Cultivation Through Artifacts

'Pond of Ascension?' Khal raised a brow.

He knew what the Pond of Ascension was and what purpose it held, thus why he felt surprised.

According to the 'Record of All Realms', only one Pond of Ascension existed in each Realm, which helped beings enter the next Realm once they reached the peak they could possibly attain in their current Realm. 

And because the only Pond of Ascension in the Human First Realm was located between all the continents on a private island, it was hard to believe there was another Pond of Ascension here.

Even Jas seemed to recognize the pool before them, and his complexion changed too, showing awe before it gradually turned into excitement that Khal rarely saw from him.

"This is simply too perfect! With this palace and this pond, I can create my own sect and start nurturing exceptional talents!" As Jas saw the limitless possibilities, he failed to surpass his but emotions and exclaimed out aloud.

"You plan to create a sect too?" Khal remembered that Raven too did plan the same thing, maybe he could mention Jas and tell him to form an alliance. Even though he knew Raven for a short while, he understood her quite well and he was definitely a force to join hands with.

"Too? Oh, you perhaps talking about that girl from the Thousand Life Tournament, right? I heard she plans to form a Sect too and already started recruiting cultivators from all around the world."

"Yeah, her name is Raven. I think you should consider forming a mutual relationship with her." Khal nodded as he said.

Jas touched his chin, pondering about what Khal just said. And after a while, he nodded.

"Yeah, that would be the best." said Jas and continued, "Although other sects rarely fight each other over territories, the same couldn't be said for those greedy Families, especially if we talk about the Ourvi Family. I am pretty sure they will try to force their selfish wills on this place and take it away from us, so until we don't get strong enough to protect ourselves properly, we need support."

With that in mind, Jas noted down that when they finished with everything here and go back to Moon City, he should get in contact with Raven and discuss the matter.

"Should we check out what is on the next floor?" Khal asked after a minute of silence later, which at Jas nodded. 

The third floor was also unique just like the previous two, as it was a huge artificial garden filled with hundreds of herbs that emitted a powerful aura that made Khal and Jas pinch their noses as it made them rather uncomfortable, even feeling slight pain.

"So many magical herbs. Alchemists and medical experts would go crazy if they would see such a sight." Jas said calmly as he looked at the almost dozen or so herbs around him.

"It seems this is the final floor too," Khal said as he noticed that no more stairs went higher than the third floor.

The two walked back to the first floor and exited Moon Temple before deciding to search the surroundings. And not to their great surprise, the outside was just as incredible as the Moon Temple's interior was.

As they followed the jade path that went everywhere around in the once glorious ancient city, Khal saw several buildings of different sizes but with the same design as the Moon Temple. There were also several small open fields, filled with different targets, seemingly being practice puppets for different means.

"This is even greater than I have thought! With such an environment, reaching the top among all Sects won't be hard at all! Haha!" Jas couldn't hold back his excitement and laughed toward the sky.

During his life, he visited and saw many sects and families, but compared to this one, which was deeply hidden all this time on top of Moon Mountain, each of them could be considered trash and even that would be a huge understatement!

The two walked around a while more before they decided to go back to Moon Temple. As the density of essence particles was the densest inside there, especially on the second floor because of the Pond of Ascension, they wanted to increase their essence before going back to Moon Academy and start recruiting talents.

Sitting down and closing their eyes, both men started to inhale deep breaths causing the essence in their bodies to grow at a rapid rate. Just under a single minute, both of them increased their units at least by 1 to 3, which was simply a ridiculous amount!

Time passed quickly, and the two remained motionlessly on the ground for many hours which became days even before they could have realized it.

The first one to open his eyes was Jas, who exhaled deeply before curving his mouth into a slight smile. 

'This place is truly legendary. Just under a few days, I was able to unseal one of my remaining Essence Paths which would have needed at least a month to do! I even feel refreshed and relaxed in my mind!'

As Jas thought about this he stood up and shifted his gaze to the side, only to see Khal still cultivating in silence.

'...'

Jas touched his chin. He pondered for a while before deciding to walk away in silence. He trusted Khal so did not fear he would cause a ruckus with the place while he was away, thus why he decided in such away.

After Jas left, to gather great and promising cultivation talents that could push his sect in the future to the top, Khal opened his eyes slightly and looked around. Seeing Jas nowhere, he smiled and took out several golden pills from his spatial ring.

[Heaven Essence Pills. Just one pill can increase one's essence by a thousand. You plan to consume all of them?]

'Yeah.' Khal nodded. He found these pills back on the first floor and decided to take a few away with him. Although it was a shameless move, as there were a hundred more down there he was pretty sure Jas didn't even notice it in the first place so everything was perfectly fine.

In truth, until this very moment, he didn't increase his units of Beast Essence at all but transformed them. And because of that, his units of Body Essence grew by leaps and bounds, breaking the thirty thousand mark, reaching an amount of 32,262 units of Body Essence!

Right now, he felt like he could easily shatter any creature on the Tenth Cultivation Stage, but he was not a fool to believe it. He already fought once before and another one that was half a step away from it, and knew he needed much more than a ridiculous amount of Body Essence.

He also had to reach the Tenth Cultivation Stage just to have the chance to compete and that is why he chose to 'borrow' these golden pills from the first floor.

'With this many, I can easily reach ten thousand units, but I am not sure that will be enough for me to reach the Tenth Stage.' Khal thought calmly as there was yet to be a single cultivator except himself and a few others that knew about the Tenth Cultivation Stage much less attempting to reach it.

As everyone used the Pond of Ascension to enter the Second Realm once they reached the peak in the Ninth Cultivation Stage, he will be the very first cultivator to attempt the impossible and break into the next Stage! 

Although it was kind of risky because of the unknown dangers, Khal knew there was no such thing as a safe gamble as there will be always risks at stake no matter what. There were only easier and harder paths with more dangers on the latter than the former.

Of course, this also meant a path filled with risks and dangers will have much more to offer in the end than a path that only has a few!

Khal took a deep breath as he thought about these things, and once he was ready, he tossed all the golden pills in his hand right into his mouth and swallowed them down.