The bedroom was plush, and the master bed stood at the center of the large suite. There were three smaller rooms in this suite, one was a tea room, another was a study with books, and the third smaller connected room was just a room with a carpet clearly meant for cultivation. There was also a large washroom at the back, with it's own soaking pool and tub.

Clearly whoever designed this room had intended for it to be used by a future young master, perhaps if City Lord Eshtar had a son of the appropriate age, this would have been his room. Alas, the youngest son is still too small, and so still lived with his caretakers.

It had signs of a rushed cleaning by the maids, even if it was part of a regular cleaning schedule.

Sana walked in awkwardly, she- she had not expected things to escalate so quickly. A part of her stewed, angry at her father. Yes. She accepted this was needed. She accepted this was a sensible decision. But the heart still rebelled.

"Take off your clothes." Zahar commanded.

"-what." Sana glared at the man.

"You're my concubine. You heard your father."

Sana wanted to oppose, but then she realized there was no point. Instead, her eyes gazed at her new partner. Zahar wasn't a handsome man. He was as plain as they came, he looked skinny, like a malnourished street rat, and still did.

Perhaps with his improved cultivation, he would look better.

"Do I have to come over and rip the clothes off myself? You should consume the Bloodfire Pill as soon as it is made, its potency is strongest today."

Sana then realized she may have misunderstood. "What- What are you planning on doing?"

"A type of dual cultivation. Come." Zahar took off his clothes to reveal his body. He had scars all over his body, the mark of someone who lived on the streets. Those scars will vanish should he ascend to even higher realms, as the body polished itself over and over. "Let us not waste time. Time that is still valuable to you."

Sana gulped, and reluctantly took off her clothes, revealing a slender, well shaped and well endowed figure.

She was the great beauty of the Koolan City, it has been said there is no beauty greater than her in this small, relatively backwater city. Yet in the Roaring Dragon Sect though, her beauty would only be average.

Underneath her silk robes was a cloth that wrapped her breast, a kind of breast band. "I- I need to take it all off?"

"Oh wait. This is your first time fully undressing before a man?" Zahar took a while to realize something quite so obvious.

She nodded shyly.

"Ah. What we will do doesn't require us to be face to face. I just need to touch your exposed back, belly, your forehead and the area above your heart. You can keep your pants on if you want. Just strip and face that way if you're feeling nervous." The Emperor said.

She wanted to say she wasn’t wearing pants, but then, what was the point? Sana nodded and turned away, everything soon came off, except for a small loincloth that covered her private part.

"Sit in your normal cultivation position." Sana's face blushed. She had never cultivated while almost naked form, with a man so close to her.

Still, she obeyed and sat. The loincloth barely covered her nether regions, but her top was revealed for him to see.

"Good. Now consume the pill. Don’t chew it, just swallow it down.."

"Don't- don't they normally eat this pill in the fourth or fifth realm? Isn't it too powerful for me now?"

"Yes, but it is also beneficial to you now.Be a good girl and listen to your mate." She flushed at the word, but then, looked at the pill.

She briefly wondered whether she would die, but then, she didn’t think Zahar was trying to kill her. She swallowed the pill.

Zahar sat behind her. He placed his left palm on her back, and his right palm at her waist.

The pill exploded once it reached her stomach, the energy was so intense that it threatened to scour her alive from within. But just at that moment, she felt the violent energies from the Bloodfire pill circulate within her, as if guided by an outside force.

"Just close your eyes, and relax. Don't try to manipulate the energy, or do anything. You don't even have to draw the energy into you. Not until I tell you to. Just do nothing." Zahar commanded, as his own energies easily pierced through her body and began wrestling with the powers of the Bloodfire pill.

She felt her body sweat, as the Bloodfire Pill's energies burned through her body. Yet, she felt a bit of it merge with her bones, her skin.

She wanted to say something, but Zahar stopped her. "Shush. Let me concentrate. Close your eyes. Some parts will hurt. Just don't fight it."

Zahar controlled the energies in her body and directed it to her head. It was as if she stuck her head into an oven and was baked. The sensation was uncomfortable, and she sweated heavily.

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The energies merged with her bones, and she felt a fire-element energy throughout her skull. It suddenly felt like she had a very high fever.

This was a fairly long process that took almost four hours. Her body sweated like it was in an intense workout, her bones burned as if it was cooked.

"Hold it." Zahar commanded, as the swirling energies began to weaken. "Good, now the fire elemental energies have been absorbed into your bones. Next, let's help you break through to the 3rd realm. I will now direct the energies to your heart. Hold it there, and pull it into your soul."

She couldn't react, and the energy suddenly concentrated in her heart. It was so intense it felt like she was getting burnt alive.

Then, Zahar placed one of his hands on her chest, above her exposed breasts. He pressed his palm in firmly, and she had a strange, orgasmic sensation as if the burning feeling throughout her entire body simultaneously extinguished.

She moaned. She felt the energy gather in her heart, and then, poof. "Oooooooooooh."

"Focus, woman. Pleasure comes later." Sana snapped back to reality, and tried to pull the fire in her heart. She could feel Zahar's energies forming a wall, preventing the collected energies from escaping.

Each time she pulled in a bit of that energy into her soul, and grew her soul a little bit more, it felt like there was a minor explosion in her heart. It sent shockwaves that could be felt throughout her entire body.

"Focus." Zahar repeated, as the sphere of energy preventing the Bloodfire Pill's energies from escaping her heart shrunk. "I'm forcing the rest of the energy into your heart. You'll have to take all of it at once."

Sana didn't know how. Just taking a bit made her feel like she was exploding.

"Do as I say, you won't die from this. Pull it into your soul, all at once."

Sana gulped, and at this point, she could only trust in the man. She pulled the swirling flame-like energies into her heart all at once, and Zahar's sphere of energy somehow shrunk simultaneously.

The flame-energy couldn't escape even if it wanted. She just had to concentrate on merging the energy with her soul.

It happened all at once. Everything suddenly fused, and she broke through. Her soul and heart formed the 3rd layer, the sign of a 3rd realm!

The energy was gone, but now that her focus was drawn back to reality, she collapsed backward, exhausted. She didn't realize how much energy it took to break through to the 3rd realm!

"Good job."

Sana was so tired she couldn't even move, her head was on his chest. Zahar wrapped his hand around her waist. He placed her head back down on the pillow, and then, he rested his head next to her, and hugged her.

"Sleep." Zahar kissed her on the forehead, and somehow, her body listened.

***

When Sana woke up, she felt his hand coiled around her waist. She was absolutely naked, and Zahar was reading next to her. "Did- did anything happen?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you- uh. Did we do it?"

"Oh. You're still a virgin if that matters to you. Your body needs time to rest, it wasn’t the right time to engage in the act. You’re naked because I had to clean you up and remove all the nasty residue emitted from the forced absorption of the Bloodfire Pill." Zahar said as he sat next to her on the bed, reading the summarized news of the Empire. It gave Zahar an overview of the situation in the Empire.

Sana's face was a little pink, and instead, she crawled and tried to read what he's reading. "Missives about the Empire?"

"Naturally. One of the aides told me your father wanted you to go to the Roaring Dragon Sect in two months."

"That was the initial plan." Sana said. Now that she is this man's concubine, whether she went to the sect is up to her new master. A large part of her still wanted to go to the Roaring Dragon Sect, but she didn’t dare say it out. Not until she had a better understanding of her new mate. "I am not sure if my father has other plans now."

Zahar looked at the beauty in his arms, and smiled. "I will have your father write a recommendation letter for me. I shall join as a fellow outer disciple. Great Sects like that should have many other beauties there. I shall naturally claim them too."

Sana's face turned red as she thought of this man surrounded by a bevy of beauties, and she blurted out her thoughts. "Shameless! You already have one and you still want more!"

Zahar laughed, and his arm tugged her waist. He pulled her closer, so close that they almost kissed.

She flushed red.

He leaned back against the soft pillow on the back and pulled Sana closer. Sana had never felt a man hold her this way, so she turned absolutely red. The way his left hand held her waist made it clear he absolutely considered her to be his.

Zahar placed the missive on his right hand back on the bedside table.

"So, how do you feel?"

"Huh?" Sana wasn't sure what he referred to. How did she feel as his concubine? Or, how she felt about lying in his arms? How she felt about being told to serve a man as his bed toy?

"Your cultivation."

"Ah. It's- I'm not sure."

Zahar smiled, and fondled her waist a little more. She shifted, unsure how to react. "That's alright. You should feel it settle within a day or two. I read that the sect master of the Roaring Dragon is in the peak of the 10th realm, trying to ascend. Tell me more about the Roaring Dragon Sect, and the Sect Master."

Cultivation was a game of fractal repetition. Ten minor stages at every major realm. Every ten realms for a single Ascension. Those who reached the Ascension stage were properly immortals. Ten Ascensions for a Single Spark of Divinity, and those in the divinity stage were properly deities. Above the divinities were the Great Laws. The lower worlds like this are still stuck in the realms, and have not even seen the greatest of the divinities. Of course, there are other detours around such paths.

The path to the heavens could take many forms, and Zahar had seen many paths throughout his millions of years.

"Sect Master Qianlong has not yet ascended, though I hear he is trying hard. His predecessor, Sect Master Zhonglong was a 2nd Ascension Immortal, so he has great shoes to fill." Sana answered. "Though he is immensely powerful, the Roaring Dragon Sect is still threatened by the Great Queen of the Frozen Peaks, the Lord of the White Tiger Temple, and the Master of the Sword Saint Sect. All of these three masters are 1st Ascension Immortals. Right now, among the Fifteen Great Sect Masters of the Empire, Sect Master Qianlong is ranked 6th in terms of strength. "

Zahar smiled at the naked beauty in her arms. "Sana Eshtar."

Sana froze. Why did he call her name like that?

"You shall read these missives, and explain them to me, every other day, in bed." Zahar smiled wickedly.

"-what." Her face was as red as a tomato.

"I like my briefings from a beauty, and your voice is pleasant. It certainly makes the information much easier to digest." Zahar squeezed her waist and handed her the missive. "Start now."

"Hey!"