Chapter 1480: Rune’s Arrival

"This much World Essence..." The words escaped her upon a breath, almost reverent, while her eyes remained closed beside the vast glass wall overlooking the private runway. A long sigh loosened her chest, and for several lingering moments she stood beneath the evening light while also allowing the Mana of Hell’s Paradise Island to flow through her.

The first current slipped through her meridians before she consciously drew upon it. Another followed, richer than she had expected, spreading a faint warmth through her blood, marrow and flesh. Spiritual channels refined over years opened readily beneath its passage, and the tingling beneath her skin deepened as her body absorbed more.

She had yet to circulate a technique or employ a gathering art; breathing alone brought enough Mana into her to stir a pleasant pressure deep within her cultivation.

For years, she had cultivated upon some of their finest spiritual grounds of their estate back in Japan. Wealth of her family had spared her the indignity of fighting over scraps of Mana or begging lesser families to enter their secluded chambers.

Her estates stood upon carefully chosen spiritual veins, their locations guarded more fiercely than many family secrets. Great Energy gathering formations drew Mana and Essence from distant lands, feeding it through layers of purification arrays before concentrating it within chambers raised expressly for cultivation.

Ordinary cultivators would spend fortunes for a single day in those places, and she had treated them as home.

Yet here she stood at an airport, absorbing Mana purer than anything those treasured grounds could offer. The energy gathered by formations often retained a certain heaviness after being drawn together and condensed so fiercely.

What entered her body now flowed with an ease she had never experienced there, settling within her without the slightest resistance. World Essence had seeped into the island’s spiritual veins, suffusing the land until even its Mana bore traces of that higher energy.

The Elemental Essences were equally vivid.

Fire Essence lingered in the evening warmth, Water Essence in the distant breath akin to that of divine rivers and lakes, while other Elemental Essences stirred beneath the island’s very core. Subtler currents of the World Essence mingled among them, each possessing a purity she had previously encountered only in sacred grounds devoted to nurturing a single element.

Here, she could sense them together without even searching.

Her lips curved as she drew another slow breath.

Earth had changed after Phei’s awakening, and Japan had certainly received its share too.

She had watched ancient veins, thought exhausted generations ago, yield richer currents once more. Mana had grown abundant around old cultivation pagodas without a single additional formation being laid, while elemental regions flourished with renewed vigor.

Sects, families and independent cultivators had quietly begun contending over spiritual lands that had remained unchanged for centuries, all seeking to understand the blessings appearing beneath their feet.

Among those powerful enough to perceive World Essence, the cause had soon become clear.

Phei’s awakening had altered the spiritual atmosphere of Earth, but Japan had received only its distant reach and influence for purification while Hell’s Paradise Island on the other hand, had been at the heart of it, and the Mana surrounding her was at least 20x times purer than what she had felt in Japan after the transformation.

She lingered over that estimate, testing the currents with her spiritual senses, and suspected she was still being modest.

A faint laugh escaped her.

’Twenty times purer, inside an airport.’

She could hardly imagine what awaited her in the forests and mountains where the energy was less polluted by modernity, much less in places where gathering formations had been raised upon land already steeped in World Essence.

A cultivator living here would draw in this Mana with every ordinary breath and sleep beneath a spiritual atmosphere most families elsewhere could spend generations trying to create.

Once they deliberately began cultivating, the advantage would be monstrous.

"If someone cultivated in this every day..." She let the thought trail away with another satisfied sigh.

Little wonder Paradise kept producing monsters, or that the chasm between the island and the rest of the world seemed wider with every piece of news. Her body had already absorbed more than she intended during these idle moments, and she could have happily remained beside that window for hours.

When she finally opened her eyes, sunset filled the towering panes before her.

Molten gold spilled across the runway, outlining the resting aircraft in amber and stretching long bands of light over the polished marble beneath her heels. The terminal rose around her in sweeping glass, pale stone and metal, its grandeur softened by the evening.

Legacy Families had always been rather good at making obscene wealth look tasteful.

Ground crews moved across the distant tarmac beneath lengthening shadows, and aircraft taxied almost silently behind the thick glass. Beyond them, greenery spread between buildings whose upper floors still caught the sun. Towers shone copper and crimson along the horizon, their lower reaches fading into dusk, while farther away lay the forests, mountains and lakes from which so many unbelievable stories had emerged.

She could still sense World Essence beneath it all, profound and ancient beside the familiar touch of Mana.

Its presence had settled into the island’s spiritual veins so thoroughly that she felt it even here, looking out across the runway. Weaker cultivators might only find meditation easier; she could perceive how deeply the land had changed.

She inhaled once more, indulging herself for a few more seconds before the crisp sound of approaching heels interrupted her.

"It’s done, ma’am. We can go now." Her assistant crossed the peaceful VVIP hall, having finished with immigration, luggage, arrival confirmations and the other nuisances wealthy travelers paid competent people to spare them. The terminal had already made most of it painless.

Crowds, shrieking children and travelers squabbling over charging ports belonged elsewhere; here, courteous staff attended to signatures and paperwork while their guests admired the view.

Rune turned with a smile. "How do I look?"

Her assistant stopped, briefly forgetting the composed expression she had worn all the way across the hall.

In all her time beside Rune Natsuki, she had seldom heard that question.

Rune knew she looked good and accepted compliments with much the same calm as someone being informed that the sun had risen. She enjoyed praise, certainly, but reassurance before leaving a room had never been a necessity.

There were two people for whom she took particular care: the Empress and the Natsuki Matriarch.

Before visiting either, Rune might spend another twenty minutes adjusting the fit of her suit or checking that every strand of hair lay exactly where she wanted it. She respected them enough to want their praise, and the assistant had always found it rather endearing.

Rune could intimidate an entire room, then quietly fuss over her appearance in the hope that one of those women would tell her she looked beautiful.

Today, however, they were visiting her nephew.

The assistant studied her again, a suspicion took shape despite herself.

Surely Rune had not gone to all this trouble to look good for him?