“Is the situation in the Easterly Kingdoms that bad?” asked Nyla, who wore a look of unpleasant recollection. “Have any kingdoms fallen yet?”

The man gave a solemn nod, his eyes doing everything in their power not to look Nyla up and down as he had been moments before. “Alsai has fallen, its people no doubt experiencing the same thing that happened to the citizens of Mour all those years ago. Hauss is barely holding on, though it only retains a third of its territory.”

“What about Verdure?”

Looking her in the eye, the man continued, “That’s precisely the reason why our organization is pulling out its forces. Verdure has finally made a move. As far as I know, they’ve sent over a million soldiers to the aid of the kingdoms that border it, and a further half a million have been contributed by the League.” When some among Nolan’s group continued to look lost, he sighed and tapped at the tabletop with a long, immaculate fingernail. “The League of Easterly Kingdoms. Over fifteen kingdoms have joined together to make war against the Bloodhand Sect. With such a conflict on the horizon, it’s best to flee as far away from that region as possible, as many people have already done.”

Such news worried Nolan, since fighting such a sect with numbers wasn’t necessarily a good idea. Even if most of the sect’s forces ended up dying in this war, the survivors would doubtlessly have gained tremendous power due to their devious core cultivation method. The longer the conflict dragged on, the higher the likelihood that a large number of Genesis-staged cultivators would be born into the Bloodhand Sect.

“It’s hard to believe that Hauss hasn’t been conquered yet,” muttered Lyra. “By the time we left there, two of the three largest cities had already been taken.”

“Let’s not think about that.” Nolan tossed a spatial bag over to the man behind the desk, causing his eyebrows to jump in an exaggerated manner. “We’ll take that suite for 20 days. Could you show us where it is?” He’d just handed over 180,000 spirit stones, an extra ten thousand as a tip to the receptionist.

“Yes sir.” Stepping out from behind the desk and waving at a nearby associate to take over his duty, he motioned for the others with a light bow and a gentle wave of his hand. “If you’ll please follow me.”

Following after the man, Nolan contacted Delia with a sound transference talisman and instructed her to steal back their spirit stones and any other wealth worthy of their attention by the time that they left the city at their backs. Did the CMA really think that their rooms were worth 8,500 spirit stones for a single night? That was 850,000 golden cards, and equivalent to the fortune of a longstanding noble house from a lesser kingdom..

Following after the receptionist, Nolan wondered what other sorts of treasures Delia would steal on his behalf.

***

The luxury suite was a huge room that was just as large as the lobby on the building’s main floor, and was similarly decorated with grand amounts of gold and precious minerals. Mirrors sat within diamond frames, tables had been carved from white stone that was almost as hard as halmite, with beds made from the feathers of powerful demonic beasts that had all been at the peak of the Integration stage. Not only that, but there was an abundance of high-quality food at almost every area of the room, with a separate hall that contained a pool-sized communal bath that was filled to the brim with energized water. The contents were only about a tenth of the potency of Divine Spirit Fountain water, but this would undoubtedly be an extremely extravagant boon to anyone that couldn’t enjoy such a godly treasure as the one that had been bound to Nolan’s blood. The pool was powered by a similar spiritual arrayment as the basic meditation circle that Uncle Grey had taught him and the others, which had likely been laid down by a master in the eyes of the rest of the world.

“This is it?” muttered Sean, anger in his voice as he walked out of one of the many bedrooms that branched off from the main hall. “I’ll admit that it’s nice and all, but it’s just filled with poor-man’s versions of the things we already have.”

“Just relax,” said Ian, who pulled a pillow-padded chair of glittering gold up to one of the white tables, all of which were laden with perfectly preserved foods that seemed as if they had just been cooked. “Let’s just help ourselves to one of Esteban’s barrels of ale and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Nolan snatched the barrel that Esteban had reluctantly pulled out and stowed it away in his spatial bag. “No more fucking around. We have no idea when our enemies might bust down the door, so we need to make sure that we cultivate for at least half of every day.”

He pulled out a few barrels of heavenly dew, along with a couple of the divine fruits and two of the dark pellets that Uncle Grey had created with the essence of the Falling Rain Sect’s ancestor. These, he gave to May and Ian, telling them to be careful while cultivating them and only to use smaller portions so as not to rupture their inner essence channels and cause their bodies to explode. While he did this, Nyla found and altered the spiritual arrayment that powered the pool of water, causing it to temporarily stop functioning.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Lyra. “Couldn’t you have made it more efficient instead?”

“It would have sucked energy out of the heavenly dew and all the other things we have here, which would have caused a lot of the energies to leak out and be wasted.”

“What about seeing the city?” came a tepid voice, which drew attention to Aine. The short girl was rubbing her thumbs together in a nervous gesture. “I really wanted to take a look around. I’ve never been to a city this big before, and I’d imagine that it has a lot of shops, being run by merchants and all.”

“We can goof off here and there if we want, but it’d be better if we cultivated for at least ten hours every day.” His tone became a bit sarcastic. “Sect Master’s orders.”

“Alright, alright,” sighed Ian, who pulled out a barrel of heavenly dew and made to sit inside.

“Hold on.” Nolan drew out a basic construction diagram and created a golden bathtub out of a nearby chair. Willing it with some spiritual energy, he emptied Ian’s barrel into the tub and then gestured for him to get in.

Over the next eight minutes or so, he and Nyla created similar tubs for everyone else, and soon the entire group was busy cultivating within the extremely rare liquid that they had stolen from the spirit of the lake’s lair. May and Ian had also bitten off little pieces of the pellets that Nolan had given them, and were currently giving off strong auras as they cultivated quietly within their respective containers.

Okay, thought Nolan, who had just sat down within his tub and began to revolve his inner essence as per the activation of the White Flame Scripture. Late phase, let’s get it. Hopefully he could reach the peak of the Integration stage’s third level by the end of the week, after at least 70 hours of in-depth cultivation. Normally this would take him a month at the very least, even with the Ancestral Body Technique’s true usage within an intermediate meditation circle arrayment. Now, however, he had many more barrels of heavenly dew aside from the one that he’d just emptied into his tub, which meant that his cultivation speed would increase by several fold even if he relied on his secondary cultivation method. On top of that, he had a healthy supply of medium-grade medicinal pellets with all sorts of beneficial effects, so he was confident that he could make an impressive amount of progress in just a short amount of time.

With thoughts of doing some shopping of his own in the morning, Nolan quickly set about working towards raising his power, wondering all the while when the Falling Rain Sect would come after them to finish what they had started. Part of him was skeptic over whether or not they would even come at all, but he had never been one to ignore the possibility of an immediate threat, and so put forth all of his effort into further fueling his dantian while simultaneously raising his affinity with the most dangerous of the traditional elements.

***