Ace and the others spent the next thousand years in isolation in the underground prison. It was the longest time they had ever spent training in one go, but none of them seemed to mind it in the slightest.

They had long since gotten as close as family, so they never really went bored, but more importantly, with Garot’s help, they found themselves improving at a much faster rate than they thought possible for their current respective levels – especially Killian and Faye.

The three Divine Planes created back on the Yulan Plane were ones of Water, Fire, and Wind. It meant that for both Killian and Faye, their comprehension of the laws of Earth fell slightly behind. Now, though, although not a Sovereign, Garot was an extremely ancient expert who specialised in the laws of Earth.

His teachings proved invaluable to the two geniuses. Even more so for Killian, whose affinity to the Earth didn’t miss out by much compared to the respective affinities of Ace and Amira.

Still, of all the things he taught the two, the most important was a certain application of three fused profound mysteries of the Earth he had come up with at some point during his time in captivity – namely, the profound mysteries of [The Throbbing Pulse of the World], [World Walking], and [The Essence of the Earth].

[World Walking] allowed one to merge their body into the earth as though it was one with the Earth – it was a profound mystery used primarily for hiding or movement.

[The Throbbing Pulse of the World] allowed one to sense the vibration, or as Garot referred to it, the pulse of the world’s beating heart around them and harness them in a myriad of different ways.

Then there was [The Essence of the Earth], which allowed the user of said mystery to freely manipulate the very essence of the earth at will.

The technique Garot created was called “[One With World].” Although it had no offensive capabilities, being a purely supportive technique, it was still heaven-defying by its nature.

It allowed his mind, soul, and body to truly become one with the world. It was this technique that allowed him to see Ace’s battle with Joleon despite being so far away. But its most impressive feature was how it allowed him to pry into the very essence of the Laws of Earth in ways that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

It was true that when he was first sealed here, he had only just begun fusing his fifth mystery. But after coming up with said technique, it allowed his comprehension to increase by leaps and bounds in a short amount of time.

When he manipulated the Earth to open up and swallow Ace and the others, he only showed a slight improvement in comprehension. This was to keep his enemies from learning the truth about his improvements. In reality, as it stood now, he had comprehended 99% of the Laws of Earth.

Like Druelle, he was a fraction of a step from becoming a Paragon. And as an Apex Divine Beast, his true power couldn’t be put into words; at the very least, an expert like Druelle wouldn’t even be able to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Unfortunately, try as he may, he remained unable to break through into the paragon level, and not even his heaven-defying supreme technique was able to help him take that final step.

Unfortunately, though she had comprehended all three of the profound mysteries needed to comprehend [One With World], Faye hadn’t even started fusing any two of them. Still, with Garot’s help, she had successfully completed two separate three-way mystery fusions and had begun fusing four.

Killian, on the other hand, had long since comprehended all three required profound mysteries, and with his incredible affinity to the Earth and the power of his soul as a three-way soul mutate boosting his perception drastically, it didn’t take him long to master the technique.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

As it stood, not only had Killian successfully completed the fusion of five profound mysteries, but he had also started comprehending his sixth individual mystery and was now just in the process of trying to begin fusing it with the other five, so like Ace and Garot, he too could start comprehending a *True Law*.

The Killian of today couldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath as the him of a thousand years ago. In terms of raw power, he would be hard-pressed to find an opponent, even among those commander-level deities.

Though Garot wasn’t able to give as much guidance to the others, each of them had made giant improvements. Still, none quite as much as Ace.

As advised by Garot, Ace spent a lot of time creating a myriad of different techniques for a wide range of different situations, and like Garot told him, his going out of his way to unearth the potential of almost every fusion he had access to had allowed his comprehension of the *True Law* of Fire to increase by leaps and bounds.

He was even able to recreate the Fire version of Garot’s [One With World] by fusing the profound mysteries of the essence of fire, fire-body, and spiritual flames.

Though it wasn’t quite as effective, especially as there wasn’t a giant natural ball of fiery essence for him to merge with mind, body, and soul, it was still exceedingly effective in raising his comprehension of the *True Law* of fire to around 75%.

But that wasn’t the full extent of his improvement. In the last few months, Ace found that he had reached a bottleneck stopping him from improving his Concept of Fire and, by extension, his [Blazing Glaive Art].

Having sensed something similar back before he raised his glaivesmanship to the Full God level, he understood he was a step away from the Concept version of the High God level.

Still, as it stood, his Glaivesmanship had reached a level of profundity that most could only dream of.

Ace’s group weren’t the only ones improving in that time. Even Garot, as monstrous as he was already, had managed to improve his power.

Though it wasn’t from his comprehension of the laws, it made him no less excited.

After seeing how much effort Garot was putting into helping his whole crew improve, Ace decided to teach him how to tread the path of comprehending Concepts.

Due to the sensitive nature of the topic and their obvious inability to sense the Godrealm of any potentially nosey Sovereigns, they had to speak via their respective Godrealms. Still, Garot was eventually able to comprehend the Concept of Earth after creating his own “Halberd Art.”

Between his profound understanding of the laws of Earth, as well as his impressive perception as an incredibly powerful High God, Garot found himself by leaps and bounds on a daily basis, but what no one could have imagined was that after a mere hundred years of training in the new path, not only did he reach the Full God level in the Concept of the Earth, because of the connection between Concepts and Profound Mysteries acting as something of a loop, Garot inadvertently took that long-awaited final step and became a paragon of the laws of Earth.

Ace and the others marvelled as the natural laws descended and enveloped Garot before entering the Black Tortoise’s body, then his Divine Spark and shattering the barrier keeping him from using the power of his Will.

As he opened his eyes, Garot released a burst of near-euphoric laughter as a terrifying pressure spread out of him.

Amira and the others couldn’t sense the specifics, but as someone who had already unlocked the ability to utilise his Willpower, Ace could sense the man’s Willpower radiating out of him.

Seeing the effect he was having on his new friends, Garot hurriedly recalled his Willpower and apologised for getting ahead of himself.

Just as he prepared to use his own Willpower to erase the remnant Will of Verano, who sealed him, Julius called out for him to stop.

Seeing the looks of confusion on not just Garot but also his friends, Julius explained that whilst the others were busy training, he was using this formation to deepen his own understanding of the art of formations, allowing him to grow by leaps and bounds.

Although he was far from the level of the Verano – the creator of the formation – he had reached a level high enough to alter the formation slightly, provided he had the help of someone who could use the power of Will.

It should be noted that the formation Verano used was one that incorporated an extremely profound level of comprehension of the Edict of Fate. As a result, during his studies of the formation, Julius’ own comprehension of the Edict of Fate had jumped from a very average High-God to the Six Star Fate Seeker level.

As for his level as an expert in the art of formations, let’s just say that, even in the whole of the Celestial Realm, there weren’t many who could stand by his side. A fact he proved when he altered the formation, allowing their group to escape but using Garot’s Willpower to replace Verano’s before the formation could disperse.

Garot didn’t know much about formations, but he knew enough to know that the ability Julius showed would be enough to shock the Celestial Realm’s Formation masters, especially if they came to know of his age.

Looking around at the group of youngsters that made up the Golden Sun Pirates, he could only sigh at the fact that so many monsters were gathered together under one banner.