying to demand more than this body was ever meant to hold.
Fuck...
His mind snapped like a whip. He couldn’t win a direct war against the world itself—not yet. He needed to bend, not break. Tone it down. Find the edge the world would allow.
His soul power, raging like a storm, compressed.
Folded in.
Restrained to the shape of a human.
The balloon-like swell in his body eased, veins no longer ready to burst. His skin cooled from scarlet back to pale.
And then—
Hissssss.
Thick, black goo seeped from his pores, slick and stinking. It oozed across his skin, dripping onto the floor. Impurities. The filth his body had carried, expelled by the refining flame of breakthrough.
Julian’s chest heaved, sweat mixing with the tar-like sludge. The towel fell from his teeth.
He had done it.
He had crossed into the next stage—
...
Minutes dragged like lifetimes before the pressure finally cracked. His skin prickled, pores screaming as something vile seeped out.
Thick, black goo oozed from every inch of him, clinging, wrapping him like a suffocating blanket. It stank of rot and iron, a poison dredged straight from his marrow.
The odor was unbearable. It was as if a battlefield’s worth of corpses had been boiled down into tar and smeared across his flesh.
His stomach lurched, bile rising in his throat. He wanted to vomit, wanted to claw the filth off with his nails, but his body was too weak to move quickly.
He staggered to his feet, each step leaving a sticky, black footprint across the floorboards.
Julian’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t even look down at himself. He didn’t need to.
God... The stench alone made him gag, made his chest tighten like he’d rather die than breathe another lungful.
He staggered to the shower, stripped, and let the scalding water crash against him. The filth sloughed off in streaks, swirling into the drain until nothing remained but steam and the faint, sour trace of corruption.
Only then did he collapse onto the sofa, hair still damp, a towel draped over his shoulders. His chest heaved, his body clean, but the memory of that stench clung to his senses.
The chime rang in his ears.
[Ashi Notification]
[Congratulations, Host, on your new advancement.]