After a year of procrastination, the lord was finally pushed into a corner. The 'children' had now fully developed and if one looked at them now they would not believe that merely a year ago they could barely do anything by themselves.

He had started looking at them as daughters at one point before realizing if he did not count his past life they were older than him by a year and five for Bai even though their actions often hinted otherwise. Even after a year of education, their knowledge could only be considered rudimentary. If they did not have a gift he could understand, impure essence accumulated in all living things, after all, it was the source of all life and as non-cultivators, they could not cleanse themselves which in turn made them mentally feeble. This is one of the big reasons why cultivators looked at mortals with such contempt.

The problem was despite their incredible gifts impure essence was allowed to fester for too long and despite his best efforts he could not push them to a cultivator's path, their channels were far too damaged to fix and even his near limitless wealth could not find one. Because of the toxic culture, most mothers did not care about their sons or daughters and most fathers did not even know they had children. The mothers only looked at their children as batteries and upon birth, most were dumped into the sect orphanage for the elders to pick and choose who had the most cultivation promise and the rest sold off. In such a society finding an alchemist who would take the time and energy to research how to fix broken mortals when you could just replace them with better ones for a fraction of that cost or time commitment was like finding a unicorn in a brothel.

The young master sighed as he knew he had a perfectly good solution. Only, now that he was so close he had gotten cold feet. In media from his past, it was portrayed as such a grand thing to have a bevy of women at your beck and call, but nobody had bothered to mention the drawbacks that came with it. Bai Qing at first was resistant, but then she found out the joys of having a female company that did not talk about progression or immortality all the time and she was hooked. Now, she blessed and even begged for the union, how could she not? They looked at her like an elder sister and gave her simple joys that this world severely lacked.

Sadly, he sat at the peak of the foundation realm for a bit too long his essence ready for evolution, and one day without warning the choice was removed from him

It was while looking at Bai Qing play with Phe as hope rested on his lap as he combed her brilliant red hair when it hit him. There were amenities in the realm that could only occur if there was a group of people who wanted a better life for all. Through his last 21 years of experience, he knew no one in this world had next to no kindness left in it but based on scriptures there are billions upon billions of realms out there in heaven's myriad tapestry. Surely there were some whose worldview was better, simple statistics suggested that to be likely. Reality was infinite his presence here proved that fact, even if such a world did not exist could he not simply make one when he was strong enough.

Like a small spark, the thought of the infinite gave him a small sight into so much greater that his soul ability was starting to form not as a visual in his mind's eye but becoming real. His body was wracked with pain as his body was desperately trying to evolve to accommodate this breakthrough but his cultivation method cockblocked that progress.

He let out a silent scream as he fell flat on his back. He was not allowed to even faint as he felt hot fluid leak from every orifice. He closed his eyes and looked inwards to figure out he was good at that.

He felt the devastation in his own body as his essence was desperately trying to condense only there was nothing it could use as a container to start the process. He knew the problem immediately, many used specific heavenly objects or events of fate as the container. His cultivation method had simply not allowed this moment of fate to form the container even though the rest of the process had already started.

A warm soft hand touched his head and before he could even think his essence flooded the form. His eyes shot open as he desperately tried to warn whoever touched him to back off but all he could manage was a small groan as his essence was trying to use whatever or whoever touched him as the container for its ascension.

He knew he could figure out a solution if he was left to his own devices. His soul was already at the soul formation stage of cultivation which was why he was so powerful despite the lack of heaven's blessing but now that he was offered a path less resistance his mind had focused on survival before his morals could catch up to it. Like a shark, his essence had ripped a part of the unfortunate soul and consumed it while leaving a part of his own in there eternally enslaving the soul to his being.

Finally, finding a container his entire sea of churning and chaotic essence focused on all of it moving into it in droves. The gaseous essence was pressurized into a globule of glowing liquid the size of his head before shrinking further it shrunk further till became a shard as long as his middle finger with the thickness of his thumb.

He opened his bleeding eyes to see who saved him and scorned their eternity before reality itself shattered like glass and then he was on a platform surrounded by an ocean of stars. The shape was a disc with a radius of 150 feet and at the center, a replica of his white essence shard floated in the air except enlarged to be bigger than he was. He intrinsically knew what this was, after all, who could understand one's soul ability better than they themselves? But the thought running through his head was not of the majestic that existed before his eyes, silently he muttered.

"I hope Hope forgives me..."