Lex, of course, knew none of this. He had completely lost himself in his cultivation. There came a point in which he was undergoing the change where his mind became numb and he lost all awareness. His sense of time, of self, of anything and everything was lost.
This was the most dangerous part of his cultivation, and was the reason why cultivators completely isolate themselves before they undergo any cultivation or breakthroughs, major or minor. Right now, he was completely vulnerable, with no possible way to protect himself at all.
The extreme danger of this state was one of the primary reasons why humans on Earth were not able to break through to this realm despite having thousands of Golden core cultivators. Only very extreme or unique circumstances would create the situation that allowed this to happen.
But ironically, despite being surrounded by countless people and hanging over a changing landscape, Lex was much safer right now than if he took any precautions of his own. The isolation barrier could protect him, even from the dangers of a newborn realm, let alone anything else. An enemy would have to be incredibly strong to even harm him in this state.
Eventually, as a result of Lex's hard work and preparation, he passed this period without any issue.
When his sense of self returned, reality felt different. It took him some time to adjust. It was like before this he was looking at a video in 240 pixel resolution, with the sound incredibly muffled, and every other sense of his being suppressed.
But now, he was looking at reality with… the clarity was beyond any comparison Lex could make. Let alone 4K or 8K screens, even 100K would not be enough to describe what he was seeing. Even though he was surrounded by silence, due to the isolation barrier, even that sounded amazing.
The feeling?of just the air touching his skin was so incredibly smooth, so the texture of his clothes was in another realm entirely. Lex suddenly had a deeper appreciation for why the Inn had a tailor. Higher-level cultivators would feel a thousand times worse than a normal person if their clothes were coarse, or made from uncomfortable fabrics.
All his senses were so powerful that, despite Lex's once again increased mental capacity, he was overwhelmed by the initial exposure. It took him a few seconds to get over the sheer amount of detail that was being flooded into his mind, and make sense of them.
It wasn't because his brain was not equipped to handle such a vast amount of information - it was just that he wasn't used to it. It was like a strong man picking up a weapon or tool they weren't used to. Although physically they could handle it, that did not mean that they could effortlessly start deploying it.
Then Lex looked beyond himself and discovered that he was still floating up in the air. But the situation around him was drastically different. The land mass beneath him had split into three, but despite his increased senses, Lex could not view them due to the dense platinum clouds that covered the skies. He still could only see the smallest continent, which had the massive tree in the center.
But despite not being able to see most of the new realm with his own eyes, he could feel?that it had stopped growing. In fact, the borders of the realm were subtly decreasing as its core became more and more stable and formed a cohesive environment.
The flow of time below him had reduced drastically, but it was still incredibly fast. Or perhaps it just felt incredibly fast because now there were finally countless living beings trailing the continent.
The sight was phenomenal, because at this distance he could not see individual animals or beasts, or whatever they were. Instead, he only saw the major changes they were making to their environments.
He saw settlements being made along rivers and lakes, and then vanishing in a matter of seconds - seconds for him at least. He saw sudden, massive changes to the topography in certain areas, which he could only assume was the result of battles between high-level creatures.
He saw monuments being erected, and then monuments falling. One time, a particular statue of a strange race that looked like birds was carved into a mountain. But over time, the climate changed, and the mountain was covered in snow, hiding what had once been carved.
It was both intriguing and concerning. Intriguing because he could see civilisations evolving right before his very eyes, and concerning because he did not know how he was supposed to manage all of them when the Inn came into place.
A few hours later, the very thing he was fearing came to be. Empires started to form, and then they went to war. From up above, he could not tell if the conflicts were between different races or the same ones. But the evidence of conflicts was quite clear.
Lex looked around and discovered that, surprisingly, a few others were also awake and observing the chances. He already expected it from Cassandra. After all, observing this was the very reason she came here. The Sovereign turtle, which had also previously entered a meditative state, had also woken up. Again, not a surprise.
But the fact that Z was awake, and seemingly from even before Lex, was very surprising. Only two other humans were awake, one of whom was Marlo, and the other Lex did not know. It was quite surprising that Marlo had stayed in the Inn for so long, considering he still considered himself a King even after evacuating earth and probably had many people to lead. But Lex had not caught up with him recently, so he did not know the details.
A few devils were awake as well. But it was the beasts who were awake in the largest numbers. Lex recognized many of them as guests from Nibiru, but once again, he had not personally interacted with them long enough to know their details.
Lex turned his attention back to the ground. His breakthrough was complete, and he would look into all his changes at a later time. For now, he had to focus entirely on the realm, because depending on how the situation developed, he would need to face a possibly hostile environment from the get go.
If there was one plus point, it was that new realms usually did not have a tolerance for very high cultivation levels. So, most likely, he would just have to deal with Mythical beings and descendants of Mythical beings who were constrained to whatever the realm limit of this new realm was.
He was not concerned about his guests not being able to survive, because he knew that the system would find a way for guests to exist without issue, much in the way it previously protected all other guests from the passive aura of high-level cultivators.
As the hours rolled by, Lex could tell that time was slowing down considerably now. The expansion and collapse of empires had also stopped, as a balance was eventually formed. How delicate that balance was, he would have to find out for himself later on. But the strongest entities lived closest to the massive tree, at least that much was clear.
Lex wondered how large the tree actually was. If this were placed on Earth, it would easily exit the atmosphere, and that was not even considering if the Earth was large enough to hold the tree. For now, Lex still could not accurately scale how large or small the continent and everything that inhabited it was.
The isolation barrier around them suddenly thinned once again, allowing a stream of energy to reach them. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, a massive storm covered the entire realm at the same time. The clouds, which had turned black, covered everything so that the continent was not visible at all from their angle.
Everyone, Lex included, entered another round of cultivation. But there was a sense of anticipation in the air. Lex could feel it, and so could everyone else. The realm was undergoing another change, and he had a strong feeling that this would be the last change before they finally descended.
Anticipation gripped Lex, before he was suddenly and completely taken aback by what was happening to him. His attention was completely focused solely on himself for a brief moment. His cultivation was rising rapidly! In fact, this growth was the fastest he ever experienced, drawing even the time in the Crystal realm where he ate the Blue Crystal Essence and reached the peak of the Foundation realm!
He could feel his soul becoming more… more solid, before he felt a small crack in his body. He just entered the middle of the Nascent realm! The energy he absorbed from the realm was pure, but it wasn't as if Lex hadn't had pure energy before. No, the main difference was that it contained a tremendous amount of vitality that was boosting his cultivation forcefully!
Lex immediately took control of the energy pushing his cultivation and began using his cultivation technique. Such a quick advancement was not necessarily for the best. He had to make sure he was on the path of stable growth.
Finally, after a few seconds, his growth stopped right before he reached the late stage of the Nascent realm, and the energy began nourishing him in other ways under the influence of his technique.
Information flooded his mind of the abilities he had gained.