Staring at the changes before him, Sage realized that he suddenly knew what was going on. Having reached a new rank, awakening his Nascent Soul, the Life Nebula had transformed. As the source of the cultivation technique, the world created by the Seed of Life had been the center of this universe. Each of the other Heavenly Materials he had collected became supports for that extremely unique seed. Now, the Tree of Life had grown to new heights. It was no longer being supported by this space. It wasn’t protected in the center of the Inner World any longer, now it encompassed this whole inner universe.

With that change made, this internal space became more similar to that of other universes. The stars, much larger than the planets, had now become the pivot about which the planets spun. A second star had joined the first. Sage moved closer and he was glad to see his guess had been correct. At the center of that star was a disc shape, one with lines of a slightly darker shade, creating a sort of spoked wheel shape.

Samsara Flame.

Sage had finally felt the connection when he was finishing off Beast Kira. Later, when he entered the dead man’s Spiritual Sea, his suspicion had been confirmed. The orange flames that the man used were actually a Heavenly Flame. The Samsara Flame ignites the soul, causing the victim to experience life and death. Over and over again until their will is completely consumed, at which point they would die for real and send their soul back into the true cycle of reincarnation. A return to samsara.

It was no wonder that Beast Kira had become the leader of this Flares group. He had a Heavenly Flame. Sage guessed he was a powerful pyrokinetic, otherwise there was little chance he could have subdued a Heavenly Flame. When Sage finally defeated the man, the Samsara Flame was fearful of being subdued again, so it tried to fight back, but it wasn’t a match for the Seed of Life. The Seed of Life could harmonize with any of the other Heavenly Materials. Where others would struggle to subdue even a single Heavenly Material, Sage could even command those with opposing elements at the same time.

The two stars were, of course, his two Heavenly Flames. Each of the other seven Heavenly Materials he had now were represented by a planet in the strange system inside his Nascent Soul. Everything seemed quite harmonic and after examining them for a while he zoomed in towards one of them, descending to the Inner World and bracing himself for the damage.

Surprisingly, things weren’t as terrible as he imagined they would be. In fact, they were flourishing. When his breakthrough began, he had whisked away all the inhabitants, protecting them from the catastrophic damage that followed. When the breakthrough was complete the inhabitants were forced to work together. At that moment Sage realized his mistake: the increased time scale of the Inner World. For Sage it had been only a week since the battle, but for those on the planet it had been a year and a half! Sage found a new settlement forming on the surface. He’d pushed them all onto a smaller island, hastily moving all of their supplies and essentials, but there was no way he could grab everything they could need. Over these many months, the people had worked together to fish the seas and fashion necessary supplies. The Dragoons and Hoplites weren’t the most intelligent, but they had been taught many rudimentary crafting skills and could create many things with Steel Silk. Yet, they weren’t the only ones in the Inner World. Sage had also deposited all of the living Flares. There were also all the Human officers of the Jade Horde left over from Sage defeating the traitors. Last, but not least, three of King’s wives.

At this moment he flew rapidly to the three women and apologized for what had happened. He told them that his life was in danger and there wasn’t any time for him to properly handle things. Surprisingly, they weren’t upset. The women had been lazing around, feeling somewhat bored and depressed. The sudden crisis had given them a reason to act and they were feeling reinvigorated. Sage quickly got the story from them on what happened during this time.

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The Dragoons were the most rigid. Sage had created them to follow only his own orders. They had only been ordered to maintain their state of readiness, construct equipment and continue their training. As such, in the beginning they had been quite obstinate and only supplied their own food and necessities. They ignored the others on the island and only cared for their own military preparation.

The Hoplites were without direction and the Human officers had tried to order them around like they used to do. Only their former subordinates obeyed their orders while the native Hoplites ignored them. The Human’s gave their Hoplites tasks and soon they were fishing and constructing structures by draping Steel Silk cloth over wooden frames. Thankfully, the island they were on had plenty of trees and vegetation which helped them survive long enough to start creating fishing boats and nets.

The Flares were worse off. So many of them were poisoned and without Sage curing them, they all died within a few months. They were initially hostile, trapped in a foreign place with their friends slowly dying. Unfortunately, they realized how outnumbered they were. Even with tens of thousands, they were outnumbered more than ten to one. The combined number of Hoplites and Dragoons reached a count in the millions. After realizing the futility of their position, they were forced to work with the other groups and used their unique abilities to fill in the gaps with the Human Officer’s plans.

Seeing the effectiveness of the humans and their subordinate Hoplites, King’s Wives stepped in and started ordering around the much larger group of native Hoplites. They worked together with the humans and after some time even convinced the Dragoons to help out. Some of the Dragoons had become far more impressive than in the past and it made Sage eager to meet them. They had taken the initiative to declare that as long as it did not violate their orders, they had the discretion to take extra actions. They could maintain readiness and keep training while also assisting the others. Over the year a new settlement had formed and King’s Wives were in command.

Sage was pleased with their performance and declared them governors of this world. He moved their country sized island settlement close to the main continent, turning it into a peninsula with a narrow land bridge to connect them. With access to the vast amount of terrain and numerous Natural Treasures growing there, they no longer had to fish in the seas. After the struggle they’d been through, Sage considered it to be a pardon for the human officers and Flares. They would be treated as inhabitants now. He wasn’t going to let them go free, but it meant they would operate as the Hoplites had. With a whole world worth of crops, it was very difficult to manage. The inhabitants of the Inner World needed to act as Sage’s workers. They were his tenant farmers. In return for managing the plants, they would get a share of the crops as their income.

He thought about just letting them carry on without any oversight, but this world was just too large and managing all the planting and harvesting on his own would take far too much time. He left it up to King’s Wives to figure out and impressed upon the other groups that the three of them were in charge. One of the Flares threw flames at him and that man instantly turned into a puddle of blood. Sage collected a pair of Psionic Crystals from the body and the Flares realized that they were helpless in this place. He made sure the Arborist Ranch was restarted and back in operation and then moved on to one last task.

The Hoplites were on the main continent with Flares and Humans, but Sage had other plans for the Dragoons. There was still another continent, the place he raised all his Insects. He moved the Dragoons to this second largest continent, and built them a new and secure headquarters surrounded by a mountain range. They were to train and their training partners were the many billions and billions of insects on this continent. With the two groups competing with each other, both sides would grow stronger. Many were sure to die, but progress could only be made through struggle. Even with the many natural treasures for both groups to consume, an individual only had a certain amount of potential. Without the proper stimulation they would reach a limit. That limit could only be exceeded at the fear of death, the ultimate stimuli.

With just the natural resources of the Inner World Sage could raise millions up to the third or fourth rank, but if he wished for them to go further they would have to push themselves. After the ‘apocalypse’ that was his reaching rank 6, the planet had grown many times larger than before, but he still didn’t wish to support many millions of weaklings. For one, if he wished to change them once again, that would be many millions who were now useless, and most importantly it would be wasteful. Quantity could make up for quality, but only to a point. Having hundreds of thousands of troops was already more than sufficient, what mattered more was having greater peak power. The higher the rank of a cultivator the greater the gap in power between those in the prior rank. A rank 5 cultivator could fly through the sky and turn an acre of land into ash. A rank 4 cultivator could throw a ball of flames hundreds of yards, while a rank 3 cultivator could extend a flaming sword from their hand.

Sage aimed to use the Insects to temper the Dragoons and get some of them to raise to a new level. If it could also inspire the Insects to mutate and evolve to resist them that would be even better.