In the law ocean, Krill Nash was leading the Divine Sea Sect's Hollow Tiger Army. A fantastical scene played as the army of millions of cultivators marched across the law ocean with majesty. Three huge ships as large as continents floated in the law ocean as they made their way with incredible speed. The laws around the ships kept on disintegrating with collisions and the rebound caused massive waves of turbulent laws that could easily kill an ascendant cultivator. Behind these ships were six beasts of indescribable size. They looked like tigers except for their two heads the size of moons and huge wings larger than a planet. These were the beasts that were the symbol of the army - Hollow Tigers. Hollow Tigers were a law-beast species. They innately had mastery over the laws of fire and wind making every adult beast a law master. Of course, with their tyrannical physical strength, even some upper-ascendants would not win against them. Their ferocious nature made it so that even powerful upper-ascendants would not try provoking them. Only sects who had divinities could tame and rear beasts like these.
Ahead of the three ships was a marching army. Compared to the ships and the beasts, the army seemed much smaller. There were only about a million or so members present, but the aura of each one of them placed them as strong warriors in the ascendant realm. While most of these warriors were only level-2 or level-3 ascendants, they were all battle-hardened soldiers. Their combat strength in individual terms would already place them comparable to geniuses of many sects. But what truly took one's breath away was how their aura had joined together to form a whole. The might of the combined aura was so huge that it outshined both the ships and the beasts behind.
Ahead of this grand army was a bizarre construct of machinery powered by an enormous amount of energy crystals. The machine looked like a drill that was made to pierce through the law-ocean. This was a trail-blazer. Law ocean was a chaotic mix of laws. There was constant turbulence in the ocean such that anyone below demi-ascendants would be disintegrated in a flash. Only ascendants had the right to truly travel this chaotic ocean. But even powerful level-8 ascendants had to be careful while travelling, lest they encounter a crisis. This made transportation between worlds a major challenge. Huge sects which were based on multiple planes needed suitable methods to transport personnel and resources across the ocean. Thus, they created the trail-blazer. It would refine the laws on a set path and reinforce a safe passage through the ocean known as a trail. Once a trail was carved between two locations, further transport would become many times easier.
This army was currently carving a trial from Jupyter to Aterna. A secondary plane without any special significance would generally not be connected via trails. But the discovery of the secret realm had suddenly pushed the importance of Aterna to a very high level.
Krill Nash was present in the command centre of one of the ships as he constantly searched a safe path through the ocean with his extended perception. At this point, one of his subordinates came forth:
> Sir, we have looked through the map generated by the radar in the ships and matched it with the map that we obtained from local sects. We are very close to the destination and should be able to reach in under a month at our current speed.
>
> Krill : This is good news! This backwater place is so remote that there weren't even suitable maps of the area. We could have shortened the journey's time by 30% otherwise.
Krill was encouraged that the monotonous task of carving a trail would be coming to end soon. Now that he was close to the destination, he had to make plans for landing.
The world's end, Aterna.
This was the place is desolate lands. The land was parched and the sky was black. This was literally the end of the plane hence the name. This was a place where many powerful warriors of the plane would constantly seclude themselves to. Law-ocean was the best place to comprehend laws. For an impoverished plane like Aterna, the cultivators could only search for methods like these to help in their cultivation. After all, they did not have access to cultivation rooms like big-sects. The most important person who had secluded himself here was Kyle Kross, the brother of Beast King and Kandrif's father. He had secluded himself here in hopes of reaching higher realms. Now that Michael had created public repositories, the path ahead had already been cleared for him. As long as his comprehension of laws sufficed, he could break through to the ascendant realm. To a person who placed cultivation as his life's top priority, this place was his paradise.
But today, it was not only him who was present here but almost all capable cultivators of the plane had appeared including Michael Rageberg. They were here to receive the army from Divine Sea Sect.
Soon, the huge drill became visible in the distance like a ray of shining light. In the blink of an eye, the light increased, becoming comparable to the sun in the noon sky. By the time the cultivators from Aterna could understand the situation, waves of turbulent and chaotic laws crashed into them.
Bang!
All the cultivators were injured to several degrees, even Michael!
These cultivators with incredible status in the plane were immediately left in dishevelled and miserable states looking like beggars on the streets. Laughter echoed in the air and several powerful auras came crashing into them. Soon, the army of Divine Sea Sect appeared in full glory at the place. Each of the cultivators from the main army was so powerful that even Michael found himself feeling a sense of danger from each of them. If he had to fight any of the soldiers from the main army one-on-one, he was not confident of winning!
The cultivators from Aterna were completely stunned by the majestic scene. A feeling of shame emerged in their hearts after their shock and fright. This was the feeling of being inferior to others. To many of the natives, they were unaccustomed to being inferior. Along with shame came a hint of fear due to the difference in strength. All the native experts showed varying expressions - envy, fear, admiration, etc. Soon, a cold snort echoed through the entire army ringing like thunder in everyone's ears. Everyone became quiet in an instant.
A handsome young man appeared from one of the ships and landed gracefully on the plane. With his arrival, the plane-will cried out feeling great danger from this person! This was a testament to his power. This man was Krill Nash.
Michael moved forward and bowed respectfully to the man.
> Welcome Senior Brother! I welcome the Hollow-Tiger army to my humble home.
This man's status and strength were much higher than Michael. He naturally had to show respect. The man observed Michael for a moment before speaking
> Greetings junior. I can see your potential and how you were named as a core-disciple. You deserve it. For this small plane to already produce someone of your caliber is a miracle. Come, let me introduce you to the convoy from the Sect.
>
> This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Saying so, he casually dragged Michael to his ship. Once inside, he. introduced many other important figures from the sect to Michael. The convoy this time had many core-disciples, each more powerful than Michael along with a few legacy-disciples as well as a few divine children. They were also accompanied by their dao-protectors, elders in level-7 or level-8 ascendance. Looking at the convoy, Michael understood how powerful the convoy truly was and how much importance the sect placed on this secret realm.
During the introductions, Krill introduced:
> Krill : Junior Michael, meet Viridian Rose. She is a powerful psychic cultivator who is accompanying us on the expedition.
Michael could see that this lady was a powerful upper-ascendant and had the uncanny presence of a psychic as well. She had an ethereal presence making anyone looking at her feel that she was not present in the same dimension as them. This was not just a feeling but an actual separation with her psychic energy.
What a skilful manipulation of psychic energy!
Michael was shocked in his heart. This lady was at least a psychic grandmaster. But while Michael was observing the lady, she was also observing him in return.
Followed by that, they shook hands for a second before parting.
After the session of introductions was done, Michael left the place after arranging guides for the group.
As soon as he left, Krill looked over to Viridian and asked:
> Krill : So, how was he?
>
> Viridian : Powerful! I have never seen anyone like him!
Viridian's response caused all the people to have looks of surprise.
> Krill : Hmm? Was he so powerful that you felt threatened?
Viridian smiled wryly.
> Viridian : He is not just able to treaten me, he is almost as powerful as me!
Soon, the looks of surprise turned into shock all around.
> How is that possible?! Could you be exaggerating on purpose? You are an upper-ascendant and a psychic grandmaster. Not only can you fuse grand-momentum into psychic energy, you can fuse your personal laws as well. The might of your psychic energy is enough to injure most of us even if we have many imprinted defenses.
>
> He is only a baby in first stage of ascendance. How can his psychic energy be that powerful?
Krill asked with a sombre expression
> Krill : What happend when you tested him? Can you explain in detail?
>
> Viridian : When we shook hands just now, we naturally exchanged blows with our minds. Given the speed of psychic arts, we managed to exchange many moves. If I have to describe my impression, it would be overwhelming might! I have never seen anything like this. The power of one's psychic energy is limited for everyone. Psychics only cultivate their psychic energy in the beginning stages. Later, they naturally move on to using laws as their foundation when they cultivate. But from his mastery of laws, I saw that he could not infuse his laws to his psychic energy. Clearly, he is lacking greatly in experience. His manipulation of energy was decent, at the standard of a greatmaster. But his psychic energy is abnormally powerful. It is so powerful that in the first exchange where I only used psychic energy, he crushed me without even trying. In the second exchange, I used my understanding of laws but the result remained the same! Only after using personal laws was I able to fight back!
>
> Krill : So while he can't infuse laws into his psychic energy, he is still able to fight you. What would happen if his understanding of laws was as deep as yours?
>
> Viridian : Then even you wouldn't be his opponent!
The conversation left most of the people in the convoy speechless. While Viridian was also an upper-ascendant, she was only on level-5 ascendance and the personal laws she had grasped were not that many. She was the weakest kind of upper-ascendant if one ignored her psychic abilities. Krill, on the other hand, was in level-7 ascendance and was close to reaching level-8. He was already considered to be an extremely powerful cultivator and there were not many who could defeat him below the realm of divinity. But according to Viridian, if Michael became a level-5 ascendant in future, he would surpass Krill. This was a shocking statement but Viridian was a part of the convoy for a long time and all of the people trusted her. Thus, their shock was truly great.
> Krill : Interesting! To think that. such a character has emerged in the sect. If he doesn't die in the next 20 thousand years, perhaps he might rank top-20 in the selection battles.
Selection battles involved many super-planes and geniuses across many super-sects. Top-20 might not seem very embellished, at that stage, almost everyone in top-20 had a high chance of becoming a divinity in future! After a pause, Krill spoke
> Don't test him anymore. Also, keep a respectful attitude towards the natives and make sure that you don't offend him! This person can be a powerful ally but also a terrifying enemy. He has already shown his strength, so it only natural that we give him the respect he deserves.
After leaving, Michael went back with other important native cultivators after assigning his slaves to guide the convoy and military. Looking at the attitude of the military and the status of the convoy, he did not want anyone important to him to come in contact with them. Michael had only stepped on the ascendant path and there would be a long time before he would be able to truly stand on his own in the sect. Before that happened, he did not want to take any risk.
He still remembered, five years back, after settling all the matters in the plane, he had read up all the cultivation scriptures that he could. This was one of the benefits of being a core-disciple of a super-sect. The knowledge about cultivation that others would have to search with trials and errors was readily available to him. In those scriptures, he found out about his abnormally strong will-power as well as his state of self-command. Roughly speaking, his willpower was as strong as a 7-star divinity or perhaps even higher! This was in a gross mismatch with his cultivation and strength. While there was no harm with having high willpower and it was, in fact, beneficial for a lot of things, after knowing that he possessed such a reserve, he did not want to waste it away. Thus, he started thinking of methods to truly bring out the benefits from his huge reserve of willpower.
Initially, he researched for some time in the direction of the perfect persona blessing. But he could not figure out the blessing and the principles involved at his level. He could only sigh and move on to psychic-path. He already had will-manifestation, a secret art from Wisdom Emperor's legacy. This secret art was based on mixing his willpower with psychic energy. After a long period of research and spending lots of sect-contribution points to gain tutelage and legacies of other psychics, he managed to merge his willpower with his psychic energy on a deeper level. As a result, his psychic energy received a huge boost in strength. While he did not manage to bring forth the full power of his will reserve, he still became unreasonably strong. Also, as he had a direction, with time, he would become much stronger in psychic-path. He was confident that if he focussed on this path exclusively, he might be able to kill powerful ascendants and even divinities by the selection battles. But Michael would never do such a stupid thing.
All paths had their relative strengths and weaknesses. The psychic path used the mind of a cultivator. But most of the psychics he had seen were not that strong. As long as one could negate the aspect of mind, they would become fish on a chopping board. To Michael, strength was primary. He had no favourite path. Thus, he was already looking into integrating his willpower to his dao. While there was not much success due to lack of attainment as well as lack of external help possible, dao also ultimately originated from the subconscious beliefs of a person. It should, in theory, be possible to integrate his will to his dao.
Michael was worried by the convoy's status, thus, he had blatantly shown his strength.
This should take care of first impressions. At least now, they won't cross my bottom-line. But still, it's not enough. Every soldier is a powerful warrior in the ascendant realm. The enemies would naturally be of the same scale and strength. I am too weak, Aterna is too weak. The fastest way to get strong is to merge dao-path with my will reserve. Only then will I have the ability to protect myself and Aterna.