A golden eyed man sat in front of a large oak tree, with his legs crossed and his hands held out in front of him. His hands were placed palm up, over the left was a swirling disc of water, half green and half black, surrounded by wisps of white fog. Over the right were two masses of far more viscous liquid, orbiting each other like two binary stars and surrounded by a yellow light. One of them black as tar while the other glowed brightly like lava. Yet, there was an even more distracting light show over his shoulders. To one side was a trio of flames, white, orange, and green swirling and rolling over each other. Over the other was a shifting mass of metallic blue, one moment solid and the next a liquid with arcs of lightning dancing over it, most of them silvery but a few showing a mysterious purple haze.

After four decades of careful practice and training, Sage had become adept at handling the many Heavenly Materials he’d gathered through his hundreds of years of life. He was now able to control twelve of them at the same time, moving them as if they were a part of his body. The final two in his possession were not really ones that could be used in battle. The Seed of Life was an integral part of his Nascent Soul and Solar Iron was a traditional Heavenly Metal that was usually used as a component for legendary Magic Tools. Most Heavenly Materials could transform their owner’s energy into another form, like Heavenly Flames that turned Qi into their unique types of fire. Solar Iron(and many of the other Heavenly Metals) actually operated somewhat in reverse as it could take in light and then convert that into Qi for its owner. After becoming familiar with so many Heavenly Materials, Sage felt he’d gained a bit of insight into how they all seemed to be a sort of energy transformer.

If I were to gather enough of them, would it be possible to use them as a replicator? I’ve already found a few that transform energy into matter and liquid, right?

Such a question could only be answered by him collecting more Heavenly Materials, which was easier said than done. Whatever the case, he had gained many new options due to his increased control over them, but he felt this was only the tip of the iceberg. Those who owned only a single Heavenly Material would spend centuries or millennia studying them and inventing their own unique techniques. With twelve of them to split his time among, Sage was already happy to reach this level of control over them.

Perhaps this is a present in disguise. I can find the commonalities in controlling all Heavenly Materials and raise my proficiency with all of them at the same time.

Instead of becoming an expert at driving a specific type of race car, he’d just have to improve his skills at driving every type of vehicle there was. Instead of spending his time learning the best ways to take a single car around a track he would just be improving his fine motor control, reaction time, and attentiveness which would apply in a truck, on a motorcycle or even an airplane. Or at least that was how he thought of it, as he wasn’t actually training those abilities. Instead, manipulating the Heavenly Materials had its own set of rules and he was simply training to improve the necessary qualities that were common among all of them.

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While this progress was quite impressive, it was dwarfed by his real improvements. Over the course of these more than forty years in the outside world, more than forty thousand went by on the Inner World. This span of time was enough for the rise and fall of many nations and even the complete collapse of all civilization. The Lang Clan and the important members of the Prosperity Company retreated from the world at that time, going into hiding and gradually helping the survivors of the apocalypse to recover what they lost. There was damage to the grand infrastructure they’d arranged, which was easily repaired, but that was before all the people who knew how to repair it were killed. Or at least those who weren’t part of the Lang Clan’s people. The strange cultural issues had built to a point where it was inevitable that the few greatest powers would start a ruinous war.

The only way to stop the sides from doing such a thing was to step in as an overseer and become the enemy of all, or to kill them all themselves. It wasn’t the first time such a thing happened on the Inner World, it was only the first time it had ended in the collapse of civilization. The long lifespan of powerful Cultivators also contributed, making great powers like kingdoms and empires last many times longer than for normal humans, but eventually those great leaders passed away and allowed major changes to their society. With time, they recovered and only a few decades of progress were lost before a new civilization was built.

For the research teams, they lost some of their supply network, but their studies continued. The Prosperity Company got put to use helping distribute bits of knowledge slowly, while the rest of the activity on the other continents continued as usual. A vast vault laid underground, filled with unending rows of man sized cocoons. Sage made one last check over this project as well as the others, including the Psychic and Buddhist sects. With everything in order, Sage focused fully upon the outside world as it was time to answer the call.

The time of his seclusion would soon come to an end as the event he was waiting for had finally arrived. Dismissing the manifestations of his Heavenly Materials, Sage stood up and walked out into the center of the courtyard and connected with an extra-dimensional entity. He had formed a connection to it when he first found it many years ago, after learning the method to do so from Guan Zhenyan. It was finally time to cash it in.

A plate of darkness appeared in front of him and slowly grew in size. The vertical circle expanded to nearly ten feet before it stopped growing. Sage stared into the dark portal for a few long moments before he lifted his foot and stepped over the threshold, passing through this doorway to somewhere else which closed a moment after he entered it. The circle shrunk rapidly until it disappeared entirely, leaving the courtyard completely empty and without a trace of where its former occupant had gone.

On the other side of that portal, Sage was standing upon a huge flat shard. It was crystalline in shape, but not in its composition. It was not a large mineral growth, but an amalgamation of shimmering energy. Many thousands of diamond-like paper thin energy constructs had gathered together, layering themselves into this strange bit of rainbow colored ‘land’ that Sage was standing upon. Each of the little flakes was of a different shimmering color, which made for a kaleidoscope of color.

Yet, that was only a sideshow to the main event that was off in the distance. The blinding lights being released were second to the crushing pressure that surrounded him from all sides.