"No more rune absorption until you learn how to be alive again," Noah said as he scolded the sour Skully, who was evaluating her injuries.
Most of her cuts came from when she had forcefully removed the dark matter inside her. However, there were some deep wounds that she couldn't link to that event.
The memories from when she had lost control of herself were slowly coming back, but they returned in the form of intense sensations that her hybrid brain turned into confused images.
There was something that she couldn't explain. Skully only recalled a fiendish figure and a tall winged snake when it came to her other injuries, which meant that Noah had managed to suppress her on his own!
That wouldn't be so surprising if he relied on his disposable items. Yet, there were no signs of his Instabilities in the throne hall. Moreover, Noah didn't suffer any injury, meaning that the battle had been utterly one-sided during those short minutes.
"Are you hiding a powerhouse somewhere?" Skully asked. Noah was only a newly advanced cultivator in the solid stage. Even if he was the best expert to have ever existed, no one should be able to ignore the barrier between the fifth and sixth rank.
"No eating either," Noah ignored her as he continued with his directives. "Focus on training your mind. There might be a chance to overcome your stagnation since you'll be staring at a divine item."
Skully had to stop training in the past because her body was too frail to endure an even more powerful consciousness. Her mind would have reached the divine ranks by then otherwise.
Carl was in the back of the broken throne hall together with a few experts. They stared at the interaction between their leader and Noah with wide eyes.
They would have never expected to see a similar scene in their life. A cultivator in the fifth rank was scolding a powerhouse!
Their respect for Noah increased even more after they saw Skully nodding under his stern gaze. Their leader, who had lived for more than one hundred thousand years, was agreeing with him!
"I'll take care of the rebellion for a bit," Noah eventually said after he finished giving Skully directives. The summoning had just come, so that was the perfect moment to free more tribes. Meanwhile, Skully could focus on recalling some techniques and inscription methods to teach to her underlings.
.
.
.
Noah took the reins of the rebellion in the next years, but he rarely appeared in the battles. His priority was to let Snore improve and apply eventual modifications when necessary.
The natives of the hidden world expanded the cleared area around the lava lake and invaded deeper territories. They focused on defeating the weaker packs before grouping every team to fight against the strong ones.
There wasn't any Ape in the sixth rank left near their headquarters, so they could advance steadily and reduce the regions under the control of the God.
Noah didn't seclude himself in those years. He still trained like a madman, but he spent some time helping the digging of the sky.
The black metal was a valuable material that could work as the core for many weapons. Also, the Ape God used the sky to spread its mental waves, so enlarging the holes would hopefully reduce its influence on the world.
The Demonic Sword eventually evolved, reaching the upper tier. Noah's breakthrough had unlocked its path toward the higher ranks.
No major event happened during that period. The rebels advanced, the hole in the sky enlarged, and Noah improved. The human side of the hidden world became stronger, while the army of Kesier Apes became weaker.
The environment was slowly assuming the trend of the surface, with the magical beasts suppressed by cultivators. However, the rebels didn't believe that God would remain indifferent now that its species' slaughter had resumed.
The new dark matter pushed Snore to the upper tier's peak, and Noah's body reached the same level due to the hunts in those years. His tissues began to accumulate the energy necessary for the breakthrough in the sixth rank, but Noah suppressed his hunger at that point.
He had just seen Skully losing control of her mental faculties. Her situation was peculiar, but nothing stated that Noah wouldn't suffer from the same fate if he advanced before his mind was ready.
'I can't risk it,' Noah thought as he flew toward a red waterfall. Another fifty years had passed, and it was time for the God's summoning. He would spend it above the sky as usual, but he was curious about the situation on the ground at that time.
The lava lake's size had tripled since the last calling. The new troops in the rebel army and Noah's help had done wonders when it came to enlarging the holes in the sky.
A constant red light filled those regions due to the many large waterfalls that poured magma into the lake. Some of it ended up seeping into even lower parts of the world, but no one cared about that since the lakes expanded nonetheless.
Noah paid attention to the intact part of the sky as he meditated inside the sea of magma. The Ape God's mental waves spread as usual, but they covered only the regions with the black metal above them.
Their digging had expanded the safe area. Skully could adapt her plans to that discovery now and build habitations for human cultivators in regions far away from the Seventh Kesier Rune.
"This is a body-tempering technique," Skully said as she showed rank 4 cultivators immersed in the lava lakes. The harsh conditions forced them to fly out of it quite often, but their bodies appeared far sturdier after every session of training.
"I don't think the surface has them anymore," Noah said. The body-tempering techniques used extreme conditions to improve the bodies of the cultivators. They were akin to unorthodox methods, just slightly less dangerous.
Their effects thought were somewhat inferior to what the surface had now. They didn't provide the explosive boost in power of unorthodox techniques nor the safety of body-nourishing methods.
Still, any technique was better than no technique. What Skully had recalled was even quite powerful according to the standards of her time. The new generations of cultivators would grow stronger thanks to that.
The powerhouse had even begun to build more structures on the lake and made them able to fend off the harsh temperatures. Human cultivators could live there, but they needed heroic experts to return to the land.
Noah actively freed more tribes after all his assets adapted to his new power. The might that he was capable of was unparalleled among beings in the fifth rank. Yet, Noah didn't test himself against rank 6 beasts since he didn't want to eat them and let his body improve. His mind was reaching the fifth rank's limits anyway, so he could wait a bit more.
Nevertheless, after only twenty-five years from the last calling, the Ape God's mental waves spread again, covering even the safe area.