Death... and me

Surprisingly, Gille noticed something. “What about Rimari?”

The guy nodded before saying, “We found her corpse at the entrance of the Demising Catacombs. Jax and Trifas were there as well. However, no one saw who killed them as a lot of the cultivators were still unconscious, it seems.”

“Everyone killed… doesn’t that mean we lost the best disciples we have from this generation?” Gille felt like shit. Not that he was sad for the disciples, but because of the potential they had for the sect. All powers considered a generation to be recognized every 100 years. To be more specific, each generation corresponded to each Sacred Land Recruitment cycle.

Gille then looked at the targets he set down for his disciples. Naturally, he saw Roan as one of the few who survived. ‘He broke through to the Initial Stage of the Saint Realm in there?’ That was surprising, but Gille didn’t think much about it. With that kind of cultivation, Roan had little to no chance of having done anything to Granto’s group. Little did he know that this thought of his was exactly the case.

The investigation in the Demising Catacombs and the sudden appearance of the mausoleum soon continued. All the elders could tell was that something came out of the coffin, but they didn’t know what. The leaders then gave a search order in the area, but no one was found in the end.

A few days later, Tiramisu, the one responsible for this opening of the Demising Catacombs, finally talked with the waiting disciples of all powers. “We couldn’t find what caused the mass loss of consciousness. However, we can’t let you go back inside until we assess everything has returned to normal. Everyone, you can head back to your countries. The event is now over.”

With that said, everyone began to take the teleport formations to leave the area. Naturally, Roan’s group did the same and returned to the Sacred Land. As for Gille, he couldn’t do anything else other than leave a few elders of his sect behind to help with the investigation. Most of the powers there did the same thing, just in case.

Of course, Liana and Tiffany talked with the Tenke Country disciples from their group before leaving. They guaranteed that no one would say anything about them being near the mausoleum’s entrance.

In the Sacred Land, Rean and Roan returned to their residences once more. The only problem was that Rean had to pass through a crowd of people to get inside. Sure enough, his weapons were still big hits, and everyone wanted more of them.

Roan had a few guests waiting for him as well, but he didn’t want to become anyone’s helper for the time being. He and Rean had a lot of things to do at the moment.

Soon, they got inside their residences and used Sister Orb to guarantee that no one was able to watch inside. Only then did they disappear and reappear inside the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. At the center of the realm, they now could see a huge black and white fragment. “So that’s the Foundation Fragment, uh?”

Sister Orb confirmed. [That’s the one. Oh, right! During the time you had to wait outside the Demising Catacombs, the system also finished upgrading its Processing Power. Now, I can analyze and take control over formations much faster.]

Rean pondered over it for a bit before asking, “We haven’t used your power in a long time because of the difficulty of the formations. Now that the system’s processing power has been upgraded, how long would it take you to analyze and control a Golden Initial-level formation?”

Sister Orb immediately answered, [You’re a Formation Master yourself, so you know it depends on the formation. For example, a very big formation would take much longer. It’s not that the difficulty is greater, but that there would be a lot more to take into account.]

Rean nodded, clarifying, “I know, but you should be able to give me an average answer, no?”

[Well… let me see…] Sister Orb then concentrated on the system’s Processing Power before saying, [If it’s nothing too big, I believe I would be able to analyze a Golden Initial-level formation in one or two days. Taking control over it would take five to ten days.]

Rean was very happy to hear that. “So fast!”

[Indeed, I have become very fast. But this is only for Golden Initial-level formations. If the difficulty increases, the time required increases as well. An average time for a Golden Middle-level formation would be around a month or two to analyze and ten to twenty months to take control over. A Golden High-level formation would increase that time by ten times.]

Rean wasn’t disappointed to hear that. Considering a cultivator’s lifespan, that was still very fast, in his opinion. Besides, she would evolve more as the fragments were recovered.

Roan was in doubt about one thing, though. “Forget about the formations for now. Why did the fragment gather so much Dark Element in the mausoleum? Isn’t its body Light and Dark Element in nature? Perhaps Yin and Yang?”

[That’s because you’re not looking closely. Pay attention to the Foundation Fragment. Does it seem to be more Yin or more Yang?] Sister Orb asked them in response.

Roan immediately did that and used his Divine Sense to check the fragment. His Divine Sense couldn’t tell much about it. However, he was able to feel a lot more Yin Energy coming from it than Yang Energy. “I understand. The fragments aren’t exactly equal in power. Some are more Yin while others are more Yang. I guess only the Foundation itself is in equilibrium.”

Sister Orb was happy that he quickly understood. [Exactly! It has to do with the moment the Foundation was cracked. Yin and Yang move inside the Foundation nonstop, so it makes sense that a fragment would be inclined more to one side than the other the moment it’s broken.]

Rean then asked something else. “By the way, Sister Orb. Does it have any use for us while it’s staying here?”