Years passed in which the Coral archipelago developed at a high speed.
The biggest issue in the cultivation journey was the lack of resources and the Hive had now the merged inventory of all its branches at its disposal, spells, nourishing methods, and cultivation techniques were more than abundant.
That, coupled with a relatively lax merit system, allowed the newly enrolled cultivators and the previous members of the underground organizations to improve at a high speed, there were enough missions to satisfy the demand of merit points of the small population left on the archipelago.
The number of cultivators couldn't grow in such a short period but their quality increased sharply, even heroic cultivators saw their power grow thanks to the resources retrieved in the Inheritance.
Noah had never exited his quarters during that period of development.
The position of Demon Prince wasn't linked to any specific task, it became more similar to an honorable status after the underground organizations merged, leaving Noah free from any duty but able to ask for every kind of resource from the inventory.
His mansion featured training areas specific for each center of power and he didn't lack resources, it was impossible for his power to remain the same in that prolonged period of seclusion.
Four years had to pass before he felt forced to come out of his mansion, there was an issue that couldn't be solved by Roy or anyone else handling the human matters.
The issue didn't concern his cultivation, the training of his centers of power had never been so smooth.
In those four years, his sea of consciousness had neared the peak of the third rank, Noah guessed that it wouldn't take much before he underwent the Earth Tribulation.
After all, Noah had become a rank 3 mage when he was only twenty-three, it wasn't a surprise that he managed to near the fourth rank now that he was thirty-two.
Noah had never slacked off, his relentless training allowed him to shorten the amount of time needed to reach the breakthroughs and the backing of the Hive further benefitted him, that training speed was definitely expected.
His dantian had also improved.
Noah was using a rank 4 cultivation technique to cultivate and an area that would be envied even by the wealthiest rank 3 cultivators, his dantian easily entered the liquid stage during his seclusion.
Yet, it was at that point that the issue appeared.
Noah didn't want to use the rank 4 cultivation technique to cultivate until the peak of the third rank, he wanted to avoid using it even in the solid stage.
That's why he dedicated a lot of time of his seclusion to the deduction of his cultivation technique.
He had a general idea about how it was supposed to work but the task seemed far harder than what he had predicted.
It wasn't that he didn't achieve some initial success, he had managed to modify pieces of "Breath" blessing to make them attract only "Breath" of the darkness element and he had even been able to add a suction force through his will.
However, the quantity of "Breath" blessing lost in the process was enormous, the mineral obtained from the Royal family was long gone and he had relied on his sect to have a constant stream of that resource for his experiments.
Also, as his successes increased, he had attempted to raise the level of the modified pieces of "Breath" blessing by increasing the mass of the mineral that he was going to condense, he needed for the item to be in the fourth rank after all.
That led to an even higher expenditure of resources which ultimately couldn't be supported anymore by the sect alone and needed the collaboration of the entirety of the Hive.
Of course, Noah didn't immediately attempt to forge an item in the heroic ranks by using "Breath" blessing, he had first experimented with the Demonic swords since he was more practiced with their blueprints.
Yet, even with his improved centers of power and the precious resources from both his ring and the inventory, his creations weren't able to overcome the human ranks.
He had created another pair of Demonic swords which were nearing the peak of the third rank but that was his limit, nothing he did seemed to push their level higher.
At that point, he had simply resumed with his forging of the "Breath" blessings since they had a clearer path to the heroic ranks in his opinion, they simply needed more mass to be compressed.
Noah exited his quarters and appeared in the garden that surrounded his mansion, Bruce had obviously been notified by him and was waiting for his arrival outside the garden.
Bruce was slightly surprised when he saw Noah for the first time after the events during the war.
Noah was over thirty years old but his appearance was still the same youthful one, his features didn't change at all during his seclusion.
That meant that his level had improved so fast that his lifespan wasn't affected, cultivators would simply stop aging if they constantly improved.
The only thing that changed was his hair which now reached the ground, Noah didn't bother to cut it during his seclusion.
Yet, Bruce's surprise wasn't caused by his appearance but by the aura that surrounded him.
Mages would radiate a peculiar aura as the level of their mind increased, their thoughts carried power after all, the world around them was bound to be affected by their mental state.
Noah wasn't an exception, he radiated a cold aura that matched his aloof personality but it seemed that some kind of sharpness had been added to it.
After sensing that aura, Bruce knew that Noah's mind had reached his level.
'I've halted my cultivation to wait for Sarah to catch up with my level but this is simply unreal.'
Those were Bruce's thoughts as he tried to probe Noah's level, his heavy mental waves weren't able to pass the sharp halo that surrounded the youthful man in front of him.
"Set a meeting with Elder Iris, I have some matters that I need to discuss with an elder."
Bruce nodded when he heard Noah's orders but an awkward smile appeared on his face as he took an inscribed notebook from his space-ring.
"Prince, I think you want to dress up a bit before that."
It was only after Bruce spoke that Noah realized the ragged state in which his clothes were, he was basically n.a.k.e.d with only a few pieces of burned pants still on his waist.