It took Sean and Esteban less than a day to get the hang of using the White Flame Scripture, as Nolan relied on his personal insights to come up with an explanation that would make more sense to people who had grown up on Earth than the way that his teacher had described it.

While he'd been busy showing them the basics, Nyla had tutored Alicia and Aine on the intricacies of the Profound Soul-Splitting Technique, while Uncle Grey had pulled the Varai siblings aside to share some improvements that he'd made to their core cultivation method. By the end of their first week on Nia, everybody had solidified their understandings of their respective cultivation methods and were now well on into their training.

This makes, what, a hundred and eighty-four?

Nolan looked down at the three pellets that rested upon his palm, sighing as he recalled the monotonous grind that he'd undergone over the past eight days. One of them was of medium grade, with higher potency than any of the others that he'd created up until this point. He had already distributed most of the ones he'd made, and had plenty of ingredients left to make more, but he suddenly found that his heart wasn't in it. He wanted to cultivate.

He decided to make a few more before going off to join the others. My herblore level is basically 99 anyway. Smiling to himself as he recalled the good old days of his younger life, he quickly set about getting the last bit of work out of the way.

Just as he finished up the final batch of Earth Sect pellets, he sensed a sudden fluctuation in the Origin Energy within the glade.

That's…Nyla? He looked over at the Divine Spirt Fountain from his corner of the courtyard, where Sean was congratulating her with a thumbs up, Esteban left hanging on a high-five that she didn't understand how to reciprocate. She had just broken through to the third level of Integration, just a day after Lyra had reached the fourth level.

Time to put in some work. He slipped into the fountain a few minutes later and gave Nyla a quiet congratulation before he began to cultivate the White Flame Scripture. Excruciating as it had been, he had made incredible progress back in the Desolate Spirit Tower, and was very close to making another breakthrough.

As expected, he reached the eighth level of the Profound Entry stage within a week's time, the achievement accompanied by a rush of excess energy that poured out of his body with a strong gust of wind. Sean and Esteban had both reached the fourth level midway through the second week, but their auras hadn't been nearly as intimidating. Seeing this development, the two of them redoubled their efforts at cultivating the White Flame Scripture. He'd relied on the same technique to make his breakthrough, as he was very eager to build up his immunity to flames, however slow the process was.

After being praised by his friends for his recent success, they all returned to their meditations. Silent once more, the only sound to filter through the air was that of the trickling waters within the fountain. He quickly set about calming the streams of energy within his inner essence channels while simultaneously attempting to quell the storm of energy within his spiritual space. About ten minutes into the silence, Uncle Grey's voice drifted throughout Nolan's mind in a way that told him nobody else could hear it.

Come to the western area of the glade.

Nolan opened his eyes and looked around at his friends before quietly exiting the fountain, still affected by the excess energies within his body. A few dashes later and he was standing at the fringes of the surrounding forests, much of which were healthy and green despite the fact that they remained inanimate in the absence of the elements.

He approached Uncle Grey, who appeared to be sleeping on a tree branch in his usual style. "What's up?"

"I'm going to teach you something useful."

He fought down a rush of excitement, despite the roiling energies within his body that had yet to calm. "And what's that?"

The old spirit floated down to stand before him, sandaled feet giving off the appearance that they were firmly resting atop the ground. "There are a few things that any sect master worth their salt should know, and this is one of them." With a wave of a loose sleeve, his teacher activated a simple arrayment diagram that appeared in front of him as if it had been summoned from another space. Nolan was in awe, since he'd never seen anybody construct and activate an arrayment diagram so quickly.

A small circle of golden energy appeared on the ground, about the same dimensions as an ordinary hula hoop. Miraculously, countless streams of energy began to pour in from the surroundings, mostly from deep in the forest where his spiritual sense held no sway.

"What…?" he muttered, though he quickly discerned the arrayment's function. "This is just like the tower!"

"Keen eyes you've got there. Yes, this is actually a similar arrayment as the one that keeps that tower operational. Back in my day, even the weakest sects had at least a few of those buildings. When you get back to that Three-River Valley, it'll be a good idea to set some up on your property."

Nolan inspected the arrayment for a moment, shocked that the energy within had quickly swelled to match that of the Desolate Spirit Tower's fifth floor. Before he could give it more than a brief inspection, it suddenly vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.

"Can it bring in more energy than that?"

"Not the one that I just showed you." This time the old spirit took his time while tracing out the arrayment diagram, so that Nolan could clearly see the intricacies of the design. "I'm going to create another one, so watch closely."

Just as there were many types of barrier arrayments of all levels—basic, intermediate, advanced, complex, grand, and so on—it turned out that there were all sorts of variations to the arrayment that Uncle Grey was attempting to teach him. Basically, there were barrier arrayments of all levels, and the same went for construction arrayments, attack arrayments, and pretty much every other type. The technique that Uncle Grey was attempting to teach him was simply termed as a meditation circle arrayment, and this one was at the basic level.

"Once you can make these on your own, I'll have Sean and Esteban come over so I can teach it to them as well."

"Uh, actually," said Nolan, pulling out the teal pellet that Drasin had given to him. "Do you think you could teach me how to make pills like this first?"

"That shouldn't be a problem." The pellet floated over to Uncle Grey, who inspected it with wise eyes before returning it to Nolan. "I know the recipe for a pellet that can help you stabilize your inner energies within an hour or so of a breakthrough, so it would be better to teach you how to make that one."

"It works so fast?"

Crossing his slack-sleeved arms, Uncle Grey donned a smug smile that betrayed his desire for praise. "And it works up until the Soul-Strengthening stage, too. It's called an essence reining pellet, and normally it would be a waste to use it on somebody at your level, but it's not like you're short on herbs these days.”

After buying out several alchemy shops of their entire stocks of certain ingredients, Nolan had more than enough alchemic supplies to start his own store. Common herbs and items aside, he had looted thousands of spatial bags from disciples of the Bloodhand Sect during the opening days of the Haussian invasion, so he had plenty of ingredients that nobody outside of their territory could normally get their hands on. On top of that, he had snatched up hundreds of spatial bags during the battle between the residents of the Three-River Valley and the Towering Eaves Clan, as well as those from the subordinates of the Red Mountain King that he had encountered back in Malben Valley. Even after all that, he and his friends had killed countless people, animals, and demonic beasts on their journey northward through the Dragon's Tail and up into the Northern Wilderness.

"Are they really that effective?"

"Always so skeptical, this one."

Soul-Strengthening… Such a stage was so far away from where he currently was that it was better to distance it from his thoughts for the time being.

The stronger he grew, the more tedious it became to sort out his inner energies after a breakthrough, since the amount of energy that filled his body increased every time he rose to a new level of cultivation. Even now, as he stood there in the quiet field, he had a terrible stomach ache and a light rush of nausea due to the turbulence within his body that was brought on by the breakthrough he'd just had. It would likely take an entire day to settle his condition, a thought that made Uncle Grey's words all the more alluring.