"Okay," sighed Nolan, a bit frustrated, "that's fair, I guess.” He rose up from where he was sitting, pretending to get ready to leave. “And here I was about to give you all a bunch of these amazing medicinal pellets that I spent so much time making…"

"That sucks for you guys," said Esteban, coughing for emphasis. "I, for one, think we should talk about the sect and stuff. Oh, and those pellets…"

Nolan leaned up against the ledge. "We can talk about anything that's on our mind. We've got at least eleven months left here."

"It would have been more," sighed Uncle Grey, "if you wouldn't have wasted so much energy on coming here and then leaving right away."

"What a terrible person I am." He took out a small wooden chest and had it float about a metre away from the fountain, opening the lid with the same spiritual energy that supported it. Inside were nine leather bags, which contained all of the medicinal pellets that he had just made, along with some blood breeding pellets that he'd looted back in the Easterly Kingdoms. "So I've been thinking that I should start taking this whole sect idea a lot more seriously. We're only going to keep growing in the future, since we'll be taking in any Otherworlders that agree to my terms, which has been all of them so far."

"How many others are in the sect?" Nyla was playing around with a small arrayment diagram by endlessly altering it. "You mentioned that you found more people from your world when you were in Ridgerock."

"It's just us here who are actually in the sect." Nolan drew up an arrayment diagram and activated it a minute later, which produced a map that perfectly mimicked his memory. The golden light faded so that everything was clearly legible, like real paper that’d been marked with real ink. "Look, there's still a lot of distance between this lake and the end of the Northern Wilderness. We'll have to stop at a couple of cities, including Frostport once we reach the coast.

"After that, we've got to head to the northern coast of North Isle, which is basically a huge continent by our standards"—he gestured at Sean and Esteban—and it's filled with huge cities. By the time we finish up with our current goal, I'm sure we'll have met a lot of people from our world. We'll pick all of them up on the way back to the Three-River Valley."

"So we'll have hundreds of members pretty soon?" Alicia seemed excited at the prospect of belonging to such an organization.

"Hundreds of Otherworlders," said Aine, whose voice was light with incredulity. She drank some water from the fountain and then let out a blissful sigh. "When you guys first freed us from that bandit city, I'd never have dreamt that it would lead to all this. If only my sister had lived to experience this."

Nolan took out the boulder of black halmite that he had won in the royal competition back in Ridgerock. "While we're in North Island, we'll look for somebody that can work with this ore, and we'll each get a weapon.” He ignored Uncle Grey, who rolled his eyes for some unknown reason. “These weapons will act as a sign of the top positions of our sect, so you guys are basically like the founding members."

Naturally, everybody was excited by the sudden handouts, though that didn't mean that they didn't have questions.

"What exactly is our goal again?" asked Ian. "There's an island north of North island, and there's a treasure there or something?"

"These three spots," said Nolan, pointing at the areas where Nyla's family map had indicated. "Once we get the first one, we'll head back to the valley to settle our members, and build up some infrastructure. Then me and Nyla can go after the other two while you guys keep an eye on things at home. Once she gets all three, she’ll be a beast." She looked stung by the comment, but he quickly explained that it was a compliment.

They also discussed the hierarchy of the sect. Everybody here would be a great elder, since within a year or two of time on Venara, even Aine and Alicia would be at the Genesis stage. Sean would be at the head of the Earth Branch, which would consist of all members from Earth. Nyla would be at the head of the Arrayment Branch, which would purely consist of arrayment practitioners. Ian would head the bulk of their force, the people that they recruited who already practiced their own techniques, but lacked potential as arrayment practitioners. May would be at the head of a dual cultivation branch—if she agreed to joining the sect—but Nolan kept that to himself for now, lest he anger Nyla further.

The more he thought about building up their own force, the higher his anticipation rose. They could very well become the first modern state in this world, with the help of everybody from Earth that they managed to recruit. With their knowledge and Uncle Grey's arrayment techniques, it wouldn't be long before they became high rollers on Venara.

Giddy with daydreams, the group unanimously agreed to return to their training, so everybody remained inside of the fountain to do just that.

"If only we had more room, we could load spirit stones in here."

"Oh?" said Uncle Grey. "If you wanted to make the fountain bigger, why didn't you just say so?"

"That’s possible?"

"For you, yes. Your blood bonded with the fountain long ago. Just circulate a bit of energy inside of it with these patterns. Listen closely…"

A few minutes later, the fountain suddenly expanded to the size of a large above-ground pool, leaving Nolan both frustrated and grateful towards the flippant old ghost.

"Why wouldn't you tell me something so important?" he sighed angrily, dumping out the bag of empty spirit stones that Nyla had looted from the same Vespasian tomb where she had found her treasured painting. Everybody else had also emptied out their spirit stones, which left half of the fountain completely filled. Collectively, they had about 65,000, all of which would soon be upgraded to superior ones and thus multiplying their worth by thirty-fivefold. By the time they left Nia this time around, they would have a collective worth of well over two million ordinary spirit stones.

Everybody wore the same greedy smiles in the hours that followed, though soon they were all lost to their meditations. All except for Nolan, who was learning how to make a basic meditation circle arrayment elsewhere within the glade. It took four full days to learn the technique, at which point Uncle Grey went off to teach it to the others.

Nolan meanwhile, began to train within a circle that he had just created, which was big enough to accommodate the Ancestral Body Technique's countless movements. Under a pressure similar to that of the Desolate Spirit Tower's fifth floor, he began to train under a slight discomfort. Since the energy within the glade was boundless, the effects of the arrayment quickly approached that of the tower's sixth floor. Beneath such a heavy aura of energy, he began to enjoy the true benefits of his core cultivation method.

Sometime later, he spotted Sean and Esteban at different parts of the glade, both within their own basic meditation circle arrayments. Everybody else chose to stay within the Divine Spirit Fountain, which was quite a spectacle now that its size had been increased by such a degree.

Gradually, everybody fell back into the swing of cultivation. Like this, nine weeks passed in a tranquil blur of repetitive action. Everybody saw great gains during these months, as they were able to enjoy the incredible environment of the glade, the effects of the Divine Spirit Fountain, and also that of their generous supply medicinal pellets. Any one of these benefits would greatly increase one's cultivation speed, and yet Nolan and his friends were able to enjoy them simultaneously and in an environment that was completely free from external threat.

As for Nolan himself, he had accumulated an incredible amount of energy within his dantian, yet remarkably it was only about two-thirds full. Compared to previous levels of the Profound Entry stage, he had pulled in the same amount of energy that he’d required to get from the fifth to the seventh level. Still, this just put into perspective how long it would have taken him to make such progress under normal circumstances, even with such a top quality cultivation method.

While he hovered around the middle phase of Profound Entry’s eighth level, his friends saw more immediate results. Much to their surprise and elation, Alicia and Aine managed to climb all the way to the peak of Profound Entry within the thirteen weeks that they had been within the glade. Keeping an eye on their progress, Uncle Grey promised to teach them the same movement skill that he'd taught Nyla as soon as they broke through to Integration.