Samuel was inside his own little mental world. People had a plethora of ideas of what this place was but the prevailing idea was that this was one's consciousness peering into their own soul. Everybody had a different look that was unique to them, similarities could be drawn but in most cases, their own soul was unique to them.

Samuel’s own domain was once a void of nothingness, and in that infinite expanse, the only that existed was him and six glowing balls of energy, each representing one of his breakthrough destinies.

Now it was an imitation of his abode in the sect with additions, and changes, and surrounded by a sea of stars. The first thing when he opened his eyes was him laying in bed even though he hadn't slept in close to half a century. Instead of the enchanted walls that simulated sunlight in every room, this had changed, each was now brightly lit up by torches swirling with red and blue flames.

He sluggishly removed the silken blanks got up and started languidly moving across the abode. The central herb garden, a hobby of his, was replaced with a gargantuan tree with its canopy dwarfing the entire house by an order of magnitude, the green visage dotted with countless red specks, each an edible seed.

He run his hands across the furnishings on the walls and the design choice that had some key differences. Instead of describing the rich history of the sect that had been around for so many millennia, it depicted three artifacts of great power and all that he accomplished with them throughout his life. Two different swords and a shield, all made from pure energy and extremely artistic. As if they were made for aesthetic purposes and not strictly combat.

A shift happened which did every often as the tint of everything went from a very slight tinge of red to a tinge of blue. He looked up to see that now the 'sun' that lay in the sky was now blue and in a few minutes it would move out of the sky once more and be replaced with a blue one, and the cycle would repeat itself.

He smiled, thinking of the changes that took place in his mental domain over the last year. Proof that he was still but a babe when came to understanding the immortal and its infinite myriad of forms. He walked forward, going to the source of this great change that shifted his inner soul. He went to the open training yard where outside of the changes in architecture there was one key difference, in the center was a lifelike statue of the young woman he had come to hold so close to his heart.

Unlike everything else, this was a one-to-one replica of Elizabeth as she existed in the world. He looked at her mismatched eyes of the person whom he held so close to his heart that his own mind thought it important to create an image of her in his soul. The one thing this statue had that the real one was currently missing was the playful smile.

His own smile fell as he thought of the change that had taken place in Elizabeth's demeanor after they had entered the sect. She was a playful, slightly bratty, spoiled, and extremely loveable princess in his eyes. Now the first two features which made the core of the disciple he so cherished were all but gone, replaced with constant anxiety and depression. The sad thing was, he only figured this out because of peering into her soul and a subsequent trip to the library to figure out what that meant. He did not know that this insignificant tournament would cause so much pain to his disciple, otherwise, he would have held it off indefinitely.

His mind became slightly turbulent and to imitate glass-like cracks appeared all across his mental world. But he was a nascent soul and as soon as they appeared they vanished as he took control of his roiling emotions.

He gave out a breath, sighing in the process. He may be a veteran when it came to the cultivation world, but when it came to being a human he was still a rookie. As he had come to realize so very recently, both were necessary to walk the path of the immortal. He had once believed it was a lonely thing, to be at the top by one's own merits but that was hardly true.

No being could reach the top purely on their own merits, that was just a lie perpetuated by the powerful who believed they did not need others to continue existing. Maybe that was true, he did not know, he was no philosophical scholar. But what he did believe was that without others life would be very boring indeed.

The universe agreed with his revelation, he felt the surge of power in himself as essence filled every single corner of his mental domain. This was but another example, he believed the universe was a living entity and it was the reason cultivators could even walk the immortal path, yet once they achieved ascension through its help, they believed they were above it.

Would he even have stumbled on this revelation if not for Elizabeth, he did not think so, and that disciple was currently in need of his support, and he would give it to her, consequences be damned.

He opened his eyes and looked at the peaceful face of his sleeping disciple, at least in her sleep she had a peaceful expression.

He had broken through once more and was at the late stage of the nascent realm, only a step away from breaking through into the soul formation realm. But that did not matter at the moment, what mattered was his hurting disciple. He put a soft hand on her head as he said quietly.

"Don't worry... this master will always be there for you..."