Dialogue At Daybreak

At the same time, Han Junqiao and Xie Mei were taking a bath together. Theodore had been here with them until not to long ago, but when he exited, he left the two of them in an awkward, embarrassed silence.

For the past many hours, the two of them had cut loose together, but now that normalcy was settling in, they wanted to hide away and avoid the gaze of the other, each blushing to the extreme.

Her head half-submerged underneath the water, Han Junqiao shot a somewhat clouded, shy gaze towards Xie Mei, who was relaxing in the spacious, luxurious bathtub with her. No matter what, they had certainly grown closer, even though they had yet to become used to what they had just experienced together.

"Are you really okay with... sharing?"

Resurfacing a little, Han Junqiao bashfully uttered this question, peeking at her friend out of the corner of her eye. Upon hearing what she had said, Xie Mei froze for a moment, then the redness of her cheeks increased in intensity as she slowly nodded.

"Yeah. He let me know early on that it's impossible for me to be the only one. Even if he wanted to, his family has expectations for him to meet. Instead of some stranger, I'd much rather have it be you. We s-sisters can keep him in check together! We have the head start, and nobody can take that from us!"

A gentle smile forming on her lips, Han Junqiao nodded as well. Considering how Xie Mei had behaved previously, she had genuinely been concerned that her actions would equate to stepping on her feet, straining the relationship between the two of them–but instead, it had improved significantly. From this day forward, they genuinely thought of each other as a part of their family, a sister.

"We have all the time in the world. Eventually, as the ones who came first, he will grow to love us, I'm sure."

Despite Han Junqiao's words sounding solemn, neither her nor Xie Mei grew discouraged as a result. They were very much aware that while Theodore might like them, he didn't actually feel any significant amount of true love towards them. After all, how could he? Considering how long he had 'lived', the short time that they had spent together was naught but a blink of an eye. Yet, due to having 'become his' already, they would have eons to slowly but surely melt his heart.

"Fortunately, it looks like he and Vigdis absolutely aren't interested in each other romantically. So we should have him all to ourselves for some time. By the way, what do you think of 'Vigi'? I think it'd be a cute nickname for her!"

Not too worried about the future, as she could clearly sense the difference in how Theodore and the newest addition to their 'team' treated each other, Xie Mei returned once more to one of her favourite pastimes–coming up with pet names for those who she would be spending a lot of time with! Unlike before, she didn't make the decision by herself, but instead asked her sister for her input.

"Vigi, huh? It does sound nice. Do you have any other options?"

Shooting her a curious gaze, Han Junqiao relaxed a little further, the last bits of awkwardness between them dissipating.

"I do, but they all sound too cute. She's not a child, so going with them would feel a bit... weird. Let's go with Vigi, then!"

None the wiser about having been christened anew, the young woman in question had only just finished her breakfast and was now discussing their plans from here on out with her new Leader. Yesterday, due to the two girls' matters, they hadn't really had a good chance to do so.

"So you're building an Imprisonment and an Illusion Array that will encompass the entire city? Not a bad idea! That way, you can casually pick them all off without resistance."

Because she didn't see anything wrong with Theodore's plan, Vigdis signalled her approval with a confident smile on her face. If it had been someone whose Array Formation Proficiency was lower than hers, then she might have doubted if they could pull it off successfully, but her Leader's skills far surpassed her own! And she herself would have already been good enough to succeed at this endeavour.

"Speaking of, can you let me watch? I'd like to improve my Proficiency, and making you a point of reference can't hurt."

Having expected her request, he nodded, before seemingly changing the topic, yet not actually doing so.

"Of course. By the way, you might want to stick around when I make my way to the Energy Veins as well."

A bit confused by what he had just said, multiple theories popped up in her mind, yet she was lacking too much information to make any proper judgements. Eventually, she recalled his ridiculously high Endurance Attribute and put two and two together, a terrifying, yet exciting guess forming in her mind.

"What are you planning to do with them? You can already access them for the purpose of Array creation from here on the surface, so unless you're... but no. Surely not, right?!"

Tranquil in the face of her shocked demeanour, he calmly explained his objective to her.

"It's exactly what you think. I will seal and shrink all Energy Veins which I can get my hands on, then incorporate them into my body once my Endurance in high enough. To be exact, I plan to replace the 'walls' of my meridians with them entirely. And before you worry: I can increase my Attribute Points without a limit, as long as I keep killing others."

Utterly speechless at his revelation, Vigdis let it all settle in for a while. There had been many who had absorbed Energy Veins into their bodies at higher cultivation stages, as it would allow them to effectively 'produce' endless amounts of Energy themselves, giving them a massive advantage. While their cultivation paths would mostly be the same as those of all others, there were still some differences.

Long since had it been theorized that if one could introduce Energy Veins into their body earlier than at the Initial Ascension Stage, one would benefit from it even more. As a result, some had tried to do so, but they exclusively either crippled their bodies permanently, or died. The issue was very simple–their Endurance Attribute had not been high enough to bear the strain! But those who had been blessed with Talents which could allow them to increase their Endurance endlessly would usually be born at the Initial Ascension Stage, disqualifying them from having a go at it.

The Heavenly Succession would give all of them another shot at this, so she had somewhat expected to encounter what Theodore was planning–despite how crazy and dangerous it was. But never would she have thought that he would go even further than those madmen! What kind of strain would his body have to endure if he replaced all 'walls' of his meridians with countless condensed Energy Veins? And what would the repercussions be? Nobody else would take it to quite this extreme! As it simply was unnecessary.

'But then why is he doing this? There has to be a reason for him to go so far. Is it that a qualitative change takes place once he does so?'

To be honest, she had only surface-level information about all of this, as she never even thought about taking this path herself. Despite having the ability to grow stronger without a limit as well, the absorption time indirectly capped the extent of how far she could go. Her lifetime was not endless yet, after all. If she wasted too many years in the Body Refinement Stage, she might just drop dead before she succeeded!

Another issue which she hadn't considered was that Theodore's Talent provided him with more than an order of magnitude more Attribute Points than hers did. His had reached the Heavenly Dao-grade and was unprecedented, while hers was merely a considerably strong Supreme-grade one. The two grades separating them were like an inconceivably massive chasm, which she could even see the other side of.

"... you're really fortunate. With all of the Hans here, you won't have to worry about finding sufficient 'prey'. And if this state isn't enough, there are still quite a few other states to clean up..."

A bit jealous, she heaved a sigh, showing a conflicted but nonetheless joyous expression. She was honestly intrigued by how Theodore's cultivation journey would pan out if his plans succeeded.

"Exactly! But at least for now, I'd much rather keep the Imperial Han Family in the dark. If they know that they're actively being hunted down, it'll become less convenient for me to clean them up. Of course, eventually, our actions won't be able to be kept a secret any longer. But it's likely that before that happens, some other participants will make a big enough splash to stir up the hornet's nest."

The first round of the Heavenly Succession could be considered to be a 'tutorial period' without too much pressure put on the outstanding candidates. It would also allow those born very shortly before or after it started to catch up to the older competitors. Eventually, most would reach the same artificial limiter which had been put on the first round–the Energy concentration, or more specifically, the lack thereof.

Only those with at least Expert-level Array Formation Proficiency as well as the related knowledge could hope to circumvent this and increase their cultivation stage further than the first round was designed to allow. Obviously, this was merely meant to reward those who had advanced their studies to a sufficient degree in this regard, not to punish everyone else. Nonetheless, it was undeniable that many Array Formation Experts would likely reign supreme in this round.

Amidst some small talk, the two of them made their way to the Energy Gathering Array, soon followed by Han Junqiao and Xie Mei, who were still a little skittish and coy around Theodore.

For the past few days, none of them had been idle. When it came to cultivation, Xie Mei had advanced from the Dantian Transformation Realm to the extreme peak of the Tri-Culmination Realm. Any day now, she would break through–but as she was taking every step forward very carefully, only when she was confident of her absolute success, she was a bit slower than the other three. After all, two of them had prior cultivation experience, whereas Han Junqiao's qualifications were not as outstanding as hers, so she couldn't fuss over every little detail to the same extent as she did.

The dragon-horned girl in question had just entered the Core Formation Stage's Unification Realm, but she was still stabilizing herself here and would likely not achieve any meaningful progress for a day or two.

As for Theodore, due to having wandered outside to make purchases, he hadn't spent as much time cultivating as the two girls–however, he had gone from the 3,357th to the 7,881st realm of the Body Refinement Stage. This put him at a little less than half of the Standard Attributes of a regular peak Core Formation Stage cultivator in everything but Endurance!

Naturally, this wouldn't allow him to take the entire city head on, at least not yet. He would continue to lie low for another week or so, finishing all that needed to be done and 'maxing out' his cultivation as far as he could with this level of Energy concentration at his disposal. Then, it would be time to strike! But ideally, he wouldn't need to put in any effort into this city's slaughter once the Arrays activated.

Whilst the four of them were peacefully cultivating, a few hours passed by without any issue. Then, towards the end of their current session, Li Shuying hurried over to their side, making a baffling, yet not totally unexpected report.

"The Mo branch has sent an invitation for Mrs. Qiao'er. They would like her to attend a family dinner tonight."