The Rhythm of the Wind

Carl sat in the king's seat with his eyes closed, saying nothing.

A heavy atmosphere instantly filled the entire palace. Even Luo's chubby face was trembling slightly.

Carl silently calculated the figures. A population of over three hundred million was relatively small for a kingdom, but this was the Chaotic Territory, so the number was already quite respectable.

As for the elite army, by Carl's standards, only Level 3 Warriors qualified. An elite force numbering in the millions meant that more than one in ten people in the kingdom had enlisted, and that three in ten of those soldiers had joined the elite army.

For the elite army, strength was only the threshold. Military experience mattered too.

"Sure enough, Saint Realm cultivators advance much faster than they did at Level 9."

In just a few short years, Carl's territory in the Chaotic Territory had developed many times faster than Spark City. One reason was the Chaotic Territory's environment: ordinary people needed powerful lords, and weaker lords likewise needed stronger people to lead them.

Every few to more than ten years, massive Rat Tides swept through the Chaotic Territory. Without enough strength, it was difficult to survive such disasters.

Carl was reasonably satisfied with Luo. Knowing how to read the situation was a virtue.

His weakness was that he was too weak himself. Without Carl there to keep watch, he couldn't control those arrogant, battle-hardened men.

"You may leave."

After a long while, Luo seemed to hear the sound of heaven. He hurriedly bowed and backed away.

"The kingdom's development matters even more than Tianfeng Prefecture."

Not only was the Space Gate here, but the Chaotic Territory could also meet Carl's needs for the future of his domain.

After giving detailed instructions about the direction of future development, Carl returned to the entrance beneath the mineral vein.

As soon as he approached, he caught a faint scent of blood.

"Fools who don't know their limits."

Carl shook his head. A faint Azure Light appeared before him, and the next moment, he vanished from the spot.

The mysterious space remained unchanged, as if it were still yesterday.

Without another word, Carl sat cross-legged and fixed his gaze on the pale green currents beyond the transparent membrane.

To Carl, the Spatial Turbulence looked like a river formed from many different colors. Its current, however, was so powerful that even God Level experts couldn't withstand it.

The pale green currents each followed different paths, and those different paths represented different Mysteries.

But it took a certain degree of understanding to see this.

Within the pale green currents, there seemed to be many shades of pale green. Some moved extremely fast, while others were extremely slow. Some could envelop other currents, while others could slice through them.

Carl's comprehension wasn't especially strong, but in this space, where the answers were practically laid out before him, he grasped the elements at an astonishing pace.

"This is the Mystery of Fast Wind."

"This is the Mystery of Slow Wind."

"Could this be the Profundity of Wind-Walking?"

Different Mysteries also shared similarities. In Carl's eyes, it all seemed to be one unified whole.

But Carl knew that if he tried to comprehend it as a single whole, he would never achieve mastery of the Laws in his lifetime.

When one entered the Saint Realm, the soul underwent a transformation.

When one comprehended the Laws and became a god, the soul transformed again. Each evolution of the Godhead also brought about a transformation of the soul.

Carl believed that each transformation of the soul meant he could continue to comprehend the mysteries of the Laws at a higher level.

Without a sufficient level of understanding, forcibly trying to comprehend them would yield very little.

Carl immersed himself in his understanding of the wind. It was an indescribable feeling, a little like slowly solving a problem that had once seemed impossible. Every correct step filled his soul with a pleasurable delight.

"The more I cultivate, the better it feels."

Cultivating Battle Qi brought pleasure to the body, while comprehending the Laws brought pleasure to the soul.

In short, cultivation felt great.

No wonder so many powerful cultivators could endure tens of thousands of years of arduous cultivation.

His understanding of the wind grew with every second, and Carl gradually began to sense the Mystery of Wind Element.

Focusing on a single Mystery might leave him with fewer options, but it brought genuine improvement. It was a way to leap to a higher level.

From the cluttered Laws of Wind, he set aside the Mysteries that were still unnecessary for him. He forgot speed and slowness, dismissed the sounds of the wind, and stopped looking toward the wind's extremes. Instead, he focused on the ordinary.

Ordinary.

That was Carl's impression of the elemental Mysteries.

It had a little of everything, yet excelled at nothing.

But that was the wind. It was the foundation of the wind.

One day.

Ten days.

One month.

Half a year.

Carl repeatedly awoke from his insights, only to sink back into them again.

"Someone broke through to the Saint Realm?"

That day, Carl was once again comprehending the Mystery of Wind Element. But when the old year gave way to the new, he suddenly stopped cultivating.

He had noticed that the Saint Realm section of his status panel, which had been empty, now listed one person.

"Who is it?"

Carl felt a little excited and curious.

He hurriedly opened the family information on his status panel.

[Level 9: 26/100, Saint Realm: 1/5]

Luo'an Talos

"Who is this?"

Carl quickly recalled.

He should be his grandson.

During the fifty years Carl had spent in seclusion, his son seemed to have married another woman while in power.

"Which family was she from again?"

Carl hadn't paid much attention to his son's marriage. He only knew that she was a noblewoman and had been at the late Level 8 when she married into the family.

"She might have been the friend that kid met on the battlefield."

Carl thought back and remembered that the marriage seemed to have taken place after he had reached the Peak Saint Realm.

"Does that mean I had already improved Lin's Saint Realm potential by then, and his child inherited it, allowing him to reach the Saint Realm so quickly?"

Carl was more than a little surprised.

After all, this was the first Saint Realm cultivator in his family besides himself.

Family: Luo'an Talos,

Age: 68

Gender: Male

Realm: Early Saint Realm

Attribute: High affinity for Fire Element

"Wait."

Carl paused, looking at the age.

"How could he be 68?"

"Shouldn't he be in his forties or fifties?"

Carl couldn't help glancing at his cultivation progress.

Wind Element: 82,985/1,000,000

"How long have I been cultivating?"

Carl was now somewhat at a loss. Ever since he had entered this space, his Battle Qi cultivation and comprehension of the Laws no longer increased passively.

Almost every day, they improved by several points.

At first, he could only make eight or nine points of progress a day. Then it gradually increased to more than ten, and now he could make nearly twenty points of progress each day.

With no one to talk to and no way to feel the passage of time, Carl would sometimes blink and find that several days had gone by.

As a result, he had little sense of how much time had passed.

"Judging by this, I must have been in seclusion for at least a decade."