Sage focused upon one of the stones inside his inner world, then with a thought similar to the one used to operate a Storage Bag, poof! In his hand, the stone appeared. He sent it back inside, then he picked up a rock from the chamber he was in. He used a simple carving technique and drew a character upon it. Then he sent it in as well. It worked! Upon the surface of the planet, right next to the stone he’d brought out and put back again, was the stone from the outer world, the freshly carved character very apparent.

With a bit more experimentation, Sage learned that the ‘Inner World’, his new name for the planet, had a few interesting quirks. First off, he could place things into the Inner World, but only in a certain area around the planet. The rest of the tiny universe was still out of his control. Next, and most importantly, the Inner World had a faster rate of time than the real world. With a bit of calculation, he found it was ten times normal. Every day in the real world, ten days passed within his Inner World. Last of all, it truly was a fully functioning planet, and it was oddly desolate. It had weather and many different types of terrain, but the only living things at the moment were algae.

So many possibilities opened up to him, it was hard to choose what to do next. He immediately thought to just transfer over everything from the Universe Ring, but then he hesitated. He had already spent quite some effort setting up everything to his liking within the Universe Ring, it would be a shame to just uproot it all. On the other hand, the sooner he set things up in his Inner World, the more time they would have to develop. A quick calculation showed that every 36 days, one year would pass in the Inner World. For regular plants, he could stop by every month or so and get a harvest.

The only problem would be that anyone living in the Inner World would be exploring a completely barren and desolate planet. It would be like volunteering to colonize a new planet, a planet where time passed by at a very accelerated rate. Sage was reminded of the problem of faster than light travel. Theoretically, approaching the speed of light would cause a difference in time for the person in travel compared to those still at the point of origin. It was commonly known as time dilation. The faster you are moving, the slower time moves. It could create a situation where a person could be traveling around at the speed of light for a year, but when they return to their home world, centuries might have passed.

Any people he put into his Inner World would rapidly age. A situation which most would not enjoy! On the other hand, all of those inside feel time passing as normal. Only by comparison between the Inner World and the real world would those inside feel at odds. So, if a whole community of mortals were living inside, they certainly wouldn’t find anything unusual about it. At the moment, they would probably prefer being in a world without cultivators or Demonic Beasts to worry about.

Of course, Sage wasn’t going to just build a danger free new world for mortal folks. That would be a waste of a perfectly good resource. Only, it would be far too troublesome to micro-manage an entire planet all by himself. The obvious choice would be to create a Hoplite settlement in his Inner World. He also wanted to add in all of his money making creatures, but they would need specific ecosystems in place to support them. Relying on just the Hoplites to handle this huge endeavor might not go smoothly, they were just bugs after all. Even with human forms, they were not the brightest.

Sage entered the Universe Ring and told the good news to King and Ruanfu. King was his right hand man, and he wanted to keep building a good relationship with Ruanfu. In the future he was counting on her being one of his secret weapons. Sage’s soul form, King, and Ruanfu were now standing on a mountain peak within the Inner World.

“So high. Mmm, that spot over there is perfect for a perch.” Ruanfu was running around, pointing at different things and looking into little caves. “That one over there is great for a roost. Wow, you could fit so many broods.”

King had walked up to the edge of the rock face they were standing on, looking downwards at the ground. The bird of prey in him was overlooking the world below. Sage held in a laugh, “So, what do you two think?”

“Sounds like you want to move Tiankong Palace. Well, I’m not that easy! This mountain is certainly great, but where are the prey? You can’t expect a Hawk Clan to move in without any prey to hunt.”

Ruanfu nodded her head along with her ‘Father’s’ words, “That’s right! How can we roost without proper materials to build our nests? You really didn’t think this through Lang Sheng!”

Sage was glad for the control he had over his outwards expressions, merely nodding to the two of them and bowing his head. Inwardly he was laughing, but on the outside he bought some time looking apologetic. Eventually, he regained his calm, “You are both right. I was rash. Please inform me of your preferred prey and building materials. If we are to make the Inner World a haven for Hawks, then we must create a great environment for them.”

He had only been wanting to show the place to them, but they were already volunteering to move in. Demonic Beasts were quite different than humans. Their cultivation was a process of long slow accumulation. Only the most powerful and intelligent species of Demonic Beasts had cultivation techniques, the rest naturally gained energy. They would take many centuries or even millennia to reach the higher ranks. Humans could reach similar heights in only decades, but the heavens were fair. Demonic Beasts had lifespans many times longer than that of humans. A human would have to keep increasing their cultivation rank to gain more vital lifeforce, if their cultivation stagnated for too long they would eventually grow old and die. Cultivators definitely had extremely long lives, each rank more than doubling their lifespan, but Demonic Beasts had so much it was never a concern for them.

The number of Demonic Beasts that actually died from excessively old age were few and far between. Only those in the greatest and most powerful species, or ones with exceedingly powerful defenses, like certain tortoise or turtle species, had a chance. Nearly all Demonic Beasts would die at some point or another in combat. Life is rough for a monstrous beast. Sage had no issue with moving Tiankong Palace into his Inner World, they wouldn’t be harmed by the faster time rate. They might actually be of even more use to him because of their more rapid improvement.

As for Sage himself, even if he could move to the Inner World, he wouldn’t want to. He still had goals for this world, and cutting himself off from it was not his ideal solution. Of course, he couldn’t physically enter the Inner World, it was within his own body after all. On the plus side, he could observe anywhere on the planet quite easily and also affect things anywhere on the planet with a thought. That said, his capabilities there were limited. It was similar to a Storage Bag where all he could do was move things that were within his strength. That is to say, if he could lift or move them with his physical body, he could place them into a Storage Bag. He couldn’t move seas or flip mountains with the flip of a hand.

But… maybe the Heavenly Materials can…