Reaper of the Martial World

Book 4: Chapter 37: That Weapon

With a flash, Dyon’s body disappeared from its position behind Femi and appeared Ri and Madeleine, a smile gracing his features. He didn’t seem anything like the man he had been just a few moments ago. Instead he was caring, warm and even a bit worried.

It was at this point the crowd began to overlook Dyon’s cheater label, to a certain extent. Whether he cheated or not, he had just made a very good case for why he should be in the top ten regardless. And, as they all knew, the top ten was a single tier unto its own. The disparity between ten and one wasn’t so large as heaven and earth… Or so they thought.

Femi Geb’s lip twitched. Unbeknownst to him, Dyon’s words had him frozen in place for a split second too long. But, he quickly recovered. He didn’t know what it was about Dyon that seemed to constantly suppress everyone around him, but what he did know was that he had no intentions of losing. And since this Dyon had insisted on provoking him, his allies would suffer too.

What Femi didn’t know was that Dyon’s suppressive abilities were because of his soul strength. Even elders much more powerful than Dyon always felt a constant pressure from him because a part of them would always be weaker than him.

Dyon didn’t know it, but he was tapping on a door to something new. At Focus Academy, the very first confrontation he had ever had was with Akihiko’s younger brother, Kami Mayumi. During that confrontation, Dyon directly damaged Mayumi with a single shout, suppressing his soul and injuring it. Because Dyon now had the habit of suppressing his own soul level, he hadn’t used this ability since, even to the point of having forgotten about it entirely.

However, the larger problem with using this ability was the vulnerable position it placed Dyon in. The act of attacking with the soul, as Saeclum’s passing would attest, was highly dangerous. The only reason Dyon was on the winning side was because he had been severely underestimated – no one had thought he had any cultivation to speak of at all.

Another problem that was probably just as important was the fact that an attacker had to either prepare for an extended period of time as Saeclum had, or, if you had enough talent – as Dyon did – to skip over the preparation time, you still needed a soul several levels higher to be successful. And even then, you would still be at a severe risk.

It was many confounding factors like this that often made creating soul type techniques completely impractical. This was why the movement toward more supplementary soul type techniques like manifestation and array alchemy were created. By using mediums like manifestation and the aurora, you had a shield to the direct damage of the soul.

Top flight manifestation could have a direct impact on the user’s physical body or had a physical form of some sort. For example, Dyon’s wings. These were a physical representation of his manifestation. This same logic was also true of his weapons.

Because of his soul strength was connected to wings, Dyon could reach speeds comparable to lower level saints should he choose to. That said, it put a ridiculous amount of strain on his soul considering that was his upper cap. At the same time, the rest of Dyon’s body didn’t make fighting at that speed viable. Why? Because even if he could flap his wings that hard, the rest of his manifestation didn’t lend to attacking with speed suitable for that. At the same time, because he didn’t have a saint level body, flying at that speed put a massive strain on him.

Another example of this was how the strength of his weapons directly correlated to his strength. Because he had a saint level soul, he could manifest grandmaster level weapons. However, this was yet another example of how the rest of Dyon’s cultivation restricted his soul’s full potential. After all, just having a grandmaster level weapon didn’t mean you were as strong as a saint. Just like Dyon’s transcendent sword didn’t make him as powerful as a celestial level expert.

All of this to say, that unlike body and energy cultivation, soul cultivation always came rife with caveats, exceptions and limiters. And unfortunately for Dyon, he was by far the most talented in this aspect with both his body and energy cultivation being completely average. In fact, if Dyon’s set of meridians hadn’t come already tempered, who knew how many months to even years it would have taken him to reach the middle of the meridian formation stage? Never mind 108 open meridians.

In the end, this was why Dyon had suppressed his advancement to the essence gathering stage. He needed more of an understanding. And, if he couldn’t get that, he needed to at least gain the most solid base possible. Unlike body cultivation, energy cultivation was highly sensitive to the most minute of changes.

That said, this was Dyon after all. Just how many possible solutions did he already have in mind already? How could he possibly be like everyone else in thinking that the soul was the most useless of the three disciplines?

Did body or energy cultivation directly increase your intelligence like the soul did? Did body or energy cultivation allow you to write the laws of the universe? Did body or energy cultivation allow you an understanding of the universe few could ever dream of reaching?

The answer was no. To every single question. So, how could the soul be useless?

Dyon’s senior first brother had failed. His grand teacher had failed. His master had failed. In fact, every expert to ever live had failed.

So, considering how arrogant Dyon was, why wouldn’t he think that this task was left unsolved for him to write in a solution?

“Are you okay?” Ri asked worriedly, reaching for Dyon’s bandages. They had been partially torn off because of Dyon’s wings, but because of the position they were in, they had mostly survived.

Noticing this though, Dyon reached down, tearing them off completely.

The crowd seemed to be watching Dyon’s every action. And it seemed like with his recent wins, his fan club was growing out of proportion. It wasn’t as though no one had noticed how handsome Dyon was before, but that was a trait that was normally ignored for males in the martial world unless they were powerful – something females didn’t normally have to deal with. However, having now proven himself, he wasn’t short of admirers much to Ri’s admonition.

For the shrieking voices to reach so far down, it was clear there were a lot.

Madeleine giggled, “It seems they want to add our husband to the male suitors list.” Her smile was bright even as she helped Ri clean Dyon’s wound and bandage it again.

Ri’s small hands glided over Dyon’s lean torso almost as though to say he was hers before she growled angrily.

Dyon though only had eyes for Ri and Madeleine. “You two need to be careful, okay? I can threaten him as much as I want, but I doubt that would change anything. Regardless, for his words alone. He’s dead.”

Madeleine nodded. “I’m 19^th and Ri is 27^th. With any luck, we’ll be put in the same group. That will lessen the pressure.”

Dyon nodded. As much as he tried to rein in his actions to lessen rippling effects, there would always be people out there that cared more for their own glory than even the lives of collateral. What did Ri and Madeleine ever do to this Femi character? Wouldn’t he have been able to fight Dyon anyway if he waited?

The more Dyon though about it, the angrier he got.

“Hey.” Madeleine’s small hand found its way to Dyon’s cheek. “We’re warriors too.”

Ri nodded affirmatively. Neither her or Madeleine had gone all out yet. And, that was on top of the fact that dual cultivating with Dyon had major benefits to them as well. After all, how could dual cultivating with a saint not?

Looking at his wives, Dyon nodded. “Alright.”

**

In the stands though, there was another heavily debated topic aside from where Dyon ranked on the male suitors list, and that was Dyon’s weapon.

It wasn’t lost on the experts how amazing that weapon was. To manifest its own soul, and for it to be so large, there was no question that it was extraordinary. But, no one dared to speculate about the rank of this weapon… Because if they did… It would cause chaos.

Daiyu Chenglei had had a transcendent weapon, yes. But, how many others had a weapon of this caliber? Without a deep family lineage and legacy, how was it possible to such a thing? Even the Elves had lost all of theirs.

“That weapon… There’s no question.” King Acacia spoke.

“You know that sword?” Queen Acacia asked.

King Acacia grit his teeth.

“Aww, husband. Are you struggling with acknowledging your son in law?”

“Hmph. That kid doesn’t even have any awareness of what he just exposed. He was so focused on looking cool that he even took out such a thing.”

Kawa Acacia poked her husbands face playfully, “Doesn’t he have your sentinels to protect him. Who here could hurt him even if they wanted to?”

Seeing that King Acacia was reddening again, Kawa giggled.

“What sentinels are these, Edrym?” Big Red asked.

Down below, it seemed the monitors were randomly selecting the next group. Luckily, that next group had no one of note, so Ri and Madeleine were safe for now.

“They’re the dao formation puppets of the Elvin dead kings valley.” King Belmont noted.

“Dao formation?!” Big Red nearly choked on his food.

King Acacia shook his head, “They should have long since fallen from that level. But, it’s clear they’re still in the celestial realm. The worst part though is…”

“They’re comparable to first grade experts, right?” King Belmont finished his friend’s sentence.

Silence reigned in the room.

It was one thing to be a celestial expert. But, to be a first-grade celestial expert was completely different… Even in this room now, aside from Kawa, they were all at most third or second. This was because although they were all geniuses, they were capped by the poor cultivation in this universe. Kawa was lucky enough to be raised in a different universe entirely, as such, her talent wasn’t capped.

But, even they were the exception. Most celestial experts in this universe were extremely old 4^th grade experts who managed to stumble onto some luck to break through.

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade anymore friend.” King Belmont cleared his throat. “But both Madeleine and Ri are both peak first grade experts.”

“What?!” King Acacia’s head snapped. He felt like his vision was going blurry.

There was a massive difference between just being a first-grade expert and a peak first grade expert. But, that wasn’t what really pissed King Acacia off. If the two of them were the only ones who happened to be of such a level, there was only one linking factor… Dyon.

Even Queen Acacia was surprised. “Are you sure? What about Dyon?”

King Belmont shrugged, “I’m not sure about his energy cultivation. He never seems to make use of it directly – it only seems useful to him for balancing out his body and soul prowess. But his soul…”

“I don’t mean to tease you too much husband, but his soul isn’t that far off from being comparable to ours.”

“What do you mean? I’ve already scanned his soul strength. He’s at a measly lower second stage level.”

Dyon had of course felt King Acacia scanning his soul. But, despite the breach of etiquette, he had forgiven it since he was Ri’s father.

That said, Dyon had learned his lesson from Ulu. So, he lowered his soul to an even greater extent. But, this time, he had lowered it almost too much. It seemed his father in law was looking down on him.

Queen Acacia sighed, looking at her husband pitifully. King Acacia used to be a genius among geniuses and his perception surpassed nearly anyone. In fact, his battle prowess used to be far higher than his cultivation dictated because he could simply read everything his opponent wanted to do ahead of time. Even when he was a lower celestial expert, fighting a half step to dao formation expert wasn’t a problem.

However, as he felt himself losing his mind, he had researched ways to cut off his True Empath abilities. Unfortunately, his method was no where near as perfect as Dyon’s grand teacher. As such, his cultivation had to be supressed to the first celestial level. He could no longer manifest his soul. And without Kawa by his side, it was likely that he would have died a hundred times over in the past few years.

He was a shell of his former self.

The truth was that Queen Acacia felt very much responsible for this, seeing that she had been the catalyst for them leaving in the first place.

But, that was a memory she didn’t want to have to revisit… Not now.

That said, she still felt guilty about accelerating her husband’s mental illness. He had pushed himself so hard for her benefit. Now, though, there was a solution right in front of them. And, as fate would have it, it came in the form of their son in law – a son in law Kawa had a very good impression of.

“Husband. Dyon’s soul strength is no less than the 6^th stage. That I’m certain of.”

King Belmont nodded. “It’s likely even higher than that since he can hide it from us so well. Even when he was going all out against Kawa when he thought she was a danger to them, he still kept the leak of his soul power restrained. Despite his personality, it seems this boy is quite cautious.”

King Acacia paused. “So, that’s how he reacted to you so well?… How is something like that even possible?…”

The four of them looked at each other. They had each thought of an answer. But, they each knew very well that if they said those words, they would be severely punished.

Knowing this, Kawa shook her head, “You never finished explaining the story behind the sword.”

“Ah…” King Acacia looked off in the distance. He couldn’t help but sigh as he watched his daughter so diligently and lovingly tend to Dyon’s wound and bandages. “I don’t think describing it as just a sword is appropriate. But, I have no idea how he gained the approval of such a weapon…”

If Dyon thought back to the time he found his black-jade sword, he too would have had shivers down his spine.

At the time, the sword had every intention of killing him. In fact, it had pierced toward Dyon so powerfully and with such killing intent that it had even projected Dyon’s death to him. There was a moment where Dyon really felt that he was dead. Had it not been for his soul strength, he would have likely had a mental break down.

But, there was something else Dyon’s soul had given him that day: affinity for weapons. Unbeknownst to even King Acacia, it would likely be harder to find a weapon that wouldn’t accept Dyon than it would be to become a transcendent expert. And that was simply because of his weapon’s hall manifestation.

“I’m not sure if the child has realized this yet,” King Acacia continued, “But that weapon has the ability to change form. Whether that be its size or essence. And, most glaringly, it can hide its power. It’s just that a transcendent level weapon is as far as its willing to belittle itself. The fact it allowed Dyon to hide its power even further is… I don’t know…”

During Dyon’s fight outside the legacy world, he had used his Demon Emperor’s Will body technique. However, at the time, he hadn’t mastered the perfect form. As such, he expanded to a 3-meter-tall version of himself. But, the surprising part was that his sword had grown with him.

Dyon had assumed that this was his fault. Because he didn’t have enough strength, the sword was suppressing itself to be with him.

Although Dyon was partially correct, he wasn’t entirely so. The sword didn’t have to increase in size to increase its power output. It had only done so to suit Dyon’s increased size and maintain proportions. No other weapon had the ability to do such a thing. Or, more accurately, very few did.

“In the past, as you might know, the 25^th White Mother married into the Demon Qilin family.

Because of the lineage of the Celestial Deer was so robust and profound, this marriage was wholeheartedly accepted by the Demon Qilins. At the time, the Celestial Deer Sect was the most powerful sect in this quadrant. Well, it was among the most powerful, but was normally accepted as the best due to its array alchemists.

In fact, the 25^th White Mother’s husband jumped over many obstacles to marry her. Despite being a half step to supreme level beast, much like the 25^th White Mother, the celestial deer had once been favoured as supreme beasts themselves. It was only that their blood was beginning to dilute with each passing generation. Because of this, they fell from the ranks of supreme beasts and into the ranks of the transcendent beasts.

However, there was only an infinitesimally small disparity between them and that next level. The lineages necessary to once again become supreme beasts were still being held in their blood. It was just that it was so diluted that it required more and more talent with each passing generation to reach that level. So, the solution that the Celestial Deer Clan, not sect, found was to marry their best and brightest to beasts capable of birthing children that could break through this barrier for them so they could once again become supreme beasts.

 As you might guess, the Demon Qilin clan wasn’t the best option. Not by a long shot. Despite not being Supreme beasts anymore, there were many other supreme beast level clans willing to marry into the celestial deer clan because their affiliated sect was that powerful. To have the backing of the celestial deer sect was something to be proud of.

But, the 25^th White Mother fell for the first in line genius of the demon qilin clan and he decided that he’d fight for her, so that’s what he did.

His competitors weren’t few.

However, none were more powerful than the Black Jade Dragons.”

“Black Jade dragons?” King Belmont’s eyes flashed. “The Daiyu…”

King Acacia looked off toward Dyon. The sword still hung loosely from his hand, even as he was oblivious to the story behind it.

Queen Acacia was starting to understand the direction the story was going. After all, although she hadn’t known about the weapon, she was very clear on the enmity between the Daiyu and the Celestial Deer Sect. It was just that she hadn’t expected it to reach so back.

But then she suddenly thought of something she hadn’t been able to connect until just now. “If what you say is correct, husband, and the enmity between the Celestial Deer Sect and the Daiyu started over marriage and not their clash of philosophy… How was this even allowed? Qilins and Dragons are all under a single banner. They thrive together as a mix of transcendent and supreme beasts. Shouldn’t they be together?…”

Kawa didn’t pull this ideology out of thin air. Kitsune’s were divided into thirteen distinct factions, and yet they were sill together as one. The same should have been true of Qilins and Dragons. They both originated from the same tight knit blood lines. Usually their decisions should have come together. So, why then were the Black Jade dragons allowed to war against a sect one of their own had married into? That should have brought backlash from the other Dragon and Qilin clans. Especially since that alliance should have benefited them all as a whole, no matter which of them married the 25^th White Mother.

A sad expression appeared on Kawa’s features as she really thought about what she said. Were the Kitsune really so united?… If they were, how would her husband ever be in such a state.

Seeing how his wife almost immediately regretted her words, King Acacia thought nothing of it. Instead, he lovingly covered her hand with his. How often had he let her know that he would do it all again a hundred times over? But, it seemed to still weigh on her heart.

“It’s because of this that this weapon is even here now.” King Acacia continued. “Because of their culture, the Drago-Qilin universes place emphasis on your own strength. Because they’re so promiscuous, family lineage takes a backseat to acute power. So, the demon qilin was given a chance to prove himself.

However, this was a tall task. The Black Jade dragons were supreme level beasts with access to supreme level legacies. But, the demon qilins were a step below that, being only transcendent. And as such, they were capped in their capabilities.

The demon qilin knew this, so he took a risk. Are you all aware of how the dragons and qilins came to be?” King Acacia asked.

King Belmont nodded, “Unlike us humanoid beings, meaning humans and elves and the like, beasts are often born of necessity. They fill in a need of universe. Our totem beast, the ice and fire phoenixes, are responsible for life and reincarnation. That is what they were birthed into existence for and that’s the role the fulfill. Even though they are now gone along with dark phoenixes due to their inner warring, their will is still very much alive.

This role is also true of beasts like Kawa. Her Kitsune bloodline is specifically linked to the rivers and streams of the world. It’s a tranquility that her personality doesn’t exactly match.” King Belmont coughed, averting his gaze from his long-time friend.

Queen Acacia rolled her eyes, ignoring the statement and continuing, “Dragons though… They have an innate wildness and power. They’re meant to rule over everything. It’s not that they’re the most powerful. It’s just to say that the perfect dragon would be unmatched under the heavens.”

What Ri’s mother meant was something you had to have a nuanced understanding of. Just because a beast tribe was meant to represent something, doesn’t mean they could without any boundaries. Dragons were meant to be kings, but that didn’t always mean they could rule. By the same token, despite being masters of life and reincarnation, phoenixes are extinct.

Beasts were meant to maintain a natural balance. They were almost like footholds for laws that fundamentally connected with what the nature of things wanted to put into place. This was exactly why beasts could practically cultivate without any more effort than eating and sleeping entailed. They were already created to grow along a set path and only the greatest among them reached that peak height.

King Acacia nodded. “That peak level of sovereignty and reverence was something that only a few dragons and qilins in their long and storied history had matched. But, none were more polarizing and arrogant than the Dragon King.”

Big Red raised an eyebrow. “Such a simple name?”

His wife shook her head, “And ‘Big Red’ is what exactly?”

A light laughter filled the skybox, even King Acacia smiled.

“Like I said, he was arrogant. He was so sure that his life would place him among the legends and so sure that no one would surpass him, that he gave himself an easily replaceable name. And, even to now, no one has dared to name themselves as such.”

“But what is the significance of this Dragon King?” Big Red asked.

“Well, as his legend would attest to, he transcended. But, because of his arrogance, he absolutely abhorred the idea of anyone ever obtaining his faith seed. As you all know, dragons are promiscuous, and the Dragon King was no exception. So, the possible landing spots for his faith seed were far too numerous and would only increase as generations passed.

However, he thought of a solution to this. On the day he transcended he sealed away his faith seed. The demon qilin, knowing he needed to become more powerful, had one goal. And that was to unseal the Dragon King’s faith seed and take it for himself.”

“You mean like Amethyst…” King Belmont inadvertently trained his gaze on Madeleine. Not able to stop himself from sighing.

King Acacia shook his head. “Not like Amethyst. She used the gates and a temple.

The Dragon King used a weapon.”

“You don’t mean…” King Belmont nearly jumped in surprise. No wonder King Acacia had said that Dyon had no idea the kind of thing he had brought out. But, there was something off. Something like a faith seed… It should be much more obvious and much more powerful. The presence of a transcendent level weapon was far below the type of presence a faith seed should have.

King Acacia sighed, “Like I said. The Dragon King was arrogant. The weapon acts as a seal not only for his faith seed itself, but also the power it wields. It’s just that his arrogance didn’t allow him to seal any more of his power than he did.”

From King Acacia’s explanation, anyone could tell just how eccentric such a personality was. The Dragon King didn’t want anyone seeking to use his power, but at the same time, he couldn’t stand the idea of anything attached to his being, being too weak. As such, he sealed himself away, but not completely. He wanted others to know that even in a weakened state, a mere piece of his cultivation was still at the level of a weapon others could only dream of having.

“But then… If he didn’t want people to know about his faith seed, how did people come to know…” Big Red asked.

“This can’t be blamed on the Dragon King. The reason Amethyst trusted the Belmont’s in protecting her temple before it disappeared was because faith seeds cannot be hidden. Think about it, even death and reincarnation cannot erase a faith seed from existence. No matter how many times the seed is passed along from generation to generation, it will always manifest again. How can something like that ever be perfectly hidden?” King Acacia replied. “So, the Dragon King never bothered to hide the fact that he sealed his faith seed. What he did do was set up a trial, much like what I assume Amethyst did.”

“Was someone like him really okay with basically being used?… A weapon is nothing more than a tool, after all…” Queen Acacia murmured.

Kawa was correct. All of this seemed highly counter productive. For someone so arrogant to want to be used as a weapon seemed odd.

King Acacia nodded, “This is exactly why the trial wasn’t so simple as it seemed.

Before the time of the demon qilin, many had tried to surpass the trial. But, the problem was different than you might assume… Every single one of the succeeded.”

“What?” Big Red spoke out, trying to make sure he hadn’t heard incorrectly.

“That’s right.” King Acacia confirmed. “The trial was a joke. Or, more accurately, it seemed to adjust its difficulty just enough that you would have to try your best but would succeed in the end regardless. If ten people took the trial, ten would pass. If a thousand people took it, a thousand would pass.

So, you’re probably wondering why the demon qilin would try this then. How would he prove himself by passing a trial anyone could? Well… The problem lied with the weapon.

In a weapon to master relationship, there’s a soul bond. This is how it works with beast companions as well. For convenience, Kawa and I also have this soul bond. It allows us foresight into each other’s thoughts, information about each other’s whereabouts, and a connection few others can reach. Normally, the reason why this isn’t possible from human to human or elf to elf is that humans and elves don’t have a strong enough connection to the natural order of things. But, that’s a complex topic for another time.

The problem with the Dragon King’s weapon was that it would take advantage of this soul bond to take hold of the relationship. A large part of the reason why the Dragon King’s legacy lives on even millions of years after his transcendence is because he’s essentially forced his consciousness upon hundreds to thousands of hopeful warriors.

That said, the demon qilin still tried his luck. As one might expect, he was ridiculed as a wishful thinker. Many in the Drago-Qilin alliance wrote him off as a dead man and began to prepare to choose the best suitor for the 25^th White Mother among the Black Jade Dragons – who, at the time, had three geniuses that were of very similar stature, talent and potential.

However, the demon qilin had one thing that no other attempter had before: The love of a Celestial Deer.”

**

Down below, as King Acacia was speaking, the second round was raging onward. Zaltarish and his elder sister, Akash, were a part of this round, and they seemed to be doing well.

To the side, Dyon still held his sword in his hand as Ri and Madeleine tended to him.

But suddenly, something odd happened.

It had been years since Dyon had even thought of his jet-black sword. In fact, the most time he had ever spent with it was likely right now. In their previous interactions, it was strapped to his back. And, he had only used it to fight a single time. Neither were occasions like this one.

Dyon felt the sword shift in his palm, causing him to look down in confusion.

Ri and Madeleine, seemingly noticing the oddity, looked down as well.

What the three of them saw was a slowly warping sword. It began to shrink from its six-foot-long length.

5 feet. 3 feet. 1 foot.

The blade completely disappeared.

Then, the handle began to warp as well. Its foot-long length twisted around Dyon’s wrist, sliding around his fingers and almost becoming a liquid in the process.

Soon, a black band sat on Dyon’s wrist. It was at least 3 inches wide and fit snuggly, as though it was perfectly customized for Dyon.

However, that wasn’t the most shocking part…

Dyon suddenly felt as though an entirely new world had been opened up to him. Where before, it was difficult for him to sense energy cultivation energies, it was almost too easy now. Where before he could hardly sense the demon sage blood within him, it was almost too easy now. Dyon’s body had undergone a qualitative change. If he had to guess what it felt like, he would describe it in just a few words.

‘This must be what having a constitution feels like…’

Dyon looked down at his wrist, astonished. “So, this is the true you…”

Madeleine, having seen Dyon use this weapon before, was the more astonished of her and Ri. She had never heard of a transcendent level weapon changing form. In fact, she had never heard of any weapon changing form at all.

“What is it?” She asked.

Dyon shook his head, still surprised by all the information being filtered into him. It wasn’t just about the history of the Dragon King, but also the world that was just opened up around him.

The truth was that even with the set of meridians his grand teacher gave him, his energy cultivation was still poor. The meridians were no different or any more special than any other set of meridians. The only thing that made them stand out was that they were perfectly tempered and opened by Gama energy. This tempering allowed Dyon to be more powerful even compared to other peak first grade experts, but it didn’t improve his ability to energy cultivate. This was why he repressed his cultivation.

Dyon fully understood just how difficult his energy cultivation technique was. When his grand teacher called it the best in existence, he wasn’t exaggerating. But, the problem with using the best method was that it often came with the best difficulties – as ironic as that may sound.

[Inner World: Sanctuary], Dyon’s energy cultivation technique, was perfectly tailored to fight in a world made for wills. In the future, when Dyon needed to conquer universes, that would often mean entering the domain of others. This would put him, as the aggressor, in a disadvantage position. Why? Because the ruling experts or clans would have a monopoly on the wills in that universe. If Dyon suddenly stepped into a universe that didn’t allow him to use his wills to their fullest extent, wouldn’t he be handicapping himself?

In the past, experts leaped over this hurdle using two methods. The first was to make sure that your ubiquitous wills were powerful. These were wills available in large quantities in any universe. Simple wills such as wind, fire, water, etc.

The second method was to be completely overbearing. To be so much more powerful that any suppression of your more powerful wills didn’t mean anything.

However, this energy cultivation method provided a third solution. Why allow yourself to be suppressed at all? By using your meridians as a map to construct your own inner world, you could maintain your wills in peak condition no matter where you were. In addition, I also came with the added benefit of allowing much more energy storage than any other energy cultivation method – aside for a select few like Ri’s void cultivation method.

That said, imagine the difficulty of constructing your own world. Now imagine the difficulty of constructing that own world, when your energy cultivation talent was so poor?…

The first and second steps of [Inner World: Sanctuary] were the same as any other cultivation method – with the caveat that its foundation stage was much more thorough than many others. But, its third stage, the beginning of the essence gathering stage, was entirely different animal… If Dyon was correct, had he entered that stage without the Dragon King’s help, it would have taken him centuries to construct his world – maybe even more than a millennia.

That in itself wasn’t the problem, though… The real problem was what sacrifices were necessary to construct this world. In that time, Dyon wouldn’t be able to use his wills, his soul strength, or his energy cultivation. He would only have access to his body’s strength while everything was diverted to the creation of this world.

The truth was that it was only because his soul was involved that creating that world would only take centuries. His soul’s prowess was able to make up for his lack of energy cultivation talent. But, even still, it would take that long…

However, this treasure he had just stumbled upon changed everything. Coupling the boost in his energy cultivation talent with his ridiculous soul talent, it would only take five years – ten years at the most! That cut down the time needed for his world construction by fractions of the original value.

In addition, if Dyon hibernated during that length of time, he could ensure that the time needed would be closer to five years than ten years.

This made Dyon sigh a breath of relief. He had been warring with himself recently about this. He had even spoken to Ri and Madeleine about it. To them, they would rather deal with centuries of Dyon being weak by their side, than a less amount of time with him hibernating. But, if the time was significantly shorter, even they might find it to be worth it.

Dyon suddenly grinned, picking up Ri and Madeleine in his arms and twirling them around happily. He didn’t seem to care about the gazes of jealousy he was receiving.

In the distance, though. There was another character watching this scene angrily that Dyon had long since erased from his mind. He didn’t think this person was relevant anymore, but maybe that was a mistake…

Evelyn Niveus. The first in line genius of the Niveus God Sect – a sect that only accepted women with God and Heaven level constitutions and was previously Delia’s home.

She was currently stewing in her anger. Because she knew she was too weak to compete in the overall rankings, she, much like Ava, had chosen to partake in the meridian formation rankings. However, who would have thought that she as a first in line genius would lose to a girl two years younger than her?

She sat at second place. And, just when she thought she could watch Dyon fail miserably to make her feel better, he had broken out and outshone her yet again.

‘Breathe, this is all because of a calculated sacrifice.’

Evelyn had a God Level constitution. In fact, it was in the top 10. Although it wasn’t as powerful as Delia’s or Ri’s or Madeleine’s, if Evelyn was placed in any other universe, she would be an unprecedented genius. But, she had given up her virginity to her fiancé – now husband. And because she had been cultivating a technique that required chastity, it had ruined her entire foundation. The mere fact she was still powerful enough to place second was a testament to how truly talented she was.

However, she wasn’t stupid. She had done all of this for the benefit of her future, and there was no future in this universe. All she needed was a cultivation cleansing pill and she could start over. And, because she had stolen Delia’s pill, she would cultivate even faster with a fully awakened constitution.

That said, she still wanted revenge.

‘Just wait.’ She thought to herself. ‘My husband will come claim me soon. We’ll see how long you can smile for.’