Noah, June, and Faith set their minds in completing the exploration of the continent before returning to the volcano. They had invested too much time in that mission to retreat now.
Also, it seemed that they had reached the area that the natives inhabited in the past since ruins kept on filling those lands now ruled by magical beasts.
The leaders felt forced to agree to their decision since they didn't have power over them at that distance. Their initial orders had even been amid their eagerness to see the skeletons, so it wasn't a problem to let go of the matter.
The group spent the next period doing what they had become used to do in the new world, venturing through the wilderness and exploring every structure that they found.
The feat obviously took time since the trio kept on training and taking many breaks along the journey and the fact that the number of ruins had increased further slowed down their advance.
There were far more almost intact buildings as they neared the end of the continent since most of those structures had been built by materials that repelled magical beasts. The Tribulations had destroyed and broken many of them, but the creatures still couldn't near them.
The peculiarity of the inscriptions of that world was that the materials themselves obtained the properties desired by the cultivators. That led to a situation where they kept on functioning even in a broken state.
Yet, even in the absence of magical beasts, Noah and the others had to check if they hid drawings under them. The situation reached the point where the three of them destroyed entire cities just to see if the ground had traces of the lost history of that world.
It had to be said though that they were safe in those areas, at least. It was as if they had training areas as large as cities just for themselves.
Their cultivation level and expertise in the training method inevitably improved as they spent their daily life wandering among the remains of such a mysterious lost civilization. In a few years, they had all reached the point where they could begin to create small copies of Heaven and Earth's will.
Of course, they didn't copy the actual laws contained in the environment. They had just created small wills that radiated the same type of aura.
No matter how small the wills were though, they still carried the authority to rule upon the "Breath" in the environment.
'Bones as always,' Noah thought as he stored the skeleton inside a cell inside his space-ring, 'This task would be more rewarding if I could actually eat them.'
His mood had kept on worsening as he and his group found castles that contained remains of those hybrid-like creatures and swept them clean.
They had found more than twenty castles by then, but not all of them had those strange skeletons. The cages in some of them had been broken. The creatures inside them had escaped in the wilderness and spread their bloodlines in the fauna.
However, Noah and the others didn't find a single half-human half-beast being in the wilderness, which probably meant that they had all died.
Noah believed that they were considered failed experiments since the mutagen and the ancestors' energy weren't able to fuse. That lack of fixed state would weaken their actual prowess, making them easy food for the Elite beasts and explaining their absence in the current food chain.
The castles that had remains though contained even the skeletons of beings at the peak of the fifth rank. The sole thought of having something so nourishing in his space-ring but too dangerous to eat made Noah nervous, especially since his stash of high-rank bones was quite large.
He couldn't wait to solve the mystery behind that world just to devour all his stash. Yet, he knew that the four forces had to take a share of it, and he also knew that such materials would be wasted as simple food.
Nevertheless, being forced to hold back helped Noah to improve his control over his constant hunger. That was something that he had never really mastered since his prowess had always allowed him to hunt powerful creatures.
Luckily for him, June also helped in keeping his instincts at ease during that period. She didn't do anything special. She was simply there, which was enough to improve his mental state.
"We have reached the end of the continent," June said, "But there is an island not far from the coastline. I say that we can go back after exploring it."
Noah and Faith agreed with her without raising any complaints. There were only a few cities left to explore on the coastline, but the continent would be completely mapped after them.
Of course, Noah's group had avoided some danger zones along the way, and he had even sensed the presence of a rank 6 beast during the journey, which made them skip a region altogether. Yet, they had done a thorough job in the various areas once inhabited by humans, and that was more than enough.
After all, they had uncovered most of the secrets of an entire continent filled with beasts in less than twenty years and without neglecting their training.
June kissed Noah before she and Faith stood up.
"We are going for a spar," June said while revealing an alluring smile, "Do you want to watch?"
Noah felt tempted, but he shook his head before speaking. "I have something to test today. I'll find you when I'm done. Try not to kill each other."
Both June and Faith had changed in those long years in the wilderness. Their social restraint had fallen apart long ago since they didn't have to answer to anyone, and their personalities had even developed traits that couldn't bloom while living in their organizations.
June had become more easygoing, and she didn't hesitate to express her desire for Noah even when she was in front of Faith lately. On the other hand, Faith had simply matured, and her childish curiosity didn't appear too often anymore.
The two women left after cracking a few jokes between themselves, but Noah had already moved his focus on the insides of his mental sphere by then.
There was a small brown sphere that radiated a profound aura near the walls of his sea of consciousness. It had floated there for a month already, but Noah couldn't find even the slightest change in the properties of his walls.
That was the copy of Heaven and Earth's will, which was trying to modify his walls using the natives' inscription method. The only problem was that it was too slow.
Noah had left it there for a month just to test the actual power of that inscription method, but the result was utterly disappointing. There was no point even comparing it to the methods of his world.
'It's time to modify my second rune.' Noah sighed as he thought that and prepared himself to improve the training method.