Mu sat on the hard wooden bench. He'd been hiding out for months, purchasing rations in bulk before retreating back into the vacant home. He aimed to avoid Dawn officials for as long as possible, hoping that his collar's mana would run out sooner or later! In this time, apart from eating and sleeping, his time was dedicated to training!

Meditating, shadow sparring and boxing with his clone comprised a majority of his training. He was gradually solidifying his control. After the initial breakthrough, all he needed was time! Fortunately, Mu's time with the collar gave him just that! While training, the young man was constantly barraging the collar with traces of energy to weaken it. By his estimates, he'd be able to escape from Dawn in the coming hours. He decided that his last hours in Dawn would be used to make one last leap. After all, if he was caught during his escape, Mu needed to be on his a-game to have a chance!

He settled on the ground cross-legged, funnelling energy into his body. It compressed down upon contact with his body, forming a shimmering aura that danced across the surface of his skin. Mu's mana source was akin to a blue sea with a pure-white pond of liquid hovering in the centre. That was his purified mana, the next level that he desired to control fully. Thousands of droplets of blue mana merged together into a single white droplet, adding to the pool. This process took an unbelievably long time, longer than any other training process he'd been through before.

After ten hours of tireless work, the pond had noticeably increased in size. After another droplet dripped into the pool, roughly making 999,999,999 droplets in the pond, it underwent a sudden change! Shimmering light shot out from Mu's body, filling the room with an unexpected heat. Some of the more flammable objects even caught fire! Mu was blinded for a few moments. When he could see the pool again, it was surprisingly empty! His heart sank. Was all that work for naught!?

His eyes, however, caught sight of a small glimmer. He hopped into the pond, dropping his body to the ground. A single droplet remained, see-through! His heart rate suddenly increased at this finding, unable to stop a smile dawning upon his expression. As if he knew what the next step was, Mu scooped up the droplet along with the dirt beneath it. It was promptly chucked into that blue ocean, falling deeper inside.

Rumble..

The entire ocean began to shake. Mu hadn't experienced a change such as this in his mana since he unlocked the Energy Shroud Omega! From the deep recesses of the ocean came a surging, white light. It encompassed the entire sea for a time. Once it faded, Mu was met by a pleasing sight. The ocean, down to the last drop, had transformed! No longer was it blue, it was turquoise! The blue and white droplets had come together to form an all-new kind of energy. His energy had ascended to a higher plane!

As Mu reached this new state, he decided to test it out by barraging his collar with energy. In the face of his new powers, the fragile mana inside the collar was unable to hold out. It instantly fell off of him, granting Mu the freedom he'd been seeking for years on end. Without a moment's hesitation, he chugged an invisibility potion and dashed out the door. It was finally time to return to Huangzhou!