He wasn't lying about being willing to spend 100 years researching the gateway. He had the time and the means to spend that much time on a single task.
Even if he didn't have the time, he would make the time for something this important. Gaining access to the league of world eaters means that he might not need the help of the people who cultivated the Everlasting Wood Art to help him replicate the famous living metal material by using the silver pine trees to derive it.
If he can join the league of world eaters, he might even be able to get living metal right from its source. So this matter if very important to him and worth sacrificing 100 years to achieve. Fortunately, he has that much time to spare.
As a nascent soul cultivator, he has a normal lifespan of 1,000 years. This is just the average lifespan, though. There are many ways to improve lifespan, even by 10%. So he has a lot of time on his hands.
There are also special cultivators like Lady Evergreen who cultivate techniques that extend one's life. People like that can have a life span that is up to 1,500 years.
Aside from the life span, he also has 1,024 spirits, which he can transform into avatars. These avatars can do his bidding for him, so he can do many things at once in the span of 100 years.
His true body is somewhere secretive and alone. Even though he is the strongest nascent soul cultivator in this part of the world, he still keeps his location hidden.
This is mostly because of caution. But there is also the matter of appearing mysterious and unfathomable.
So far it has worked. No one is willing to offend a powerful being like him whom they can't find to exact vengeance on.
After settling the matter of the gateway, Lady Evergreen moved on to something else.
Sword Flash still wanted to talk about the gateway, but she didn't allow him. She changed the subject before he could bore them by asking, "What do we do about the request of the Purple Flower Sect?"
He was a little interested in the matter, so he decided to answer.
He said, "First of all, we are not going to fight their war for them. That's the bottom line of this cooperation."
She said, "Agreed."
Thunder Drake also nodded in agreement.
So Sword Flash continued. "Secondly, we are only going to do things that will benefit us. That's why I think we shouldn't mandate participating in the war. Let the sect members choose if they want to join in the fun or not."
She asked, "What about their request for training?"
He replied nonchalantly, "They can have it. I don't care as long as they don't try anything funny. If they try anything funny, I will make them realize that the Red and Blue Fire sect is not their greatest danger."
The other two patriarchs agreed with him on the matter. They agreed because they didn't have any particular opinion on the matter and because he was the oldest and strongest among them.
Thunder Drake is the youngest one among them. The irony is that he might be the first one among them to die of old age because the Divine Lightning Armament had cut off a huge chunk of his life span.
Lady Evergreen is in between the two of them in terms of age. But because of the Everlasting Wood Art, she will outlive both of them and maybe even a fourth new nascent soul cultivator.
It is unlikely that a fourth nascent soul cultivator will appear in the sect, though. Three patriarchs at the same time is the maximum number of nascent soul cultivators that the Blood Skull sect has had in its history.
This limited number is because of the lack of resources in this region of the world to create and support nascent soul cultivators. For these three to become nascent soul cultivators in the Five Veins Region, they must be very talented.
There are many talented people in the Five Veins Region with the potential to become nascent soul cultivators. But very few of them manage to achieve it.
No other sect has had up to three nascent soul cultivators at the same time. The most they have had is two at the same time.
Sometimes, the other sects even struggle to produce a patriarch at the nascent soul realm. This doesn't happen to the Blood Skull sect because they control a large proportion of the resources available in the Five Veins region.
While the patriarchs were deciding the fate of the sect, Arthur was in the process of officially joining the inner sect.
Arthur was breathing the air greedily. The concentration of mana in the air was so high that the inner sect was always windy.
The wind was caused by the activity of mana in the air. Mana was more volatile than air and could expand and contract more easily than air.
Normally, the wind was supposed to flow from the secret realm into the surrounding environment to form a tide of mana like a river. But the mana had been locked in within the secret realm by the sect.
Only a little mana was allowed to trickle out of the secret realm into the outer sect and the accommodations of the disciples on the mountains. This gave ambient mana a small outlet to relieve its pressure.
If the flow of mana was uncontrolled, then the speed of the wind in the inner sect would be far more violent than this. The air would flow just like the waters of a river, which is why areas with higher concentrations of mana are referred to as being upstream.
Arthur didn't notice all of these details earlier when he first entered the sect. At that time, he was too busy dealing with the presence of the avatars of the patriarchs.