Another two weeks passed marking the 5th month of the apocalypse. The small base in the forest received a huge boost in power. As of now there are already fifteen Knight Rank treants and an additional one hundred warrior bees. The bees are only in the Warrior Rank while the five who survived before were the only ones in the Knight Rank

The number of fallens continued to rise, fortunately with the base's members now it was not that too hard to defend. Also, the bees' honey actually has a good effect. The mutated honey contained lightning power and if eaten directly the electric currents from it will stimulate one's body

If you are injured the honey will stimulate your cells and it will boost the rate of cell division thus raising your recovery rate. It can also be use as a 'buff' when battling. The electricity will stimulate your nerves causing your reaction time to be almost double than normal!

The fruits that they ate were really worth it. Aside from having a buff honey Kence also gained a hundred warrior rank minions. Thankfully, there are mutated flowers everywhere in the forest. If not, all of Kence's blue fruits would be consumed by these bees

Ivy was currently in the cave while King, Cesar, and Calter were watching her. After a month she finally gained enough soul control and she decided to see if she can make a potion.

In front of her were a variety of herbs, plants and some glass vials. These glass were scavenged on the houses and buildings outside the forest. Ivy took a long grass called 'Titan Grass' it was called as such becaude it height reached two meters. It was really a titan among grass

The Rainbowshade Flower flew out from her forehead and entered the physical realm once again. She took a deep breath and put the 'fuel' on the flower. Her soul power particularly the control aspect were given to the flower to activate one of its usage

The flower glowed with rainbow color and black like things were being absorned by the flower. Those black particles were the impurities inside the titan grass. Letting the flower to absorb those impurities was actually not a bad thing

The impurities are also considered as a poison, it was like feeding a poison with poison. This will in fact will make the Rainbowshade Flower to have a more potent poison power

When the impurities were finally removed, the hard steps for Ivy finally began. Actually, if it were other people all the steps in refining a potion were all hard. Even just removing the impurities required a lot of soul power. Ivy however was different, she has the cheat flower. As long as she feed it with enough soul power it can remove an ingredient's impurity

She used her soul power and the grass that was devoid of impurities were covered by it. That was one can see in the macroscopic level. But if you look at it in the microscopic level you will see that there were tentacle like things that was capturing the grass' useful essence

The grass was slowly breaking down into smaller particles and soon only a green colored liquid remained. Ivy controlled her soul power and stored it in one of the glass vials

She then hold leaves on her hand. These leaves came from a mutated tree. She repeated the process that she did on the titan grass in this leaves. The process were actually just removing impurities and collecting the useful essence and she did it to all the ingredients in front of her

Soon, seven vials containing different kind of liquids were made. Ivy took another deep breath as this was the final and most important step. She grabbed the vials and poured all of its content in another larger glass vial

The liquid started bubbling as if someone boiled it. From Ivy's hand her soul power entered the physical realm again and she used it to stir the liquid gently. In microscopic level on the other hand her soul power were slowly guiding the different kind of essence to fuse and combine

The liquid bubbled for a while and drop of sweats were already forming on Ivy's forehead. The three around her were watching with bated breath, they are eager to see her to succeed. After some time the liquid finally calmed down and were slowly changing its color to red

When the liquid finally calmed down, Ivy's first ever potion was finally done. As this was just the most common 'strength potion' that can increase the user's physical strength for a while the process was simple and not that hard

"Success!" The four jumped down in happiness, although it was just a basic potion with limited effect but it was still something to be proud of. Ivy succeeded on her first try! It was evident that she has great talent regarding potion making

"I'll inform Master and let him see my potion!" Ivy said happily and hold the potion on her hand gently before going to Kence.

----

At this time Kence was as usual cultivating while sitting on one of the branch in his tree body. As his soul was stronger now it also boosted his cultivation speed. If he didn't changed his tree body's focus to making blue fruits he would already break through long time ago

His own cultivation speed increased while the energy that his tree body absorb were given to the Spirit Clone. If that was the case how can he not break through weeks ago?

However their energy expenditure rise forcing him to make blue fruits. Thankfully after some time today was finally the day he will advanced one small realm again!

To aid his break through the tree body stopped making blue fruits and gave its energy to the spirit clone. That familiar barrier separating him from the next rank was easily destroyed by the flood of energy that was from the combination of the tree body and spirit clone

His advancement this time was also a smooth one as he was currently inside a forest. The abundant nature type energy in the surrounding flew to him and bathed him. His body greedily absorbed any energy that it came contact with. His aura and power rise once again. This time's advancement was extremely important to him

Calter already reached the mid stage of Grand Knight a week ago. His cultivation speed was already faster than Kence plus the fact that all of his focus was on cultivation unlike his master. Kence needed to make blue fruits and treants. This ate a lot of his time that he should use to cultivate causing the kid to overtake his rank again

It was not just Calter that advance in rank but also King! He now can already turn all of his hair into leaves for as long as he wants. Those leaves passively absorb energy, even if he do nothing he will still gain a small boost on his cultivation. He was like Calter, aside from occasionally cleaning the fallens he only cultivated. It was only Cesar and Ivy who didn't advance in rank as like Kence they are focused in their respective fields

Cesar was busy strengthening his soul and running errands in the Angel's Shop. Ivy was also focus on her soul and studying alchemy. These made their cultivation to stagnate and remain in the peak of Knight Rank

Ivy was on time to witness Kence's advancement and she looked at her Master with amazement. Even when he was busy he still managed to advance in rank. As more time pass his cultivation talent just continue to increase

When all the energies around Kence's body was completely absorbed by him the system's neutral voice echoed on his mind

*Beep. Congratulations to Host for reaching the mid stage of Grand Knight Rank!

As usual it only congratulated him and didn't say anything. Kence's vision landed on Ivy who was looking at him with some adoration on her eyes

Kence floated down and asked her "what are you doing here?"

Ivy woke up from her daze state and showed the vial of potion to Kence. "I finally made my first potion!" Ivy said proudly. Kence congratulated Ivy while patting her head. "You worked really hard! You can have day's rest for now. No need to contribute energy pearls today"

It was already a long time when any of them got a proper rest. They are either cultivating or training. Since Ivy accomplished something she really deserved a break. "No need master, I want to reach rank 3 too. I'm going to focus on my cultivation for now" Kence sighed bitterly

The four felt a great sense of debt towards him as he was the most busy of them all. For him it was just nothing as what he do will also increase his survival rate in this apocalypse. It was not wrong to say that he was also always busy for himself

---

Inside the Gu Serpent Empire the Emperor's personal butler was currently reporting about the city's current state. "Your Majesty, there are too many fallens roaming around our Empire. We need more man power or else the fallens' will breached our city's defense"

If Kence's team were already having headaches about the increase number of fallens how much more were the big cities? There are even more fallens around the these cities as if they want to isolate the cities from the rest of the world

The Mother Fallen's goal was to destroy big human cities after all. The best thing to do that was to slowly wear the humans by giving them anxiety and fear. When they break down that was the best time to strike and attack

Harold rubbed his aching temples. These past months things were slowly going bad inside the city. His selfishness of hoarding most of the cultivation resources to himself was already showing its effect. He even ordered the supernaturals to fill energy pearls and use it to buy anything that he can use to improve his personal power. Now, without too much hard work his rank was already at the mid stage Grand Knight

Harold's cultivation talent was actually inferior to other city's head. Although he has the same rank as those lords but his cultivation was extremely unstable. He only reached this rank with the use of resources and not hardwork unlike the other people with the same status at him

Also the fact that the Blood Serum has a bad effect to one's cultivation wasted a lot of manpower in researching and making it. He was now in a precarious state, visible by how many wrinkles appeared on his face. He looked like he age a few years since the last time Kence met him

"What is our available manpower?" Harold asked the butler. "The only ones available are those you ordered to search for Kence"

Thinking of Kence who he still hadn't found increased Harold's headache. He poured a lot of manpower to the search but they didn't bear any result

"Order them to withdraw and fight the fallens surrounding the city. Go for now!" The butler bowed his head and exited the 'Imperial Court'

Looking at the paper that indicated how many supernaturals he has left made Harold to grit his teeth in frustration. After five months in the apocalypse, naturally more people became supernatural but even then more people died

As of now he only has an army of forty thousand Warrior Supernaturals and ten thousand Knight Ranks. Aside from him there wasnt any other Grand Knight supernaturals

As his iron clad rule was implemented in the city the neighboring cities around the Empire seize this chance to expand their power. The oppressed people were swallowed by those city heads. He can't possibly poison all of his citizens with his power and even on his army only the heads are loyal to him due to the poison

There are now lesser number of citizens on his city and soon he will be forced to fight in the frontlines too