Aotian spent some time lost in thought, feeling slightly melancholic when thinking about the future and his family, before forcing himself to recover a bit and begin the occasion that always followed the breakthrough into a new realm.

The analysis of his current strength.

He decided to start with the good things, trying to distract his mind in the process.

Aotian turned his focus to Bao Wuji, who had already returned to the sect more than a month ago.

At that moment, the sect’s only ancestor, with his long beard and white hair, was staring seriously at his own hand.

[Name: Bao Wuji (Meaning: Limitless Treasure)

Position: Sect Ancestor (Treasure Pavilion)

Cultivation: 1st Level of Void Refinement (3 Major Realms Above Host)

Body Cultivation: 1st Level of Soul Formation (3 Major Realms Above Host)

Position Skill: Equivalent Exchange

Affiliation Skill: Storage Space

Position Bonus: Treasure Radar (4 times per day)]

Feeling the terrifying power flowing through his roots, he mobilized just a bit of energy into his hand and saw space ripple slightly there, making his eyes narrow.

Shooting into the sky at an impressive speed, he quickly moved away from the sect.

When he judged that he was far enough that nothing would harm the sect if something went wrong, he tried something that came to mind.

He stretched both hands out, saturating them with energy, making space vibrate. Then, as if grabbing the edges of an invisible elevator door, he began pulling with all his strength, while his energy drained away and flowed like an uncontrollable river.

An impressive scene unfolded before his eyes: space began to distort and tear open a rift. Stretching his arms to their limit, he let go of the opening and stepped back, standing a few meters away from the rift, which was twice the size of a person.

Through the rift, Aotian could see a chaotic, empty space that seemed infinite. Far away, in a straight line from that opening, there was another rift showing a different scene.

With his high cultivation realm, Bao Wuji could easily see that beyond that second rift there was water as far as the eye could see, a blue sky with a few clouds gently floating, and the calm sway of the waves.

‘The sea…’ Aotian thought with shining eyes, as both ends of the passage closed simultaneously.

In just a few seconds, the opening disappeared.

‘So, upon reaching Void Refinement, you don’t need a specific technique to tear space, but it’s also not as simple as I imagined. It takes a lot of effort and is quite draining. In his current state, Bao Wuji can open space at most twice before his energy runs out and he needs to replenish it. On top of that, the process is time-consuming and exhausting, and the rift doesn’t stay open for very long.’

‘Lastly, the distance he can reach is probably quite large—since I saw the sea—but still limited. I need to train to control that distance too. I may not be able to make it go farther, but I must be able to make it closer, because if I can only use a fixed distance, my control over where I want to land will be very limited.’

He analyzed, while controlling Bao Wuji to take out a perfect-grade spirit stone. Crossing his legs in midair, he began replenishing his energy. A few minutes later, he stored the powerful spirit stone back into his storage ring, his energy fully restored.

Once again, he raised his hands and tore the void.

This time, without wasting time, he entered the chaotic space before the door could close and rushed forward at full speed.

As soon as he entered, his body felt the chaotic spatial energy crash against him, trying to damage him. Sensing the danger, Aotian—or rather, Bao Wuji—immediately raised a crude energy barrier around himself, which easily resisted the energy.

While crossing quickly, he didn’t fail to observe his surroundings, but saw only darkness and chaos, along with the deadly, invisible spatial energy that permeated everything.

In an instant, he crossed through and emerged from the other opening, hovering above the sea as the rift closed behind him.

Although Bao Wuji’s face remained indifferent, in his room, Aotian’s main body was sweating slightly, with a frightened look on his face.

‘Damn! What a terrifying place.’

He couldn’t help but be impressed by the danger of that space which, seen from the outside, didn’t look so threatening.

The brief exposure was enough for the energy used in his defense to be consumed quickly, and about 1/6 of his total reserve was spent.

‘Terrible. If my main body entered there without the protection of a Void Refinement cultivator, I wouldn’t last even a second.’ Aotian shivered at the thought. ‘And it seems my calculations were wrong. Bao Wuji can only open one rift and cross it with his current energy before needing to recharge, not two, since simply traversing consumes so much power for protection.’

While Bao Wuji recovered his spiritual energy, he also used his treasure radar ability to locate where he was.

Within seconds, Aotian saw that he was an enormous distance from the sect, above the sea. The trip was equivalent to at least half a day of travel at Bao Wuji’s maximum speed before the breakthrough.

‘So, if it took him about 11 days to reach the Beiyan continent, now he would only need to open a spatial rift 22 times to reach the destination. On average, it takes ten minutes to replenish the energy spent with each opening using a perfect-grade spirit stone, so the trip would take just over three hours.’

‘Man, the efficiency has improved a lot. If it only takes three hours, it’s much easier to send Bao Wuji there from time to time without compromising the sect’s protection for too long. And he wasn’t the only one who advanced.’

[Name: Tiān Zhǔ (Meaning: Heavenly Leader)

Position: Sect Leader

Cultivation: 1st Level of Soul Formation (2 Major Realms Above Host)

Body Cultivation: 1st Level of Nascent Soul (2 Major Realms Above Host)

Position Ability: Technique Derivation

Position Bonus: Fight Beyond the Border (Power increased by 3.5x)]

With Tian Zhu reaching the Soul Formation realm, Aotian felt much safer letting Bao Wuji temporarily move away from his side. After all, he would hardly attract the hostility of the central continent, which still posed a serious danger to him, and the rest was not as threatening.

And, although there were cultivators in the mid-continents who could still be difficult for Tian Zhu to face without Bao Wuji, the powers that used emissary sects to recruit talents probably did not possess cultivators at the Soul Formation level. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need to lower themselves to coming to such a poor continent to steal talents; they could compete for them in their own continent.

‘Anyway, even though I’m safer now, I’m still not going to be reckless. I’ll keep quietly dominating the desert continents. After all, there’s no reason to draw the attention of great powers and risk someone with central continent connections bringing some monsters to bother me.’

‘Bao Wuji has just entered the Void Refinement realm, and he’s still far too weak to deal with even the moderately strong powers of the central continent, many of which have Void Refiners among their ranks.’

With that decided, he turned his focus to the remaining changes in the sect.

Meanwhile, Bao Wuji returned to the sect through a rift, but he would continue exploring his abilities.

In fact, it didn’t even take a minute for Aotian to discover a new skill — that the body of a Void Refiner could hide between dimensions, observing the world without being seen. He didn’t tear open the void to enter that space like when he created rifts; instead, he partially hid himself, like an invisible soul or ghost lurking between the real and the unreal.

Aotian raised an eyebrow at this, and without hesitation, controlled Bao Wuji to enter his room and remain hidden in the void, silently guarding him.

He believed that probably only a cultivator in the Void Refinement realm or higher could detect Bao Wuji now. Lower realms, even if he stood directly in front of them, probably wouldn’t be able to find him.

He nodded in satisfaction at the sense of security this brought him, and then took stock of the power of his avatars:

– 1 Ancestor in Void Refinement

– 1 Sect Leader in Soul Formation

– 20 Inner Elders in Nascent Soul

– 50 Outer Elders in Golden Core

Seeing his current power, even Aotian was a little surprised. Although only the ancestor could destroy all the other avatars together, for some reason, what really impressed him was seeing 20 elders with Nascent Soul cultivation.

‘Terrifying! Simply terrifying!’

He trembled slightly at the thought — not from fear, but from excitement.

‘Damn, now that’s an upgrade. Now I’m going to send outer elders to replace those inner elders who are pretending to be leaders of the sects I’ve dominated. It’s a waste to put a Nascent Soul in such a role. They should return to the sect.’

Rolling his eyes, he began making arrangements.

‘Wait… before that, something more urgent. Now it’s time for… creation of enlightened minds! Sponsored directly by Liu Rihai, also known as wife!’ he thought, amused by his own excitement.

Soon, all the avatars, who had already dispersed the people around them and were waiting alone for this moment, began creating their own enlightened minds.

Aotian grew excited as he felt, in real time, his number of minds and processing capacity increasing.

For each new cultivation realm, a new mind was born.

When Aotian and his avatars opened their eyes again, the total number of minds was:

– 7 Void Refinement Minds ((6 enlightened minds + 1 own mind) x 1 Avatar)

– 6 Soul Formation Minds ((5 enlightened minds + 1 own mind) x 1 Avatar)

– 100 Nascent Soul Minds ((4 enlightened minds + 1 own mind) x 20 Avatars)

– 204 Golden Core Minds ((3 enlightened minds + 1 own mind) x (50 Avatars + Main body))

Total: 317 minds.

‘Hehehehe… I went from 244 minds to 317. Although the apparent increase doesn’t seem that big, I need to remember that these minds belong to higher cultivation realms, and the quality has greatly improved. Man, Rihai’s great-grandfather was simply a genius! Of course, he created the technique during an epiphany after hundreds or even thousands of years of isolated cultivation, and it’s only so incredible in my hands, but that doesn’t diminish his genius one bit.’

Aotian thought with respect.

His system might be powerful, but his second trump card was this technique, which he valued deeply and which had helped him enormously throughout his cultivation journey.

He felt even more grateful to Rihai, his wife, for having gifted him this family heritage from the very beginning, especially when he needed it most, when he only had three avatars — and without asking for anything in return.

Thinking about this, his love for her quickened his heartbeat, and without thinking twice, he ran to her room to celebrate a little of that love.

Moments later…

“Tian’er! Stop! Stop! It’s still daytime!”

“We’re in a cave, what does day or night have to do with it?”

“Hey! Slower, I’m not going to run away! Wait… I just realized you advanced!”

“Don’t get distracted, we have more important things to deal with!”

“How is doing these perverted things more important than… AHHH!!”

…

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep