Creating a new ring took less than a year, but now Noah had reached the difficult part of the testing phase. He needed to develop "Breath" from primary energy.
Noah had memorized the process, but that didn't mean that he could replicate it. His body had naturally reassembled the primary energy during the transformation, but he needed to use his mental energy to reproduce it now.
Of course, Noah didn't want to end up with that same kind of "Breath", but imitating the procedure that he had memorized would be a useful training and would improve his expertise in the natives' inscription method.
Noah spent endless months moving the primary energy contained in his spherical rune just to reach a level of precision that could allow him to approach the memorized procedure. His ability also increased as the walls of his mental sphere kept on changing under the aura radiated by the spherical runes near them.
No one bothered him. The Elders were aware of his peculiar situation and didn't dare to disturb him due to the difficulty of the task. Creating a rank 5 cultivation technique without having "Breath" in the dantian sounded almost as a joke. After all, most inscription methods relied on the "Breath" to work.
However, if there was someone able to succeed in that task, it was Noah.
The microscopic particles of primal energy were tough to control, but Noah's expertise kept on growing, and he eventually managed to reproduce the "Breath" created during the transformation.
It had taken him two years of constant efforts to reach that initial success.
Noah inspected the rank 5 gaseous "Breath" of the darkness element hovering over his palm. Countless pieces of information accumulated in his mind as the Divine Deduction technique analyzed that energy and the procedure that had created it.
He knew that the primary energy had perceived the orders conveyed by his consciousness as laws, which meant that he could somewhat avoid the issue that he wasn't able to wield them yet.
However, now that he had succeeded in recreating that "Breath", he had to invent a procedure that led to his darkness. The fact that he understood the general structure of the "Breath" though didn't mean that he knew how to proceed.
Modifying the procedure would require him to change the laws that he was imitating with his mental energy, which meant testing various structures blindly since he didn't know the laws involved.
He did have a direction though. His mental energy had to express the entirety of his individuality, and he could slowly take out the thoughts that would lead to a weaker or unstable "Breath".
So, his relentless testing began.
Noah had reached a level of expertise where he didn't need the spherical rune anymore to gather primary energy. Yet, he used it nonetheless since it was his fastest method to accumulate energy in a quantity that could become "Breath" in the fifth rank.
He spent his days eating, testing, and feeding his sword, without even bothering to stand up. He had entered the part of his cultivation journey where years could go by without him even noticing.
Even with an empty dantian, he was a cultivator in the fifth rank. Chasing Demon had needed one thousand years to go from the peak of the fourth rank to the sixth. So, even if Noah had the fastest growth ever recorded in history, he would still require centuries to reach that level.
Noah took a few minutes of break only on one occasion. Faith had come to visit him, justifying herself in front of the Council by saying that she wanted to set a series of trades with the Hive.
The world had moved on since Noah secluded himself. The main focus of the four organizations had become the exchange of the materials retrieved in the new world, which also involved hybrids of magical beasts that had developed a sea of consciousness.
Those beings were useful for multiple reasons. They could become guinea pigs in specific experiments or real assets that could increase the power of each faction. It was pointless to say how valuable a hybrid in the fifth rank was if it decided to help an organization willingly.
Faith had mostly come to convey a message from June, but she also wanted to see how her friend was.
When Elder Julia brought her to his underground quarters though, she almost didn't recognize him.
Noah's appearance hadn't changed. His robe was a bit messy, and there were traces of blood on the corners of his mouth, but he seemed the same cultivator from back then.
Yet, his aura had changed entirely. An unfathomable severity surrounded him, and his consciousness became impossible to sense from time to time. It was as if his thoughts were wandering in realms that Faith couldn't detect, and even Elder Julia revealed a stern expression whenever that happened.
The Elder knew that Noah's mind would reach for the laws on random moments of enlightenment, but he was still too weak to remain in that state for long.
Faith was about to leave when she saw him in that state, but Noah suddenly spoke and stood up to near her. "I don't know if it's been a long time."
The two of them only exchanged a couple of lines before Faith delivered a sealed letter that carried June's aura. Noah couldn't help but feel warm when he took the message.
On the other hand, Faith had understood that Noah was extremely busy and left his quarters, opting to spend the rest of her trip there with the other heroic assets in the city above.
Noah read the letter and sent a mental message to the two Demons. He didn't know what they were up to, but he knew that he could rely on them, especially when it came to matters that involved his lover. Then, he returned in his previous position and sat cross-legged on the ground to resume his testing.
Time passed, and Noah didn't even bother to keep track of it. The only things that existed in his mind were his hunger and the energy that morphed on his palm.
His mind would sometimes touch on the part of the understanding that he had reached during the transformation. Still, he would quickly lose access to it, keeping only some of the emotions that he had felt in those moments.
Yet, at some point, his aura began to disperse the seriousness that it had radiated since Noah immersed himself in the experimentation.
Noah held his breath for fear that the structure of the gas in his palm could be affected by that simple gesture.
The gas seemed to move in an orderly way, but it kept on changing shape in perpetual motion. Each of its particles resembled the drops of water of a tide, with the only difference that they had the form of hiltless sabers.
Looking at that "Breath", Noah knew that he had finally succeeded.