Ch.8 - Bronze Rank

"Sure, what is it?" She asked.

"Assuming the heaven dao of this world didn't exist, what's stopping people from becoming earth lords?"

"Earth Quintessence." She responded.

"Mortal Order Worlds are full of Mortal Quintessence allowing mortals to become Mortal Order Empyreans. However, to truly advance into the earth lord realm and become a true earth order realm Empyrean requires Earth Quintessence. Mortal Order worlds don't possess Earth Quintessence." She explained.

Dalin nodded.

"If that's the case then how do people even reach the Earth Lord realm and ascend?" Dalin asked.

"They don't, from the moment one becomes a half earth lord they can leave this world to a nearby earth order world in this astral region." She replied.

Dalin nodded in understanding.

"Anyways, the flame can control your energy completely now, I suggest you take a few days to learn to forcefully stop your breakthrough so the Empyrean Flame doesn't have to do it itself."

Dalin nodded however a moment later he scratched his head "Can I receive guidance from you on this?"

She nodded, she sat down in front of him and began explaining to him. Once she was done he began trying, the Empyrean Flame loosened its control over his energy slightly to allow him to get a feel for preventing it from merging.

A few days passed, during which he learned to control his energy, right now, the Empyrean Flame was only controlling 5% of his energy. Dalin continued though, 3 more days passed and finally, his energy was fully under his control.

Dalin began cultivating again, and a month passed.

This time he managed to create 54 swords. They formed rings of 9 swords and orbited slowly around him, the ring's rotation directions alternated from clockwise to counterclockwise with each ring. The imposing aura the 54 violet swords unleashed was enough to send chills down the spine of the phoenix empress master silver rank clone.

She had a solemn expression as she stared at all of the massive swords.

'Is this the aura of a true Empyrean?' She thought in slight surprise.

Dalin was someone who was a general in his past life, so it could be said that his aura is naturally imposing and contains authority. He also possesses confidence.

The 54 swords trembled and the first ring of swords slowly stopped, when all the swords in the 2nd ring lined up with the first ring, that ring stopped, and when the 3rd ring of swords lined up with the 2nd and first rings it stopped.

This continued until all 6 rings of swords were lined up perfectly.

Their aura surged!

The swords in the 6th ring suddenly lit up and began fusing with the swords in the 5th ring!

It looked like solar flares from 2 violet suns were colliding and merging!

When the 6th ring swords fused into the 5th ring of swords, the 4th ring of swords trembled as they began absorbing the 5th ring of swords.

As this process was happening the swords rumbled incessantly. In fact, this rumbling wasn't just affecting the chamber, it could be felt throughout the entire courtyard above him.

Finally… the 2nd ring began merging with the 1st ring's swords!

*BOOM!*

After that explosion, the 9 remaining swords were extremely bright.

Dalin continued though, he began fusing 3 swords at a time. Until finally…

*BOOOM!*

A colossal explosion was heard!

Dalin stepped into the quasi-bronze rank.

The quasi-bronze rank is technically a rank of its own because it's in between the violet rank and bronze rank.

However not many are actually able to take advantage of that fact.

However, Dalin intended to do just that!

Right now there was clear liquid energy in Dalin's core, this is the signature of a quasi-bronze rank. Dalin forcefully stopped his energy from advancing any further and creating his empyrean puddle.

A colossal sword made of black flames stood in front of Dalin.

Dalin began gathering energy and refining the black sword.

12 hours passed before the black sword was finished.

Dalin continued and formed 216 black swords over the course of an entire 4 and a half months. 24 rings of 9 swords made of black flames surrounded Dalin slowly orbiting around him.

It could be said that once he fuses all of these, his cultivation will have returned to its previous point, the apprentice bronze rank level. However, he would be equivalent to an ordinary intermediate Mythril rank!

Just like before, the 1st ring slowed to a stop, then the 2nd slowed to a stop lining up perfectly with the 1st rings sword, then the 3rd ring lined up, then the 4th, 5th, 6th—

The Phoenix Empress who was watching found it very mesmerizing.

Suddenly she remembered an ancient rumor she heard. Apparently, the flame empyrean could create a sword formation out of the swords he creates to cultivate. This sword formation starts by doing exactly what Dalin's doing right now, orbiting the swords in alternating orders of rotation, then lining them up. The force generated by this is quite tremendous.

However, to use this technique Dalin will have to reach the Warrior Realm, at least the quasi-warrior realm if he's lucky. That's of course assuming the rumor is true.

…

Meanwhile, Lin who was in the Rin Empire, an empire known for its slave trading and human trafficking, frowned when she noticed several platinum ranks and a titanium rank begin walking through her formation easily.

She sighed.

'They can see through my formation it seems, interesting. Judging from the expressions on their faces they know I'm here and intend to capture me for some rather obscene things.' She thought. She wasn't surprised though, this formation had its weaknesses, for example, a quasi champion anti illusion treasure might do the trick.

Such treasures are rare but not impossible to procure in the lower layer, especially if you have enough money. Slave traders weren't in any short supply of money in the Rin empire.

She chuckled 'Sorry, boys, you just happened to fly too high trying to embrace the sun. Instead, your eyes were scorched and your flesh turned to ash.'

In that instant the illusion formation had an entirely new function built in to it, a killing formation was activated!

Several thousand spears made from bronze light appeared in the air silently, waiting to strike. She had been taking the time to consolidate her foundation from the beginning, unlike Dalin.

Why? She was a formation, array, and runemaster. She could use profound runes to attack for her, the only thing she needed was high quality and high-density energy which she had.

Of course, such strength could only be considered external strength and if someone were to somehow disable her ability to make formations by altering the laws of the world around her, then she would be helpless. But only Saints and above are capable of that.

Spiritual runes, the things profound runes are made of, at their simplest form are things to manifest the laws of the world in a certain way. If those laws change, the spiritual runes would need to change as well. However, in the hands of a true empyrean like her, that isn't a concern once she becomes a champion.

The group of 5 men and 1 scantily clad woman wearing a bikini bra and a short skirt with white panties moved forward.

The woman was flirting with one of the men on the way even teasing him by rubbing her breasts against his arm.

Lin snorted coldly seeing this.

5 minutes later they arrived in front of Lin who was absorbing a bit more energy from the earth crystals around her.

She opened her eyes and stared at the group of 6.

"Judging by your expressions you're here to enslave me, right?" She asked coldly and one of the men licked his lips and whistled.

"Damn girl, you have a fine figure. Your voice is great too… Honestly, that Lil miss by captain's side can't compete with you at all." He said.

Lin lightly chuckled with her fair-looking hand in front of her mouth.

"Your quite bold aren't you?" She asked playfully.

The man frowned, he realized she was way too calm.

He looked up and what he saw horrified him.

"C-C-Captain… Look up…" He said.

The captain and everyone else looked up.

"You're a formation master?" He asked warily and Lin nodded.

She'd like to avoid a fight if possible, after all, she was likely to destroy this hidden area if she did fight with them.

"C-Can… Can we leave and forget this happened?" He asked.

Lin thought for a moment and nodded but held her palm out "Your storage rings or pouches please?"

They had unsightly expressions.

Just as one of them lost their cool and shot forward he was instantly pinned to the ground by a spear that came from the sky.

The spear was so fast none of them saw it.

They trembled as they saw the life leave his eyes.

Suddenly his aura began dropping from the platinum rank to nothing over the course of 30 seconds, as this was happening they noticed to their horror that his cultivation base was being converted into a ball of spiritual essence above his body.

Not a single bit of energy was wasted, in the end, a tennis ball-sized orb of liquid energy inside what appeared to be a crystal ball was formed!

"W-W-What did you do?" The captain said in horror.

Lin shrugged. She changed her mind now, she would just kill them to avoid future troubles. The people of mortal order worlds were less than ants to her in the past, but now they could be a genuine threat to her.

The best move was to kill these people to prevent them from leaking her position.

This was something she learned from observing Dalin for over 12 years, especially in his army days. The Empyrean Flame had actually long chosen Dalin, but she couldn't just pull him out of the world of earth. So she waited until he died to bring him to the temple of rebirth.

During this time, she observed him closely and learned from him. She actually found his story quite tragic and it made her want to help him so much… but she didn't.

The most she could do was reincarnate those close to him that died with their memories and ensure they achieve great things in their new worlds.

[A/N: Totally not a spoiler for chaps way down the line and a new book I might write on the side.]

She gave all of them a system based on those system novels Dalin read in his free time to take his mind off of things. This absolutely ensured they would achieve great heights and be of use to Dalin in the future when he rose again. Those systems were made at their core of artificial souls equivalent to people at the pinnacle of immortal order cultivation and would grow stronger with their hosts.

They had a slew of protocols that were designed by Lin and her uncle, Hyperion.

Moving on, she didn't hesitate to raise her hand and swing it down bringing hundreds of spears down with it. All of them including the woman were killed mercilessly and their empyrean foundations turned into pure spiritual essence for her to use for cultivation.

With that, she began cultivating again.

It was then she felt Dalin's breakthrough via their spirit-soul link.

She smiled.

'He's growing rather quickly. He must've found a temporal treasure or formation.'

"Tsk, Tsk, your gonna leave me in the dust." She muttered.

…

Meanwhile, Dalin did indeed break through to the bronze rank.

Now, it was time to begin consuming the mortal gale fruit!

He didn't hesitate to pop the piece that he cut into his mouth and began chewing.

'It's so sweet…' Dalin couldn't help but fall in love with the taste of the fruit. It was so perfect.

Energy poured from the fruit into Dalin's empyrean puddle which he used to create 9 swords at the same time!

Swords made from bronze flames rose from the ground forming a ring of 9 swords.

Instantly those 9 swords were 100% complete, so he made 18, then 36, in the end in just a day he formed 1080 flaming swords forming 120 rings of 9 swords!

The entire underground chamber was full of swords emitting a sharp sword aura!

Why had his sword aura improved? Because he had been learning from the flame blade technique creating swords and had a better grasp on them now.

Now it was time to break through to the quasi-silver rank!

...

A/N: Day 7 everyone, let's go! It's been one week since launch! I would appreciate some feedback on the book, and just to entice you further, if I get 3 reviews, I'll post an additional chapter on day 10!