Sage rubbed his jaw, trying to get used to his new tongue. While waiting for the last auction he’d forged a new Heart’s Tongue for both himself and his Soul Clone. They’d spent the rest of the time digesting their gains from the Cult of the Woodlord. The list of professions that he had mastered to the fifth star had increased by one. Unfortunately, the Cult of the Woodlord was not involved in any official organization so there was no badge for him to earn like at the Holy Flame Sect. They kept their skills as Arborists to themselves so there was no need to create or get involved with any sort of governing body for the profession. In fact, they even went out of their way to either recruit or ‘deal with’ any other Arborists in the Shihu Kingdom. Sage didn’t plan on sticking around in the Shihu Kingdom, but there was good reason for him to hide himself so carefully after making that deal.

While he dealt with slowly coaxing the Artifact on the Inner World, he traveled on the outside one. He had thought about trying to commission items from the Peak Masters of the Holy Flame Sect, but he didn’t want to spend any more time here in the Shihu Kingdom. His goal for this trip had already been accomplished and it was time to finish this little detour. He used the Red Comet to fly at top speed back towards the Dou Kingdom, passing through the unclaimed wilderness between the Tianren and Eightfold Kingdoms on his way back north to the Dou Kingdom. He split his attention between operating the Flying Tool and training with his Heavenly Materials, experimenting with different combinations and uses. Compared to the progress of the other techniques on the Inner World with a whole team of researchers, his gains with the Heavenly Materials were basically just scratching the surface.

In the past he’d drawn upon the raw power of the Heavenly Materials and used them in the most basic fashion. They could transform his Qi into unique energies and materials that were far more powerful than the mediocre techniques he had at the time. In the thousands of years since he’d started his family, there had been plenty of time and help in advancing those techniques to whole new levels and now his Heavenly Materials were now more useful for their role in enhancing the Inner World. His main area of study is to use the Heavenly Materials in combination with the Qi techniques of his family. More specifically, the Fire and Water Elemental Specialties of his fourth daughter and second daughter, respectively. After their Qi natures were determined, Sage encouraged them down these routes, mainly because he was hoping they could help him develop better techniques to use with his Thermodynamic Law. Additionally, he wanted to see if he could pass them some of his understanding of the law.

They were trying to create a heritage to learn poison related laws in the Purple Mist Sect, but Sage didn’t want to put all his eggs into one basket. Since he also understood a law of hot and cold, he also wanted to try to unlock its secrets as well. By studying two different laws in this manner, he hoped they could have an easier time by making comparisons. There was even more to study when Ling and Jiao became Nascent Souls. They gained enlightenment through the Icefire Valley and awakened laws they were most familiar with, like most who used the Pool of Eternal Tears. Sage was actually the outlier as he gained an understanding of a law related to the tragic couple that Icefire Valley was built around.

Jiao gained understanding of a Law of Strength, which was unsurprising for all that knew her, but disconcerting for those who only saw her small and petite frame. Ling, on the other hand, was never really a warrior in the conventional sense, but she was able to turn her mastery of another kind of battlefield into a path of cultivation. She called it the Law of Advantage, and she said it enabled her to make the best use of any situation. As an experienced business woman she was exceedingly skilled at making the best of every resource she had and always strove to find the benefit in every situation no matter how adverse. It was said that in cultivation all roads lead to the same place, and Liao was a good example of this property. Even if she didn’t fight for her life and cultivate relentlessly, she was able to find the path that was perfect for her and with the help of so many precious resources she stepped into a level that others could only dream of.

These two new laws added to the variation they could study, but Ling and Jiao were not eager to be test subjects so they mainly just made surface observations. The Purple Mist Sect was the farthest along because they had so much more variety to work with. Each of the Sect members absorbed the same poisonous miasma to fuel their breakthrough, but the end result was not homogenous. They all developed a law related to poison, but there was a great amount of variation. There were at least a dozen different minor laws related to venom, and a couple major poison laws as well. Each higher law seemed to encompass many others of a lower class within it. From what Sage understood, that meant there would only be a few laws at the very top, but by the time it got to the Minor Laws, there would be hundreds or even thousands of them.

The researchers were using these many venom laws to try to find similarities between them in order to create a sort of training program for others. If they could succeed there, then Sage could try to apply the same methods to other laws.

Of course, all of this talk of laws was merely work and research for the future. At the moment, he was busy trying to incorporate his Heavenly Materials into different techniques and test their compatibility with his laws. He’d already run into some complications, just as in the past, in regards to trying to use his two Heavenly Flames along with his Thermodynamic Law. The First Light and the Samsara Flame were not conventional flames and while they both produced great heat, it was only a side effect of their real purpose. There was always incongruity when he tried to use them with his law, and while he could indeed turn up the heat, the results were always less than spectacular.

There was a similar problem with the Heavenly Waters he had. The Eye of the World and the Green Lifewater were both superb utilities as one could enhance the soul and the other raised the potency of plants. They were both invaluable to his Inner World, but they were also very unsuitable to his law. On the plus side, he did discover one of them that was actually very suitable for his Thermodynamic Law. The newest of his Heavenly Materials, the Heart of Eruption.

The Heart of Eruption was the secret source of the Living Disaster’s great power. The turtle was the size of a mountain and had a body made entirely out of stone. It was a literally walking volcano, and it was only after defeating it that Sage realized that this legendary creature was not a species of rare and powerful Demonic Beasts, but a creature that had used the Heart of Eruption to reach its lofty position. It was a bit unusual that his Heavenly Flames weren’t exceptional at producing heat, while one of his Heavenly Jewels was.

The only problem was that he didn’t have a matching material to balance it out.