Death... and me

Around two weeks had gone by since Rean brought those humans to the settlement. By now, he was about to finish the valley's protection formation. After all, the protection formation had to be able to hold even those demon beasts at Stage Five, so it wasn't easy to build, especially one that would cover such a big area like the valley. In Rean's calculations, even the so-called Stage Six Blue Luan would need quite a few strikes at full power to break it apart.

'Great! With Celis' ability to gather Spiritual Energy in the valley and the Energy Gathering Formations included, the protection formation itself should be able to work without Spirit Stones.' Rean thought to himself as he built it to be auto-sufficient since they didn't have that many Spirit Stones to start with.

Rean then spread his Spiritual Sense and called Celis, who was at the center of the valley. "Celis, I'm going to turn on the formation now. You'll feel a very big pull of Spiritual Energy at first, so try to keep up with it. This is the moment the formation is charging up. Once it finishes building the layers of protection, the consumption will drop down to near-normal levels again."

Celis didn't mind, responding, "Sure thing. I'm ready anytime you are."

Rean headed to the core right after that, which was placed close to Celis for security measures. Celis was a demon tree, so he didn't need to move or battle to cultivate. Since he wouldn't move, he might as well take care of it just in case.

"There we go!" Rean then stomped his feet on the ground, immediately starting a chain reaction. "The Nine Trigrams Protection Formation, Circuitry Variant, ON!"

Roan, who was watching it unfold from a distance, couldn't help but ask, "Was there a need to call out the name?"

Rean shook his head in response, saying, "Not really, but it was cool, don't you think?"

Roan ignored Rean after that, not even bothering to give an answer.

The Nine  Trigrams Protection Formation was made with eight trigrams on eight different points of the formation, while the last one was located at the core. Unlike the real one, the link between the trigrams was not formed through Spiritual Energy but through Electricity! With that, the amount and speed of information at which the formation worked increased by multiple folds.

Soon enough, the entire valley was covered by a thin white layer that expanded underground. Rean formed the protection formation with the idea of layering it with the concealing one, covering its existence as well from both eyes and Spiritual Sense.

"Success!" Rean couldn't help but feel excited, seeing it working on its first activation. "Celis, how is it? Can you manage the Spiritual Energy consumption?" Rean asked the World Swallowing Cedar right after.

"The initial pull of Spiritual Energy was quite something, as you mentioned," Celis answered straight away. "However, once the layers of protection finished forming, the consumption also decreased. If it's just this amount, I can keep it running for basically forever. Not to mention that as time passes, my power will increase, and I'll be able to gather more Spiritual Energy."

Rean was very satisfied with that. "Great! I'll tell Kentucky that he can come down now. No one will be able to enter the valley without us knowing, so there's no need for him to keep watch."

Kentucky, who was feeling very bored recently, immediately dived down into the valley as he said, "Finally! Celis and I can continue constructing my nest."

Rean smiled as he nodded, saying, "Well, that's up to you. I'm going to check on the kids, so you guys do whatever you want."

Sometime later, Rean arrived at Roan's location. Right in front of him, there were queues and queues of kids waiting for their turn to come. At the very front, Burio and the other adults, assisted by Malo and the older kids, were taking care of the procedures. "How is it?"

Roan knew what Rean was talking about, responding with a solemn expression, "As we thought, these high Soul Purity Kids all have very high talent. The worst among them all have Blue Color Aptitude with at least five orbs of Elemental Affinity."

Rean nodded, not finding it strange. "These kids were gathered from all around the world, so it makes sense. Soul Purity, in the end, is connected to their own talent as cultivators. At the same time, I think it's safe to say that there are almost no other humans around the world with a high talent for Soul Power."

Roan agreed with him, saying, "True. It also helped the Zasfins prevent any talented humans from growing up since they took all of them. Of course, there are also exceptions. It isn't as if because they have high Spiritual Energy Aptitude and Elemental Affinity that they would have high Soul Purity."

Rean understood what Roan meant. "Indeed. Considering the size of this world, 3589 kids are not enough to count for all of the Blue and higher-level talents. Simply put, having high Spiritual Energy Aptitude and Elemental Affinity doesn't mean you have high Soul Purity. However, the opposite definitely happens. Anyone with high Soul Purity definitely has high Spiritual Energy Aptitude and Elemental Affinity."

As Rean said that, he noticed the looks on the face of Burio and the other adults. Between the twenty adults that Rean brought to help take care of the kids, only one of them had Yellow Color Aptitude while the rest had Brown or below. However, all the kids they were testing here had at least Blue Color. How could they not be shocked?

Rean then spread his Spiritual Sense and connected to Burio and the others, telling them, "There's no need for you guys to be worried. You will still gain the same amount of cultivation training as any of these kids. Whatever you achieve in the future will depend on your own efforts. This world isn't based on talent alone. I can guarantee you that."

Burio and the others took a deep breath before nodding. Rean wasn't lying since he saw how Roan treated everyone equally during their own training. Their future prospects weren't as great as these kids since they were already much older. Nevertheless, with the conditions given to them and everyone else, they could go much further.

"We understand."