Chapter 1897 - 1897. Path

The conversation with the old rulers didn't last much longer. They did their best to explain the issue using multiple metaphors, and Noah felt enlightened after hearing all of them. He had experienced insights and caught glimpses of answers in his life, but nothing could compare to his current understanding.

For the first time in his life, Noah didn't only know how to get to the ninth rank. He also understood that level of power in ways that his companions ignored. Even Alexander might fail to reach that knowledge of his current state until he spent millennia experiencing his power.

The issue was as complicated as King Elbas had hinted it to be. It wasn't even a matter of energy or understanding, not mainly at least. The problem came from the frailty of the incomplete superior state achieved through shortcuts and forced training methods.

'A fruit in the open, they say,' Noah thought as he returned inside his training area and inspected his piles of resources. 'The issue isn't the difficulty of the task. The problem is that I might really be able to do it.'

Noah wasn't letting his urge seep inside his thoughts now. His reasonable side had tried to make him ignore that project before, but it had started to approve the matter after learning so much from the old rulers.

When Noah removed all the issues connected to the understanding of the laws, he could see the breakthrough for what it really was, and the process appeared feasible due to his vast experience in similar fields. The cultivation journey forced him to create a new center of power that would become the foundation for his new state. He had to become a mortal with divine powers, which hinted at forsaking his mind, body, and dantian to focus on the superior path.

Noah would have decided to abandon his project if he didn't see a path among those complicated explanations and metaphors. Still, the old rulers had tried to convince him that something incomplete wouldn't work when he had the power to tamper with that completeness.

The new ethereal center of power would naturally come out flawed if Noah forced only his mind to advance, but a solution to the issue existed, and he found it in the very nature of the different breakthrough.

The flawed status would come from the fact that only part of his existence was advancing, so he didn't have to rely on the natural process to create the new center of power. The regular cultivation journey could take care of that part for him, but it didn't say anything about artificial approaches. Noah could solve the issue by creating the ethereal organ before the actual advancement.

Of course, that idea brought new problems. Noah would have to predict what his existence would require once he reached the ninth rank to create something accurate. The new center of power could turn out to be unsuitable for the rank 9 version of his law, and it might even fall short when it came to enduring its power.

Noah had to approach the project carefully and create a wide room for miscalculations in advance. The new center of power had to be ductile and immense since it would be impossible to change its nature and enlarge it once his centers of power began to fuse with it. Moreover, it had to include his black hole, which prevented him from using other rank 9 experts as an example.

The sheer difficulty of that problem would normally force everyone to abandon that reckless idea and go back to their steady cultivation. The raw number of risks involved with something that would affect their existences so deeply that anyone would feel scared in front of them. However, for Noah, having a path to follow had always been more than enough.

'I only have to create a rank 9 center of power capable of containing the nature and power of my existence,' Noah laughed in his mind as he lay on the floor and let his mind wander. 'I can't forget that the organ has to be ethereal but able to hold heavy fuels like the higher energy. Right, I can't commit the slightest mistake either because it would ruin my prospects. I'd rather not go full Heaven and Earth and start taking my anger out on weaker existences for eras due to a failure.'

The jokes in his mind ended when he started thinking about the issue properly. Part of him still wanted to abandon that project and follow the steady path, but he felt almost drawn by the many ideas that it caused.

Noah was a hybrid, but his species was artificial. He had a fourth center of power that contained higher energy, but both came from his experiments. His darkness was a variation of the "Breath" created after spending years testing various versions of the same power.

Everything about him seemed to have come out from experiments. His mind was the only center of power that didn't endure heavy modifications, but it had inscriptions running through its walls, and it radiated the scarlet color of his bloodlust. Moreover, Noah had constantly used the ethereal figures of his Blood Companions and personal methods to enlarge it, so he couldn't really consider its current level as natural.

It felt almost necessary for his new center of power to follow that trend. Noah had built his existence piece by piece, so letting the rules of the cultivation journey dictate how he had to step on the next realm felt improper. He had a path and the means to fulfill it. A living being shouldn't need anything else.

'My dantian will advance after my mind,' Noah thought as he began to plan the path ahead to gain an idea of the shape of his new center of power. 'The black hole will follow, and that will be the first major problem. The new dark matter has to be part of my existence, and the energy that it will carry is almost impossible to evaluate.'

Noah already understood that the actual capacity of his new center of power had to stand past every realm ever known to cultivators and hybrids. He had to create something far vaster than his black hole only to hope to contain its improved version.

'I strongly believe that my body will patch things up after its breakthrough,' Noah thought, 'But that will be the last center of power to advance. Moreover, I don't know how much I can rely on my hybrid advantages at that level. In theory, the depths of the new realm should affect my flesh, but it's better not to experience unexpected events.'

A clear idea of his current power took form in his mind. That wasn't even the starting point to his project, so he quickly moved to his first actual step. He had to create a loyal prospect of his breakthroughs to understand how powerful his new center of power had to be, but he had already thought of a method when it came to that issue.

Noah's ambition allowed him to improve materials and existences to make them reach their full potential, and he wasn't immune to his own power. Creating a controlled copy of himself and evolving it to gain an idea of what he had to strive to contain immediately became his first step in that insane project.