Liang Chen wasn't conscious about the passage of time, his mind feeling as if it was wading through a sticky ocean while he did his best to organize the information. He had expected the information in the scale to be organized and segmented, he would just have to sink his mind into it and could then freely pick out the pieces of information relevant to him.
But that guess was clearly wrong, all the information stored in the scale flooded his mind at once when he sank his mind into it. And even worse was the fact that there wasn't any trace of organization whatsoever, the information was just piled into one big mess based on when it was added- One second he could be learning about the law of fire while the next second was filled with information about the law of the holy. It was such an utter mess that he had no idea how one was supposed to go through it.
But what he didn't know was the scale of people who were usually allowed to see this scale. Normal members of the Sebettu couldn't see it as they pleased, it was reserved for those with great contributions or great strength, and most if not all of those people had souls stronger than Liang Chen so it was easier for them to sift through the information.
But Liang Chen's soul was luckily one of his strongest aspects, it was the only reason Ren Shuren and the others didn't seal the scale so that he couldn't see its contents yet. After all, if he tried to absorb such a vast amount of information with a weak soul, there was a chance that his soul would just collapse and dissipate.
But his soul didn't dissipate, it continued to wade through the sea of information while organizing it. The information pertaining to the laws he didn't cultivate was tossed to the back of his mind for the future while the knowledge about his own laws was kept at the forefront of his mind, more and more bits of knowledge piling on top of each other.
And then, after an unknown amount of time passed, he finished wading through the information and sorting it. But that didn't mean that his studying was over, he also had to actually properly look over the information about his own laws, he had to understand it and figure out how to use it.
The studying process also felt like it dragged on for an exceedingly long time, but if there was one thing that Liang Chen had, then it was time. His talent had started out lower than average, but his law of time and relentless effort allowed him to cross that chasm. Now, if you were to pit him against others that were at his own age, he would be able to sweep most of them aside with a wave of his hand, only a few were still able to stand against him.
After all, the higher your cultivation was the higher your lifespan was, you'd also retain your youth for longer. An example would be the Shen Fei present outside, he looked like a handsome youth but was actually already in his 60's, and he would still be considered extremely young for a cultivator. Of course, his ability to increase his own flow of time was one of the biggest factors in this, without it he would be far weaker at this point in time.
Liang Chen finished going over all the knowledge about his own law, memorizing it and coming up with a few hypothetical ways to use them. But theories would always just be theories, he wouldn't know if his ideas worked unless he actually got to try them out. But he was going to spar with Shen Fei fairly soon so he would have a good target to try his ideas out on, the testing could wait until then.
Since he had finished what he wanted, he finally opened his eyes again, his golden pupils as deep as the abyss. He exhaled a deep breath and interacted with the law of time around him, checking just how long he had actually been sitting there. And when he realized how long it took him to properly go through all the information, his eyebrows couldn't help but jump up somewhat.
"Two years? Ha~ah, the Sebettu really have a terrifying foundation."
Of course, those two years were only the time that had passed for him, for those outside it had only been about 15 days. The energy inside this small house was so incredibly dense that Liang Chen's instincts could push the flow of time up to 50 times its usual speed, giving him ample time to sort through every last bit of information.
Liang Chen stopped utilizing the law of time and stood up from his seated position, allowing his gaze to sweep across the surrounding room for the first time. The room was shrouded in darkness, but that alone was far from enough to hinder Liang Chen's sight, he could see everything as if it was broad daylight.
And if he had to use a single word to describe the slightly warm room then it would be, simple. It didn't look like the previous home of a grand Sovereign God, it looked like a common living room where you'd expect to find your grandmother to sit while she knit a scarf.
The only thing that was slightly peculiar about the room was that the potted plants had grown so much that they moved along the walls and ceiling of the room, flowers hanging from the ceiling in a delicate display. They were once normal flowers, but the dense amount of Qi in the building had already mutated them into Demonic beasts, they would probably be able to take on a human form if they stayed here for a million or more years.
Liang Chen walked through the room with slow steps, inspecting even the most common-looking ornament. But everything was truly ordinary, so Liang Chen moved on to the four other rooms in the house. He slowly made his way through the kitchen, the bathroom, and the storage room, arriving in front of the final door in the house.
He pushed it open and stepped into a nearly empty room that was a few metres wide and long. The ceiling of the room was covered in an array that turned it transparent, allowing Liang Chen to gaze upon the vast sky that spread out above him. The only pieces of furniture in the room was a single chair placed next to a half-metre wide round table, a porcelain cup and kettle standing there without a speck of dust covering them. And just as Liang Chen was sweeping the room with his gaze, a soft voice echoed out.
"Oh, so someone's actually managed to make their way in here?"
Liang Chen's vigilance instantly rose, the room turning darker as the sky that could be seen through the ceiling turned pitch black. Even the sun was shrouded and replaced by a resplendent moon, the light coming from the moon gathering together and materializing on the chair next to the table.
The being that appeared on the seat didn't look like it belonged there, it was a small silver fox with two tails swaying behind it. But while it looked rather cute, the horrifying energy radiating off of it was far from cute, it was to the point where it felt suffocating just to stand in front of the fox. The fox observed Liang Chen with its pair of sharp golden eyes, a satisfied light emerging in them after a short moment.
"The flow of time around you is a bit messed up, so you're either a cultivator using the law of time or you've spent a great deal of time cultivating in a place with a heightened flow of time. Mah, either is fine, your age is still so low that your talent is sufficient. and since you managed to enter this place, you're strength has also passed the proper threshold. Good, it was about time we got another disciple."
The eyes of the fox released a bright light as it spoke, the light shooting forward and sinking into Liang Chen's body. The light entered the city flooded by blood that was his soulsea, forming a silver and gold token engraved with a six-tailed fox biting down on the moon. The figure of the fox started to dissipate after it placed this token inside Liang Chen's soulsea, but its voice echoed through the room once more.
"Kid, that's the token of my Moon God's Sect, it'll identify you as an inner disciple to the others, they'll help you should they see that you're in trouble. You ought to come over as quickly as you can, I wanna get the boring entrance ceremony out of the way."
The fox fully vanished after its last words sounded out in the room, vanishing as abruptly as it came and leaving Liang Chen somewhat dumbfounded. He guessed that the fox was actually the elemental that had once lived here, the one that had ascended to become a Sovereign God. He hadn't expected it to seemingly leave a bit of its consciousness here so that it would know the moment someone entered the house, nor had he expected for it to just up and make him a member of its sect without even hearing him out.
Liang Chen could only let out a sigh and rub his neck while looking at the empty chair, this Sovereign God seemed to have a rather peculiar personality. But he had at least not dragged Liang Chen directly back to the sect, so there wasn't really anything stopping him from going about his own business.
He tossed the strange scenario to the back of his head and walked up to the table, inspecting the porcelain kettle and teacup standing there. The teacup was empty and was made from seemingly normal porcelain, but the kettle was filled with a little over a litre of some strange transparent silvery liquid. The liquid released a soft chill and a delicate fragrance, the scent of it alone filling Liang Chen's soul with a sensation of freedom and power.
"Should be a pretty good soul-based cultivation resource. I'll have to check if I can get some information on it later."
Liang Chen stored the kettle into his interspatial ring, drinking it without knowing exactly what it was would be rather foolish. He swept the room with one more glance after he took the kettle, but there was nothing else there. He then moved through the entire house once more, making sure that he hadn't missed anything in his previous sweep. But there truly wasn't anything else, so Liang Chen decided to move along with another one of his plans.
"Oh well, might as well finish it here since I've got the time."
He sat down cross-legged in the room where the fox had appeared, swiping his interspatial ring and taking out the blood from the Stone-Soul King. The petrifying poison it contained was somewhat he was a bit interested in, and he could also use the vast energy contained in the blood to bring his soul cultivation forward to a stage where it matched his body and Qi cultivation.
He surrounded the blood with his Qi so that it formed an orb in front of him, opening his mouth and slowly sucking in the blood in a steady stream as he closed his eyes. His own bloodline was far stronger than this Stone-Soul King bloodline, so the integration process was exceedingly easy. The strength of Liang Chen's soul had also already reached the Primordial Immortal realm, and he had already fused all his soul-based laws into the law of the Void Abyss so the process of increasing his soul cultivation was even easier than the process of integrating the bloodline.
But they were both still processes that required time, Liang Chen had to spend nearly two weeks to finish both processes. He obviously used his law of time while doing this, but he had to spend a good portion of his consciousness and energy on the integration and cultivation process so he couldn't push the flow of time up to 50 again. But even so, those two weeks still turned into four months for him.
Liang Chen exhaled a breath after he finished the process, the increase in his soul cultivation boosted his strength by the least when compared to his two other cultivation systems. But it was still a qualitative change so it wasn't something that could be neglected, after all, having strength at the Primordial Immortal realm and actually being at the Primordial Immortal realm were still two different things.
Liang Chen stood up from his seated position and stretched his body, bringing out some water from his interspatial ring and giving his body a quick clean. He still remembered when Yan Ling tossed him into a small lake because he approached her after an extended cultivation session where he hadn't showered. Just thinking about the scene was enough to spread a soft smile on his face as he moved through and left the house.
The sky grew dark once again when he left the house, the deep blue clouds of a heavenly tribulation filling the sky. They hadn't appeared when he actually broke through, only when he left the house, so he guessed that there might be something in the house that actually blocked his presence.
But even if the heavenly tribulation arrived, Liang Chen's previous statement still rang true, there was nothing it could do to him. He directly tore it apart with an attack containing the law of the void, his gaze landing on a Shen Fei that was so excited that he looked like he was about to jump around.
"Alright, let's get our duel finished so that we can get it out of the way. But we'll do it outside the city."
I know that the reader's who'll care are in the minority, but I got a cover for Parasitic Sword Monarch commisioned, and I'm super pleased with how it turned out. So if you're interested, please follow the link in the comments to see it! You can also see it in my discord, if you feel like getting automated updates whenever one of my stories updates.
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