A cold wind swept past. Aiden gripped the Duskdawn Profound Iron sword embryo tightly, his expression grave. Casual as his tone had sounded moments ago, this opponent carried real Profound-realm cultivation. This fight would be brutal.Studying Aiden standing before him, the steward felt an unexpected flicker of real fear, quickly masked behind a sneer. "You've genuinely surprised me.""From what I understood, you'd trained in the old nourishing method without ever actually crossing its real threshold. And yet here you stand, already at the peak of the late Spirit Awakening Realm."Aiden ignored him entirely, spiritual energy surging rapidly through his body as his martial cultivation engaged alongside it. Even stuck at the Yellow realm, that combination still gave him a real edge.The silence only fed the steward's fury. "You little brat, I'll beat you until you're kneeling and begging for mercy, make you wish you'd never been born!"He drew a short blade from behind his back, launch

That evening, after dinner with Lucy, Aiden turned his focus to cultivation. Through careful refinement, he'd finally developed a technique worth passing on to her, something he called the Nine Heavens Mystic Maiden Technique.With two sharp cracks, Aiden used the Duskdawn Profound Iron sword embryo to shatter the two remaining spirit stones Dorian had delivered. Instantly, the small apartment rang with the resonant hum of struck steel.Rich spiritual energy flooded the air, nearly thick enough to feel liquid. Lucy settled in immediately, cultivating according to the method Aiden had just taught her.I need to push for the Great Perfection of the Spirit Awakening Realm too, and fast. Aiden drew a deep breath of spiritual energy, and the Innate Primordial Scripture surged rapidly to life inside him.Just as the two of them began their respective breakthrough attempts, Vanessa received word from Lucy. She immediately requested leave from Dragon and Phoenix Academy and caught the next sh

An hour later, Vanessa drove off. She had a few family matters to handle that evening, the burdens of being a wealthy, beautiful woman, but promised to sort everything else first thing in the morning.Vanessa would swing by to collect Lucy, and the two of them would catch an afternoon ship straight to Dragon and Phoenix Academy on Celestara to complete her registration. Vanessa had already offered to handle every bit of the paperwork herself.Aiden watched Lucy pack, lost in thought. From what Vanessa had described, Celestara was divided into countless distinct territories.Humans weren't alone out there either, sharing the land with countless ferocious beasts and mysterious creatures. Over the past century, humanity had only managed to claim roughly a third of Celestara's total territory.Even that fraction, though, rivaled the entire surface area of this world. Thankfully, after decades of steady development, the total human population out there now sat around six billion.The regio

As darkness settled in, a cold wind swept through, and a chilling tension spread between Aiden and Caleb. The warehouse stretched wide around them, easily over ten thousand square feet of open space.Caleb reached out, and a flash of cold light answered, landing solidly in his grip. A black longsword, its surface traced with blood-red patterns, radiated a genuinely unsettling presence.Aiden's eyes narrowed. He'd already clocked the change in Caleb. Just that single trick, summoning a weapon across distance, demanded Profound-realm cultivation at minimum. Worse, something genuinely malevolent radiated from Caleb's very core.A heartbeat later, Aiden extended his own right hand, closing it into a light grasp against empty air. The Duskdawn Profound Iron sword embryo snapped instantly into his palm, his presence sharpening in response.Caleb's eyes widened, the words slipping out before he could stop them. "A storage ring?""Hm? How do you know about those?" Genuine surprise crossed Aid

The crowd watching from a distance gasped collectively. No one had anticipated a finish quite like this, genuinely more thrilling than anything a movie could stage. Especially that final moment, Aiden condensing his own blood energy into nine crimson blades, ending the fight with a single, sweeping strike. Had he opened with that move from the start, his opponent likely would have fallen long before this point. Still, the technique had taken a real toll on Aiden's body, nearly as punishing as backlash from a genuine forbidden art. Had Caleb not forced his hand so deliberately, Aiden never would have risked it. Looking down at Caleb's unconscious form, Aiden raised his right hand, and the Duskdawn Profound Iron sword embryo, lying dozens of feet away, flew back into his waiting grip on its own. "Boy, don't push your luck too far. It won't end well for you." Mordecai's voice echoed directly inside Aiden's mind, a pure spiritual transmission. Aiden grinned. "Tell me everything you k