A few lines were enough to make Noah understand that there had been some drastic changes during the years that he had spent in the other world. However, he had so much to do that he didn't feel like conversing for the time being.

He simply noted in his mind that Daniel had reached June and Faith's level in that period before giving a few orders. "I want a detailed description of everything that has happened in the past years. Just send it to Jason or Bruce. They should be around somewhere."

Then, he left for his underground quarters, and the nobles heaved a sigh of relief when they saw his figure disappearing. Yet, they soon realized that something had been off about that encounter. Noah's dantian seemed to be in the fifth rank!

Noah didn't waste time. As soon as he returned to his habitation, he sent the list with the materials to Elder Julia and began to review the new spells of the darkness element just obtained.

The Shandal Empire had used spells to pay for his advice on the hybrids' matter, and, to his surprise, he found a few diagrams suitable for his aptitude. Also, raiding the castles had given the invaders access to the natives' resources, which had some spells among them.

However, only a few of them suited his individuality, and there were even less able to match the rank of his sea of consciousness.

'I guess these three are worth translating once I get my "Breath" back. I'll keep the others for inspiration purposes.' Noah thought as he laid a tome and two scrolls on the ground before storing the other spells that he had discarded.

Two of those spells came from the Empire, while the Hive found the other in the other world. Among them, two could express a power up to the fifth rank while the other didn't have limitations in terms of cultivation level.

'To think that the Empire would give me something like this.' Noah thought when he gave a quick look to the spells without limitation.

The name of the ability was Shadow Copy, and it allowed a cultivator to create something similar to a puppet that could imitate part of the caster's attacks. It didn't have limitations in ranks since the power of the copy derived from the amount of energy used during its creation. The only issue was that the copy would be quite weak, but Noah was confident in improving it with a few modifications.

The spell coming from the other world was called Merging, and it was a movement-type ability. It wasn't limited to the darkness element. The cultivators would need to partially fuse with the "Breath" of their aptitude to move faster for a short period.

As for the last one, its name was Shadow Chains, and its primary purpose was to suppress and restrict living beings. The useful aspect of that spell was that the cultivator or beast wouldn't be able to use their centers of power once the chains were in place.

Noah started to memorize them since he had to wait for Elder Julia to deliver the resources needed for his experiments anyway. Yet, Elder Jason passed down a report from the Udye family at some point, along with some pieces of information gathered by the Elders that didn't join the invasion.

It turned out that a few crises had hit the Utra nation as soon as the exploration team ventured through the portal. The density of the "Breath" in the environment there had started to diminish, leading many magical beasts to migrate.

The noble families found themselves assailed by waves of starving beasts. There were even rank 5 creatures among those packs, and one of them was the Albino Snake that Noah had met so many years ago.

The nobles managed to protect themselves, but that was mostly because the beasts had no intention of remaining in the Utra nation. Their instincts were telling them that those regions wouldn't be a suitable home anymore.

The Elbas family then spread the rumor that it had a method to force breakthroughs in the heroic cultivators. Many nobles were skeptical about that matter. Still, there were too many heroic assets in their ranks with centers of power that had stagnated for centuries. Also, more nobles started to accept the Royals' terms when they saw that the cultivators joining them were improving.

Little by little, the noble families joined the Royals in the new continent, even if their status was completely subservient there. The constant suppression and the impossibility to seize fortuitous chances forced many nobles to give up, especially after their home was about to turn into a wasteland.

At times, rebels had to accept the fact that they couldn't win. The Elbas family had kept on growing stronger, and its Patriarch was a monster able to open passages leading to other Mortal Lands. No one would bet on its decline.

A few noble families though refused to side with the Royals anyway and decided to switch organization. Yet, the Elbas family labeled most of them as traitors and hunted them down, turning them into prisoners or directly killing them.

Only the families smart enough to deal with the Royals on a political field managed to change faction without deadly consequences. The Udye family was one of them, and it had to give up on most of its resources and wealth to become free to leave.

Its connection with the Hive ultimately brought it on the southwestern coast, where Chasing Demon decided to add it to the Hive's ranks, even if only in probation for now. After all, no one would trust someone who had already switched sides once.

Truth to be told, the Hive desperately needed heroic assets to match the three big nations, but it wasn't so helpless to blindly trust cultivators that had plotted a revolution for who knew how many years. Even with a few oaths, Chasing Demon still didn't give Amos and his family a seat among the other Elders.

Elder Jason's report updated Noah on the general situation of the Hive. The years spent in peace had allowed it to make full use of its positive trend, which saw the overall number of powerful cultivators increasing.

The Hive had more than seventy rank 4 cultivators now, and a few of them were even inscription masters in some of the schools taught by Thirty-seven!

Chasing Demon had ordered the construction of academies too, one for each dome. They would start to operate once enough cultivators became inscription masters and could instruct the human assets on those fields.

The resources requested by Noah eventually arrived, and he found his underground quarters filled by so many "Breath" blessings that he found it hard to find a place where to sit.

Of course, that was the last of his problems, especially now that he was finally starting to create his rank 5 cultivation technique.

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