Birth of the Demonic Sword

Elder Julia explained her plan on how to handle the newly obtained territories.

The Hive could only send around twenty rank 4 cultivators in the new continent but, for what concerned those in the fifth rank, Elder Austin and Elder Julia had to be enough.

The Hive only had a handful of rank 5 cultivators, and having two of them in the piece of Immortal Lands was already its limit.

One elder at that level was needed to control the copying technique, and another one had to defend the conquered nation in the area of influence of the Empire.

The remaining one had to remain in the Coral archipelago too, in case something happened to the elder managing the copying formation.

Dividing its power between those three areas wasn't something that the Hive would do during normal circ.u.mstances.

Still, the pact sealed by the rulers of the four nations gave it some insurance, it would be up to Chasing Demon to decide how to handle the situation once he returned.

The main focus of Elder Julia's explanation was to create areas inhabitable by human cultivators.

Hordes of rebels, criminals, or simply suppressed soldiers were migrating to the Coral archipelago, and the elders expected that number to increase after the recent events.

The one versus one battles had proven that the Hive was strong, but it was extremely lacking in assets.

Yet, to those human cultivators, a nation that was rising to power was better than a place where they couldn't grow.

However, the islands of the archipelago could contain only so many people, and the Hive needed to establish stable sources of income if it wanted to nourish them.

The solution to both issues could be found in the new continent.

The piece of Immortal Lands was almost as vast as the old continent, and each one of its lands could be used as the perfect training ground for rank 3 cultivators.

The problems started there though.

Territories so vast would have countless magical beasts, and the concentration of "Breath" in the air there was so high that human cultivators risked suffocating due to its pressure.

Cities in the old continent needed a large amount of "Breath" blessings to increase the density of "Breath" artificially, and to create appropriate training areas.

Instead, those in the new continent needed to decrease the density, or human cultivators wouldn't be able to inhabit them.

Yet, clearing some areas from the magical beasts would only increase the density of "Breath" since there would be fewer living beings absorbing it.

The Hive had to clear one area while building something that absorbed the "Breath" in the air at the same time!

That project required a lot of manpower and an item similar to the obelisks used by the Utra nation, which the Hive currently didn't have.

"The other higher-ups and I will work on creating a copy of the obelisks, you all focus on lowering the population of magical beasts in the azure plain and the land after the lava lake."

Those were Elder Julia's last words before she dismissed the group.

The territories that she had mentioned were the easiest to colonize, all the others had environmental conditions that would require a lot of effort to modify, it wasn't worth focusing them right now.

As for the rocky wasteland with the lava lake, the elders couldn't do much about it.

The heat there scared away any lifeform, only heroic cultivators could stay there for short periods and even at some distance.

Also, affecting the environment might cause unwanted effects that they couldn't control, there were traces left by divine beings there after all.

Noah didn't linger in the forest and immediately set off for the azure plain, his body was fine, he could begin to work immediately.

Of course, he would first watch Elder Julia's battle and deeply analyze all the fights that had happened in the last days.

Noah dug a cave in the azure terrain as soon as he reached the plain and began to review the battles right after he watched the images contained in the crystal that Elder Austin had given him.

His battle prowess satisfied him, he knew that he was doing the best he could with the spells and techniques in his possession.

Yet, it was clear that something was missing, something that he had begun to notice since a long time ago.

'My attacks lack synergy.'

That thought hit Noah's mind after he analyzed his power.

Many cultivators, especially on his level, were able to use spells to fuel other spells or to gather the remains of their attacks to create new ones.

Noah knew that he couldn't hope to obtain such a harmonious set of attacks in a short period, those heroic cultivators had had decades to search for the spells that they needed the most and for those that could be matched with the diagrams already in their possession.

Noah, instead, wasn't even forty and had simply used anything that he obtained to fight, he had never specifically searched for scrolls or similar.

There was another important detail in that issue: His element!

Scrolls containing spells and techniques of the darkness element were extremely rare, even Divine Demon's inheritance only had two of them up to the fifth rank.

Also, their effects covered many fields.

They could go from mental attacks to a corrosive smoke, from a defensive orb that could absorb energies to a spell that could directly turn his body ethereal.

The only two spells that Noah had been able to harmonize were the Demonic form and the Body-inscription spell, but the other heroic cultivators could synchronize almost all of their attacks!

Even Adrian could fuse three spells to become a massive giant that slowed his opponents.

'I've been able to match these entities thanks to my body and the secret art, but I can't only rely on it. My enemies will soon understand that I'm lethal in close combat if they haven't done it already.'

Many human and heroic cultivators had watched Noah's battles, he was sure that his enemies would analyze his power just like he was doing.

After all, he wasn't a criminal in the human ranks anymore, he was the Demon Prince of the Hive, the three big nations would be stupid not to create a profile that evaluated his abilities.

'Also, if I'm able to harmonize my spells, I would obtain a perfect offensive, matching both those that focus on long-range attacks and those that prefer close combat. I guess it's time to test the limits of the Divine deduction technique.'

As soon as he thought that, Noah reached for a scroll inside his space-ring and unfolded it on the ground in front of him.

Mental energy was redirected to the inscriptions on the walls of his mental sphere as his eyes stared at the diagram of the Warp spell.