It took ten years for all of the commotion and chaos to die down and stabilize. In those years, all of the Major Sects learned what it meant to stand on the front line and in their hearts a tinge of fear and bitter regret manifested itself. All the higher echelons could do nothing but regret pushing all of the responsibilities on the Drifting Wanderers Sect while they sat back in comfort.

Now that they were put into the front of the spear head, they understood how bitterly the Sect had fought and how strong the Aboriginals were. In these ten years, they had lost mountains of resources, countless Disciples and thousands of Elders. Since they now experienced the bitterness of the spear head first hand, they couldn’t help but think back to their own attitudes ten years ago…. They could not find any fault in the Sect relocating.

Now there were even discussions going around their Sects higher Echelons to relocate their Sects to the Endless Heavenly Seas. They sent one person after another to negotiate with the now Hegemon of the Endless Heavenly Sea, The Drifting Wanderers Sect. In these short ten years, not having to always deploy their Disciples to the front lines ,the Sect had flourished considerably. Although they still had their own problems and troubles to deal with, they weren’t as big as before.

When Curo heard of these plans and negotiations, he couldn’t help but give a deep sigh. He knew from experience that people don’t appreciate what they have before they lose it. Until ten years ago, the Drifting Wanderers Sect had been an enormous wall keeping the rest of the Sect safe. However, now that that wall had disappeared, they had to first hand experience being the wall.

To Curo, whether the Sects did relocate or not held no importance at all. His job was to protect the Great Vault not defend those Sects or anything like that. As the Continent went through great changes in these past ten years, the biggest change however took place in the City of Fengdu.

In these ten years, the City had expanded to twenty times the size it was before with now holding more than five million people of all trades here. The army that protected the City had turned into one of the strongest forces on the Continent as well. It now had over three million soldiers with Core Formation Cultivators acting as Generals, Foundation Establishment Cultivators acting as Battalion and Squad Leaders.

As Curo expanded the City, he also reorganized the army into four different branches: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, White Tiger and Vermilion Bird. Each of the Branches had a different Emblem and different purpose. The White Tiger Army was responsible for patrolling the surrounding areas and were the main fighting force the City that composed of cavalry. The Black Tortoise Army was mainly composed of Infantry with a bit of Cavalry Squads mixed in. Vermilion Bird Army was compromised of people that specialized in using Long Range Arts and healing or support. The Azure Dragon Army was special amongst the four Armies. They were compromised of people that managed to make a Beast Pact with a Dragon and were the elite force of the Four Armies.

These Dragons had all been brought by Curo from another world a long time ago. He had first thought to sell these Dragon Eggs but now he found that creating an elite Dragon Rider Army with them was more useful than a few cultivation resources. He had acquired over ten thousand of these Dragon Eggs from the ruins of an Ancient Clan and although each Dragon was extremely valuable in terms of raw materials, they were all also extremely strong.

These impossibly gigantic changes that took place in the city with a measly ten years shocked even the Seven Devils Sect. On the Continent, it was safe to say that the City of Fengdu was most definitely the safest place to be, so many people whose homes had been lost to the chaos and disciples of various Sects that had been destroyed all converged in Fengdu.

The rise in population grew explosively and with all of the reorganizing of the City, the influx of workforce and fresh blood was greatly welcomed by Curo. As Curo organized the entire City, his own cultivation did not get impacted. His own strength kept growing alongside the City.

He had reached the Peak of Foundation Establishment, and had already completed his Qi Palace. Since Curo excavated 99 Fully Saturated Qi Springs made from a Quasi Heaven Grade Qi Cultivation Art, he breezed through the Qi Sea and Palace Building Stage. He had spent eight and a half years on Condensing and Saturating Qi Crystals and excavating Qi Springs and half a year on completely flooding his Qi Sea with the pure, rich Qi.

Then it only took him only a year to build his Qi Palace. Now that the Palace Building had been completed, he slowly circulated his Qi as he prepared to form his Qi Core. In Qi Gathering, you gathered strands of Qi into a mist like substance, to enter Foundation Establishment, you needed to turn that mist into liquid form and to enter Core Formation, you needed to turn it into a solid mass. By inscribing the Core with the your Art, you can birth that Art’s Nascent Soul.

Once a Nascent Soul of an Art is birthed, when a person trains in the Art, their Cultivation Speed will double however, if they were to change their Art, they would first have to change their Nascent Soul. To do that, one needs to spend several hundreds of years in secluded meditation to slowly and safely keep imbuing with the Qi from the Art to change it. Each Art is like a distinct fingerprint. They each have their own characteristics and no two Arts have the same distinct Qi Print.

With everything in the City now in order and working, Curo made Zhao Long the Acting Commander as he himself focused more on his training. For major decisions or when something big happened, Zhao Long still had to inform Curo and wait for his instructions.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise for Curo that Zhao Long could handle everything fairly and effectively. Before Curo had come to Fengdu, the one who was acting as the highest authority had been Zhao Long. After informing Zhao Long that he was going to go into Secluded Meditation to break through to the Core Formation, he gave full authority to Zhao Long. After a few more words on how the situation of the City was and after Curo gave some cultivation tips to Zhao Long, he left him to his work and disappeared from the Main Hall.

A few years back, when Curo saw that Zhao Long could handle all of the matters efficiently and was doing a good job, he had him and his clan move into the City Lord Mansion. He himself however moved his cultivation area down, into the cavern that held the Great Vault. When Curo had declared the City independent, he hastily set down dozens of Top grade Formations to tightly and securely lock down the Great Vault and prevent anyone from accessing it.

He then turned the area surrounding the Great Vault into his personal Cultivation Area that was off limits to everyone else. Anyone that trespassed into this Forbidden Area was killed regardless of status. When Curo arrived in the Cultivation Area, he checked that all of the Formations were working and seeing that nothing was wrong, he walked towards a giant door that stood in the middle of the cavern. This door was an entrance point to his Spacial Mansion.

Although he actually didn’t need it and could enter the Mansion without needing but he left the door there in case something urgent happened and Zhao Long needed to see him. Zhao Long was the only person that had a special Token that let him bypass all of the Formations unharmed. After looking over the growth of his Medicinal Plants, he went into the closed door cultivation chamber in the Mansion. After calming his mind, he started adjusting his body to peak condition before he started the attempt to form his Core.

Forming a Core couldn’t be done in a day or two, even with the purity and richness of Curo’s Qi, it would still take him over half a year to form his Core. After clearing his mind and adjusting his body, he took a deep breath as he sat down in meditation. When he closed his eyes, silence engulfed the hall. Not a sound could be heard outside but inside Curo’s Dantian a storm was raging. There were several different methods to form a Core and each of those methods resulted in different degrees of strength. What Curo was going for was the hardest method but at the same time, what gave the best result.

The easiest method was to take a piece of the pure Liquid Qi in the Qi Sea and add drop after drop to it. It took the longest and resulted in the lowest strength as well. They would need to take a long time to strengthen their ore enough for it to be able to withstand being inscribed the Cultivation Art.

The method Curo was going for resulted in the firmest of Cores, that let him bypass the Early Core Formation Stage. This method was to take an enormous amount of Qi from his Qi Sea and compress it into a Core. This was the most dangerous method because even the slightest bit of disturbance or a single false move could result in failure.

The best result then would be a slight internal damages and damages to his Qi Palace but at worst he could die from a Qi implosion. Curo however was extremely familiar with the process as he had done it nine times already. To him, it wasn’t dangerous at all since there was nothing that could disturb him here. As Curo controlled the gigantic mass of Qi that was floating in the shape of a ball in the air, he slowly made it rotate. Time slowly ticked by, a day, a week, a month as the gigantic mass of Qi kept shrinking, compressing.

Slowly, three more months trickled by and the gigantic mass of Qi had shrunk to the size of a fist. As Curo’s Soul stood on the highest peak of the Qi palace, the pitch black Core gently hovered in front of him. The Core took the colour of the type of Qi one trained in. Some Arts that had a person transform their Qi into Frigid Qi had light blue Cores, some that trained in Fire Type Arts, hard scorching orange Cores. So following the same logic, the Qi that Curo used was the Asura Qi. This is what made his Core turn pitch black.

Seeing that the Core had formed, Curo released a heavy breath. There had been some times when the Qi wanted to run out of control but he had always managed to get it under control before it made any damages. As Curo started at the pitch black Core in front of him, he couldn’t help but crack a wide smile. His consciousness was still connected to his body and he could feel how many times stronger he had grown now. Although he hadn’t tested it out yet, he felt like his strength was on par with an Early Stage Nascent Soul Expert from this World.

This was the benefit of being thorough: Cultivation and Battle Strength were two things that were completely unrelated to one another. There have been Core Formation Cultivators that have killed Nascent Soul Experts and there have been Core Formation Experts that are weaker than general Mid Foundation Establishment Cultivators. The World of Cultivation was a ruthless place where ones own strength defined the person.

Just as Curo was thinking about sitting down and starting to inscribe the Core with the Cultivation Art, his face changed. He exited his Dantian and rose up with a grave face. With a flicker he disappeared from the Mansion and the Great Vault Cave altogether.