Tian Zhu, the sect leader, intensely examined a map on the table.
After scrutinizing it thoroughly and failing to find what he was looking for, he simply closed it gently, maintaining an indifferent expression.
'As expected, nothing. I already suspected we weren't close when I asked Rihai if she had ever heard of a declining Golden Core Sect called Tianzhen, and she said she had never heard of it. Golden Core Sects aren't forgotten so easily.'
Aotian reflected, recalling the ruins of the Golden Core Sect he had found when he summoned his avatars there. Then, another thought occurred to him.
'The Ascending Flame technique was also a clue. Such a basic technique, available in a branch of a major pavilion like Longbao—which can easily establish itself on the mountain of a Foundation Establishment—should be widely accessible. If it's widely available, its dissemination should be immense, either through the pavilion itself or by cultivators reselling it. But the man from the Qianbao Pavilion had clearly never heard of it and yet paid a large number of spirit stones for this technique.'
He pondered and thought of the last clue.
'None of the maps I've found so far—including this one, belonging to the Shi family, an ancient lineage that once had multiple Foundation Establishment cultivators—mention any city named Crystal Mine, of Founder-Tier, or Azure Cloud City, of Refiner-Tier, let alone a mortal city called Red Tiger. I still need to verify the other information in the Shi library, but everything indicates that…'
Tian Zhu slowly stored the map in his storage pouch. Then, he turned to the window, gazing indifferently at the horizon with his hands behind his back.
'...My avatars and I are in different continents.'
…
Aotian walked alongside Rihai, reflecting on these matters.
'The system has already confirmed that we are in the same world, just in different locations. So, it can only be different continents. Later, I'll ask Rihai about the various continents, but before that, we have six months of travel ahead to worry about first.'
He thought bitterly while counting the resources in his storage pouch.
Previously, he had bought ingredients just for fun and to accelerate cultivation. Since he could go back and forth as many times as he wanted to acquire more, he never worried about running out or not having high-quality ones. He could just buy more and discard the bad ones.
But due to recent incidents, he and Rihai would be without the support of a spiritual vein for six months. Thus, pills would be the solution for their cultivation since spirit stones weren't as effective for it.
He hadn't even selected the ingredients personally—he had simply let the shopkeeper bring what he claimed were the best materials in the store.
If he had known beforehand, he would have conducted a thorough search and relied on the enlightened minds of his outer elders for some suggestions. Although the enlightened mind didn't allow him to "hear" the materials and make them reveal their properties on their own like the elders could, it still provided valuable insights for making a more informed choice.
And, of course, he would have bought a larger quantity.
"Haah…" He sighed bitterly.
"Why are you sighing?" Rihai suddenly asked, snapping Aotian out of his thoughts.
"Huh? Oh! I was thinking about our cultivation. We'll be losing a lot of time on the road, so I wanted to refine pills to cultivate along the way. But since I wasn't prepared for this escape, I ended up not buying many materials."
Aotian explained, feeling helpless.
"Uh? Cultivate? But we'll be walking, we won't have time for that."
Rihai tilted her head, confused by his ideas.
This time, it was Aotian who looked at her in surprise.
"What are you talking about? Did you forget about the Enlightened Mind? We can leave cultivation to the mind and focus on the road."
Aotian said as if it were something obvious.
Rihai widened her eyes upon hearing that.
"You've already cultivated the Enlightened Mind?!" She asked, shocked.
"Ah? Well… yeah. It wasn't hard for me at all!" Aotian replied, a bit confused by her reaction, but since she was his woman, he saw no reason to hide it and took on an arrogant tone.
"You… How?"
She asked, stunned. But upon seeing Aotian's proud smile, she just rolled her eyes.
"Forget it. But you're wrong, I haven't cultivated the Enlightened Mind technique."
Rihai shook her head, leaving Aotian perplexed.
"What? Why not?" He asked, confused. To him, the technique was so amazing that there was no reason not to practice it.
"Because of the side effect. Didn't you read it?" She looked at him, puzzled by his surprise.
'Side effect?' Aotian was stunned for a moment… and then he remembered.
Indeed, the Enlightened Mind technique had a side effect.
'The Illuminated Mind technique generates more minds, but it increases the difficulty of having an epiphany several times over. And as the number of minds grows, the difficulty increases even more.' He remembered the warning in the technique.
In truth, it was a simple logic. The state of epiphany occurs when a cultivator frees their mind from all external thoughts and attunes with nature, where many mysteries are revealed.
A cultivator in epiphany essentially reaches a much higher state of meditation. That's why the effects are incredible, often allowing a cultivator at the end of their path to advance once more or simply enabling an ordinary cultivator to experience tremendous growth in power.
But the Illuminated Mind goes against this flow. When one has an extra mind thinking, it already becomes much harder to enter that state of mental liberation. With multiple, it becomes nearly impossible.
Aotian, however, simply ignored this side effect. After all, he already had avatars. And it wasn't just an extra mind, but entire bodies, making it even more difficult to attain epiphanies. Since he never had any hope of achieving one, he didn't even concern himself with this drawback.
"Even so, the mind can be deactivated. Isn't it better to have it than not?" Aotian asked, still believing the technique was worthwhile.
But Rihai shook her head.
"You never know when you might have an epiphany. The Illuminated Mind will only limit that. Aotian, neither I, nor my father, nor even my great-grandfather, the creator of the technique, cultivated this technique. It's not very useful for us, cultivators with single-element roots. In fact, this technique isn't valued among the great powers. Only cultivators with mixed roots find it useful. The value of an epiphany is far greater than having one or more extra thought processes."
She explained, and Aotian understood this harsh truth.
The difference was that, unlike him, others didn't have super avatars with advanced cultivation. For Aotian, even without epiphanies to help him break through cultivation realms, his avatars were already at higher levels. They provided him with an understanding of the next realms far more valuable than any epiphany.
Thus, the Illuminated Mind was still incredibly useful to him. Especially for processing information for synthesis.
"But speaking of your talent, you did very well back in Blue Cloud City. I don't even know what cultivation level you're at now, and your techniques don't seem simple. Your secrets are truly greater than I thought, mister super genius."
Rihai shook her head and then looked at Aotian with curiosity, speaking playfully.
Aotian simply smiled at her and winked, amused.
"I hope you're not ignoring the most important thing. The Calm Spirit Pill I gave you… I made it myself. That means I won the bet."
He said with a mischievous grin, almost drooling as he remembered the wager.
Rihai's eyes widened, and she turned extremely red upon recalling it as well.
"I-I didn't see it, so it doesn't count!" Rihai quickly found an excuse.
But Aotian wasn't going to give up so easily.
"Don't worry, I still have materials. You'll have plenty of opportunities to see my alchemy with your own eyes."
He said, grinning slyly at her, making it clear she had nowhere to run.
And so, with Rihai's flushed face and Aotian's laughter, their journey began with a lighthearted atmosphere, filled with flirting.