It was finally done after a lot of hard work. The counter cube as I had taken to calling it was finally done. Several plates had to be redone to make sure everything aligned properly in three dimensions, but that had only slowed me down. The newly built reinforced nexus chamber held the cube. Thankfully the energy in the area hadn’t dispersed even with the destruction of the chamber. The nexus crystal was still there, countering the effects of the Great World. The various Elders were ready to attempt to breakthrough, but there were still some final touches being done on the top and outside of the building. I planned to harness this tribulation lightning for my own benefit. After I left I clearly wouldn’t be taking a structure with me, so the Flame Sect was more than happy to accommodate my requests. Thick metal poles were being constructed in order to ground the lightning, while directing it into a pool of water under the nexus chamber. The energy from the lightning strikes was at the front of the bolt, to punch through any defenses while the rest of the bolt followed up. A minor but important detail. The metal pillars that were being built into the Sect Building build channel the lightning and the energy separately. The large metal pillars would direct the electricity into the ground, but the energy into the pool of water. I was still working on the arrays and formations needed, but shunting energy in a specific direction and a physical effect in another direction was one of the basic premises of arrays. Directing and converting energy and force. That additional bit of understanding for having gone with the Dao of Force during my initial stages of cultivation came in handy for times , making me slightly more talented, or being able to more intuitively grasp the force aspects of the various arrays and symbols I worked with. Too bad there wasn’t a Dao of Energy, but there were very few things of pure uncontaminated energy that leaked up from Chaos. And pure energy would be too dangerous. I did not feel like tangling with monsters above my weight class. I rather be a big fish in a small pond like the Great World, than a small fish in a big pond like the Forever City. It gave me more agency to decide what I wanted to do, even if the opportunities were much more limited. The Elders and the Sect Leader were all looking at the giant metal counter cube, the size of a car, while I slid all the metal plates into place in the holding array, checking to make sure everything was aligned. Plate after metal plate was slid into place. I was really glad I had my spatial device, since moving around such large plates otherwise would have been a massive hassle. “And done,” I said while carefully staring at the counter cube. “Then this will only help get me started,” the Sect Leader said with a frown. “Everything is made up of building blocks, but it all breaks down at the quantum level. My knowledge on this subject is quite limited. The Heavenly Alliance, while very advanced in terms of understanding of their cultivation, look down on technology. Your best bet is refining your control to greater heights. That will be the real challenge of your cultivation system,” I explained. “Just knowing all of that is quite helpful. Each time I think there can’t be anything else, you surprise me,” Sect Leader Flame said. “Your Flame Sect has been quite accommodating. I can’t solve all your problems, just like you can’t solve mine, but we can pool our strengths and knowledge,” I replied. “I also invited you here for another reason. I owe you a great debt for saving my life when I broke through. While there isn’t anything I can think of to offer, make your request known, and I will see it done,” he replied. “Being able to harness the energy from the tribulation for myself will be more than enough. The amount of energy I need for my cultivation is immense, and if the lightning and tremors can be dealt with safely, then it would be helpful for me,” I explained. The real question would be how much energy would I get, and how useful that energy would be after being part of the tribulation. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I suspected I would be able to use a chunk and just boost my energy reserves. I didn’t hold out hope for advancing my cultivation. Just having a large amount of energy would be quite useful. Maintaining my energy was mentally like keeping hold of a sieve. There was just a natural tightness to how I held my energy that had developed, first by entering the Mechanical Layer, then some advice from Yang Heng, and then from being stuck here in the Great World. What was letting through pebbles before was only letting through specks of dust comparatively. It was hard to say exactly how much my ability to retain my energy had improved. I remembered Yang Heng’s words about staying away from quantifying everything. There were risks with such a methodology, long term. A perfect example was energy retention. Let’s say I defined energy as a unit of 1, however much that bit of energy was. It would be mentally harder to deal with smaller amounts. Also using techniques would be defined by numbers. Even if I readjusted the scale, one’s mindset would determine reality. I would be more focused on the numbers rather than on improvement. It was frustrating at times, but Yang Heng’s advice had not steered me wrong. I was also slowly making improvements while stuck in the Great World. The problem was the pressure. The looser the sieve on my energy in my body as the pressure increased, it was harder to hold in energy. I had spent a lot during the last tribulation, but I wanted to push my ability to hold energy up even higher. The improvements I had learned from the Flame Sect would be helpful and had been helpful. If Sect Leader Flame made progress, I could look at copying what he was doing to a certain extent, leeching off the knowledge of this other system of cultivation to help me. It made me wonder if there could be a third system of cultivation out there? While the Heavenly Alliance System liked to talk about a body, mind, and soul path, they didn’t vary nearly as much as one would think. Unlike the system of the Great World where they exclusively devoted themselves to cultivating the body due to lack of energy. The Heavenly Alliance System involved the soul at each step. This made me wonder if someone could think their way into cultivation. Could there be a third system that just used the mind? Where someone had such a good understanding they were able to advance their cultivation? I took some time to seriously consider this question. To understand energy so well, that one’s cultivation advanced. But what would it look like? Perhaps an easier time controlling energy or using techniques? If someone found a source of energy, they were highly compatible with, I could see them making progress in the use of energy as their control would be very good. While a neat idea, if it was possible, I was clearly missing some key information, or a key experience. Using energy on the body like the cultivators of the Great World were doing was something that might have come up, but had never been something that was worth investing the time into researching or working on. The focused changes that the cultivators of the Great World did and I copied were advancements that took a very long time to develop. To know what was safe and the best practices. Coming up with everything from scratch would be much harder. They had refined their cultivation system, at least the first part to an extreme. This knowledge was incredibly useful for me to make changes to my body, that I otherwise wouldn’t have risked. While it had a limited impact on me, it still had an impact. Now the Sect Leader would chart the way forward along with his elders. After looking at the microscope, I made my way back to my workshop to keep working on metal plates. “I saw your counter cube in the nexus chamber,” Fu Shirong said after entering my workspace. “Impressive, isn’t it. Now I am working on improvements,” I replied. “I would like to go with you, when you leave,” Fu Shirong said. I wasn’t surprised. “Even if I can’t make something portable?” I asked. “You can have a ship specifically designed to carry it. Weren’t you planning to travel by ship anyways?” he asked me. “Who knows what obstacles are in the future? I doubt there are oceans and canals all the way to the Great Desert. That is where having energy will most likely be the most useful. Also working out how the nexus crystal works, will give me great insight into the working of the Great World,” I replied. “We are still leaving in a year or so?” Fu Shirong asked me. “Perhaps. I wish to see another tribulation, iterate the design of the counter cube, and see what direction Sect Leader Flame takes his cultivation. You should keep work on yours,” I replied. “Don’t you ever consider it boring, sitting around, meditating, focusing?” Fu Shirong asked me and I let out a sigh, stopping my work on a metal plate. “That is cultivation. You cultivate to get more life, to cultivate some more, to eventually reach immortality, everyone who know is dead, and then you need to keep cultivating to get more power,” I replied. Fu Shirong just stared at me for a bit, and I shrugged. “You have been cultivating for a long time?” he asked. “You are just realizing that now? If you can’t focus, then you have no future cultivating. It requires constant dedication and persistence, even if it can be unimaginably boring at times. You need to keep working to improve,” I said. “There isn’t some kind of treasure or quest I could go on?” he asked. “I don’t believe so. If you want to live to reach the Great Desert you need to cultivate. That is the best place to find something that is useful. But it comes down to energy, this entire place is very low energy. The real trick, I have personally discovered, is you need to cultivate enough to extend your life and get strong enough you can seize the opportunities that come by,” I explained. Being weak was a sin as a cultivator. While one would naturally get stronger, one needed to be able to defend themselves and seek out benefits. If one wanted the ability to seize a benefit, they needed to be strong enough to do so. While I didn’t like fighting, I still kept my weapons on me just in case. One could never be too careful or predict what might happen. “I just hate being stuck in one place, that was why I left to travel,” Fu Shirong said. “I am not stopping you,” I replied, and he looked at me in surprise. “The opportunity I have given you is immense. But it might not be for you. Not everyone enjoys cultivation. Some might enjoy living their life instead, or mercenary work. I am in no place to judge. But if you stay, then focus on cultivation with every fiber of your being.” There was silence at my declaration. Fu Shirong had been whining for quite a while. While I had never taken him seriously up to this point, his attitude had begun to annoy me. If you didn’t like cultivating go do something else. No one ever forces a person to be a cultivator. That was why the Cloudy Moon Sect wanted individuals who showed they were dedicated by having a specific level of cultivation by a specific age and I am sure the Flame Sect did something similar as well. Fu Shirong started at a slightly older age and his temperament was not something to be desired. I had only let him come along since he had been insistent and had helped make travel arrangements. But I could not stand to listen to him complain about how boring cultivation was one more time. “I will go cultivate,” he said and left. I nodded at that. If he had complaints, I didn’t care to hear them in the slightest. He was far luckier than other people in the Great World by having my Read the latest chapters on NovelHub - completely free! But it all meant nothing if he didn’t cultivate. If he wanted to go do exciting stuff and fight, there were countless jobs out there he could take.