Noah became more aware of his mental instabilities as he continued to interact with his companions. His pride, greed, and hunger would flare at times and force him to concentrate on suppressing their effects. His friends didn't take those rash behaviors to heart, but Noah felt worried that his new mental energy could hurt them by mistake due to the new power that it had acquired.
The lack of solutions to the issue forced Noah to do his best to keep his emotions and instincts in check. It wasn't anything new for him since he had already experienced a temporary lack of complete control in the past. It was a bit harder to handle now due to the insane level reached by his mind, but he knew that only experience could get him used to his new power.
The partial reveal about Noah's approach to the ninth rank gave a broader vision of the path toward the peak to his companions, but it didn't change how they intended to reach the breakthrough.
The main issue was on how personal each law was. Trying to imitate another existence could ruin everything they had accomplished in those years. Noah's companions had to accept the mandatory uncertainty that accompanied the path toward the ninth rank. They could only find the answers inside themselves, but they often arrived only after specific events.
Alexander had to be in front of his perfect counter, and Noah had to face the consuming dullness of the cultivation journey. Those two events featured a completely different level of danger, but they carried the same importance when viewed from the experts' perspective.
It was rare for the breakthrough to arrive naturally. Experts like Sword Saint would have already approached it otherwise since their sheer cultivation level was ready to move to the next realm. However, the event seemed to require a burst of motivation that a long period of seclusion couldn't give in standard cases.
The only option that the experts had was to accept Noah's idea to go out in the world and join the mess caused by the magical beasts under the old rulers' command. The stormy regions were bound to give them something that could push their cultivation level forward. Heaven and Earth would have to take care of the matter otherwise.
Noah and the other seven experts exited the city after completing the necessary preparations for the journey. The group didn't know if they would ever return to the orange town at that time, but they didn't want to lose every possibility to contact the old rulers, especially since they owned knowledge that could benefit them even in the ninth rank.
The preparations only involved special inscribed notebooks directly connected to the city and unique items for each expert. Noah and Sword Saint ended up joining Divine Demon in his simple request for wine since they didn't want anything else from the old rulers. Their existences already had everything they needed.
The special inscribed notebooks didn't only work as communicators. The old rulers could keep the experts updated on the movements of the magical beasts under them and generate a simple map through their advance among the storms.
Providing aid to platoons struggling against Heaven and Earth's punishments would inflict the harshest damage to the rulers, but the experts weren't after short-term achievements.
The fact that those creatures were on the losing side meant that their improved species had reached their limits, and helping them would prevent the old rulers from enhancing it further. Noah and the others wanted to avoid slowing down the growth of that army, so they decided to reach the packs that were already winning against Heaven and Earth.
In their minds, their arrival would force Heaven and Earth to rely on harsher punishment, which was what most of them wanted. As for Noah, he only desired food that could satisfy the insane requirements of his body. His dantian wasn't a problem since it would naturally grow faster than the other center of power.
Approaching the storms with a rank 9 mental sphere made Noah aware of all the small details he had been unable to notice before. The chaotic laws seemed to have a faint nature hidden under their raging behavior. That feature didn't dictate their actions or flow, but it made them more suitable for specific roles.
The winds weren't a force that generated lands and different environments randomly. Heaven and Earth had given roles to the chaotic laws released by the sky, so they always ended up creating what they planned sooner or later.
Noah couldn't understand why the rulers needed to be so secretive about their plans, but he suspected that the matter had nothing to do with their potential enemies. It was probably mandatory to limit their influence on the chaotic laws so that they could be almost entirely faithful to their nature.
Learning to recognize those hidden purposes allowed Noah to predict what each gale would try to become. Most of those chaotic laws would fail to achieve their preset role, but he could still gain a vague understanding of Heaven and Earth's desires.
His mind was unable to inspect their plan as a whole, but he didn't fail to memorize everything he saw. His existence would eventually become able to affect the entire world, and that knowledge would become helpful at that point.
Large empty areas unfolded in front of the flying group of experts as they moved through the storms. Noah didn't want to negate the chaotic laws to his friends, so he used his consciousness to gather only those ahead. His mind shattered that energy into fuel for his body, but even the entire trip toward the pack of magical beasts barely managed to affect his flesh. That power simply wasn't enough.
A battle eventually appeared among the storms ahead. King Elbas and Noah noticed it before their companions due to their inscribed items and superior mind, so they could quickly lead their friends in the area.
A series of dog-like creatures featuring shining orange fur floated among the storms as black clouds tried to encircle them. A few tall avatars of Heaven and Earth even stood next to the clouds to protect them, but it seemed that the winds were working against them.
The avatars and the clouds released lightning bolts from time to time, but the dogs' fur appeared completely immune to those attacks. Actually, the light that it radiated intensified whenever those blinding white attacks landed on it. The old rulers had created a species that countered Heaven and Earth's main offensive.
Moreover, the dogs appeared able to control the winds around them. The chaotic laws in the environment created small platforms under their legs that allowed them to stand mid-air, and some of the gales even transformed into whips or sharp structures that tried to crash on their opponents.
The avatars and the clouds had to waste a lot of their energy to fend off those attacks since they shared the creatures' innate resistance to lightning. Those punishments never stopped losing power, but a blinding light eventually filled the area and revealed that a giant without facial features had materialized on the battlefield.
The creature was in the middle tier of the ninth rank, but a brownish material made its body. A few holes covered its surface and allowed it to counter the winds, but the dogs didn't show any surprise at that scene. They prepared themselves to fight, but stupor appeared in their eyes when Noah landed on the giant's shoulder.