Birth of the Demonic Sword

The mental coma ended once Noah's mind started to produce thoughts again. Still, the event didn't make him start another project right away. His mind was full of understanding of time, and he needed a bit to absorb it.

The sudden burst of power obtained when the ethereal blackness empowered the mind made Noah go through an entire quarter of the time sphere. That almost brought the amount absorbed on par with the space sphere.

The absorption of the time sphere had lagged behind the others since the beginning of his training with them. Yet, the sudden power-up had allowed him to almost catch up with his second last. Noah still needed to let his mind fully comprehend and transform that understanding into something that suited his existence, but he believed that the process wouldn't take much.

The benefits of having a rank 9 mental sphere remained evident while Noah lay on the floor of the reinforced area and let this mental sea handle the wave of information that had fused with it. His understanding over time increased and merged with his law, becoming one of its aspects. It had been nothing more than a vague idea before, but its state had completely transformed in those short hours.

Of course, having almost matched the amount of knowledge of the space sphere didn't make Noah's aspect of time as influential as the former. A raw understanding wasn't enough when it came to a single existence. Noah was a world now, but he still had to develop his own version of some laws. He couldn't gain power over something under Heaven and Earth's control without endangering his cultivation journey.

The dragons' spheres contained a general understanding that involved multiple laws since they came from the old world, but Noah couldn't use all of them. He had to limit himself to what suited his existence and develop something personal, something that his ambition would accept as an aspect.

Moreover, Noah's destruction, creation, and space had existed before obtaining the dragons' spheres, so the absorption of knowledge obviously went faster. His aspect of time wouldn't become stronger than the others even if he fused the entirety of the understanding in the sphere with his existence either because he had a weaker starting point in that field.

Noah's creation, destruction, and space had come from his own understanding, while time had basically appeared after receiving the dragons' spheres. Their foundation was on completely different realms, but time would grow quickly now since it was still in its initial stages.

Noah could feel his existence changing as his mind fueled his aspect of time with the new understanding. His energies changed as they gained a new nature, and that transformation naturally affected his ethereal blackness.

A small change affected the entirety of Noah. That feature already existed before, but it appeared faster now. It seemed that everything about him had to adapt as quickly as possible, and the source of that behavior was his ethereal center of power.

Noah wasn't only body, mind, dantian, black hole, and everything in-between anymore. He was the very space defined by the ethereal blackness. His existence had already stepped on the realm of the world. It was simply relatively small in that field, especially when he considered Heaven and Earth's vastness.

'I can already add time to my attacks at this level,' Noah thought as his existence continued to absorb the wave of information obtained by the dragons' sphere.

Calculations happened in Noah's mind. He quickly went through all the reports about the magical beasts sent by the old rulers into the storms to understand the current situation of the higher plane and decide his next move.

The magical beasts were doing well, if not more. Many years had passed since Noah began his experiments with the ethereal blackness, and the old rulers didn't waste those centuries and millennia. They had continued with their own plan to mess things up for Heaven and Earth, and Noah couldn't help but sense their faint excitement when he read the reports.

The first wave of magical beasts sent into the storms had suffered many losses. Only a few specific improved species had managed to go past Heaven and Earth's suppression and settle in those regions. The rulers had eventually taken care of them, but that struggle had provided the city with more information about eventual flaws in the whiteness.

The old rulers didn't hesitate to exploit those flaws by improving some species according to specific features. Those creatures became more resilient against Heaven and Earth's method as time passed, and they even ended up bringing more packs into the city.

Still, Heaven and Earth eventually created counters that could defeat those specific features and forced the old rulers to change their approach.

The battle between the old and new rulers consisted of a war of counters fought with two seemingly endless armies. One of them featured improved magical beasts, peculiar existences, or strange hybrids. Instead, the others had Heaven and Earth's lightning bolts, their many inscribed items, countless assets in the ninth rank, and the almost complete control of the world.

It was impossible to declare a winner. The old rulers had quickly created breeding grounds inside the city to balance his losses of troops, and Heaven and Earth had eras of experience in fighting those creatures. No side would win as long as both continued to fight. They were too good at what they did to lose.

Noah could only feel happy about those reports. The old rulers were doing what he had tasked them to do. They were attracting part of Heaven and Earth's attention and diverting most of its efforts on suppressing those recurring threats that expanded among the storms. Some magical beasts had even created packs that have conquered a few dead zones and regions, but they were a minority that the world could take care of at some point.

The chaotic environment would usually give Noah a perfect chance to leave the city and pursue his interests, but he didn't feel ready yet. He had just gone through a massive breakthrough, so all his abilities required tests and eventual improvements to express the new state of his existence. He didn't want to bring old or unfinished techniques into a world that could destroy him if he weren't careful.

Moreover, Noah didn't have an actual plan for now. He could help the transformed magical beasts expanding and spreading their features across the entire fauna of the storms, but his priority would remain on eating most of his enemies.

The idea of resuming a long hunting session before improving didn't sound exciting. Noah decided to wait and settle everything he could before moving toward new projects. He didn't have actual plans, but he had a goal. He had to wield far more power than anyone else.

Noah eventually decided to remain outside of the world's struggles for a while. It felt pointless to leave when he could earn so much in terms of knowledge and power. He had every resource he wanted at his disposal, so moving right away wasn't the best choice, in his opinion.

The seclusion didn't stop there for Noah. Reports continued to flow. Messages reached his mental sphere, and even his companions grew bored of that long period. Yet, he was a completely different existence when he came out of the training area, and everyone could see that.

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Author's notes: The second should take far less than an hour to come out.