Birth of the Demonic Sword

King Elbas did his best to portray a perfect replica of the images and sensations obtained from Lord Lewis, but he inevitably failed to provide a flawless copy. After all, his items could only show what he had felt and seen through his senses, which modified the actual events experienced by the rank 9 expert.

The massive empty monster and the cities in the sky didn't suffer from that issue. They were only a matter of images, so King Elbas could create an accurate replica that almost had no differences from the original. However, the process went differently when it came to the sensation connected to Lord Lewis' breakthrough.

Noah could see how King Elbas had seen the event during his exposition. The expert had viewed the breakthrough to the ninth rank as the creation of higher energy that carried the core aspects of his law. It felt like a mathematical issue that involved specific portions of his mental energy and fiery higher energy, and the explanation inevitably confused his companions.

Divine Demon and the others didn't have access to higher energy, not consciously at least. They could understand something from the explanation, but they felt lost when King Elbas made them sense his version of the process.

"It wasn't like that," Alexander complained after the explanation ended, and King Elbas didn't hesitate to lend his inscribed items to the hybrid to make him try to do better than him.

Alexander's explanation felt even messier. The hybrid saw the creation of the new energy as a convergence of every slight aspect of his law and innate abilities. It was a fusion meant to remove any difference and instability in the true meanings and obtain a simple core that could express complicated understandings.

It was impossible for experts with relatively simple laws to relate to that process. Steven, Sword Saint, Robert, and Wilfred didn't have access to many aspects of their true meanings, so they ended up more confused than before.

"It's up to you to try," King Elbas snorted while glancing at Noah. "I want to see how you'll try to remove your bias from your explanation."

Noah scratched the side of his head while everyone turned on him. He had yet to put his latest experience into words. The experts also wanted a version of the story that they could understand even with their different views of the world, so he required some time to sort his thoughts.

"You have three centers of power, right?" Noah eventually started explaining. "They have bathed in your existence for millennia already. They knew who you are better than anyone else in the world, so they can generate the state that you have to achieve in the ninth rank."

That part of the explanation was easy, and most of the experts there already knew about that. Many of them had already heard Great Builder's description of the ninth rank, so Noah's words appeared as mere repetitions spoken by a weaker existence.

Yet, Noah's explanation didn't end there. "You can't elevate your centers of power on your own. Maybe you can through other paths, but Lord Lewis has shown us that you require a new form of energy capable of expressing the entirety of your existence to evolve them."

"Isn't that the higher energy that I mentioned already?" King Elbas snorted when he sensed that repetition.

"Let me finish," Noah sighed. "You need to use your different energies to create an ethereal center of power capable of generating a fuel that expresses your purest form. See it as building a second sea of consciousness and fill it with everything you have."

The second part of the explanation cleared many doubts, but it still left some dark areas that the other experts could only solve on their own.

The other experts couldn't completely understand the breakthrough even when they fused the three explanations and focused on the overlapping details. Still, that was the same for Noah, King Elbas, and Alexander since they didn't experience the actual advancement themselves. They had felt it through Lord Lewis' senses, and the event had even happened through Heaven and Earth.

Nonetheless, Noah couldn't help but feel that the experience had been priceless. He had initially thought that it was enough for his centers of power to advance to reach the ninth rank, but that didn't seem to be the case.

'An existence requires a specific center of power to become a world and produce energy,' Noah summarized inside his mind. 'It makes sense, but I still thought the dantian would have taken care of that.'

The other experts sat inside the dark world and asked Noah to replay the recent explanations and recorded images through the dark matter. Noah quickly satisfied their needs and created separate areas inside his technique to give some privacy to each expert.

The process had to be different for each existence. It wouldn't make sense for the three experts to see the same sensations in three completely different ways. Noah's companions had to come up with conclusions that would work with their laws and make their paths strive toward that destination.

'I need a fifth center of power capable of containing and generating ambition,' Noah thought as his reasoning continued. 'Is the process natural? Will my centers of power instinctively create a new organ?'

Noah wished to learn about those details before approaching the breakthrough, but he didn't know how possible that desire was. He could create an ethereal center of power right away with his current expertise, but he didn't know whether the process would help him or would generate flaws that would manifest during his advancement.

Moreover, his control over his ambition was vague. Noah could deploy his law at will, but it wasn't proper energy that he could manipulate. Instead, Lord Lewis had sensed it as a fuel similar to his "Breath".

The unstable substance seemed to follow the same pattern as Lord Lewis' energy, but Noah had never managed to make that product stable. He didn't know if his difficulties came from his higher energy or lack of understanding, but he found everything problematic anyway.

'I just need to put myself into the new center of power, right?' Noah questioned himself. 'I've already done that with the Demonic Sword, but something feels different here.'

The only expert who could understand his worries was King Elbas, and he didn't hesitate to reach him into his separate area. He found the expert meditating among the dark matter when he crossed the barriers that isolated him, and the latter immediately understood his problem.

"Do you also think that the higher energy might be a problem?" King Elbas asked when he saw Noah's expression.

"How could I not?" Noah scoffed. "The path is personal, but we clearly steer far away from it. We might need to find Great Builder to understand how everything works."

Great Builder's law involved the creation of centers of power. He was bound to know more about the issue that afflicted Noah and King Elbas.

"Normal cultivators sure have it easy," King Elbas announced while showing a faint golden glow at the center of his palm. "Imagine we had a normal path. Heaven and Earth would kill to absorb me."

The glowing ethereal sphere in King Elbas' palm radiated his curiosity, but that feeling was clearly weaker than the expert's current power. It almost felt like an illusion.

"Don't tell me," Noah exclaimed as his mouth opened in surprise.

"I managed to replicate a center of power capable of expressing the entirety of my existence," King Elbas explained, "But it's incomplete and unstable. Look! I don't even have access to its insides."

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Author's thoughts: I'm almost done with the last. It should come out soon.