Immortal Kingdoms

At some point in time, Leonardo's body which was in a state of deep meditation began to mysteriously burrow deeper and deeper into the ground, fascinatingly sinking into the thick energy veins as though he was a drop of water trickling down a bamboo pole.

In the beginning, he was paying particular attention to the developments outside, that was until Ingrid made an appearance, allowing him to completely shut off his perception of the outside world and continually draw in the essence energy from heaven and earth, the energy veins, the lightning in the sky, and the blood of countless experts.

Before realizing it, the ground continued to swallow his body deeper and deeper into a crystallized world of sparkling essence crystal roots that stretched like the meridians of the human body.

The only thing Leonardo could think of was that this place had too much energy, but he never would have expected this place to be the concentration of the Forbidden Domain's energy that is similar to the Ascension Platforms scattered across the Human, Elven, and Beastkin Domains.

No one knew that this was the damaged energy vein from the War of Dominion, and although it didn't have enough energy or connection to Arcadia's will to produce a half-step divinity, solidifying a sub-dimension, Arcadia's will still believed that this amount of energy should suffice as a token of thanks to Leonardo.

Hence, the reason no one could sense Leonardo or the energy vein's energy was twofold. First, Leonardo's energy was overwhelmed by the fluctuations of the energy vein. Second, the energy of the vein was being channeled inwardly and not externally, subverting the previously omnidirectional waves and pouring them directly into his body.

Since the Divine Emissary could no longer sense the presence of energy from underground, he decisively decided that it wasn't worth exposing the depths of his strength, and it would make for a better choice to simply negotiate coexistence between them and Leonardo, even if they had to work under his name in the Forbidden Domain.

In a sense, that young man won't stay here forever, and once he's gone, second place will instead become first place.

Everyone eventually left, leaving Leonardo all to himself in the depths of the earth, surrounded by a crystalline world of glimmering essence energy that flooded his body and mind, steadily and evenly increasing his cultivation.

Leonardo didn't blindly increase his cultivation, he instead tried various methods, formulas, and combinations to superimpose his multiple martial intents through various simulations within his soul pearl, relying on deducing and studying the conflicting yet completing force fields released from every nebula through their gradual process of growth.

While his thoughts shuffled through endless calculations, he began to subconsciously tap into his eternal night bloodline's innate martial intent once every few thousand simulations, this instant suddenly changing his point of view as his perception would suddenly lose all color, except for his target of focus where it would instead maintain a pitch-black color.

This object of focus would then split into multiple shadows of a lesser shade, albeit each of these shadows is dark to a varying degree on a vast spectrum of darkness, most of them waning till they fade away, a select few that could be considered everlasting.

At first, Leonardo treated these instances as moments of sudden comprehension where various indexes of velocity, rotation speed, and trajectory are grasped by him in order to complete a successful merger. However, not too long later when these instances became too frequent, he immediately came to the realization that this was the product of his innate martial intent derived from his bloodline.

As though struck by a bolt of comprehension, he thought back to Eternus' time-related martial intent and Kieran's perception-related martial intent, making him feel like his innate martial intent was an enhanced hybrid of the two.

Only, what her perceived was the multitude of timelines, like the possible butterfly effects brought about by an action in the present timeline, and the future trajectory brought about by the specific parameters perceived through his optical sensors.

The sudden realization aroused Leonardo awake from his meditation, drenched in a cold sweat. Then, fierce hunger wracked his stomach so much he felt his intestines twisting, realizing that his body had been keeping together relying solely on the nourishment of vital essence energy of heaven and earth this entire time.

…

Leonardo didn't know, but two years in the outside world had already passed.

Many things happened in these two years.

Wendy became a High Saint.

Juvia became a High Saint.

Pandora also became a High Saint.

However, all of those silent and hidden achievements paled in comparison to another great event.

The Arcadian Church's people kidnapped Kieran and Leona with the intent to blackmail Leonardo into handing over the legal rights to the energy mines mountain range.

The news had yet to circulate through Arcadia when every establishment under House Erudite, every Arcadian Church, and everyone with a trace of Erudite bloodline and a faint strand of faith martial intent within their bodies were slaughtered overnight.

No one knew who sold out the coordinates for the hidden secret locations of House Erudite and the Arcadian Church. However, no one needed to bother looking for them anymore.

Moreover, the corpse of the Divine Emissary was hung on the gates of Valdmor with his eyes gouged out, limbs severed, and a cross of blood carved on his chest so deep one could see the scene from his back.

No one dared pull down that corpse.

It simply rotted.

Aria was genuinely furious by those despicable acts of kidnapping children.

On that day, Zofia, Olivia, and Meranda committed joint suicide to atone for their negligence, and Pandora descended into silent depression.

She wasn't even in the mood to argue with Juvia, let alone leave the inn.

If it wasn't for Aria reminding her that her life was no longer her own but belonged to Leonardo, only then was she convinced to keep on living. However, everyone could tell that something within her had broken.

Only, everyone was also wondering where Leonardo had gone off to for these two years.

…

Leonardo found himself in a dark natural cave at the waist of a black stone mountain, confused as to what brought him here when he was supposed to be cultivating underground. Then, he stood up slowly, only, his actions seemed to carry too much power, directly blasting him through the ceiling, piercing all the way to the mountain peak and into the clouds.

Dust and stone riddled his tattered robes, his shoulder-length white hair already growing past his waist as his chaotic energy radiated over his body, the fluctuations in a total mess.

Sensing the fluctuations of his energy, Leonardo was shocked to find his cultivation at the peak of level 68.

The latter half of the third cycle, the realm of High Saint.

He was flabbergasted since he didn't feel his cells contract and exploded, hence he lost track of his cultivation base. Only now did he realize that due to the mutation of his cells and the unique cultivation method, the major four cycles of mortal, saint, divine, and immortal ascension could only be differentiated based on the state of the four nebula-like spheres and their respective force fields.

It goes without saying that the finite control he strived to achieve in the past cultivation session would help him control the fluctuations of his cultivation base much better. With a shift of his thoughts, his soul pearl twitched lightly, and his High Saint fluctuations suddenly dropped to level 51.

With that confirmed, Leonardo smiled faintly and sent his consciousness into the communication bracelet after taking it out from his spatial ring.

Then, a flood of messages that almost fried his mind shook his consciousness.

At the same time his communication bracelet went online, Valdmor began to buzz again.