Noah was aware of many small details concerning the cultivators under him, especially those from the Chasing Demon sect, he was the Demon Prince after all.
Bruce had given up to reaching the heroic ranks when he discovered that Sarah would probably be unable to keep cultivating, he didn't want to see the woman he loved die of old age as he strived for power.
Yet, a solution to her condition had appeared when Noah divided the potions retrieved in the Inheritance with the sect.
Divine Demon had left resources till the fifth rank, fixing the dantian of a rank 3 cultivator was easy once gained access to one of those powerful drugs.
The drugs were, of course, purchasable only through merit points, the underground organizations were at war, the sect had to spur its cultivators to acc.u.mulate battle merits to obtain them.
Bruce didn't let go of that chance, he wanted to heal Sarah and he also didn't want to give up to the heroic ranks, he fought like a madman in the first line of defense against the Papral nation and successfully acc.u.mulated enough merit points to purchase a rank 4 curative drug.
In the end, Sarah was healed and they could continue their cultivation journey together.
That outcome left Bruce with a deep feeling of gratitude toward Noah, he didn't hesitate to apply for the position of guard of island nineteen when he became aware that Noah was being stationed there, he felt the need to repay him in some way.
Noah was aware that Bruce was now part of his personal guards, there were some small buildings all around the mansion where the guards could cultivate and rest so they wouldn't need to live where Noah was.
"Show me around."
Noah nodded as he said that, he didn't understand the need for guards when the copying formation protected the archipelago but he guessed that those kinds of traditions were hard to forget.
Bruce wasn't exactly polite and well-mannered but he smiled for the whole tour as he accompanied Noah inside his quarters.
The mansion featured a large garden that surrounded the entirety of the central building, precious fruits and flowers could be seen growing there, their scent was useful to appease the mind of a cultivator.
The central building featured many rooms with different purposes: There was a reinforced room where Noah could continue his experiments, one with a high density of "Breath", one that radiated a pressure useful to train the mental sphere, and many others.
Noah couldn't find anything wrong with the internal layout of the mansion, there seemed to be an area useful for each of his needs.
A series of rank 1 cultivators could also be seen in certain areas working as servants.
They were the citizens of the archipelago who didn't join any faction before the war and who had now been enrolled as outer disciples by the Hive.
Everything seemed so perfect that Noah felt eager to seclude himself as soon as he entered the mansion.
He had still too much of the Inheritance to assimilate and he had many doubts about which path he will take after the human ranks, the deductions concerning cultivation techniques and body-nourishing methods took a long time and were unable to give immediate results.
Also, his centers of power needed to improve, especially his dantian which was still in the gaseous stage.
A notebook appeared in his hands, Noah sent a series of messages toward Roy and whoever was put in charge of the inventory after the underground organizations were fused.
His request was simple, he needed pieces of "Breath" blessing to experiment with, he hadn't given up to the idea of creating a cultivation technique by forging an item.
'I need some kind of inspiration before attempting to create a nourishing method, I can't just blindly deduce, I would be just wasting mental energy in that way. My focus right now must be on my centers of power and my cultivation technique, I know that I'm on the right path.'
Noah had analyzed his capabilities in depth before choosing to experiment with the "Breath" blessings, he was almost certain that he would be able to create a cultivation technique with enough experimentation.
As for his body, he would just wait until his mind reached the fourth rank, it would be useless to spend time and mental energy in deducing from nothing.
Having a mind in the heroic ranks would also give him some insurance in forging items in the fourth rank, Ivor had managed to do it while being a human cultivator but he wasn't sure that he could do the same.
It had to be said that such an item would require even some sort of testing, meaning that there was the possibility that he had to forge more of them.
Then, there was the issue with the restraint that the body applied to the growth of the dantian.
Noah's body had been stuck at the lower tier of the fourth rank, it was able to contain a dantian in the liquid stage of the third rank and even in the solid stage but some sort of limitations were bound to appear through the last part of his journey in the human ranks.
"I'll enter a long period of seclusion, I won't come out for social events or anything similar, make sure to disturb me only if it's something that you can't handle by yourself."
Noah gave those orders before entering in the area with a high density of "Breath" and sealing the door behind him, Bruce simply nodded in approval when he heard that.
The matters of the Coral archipelago spread through the entirety of the continent, it didn't happen often that a nation was able to escape the control of the three big nations and claim its independence.
Those events clearly showed that the three big nations had a fatal weakness: Themselves!
The continent was too big while they were too weak, they couldn't maintain control over all the nations in their areas of influence with the threat of the other big nations.
The period of peace that had filled the continent until that moment was broken, many conquered or sieged countries decided to rebel themselves and attempt to claim independence just as the Coral archipelago did.
Meanwhile, the newly born nation belonging to the Hive grew far away from the struggles of the mainland, making the best out of the years of peace that followed the conquest of the islands.