Pef continued to calmly go to class, then back to his courtyard, where he had a decent companion to study the exotic Flower Dao with, even filling his courtyard with numerous flowers. School life was smooth, and fairly easy.

However, in his inner world there was another situation.

Thousands of Avatars worked non-stop inside their time-acceleration bubbles to comprehend the advanced cultivation methods given by the Celestial Dean, others practiced the Sword and tried to polish his Sword Soul technique, and a few worked to created a better body cultivation method, using both the knowledge from the Celestial Library and insights provided by the Bee Queen.

Then, on the sixth day he took a break as a certain visitor appeared and tapped gently on the outer Formation of the courtyard, possibly as to not demolish it by accident.

An entrance soon appeared to allow the Lord Demonhunter to enter his courtyard.

"Little brat, what's with all these flowers?" the strange Steel Eminence asked at the flowery sight, before he noticed the Bee Queen. In a moment, he vanished and reappeared beside the Bee. "You are the Old Queen, right? I saw you a few million Chaos Cycles ago, when the first Dao Barrier was established by Pangu. You are still only a Bronze Realm?"

"We've met, mighty one? I would surely remember someone like you?" the Bee Queen murmured in a shy voice.

"Errrr. I was looking a bit differently then, but you should remember that odd smelly fisherman with a copper bucket in his hand? I was in that bucket..." the scaled person explained in a reminiscing tone.

"...That cute red carp?" the Bee Queen exclaimed in a flabbergasted voice. She did remember the singing carp that toured the ancient starfields for an audience and Spirit Stones. They even visited her starfield.

"Golden Koi! But yes, that was me. I grew a bit stronger since..." the scaled figure muttered in a slightly annoyed voice.

"Wait, wait! You are a fish?" Pef asked in a confused tone. The scales made more sense now...

A piercing glare fell on our unthinking hero, making him falter. "Golden Koi! I have transcended my origin since, but I am proud of it anyways." the man grumbled as he shed his suit of scales away, revealing a middle-aged man in a red-orange robe, carrying a scale-shaped shield on his left arm and a long sword at his belt.

Pef stared at the man-fish for a few seconds, until he remembered his General was also the same, a lotus plant transcended into human form. The cultivation world was not bound by normal rules.

"You brought food?" he asked instead.

The man grinned and poked Pef in his forehead, transferring a large inventory of rare beasts and herbs worth a few universes on the market. Then he blinked and stared at the young man for a second. "You advanced a new Star since we fought?" It hasn't even been a whole week...

Pef simply shrugged as if it wasn't anything big. "I Ascended 20 times in my short life. Even if this Bronze Realm took a bit longer than usual, it was mostly the lack of resources in the Lower Heavens. Here in the Academy I have everything I need, plus the Bee Queen to provide me with her honey and insights." He immediately summoned more inner Avatars to start preparing a grand meal for his 47th birthday.

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"I was meaning to say, Master...but your Ascension speed is rather not normal." the Bee Queen added in a soft voice.

"I know, cultivation is hard! And plenty dangerous as well..." Pef accepted in a humble voice, as he took out a large wooden table and began setting a table for his guests.

The Been Queen exchanged a knowing look with the Demonhunter. The boy managed to understand, yet completely miss the point at the same time.

Ascending rapidly in the mortal realms was completely different from the Divine Realms, and expecting a rapid cultivation in the higher realms was entirely unreasonable. The higher realms required a deep understanding of the Dao and the Heavens Laws, not merely gathering Qi. The Bee knew this quite well, since she had been stuck at Bronze Realm for countless years.

"How long until you might Ascend into Iron Realm?" the red-robed cultivator asked curious, as Pef had almost finished setting his large table.

"Dunno. Maybe a year, probably less?" Pef answered with a distant voice, more concerned with a completely different topic. More garlic? A bit of rosemary? Was the beef meat crispy enough? Cooking was far harder.

---------

In the Steelsmith shop, the orange glove had a similar topic at hand.

"This Heart Ruler is too fragile to simply reinforce it with Eternium. You realize it is basically a low Immortal weapon that was already upgraded? There is no way to upgrade it further!" the Elf Smith grumbled as he examined Pef's sword.

"I just need stronger teeth!" the Heart Ruler added his own, humble opinion.

"Shut up, you Violet Bronze trash!" the Steelsmith growled in annoyance, forcefully making the Ruler conscience close inside.

The Eternium Knight sighed inward, finding the situation far too tedious. Sadly, the Heart Ruler wasn't a genius artifact like herself, so it lacked the necessary enlightenment to Ascend on its own.

Then her eyes glanced at the pommel gem installed by the Celestial Dean. Surely, the old man had foreseen such a problem when he upgraded the Ruler.

"Lord Steelsmith, the gem pommel?" she provided as a hint. The Elf had never failed to produce a Steel Artifact since she met him, so she had high hopes for the Ruler as well. Even if organics were a bit slow in their thinking...

Raising his eyebrows, the smith examined the gem with careful eyes. "Oh? This is what the Celestial Dean intended? Crafty old monster..." the Steelsmith remarked in a soft voice, as he began to summon the Creation River once more.

As the Elf began to displace the conscience of the Ruler and reforge the Ruler's sword body, the glove goddess also began crafting her own artifacts in the Creation River. Once more, a pair of bee wings slowly transformed into Tier 11 artifacts, and she even added a few drops of her blood to infuse the Heavens Laws she had obtained from the White Tiger. Karma was rather expensive to balance, but also necessary. Pef's mount needed to Ascend to Tier 11 before they met the dangerous creatures of the Chaos Sea, and without her karma debt being erased she couldn't hope to reach the next Tier either. She did steal most of the Royal Honey to fuel her future T12 Ascension, and the old bee was satisfied with a single easy T 11 Ascension to forget all debts.

One after another, the glove had mostly erased her karma debts, and had used the Creation River to advance her cultivation towards the Peak of Tier 11. She had even obtained a Tier 12 Eternium armor and weapon from this Elf smith. She also had a Heart Mirror and a real Phoenix heart. Unlike organics, artifacts had a separate cultivation method, normally needing a smith or a user to Ascend them along. But the presence of the Creation River was also enough, if that artifact was intelligent and sapient enough to Ascend on their own. As for Dao insights, the glove did have unlimited access to the Celestial Library, and enough computing power to read and understand the contents.

Hours later, the Eternium Heart Ruler was finally ready, even though the pommel gem had melted into the hilt.

"Good work, Lord Steelsmith!" the glove goddess spoke with praise as the grabbed the weapon from the forge. "As a reward, you may join me as we visit the Divine Cook at the Academy, it is his birthday today."

Lady Kalima perked up as well, hearing news about her husband. "Can we, Master?" she pleaded in a begging voice.

"I suppose we could. I am quite hungry after working so hard to repair that trash Ruler." the Elf accepted with fake reluctance. He did want to meet the genius boy for a while now.