The pressure was making the air emit popping sounds, Lucien felt like he a small boat in the middle of a ocean during a storm.
Henry slowly stood up from his throne and walked towards him.
'What is he going to do, this is an unexpected development.'
'I guess is he worried about me ruining myself, but you could just tell me that, is this necessary?'
'But I really want to witness, what is a being with a lifespan of minimum 1500 years, capable of?
The moment Henry reached Lucien, he grabbed him.
"Let's change locations."
And then there was a blur for an instant.
Feeling like puking, Lucien forced himself to look around.
They were in midair and below them was that familiar forest, the Dusky Woods.
When Lucien was peak Rank 0 he needed 4 days to get here, now Henry took an instant.
If he was not protecting Lucien, he would have been ripped apart by the speed.
"The last time I felt the stone location it was here, so you have been here either when breaking through or passing."
"It doesn't matter either way. Since you are Rank 1 now, you need a cultivation chamber that is rich in Particles, to help you progress faster and allow you to breakthrough."
Saying so far, Henry pointed his arm toward the forest and waved upwards toward himseld. Nothing fancy, no chanting, no charging particles, just a simple wave, like waving away a maid.
Lucien felt as if the whole world shook, streams of Darkness Particles started gathering from all over the forest, trees and grass withered away.
In a couple of seconds there was an enormous ball of Darkness floating in the air next to Henry.
"Now since this is normally not allowed, we should erase the scene."
He waved his hand again, but this time like a slap towards the forest.
In the air above, a giant hand formed from Darkness appeared and shot towards the forest.
The moment it landed on the forests below, the world shook for a second time.
Everything caved in, as if a decree by heaven ordered the area to disappear.
When the smoke and dust cleared, Lucien gasped.
The Darkness Particles had been absorbed from an area of about a kilometer, and now that area was a giant hole in the shape of a hand, the depths were unknown, but Lucien was not able to see the bottom even with the Vampire Dark Vision.
"You see, my son, the current you is nothing but fodder, in a war, the likes of you, die really fast, and the death count is in the 10s of thousands, only Rank 0s are faster in this aspect"
"But father, since there are only 100 Rank 2s in the army, doesn't it mean there is only 1000 Rank 1s?"
'Heh let's see some of the hidden power of the empire.'
"HAHAHAHA."
Henry almost rolled while laughing, he looked nothing like the previous solemn emperor.
"Lucien, I won't tell you exact numbers, but the empires hide much more than you can imagine."
'So nothing more than more material for speculations.'
"Now hold on tight, we are going back to make you a cultivation chamber, and it's a grade higher than the one I made for your elder brother, so don't disappoint me."
'Please use the Darkness Teleportation this time.'
Henry didn't care about the look his son was giving him, he just grabbed him and strolled a couple of steps forward, and he was already in the forbidden area of the palace.
He made sure to protect Lucien with Darkness, otherwise he would lose this monstrosity of a son.
Lucien didn't manage to hold it in now, since it was built up from the first time and puked.
"This is how weak the current you is. You can't even handle the travel speed when I'm strolling around."
'I hate to admit it, but the gap is really enormous, if he trained in Agility, since it was in the manual he gave me, and it's also at Rank 4, then it's a minimum of 50 000 stat points, that is 50 000 km/h when strolling around, he is about 40 times faster than the speed of sound.'
"I'll make the training room you use normally in the new cultivation chamber, the maids are not going to be allowed to come in the vicinity of it, and other than you, nobody else is allowed inside."
"This should last you till the middle Rank 2, so don't waste it my son."
"Since you did the trial by fire, you have probably already surpassed your brother in actual combat power, but both of you are still fodder."
Waving his arm, the ball of Darkness shrunk and disappeared, Lucien didn't know where it went to, but he could already feel the area around the chamber had a slight increase in Darkness Particles, the chamber itself is probably much more concentrated.
"Since it's not specifically build, it will leak a little bit over the time, but I'll leave it just like this, the more it dissipates - the faster you will stagnate, so don't waste your precious time."
"Since there is nothing without a price in this world, I'll be sending your second brother to you for spars and spear training, you don't have to teach him that DawnSpear manual, it's too dirty."
"He is not much of a genius, he is already 15 years old and is barely in the middle of Rank 0."
"I'll make sure nobody knows he is coming to you, and I'll tell him that you are also around middle of Rank 0, but you focused much more on the spear so you can still teach him some things, and the spars would provide valuable fighting experience."
'Hehehe, I already had some plans about Vlad, but you are sending a lamb to the wolf and expect the wolf would teach it how to fight, heheheheh.'
"Now train hard, you know where to find me if there is something important."
Saying so far, Henry just blurred and was gone.
'Well this was a nice surprise, I was worried about breaking through without the Dusky Woods, but the old man moved a part of the Dusky Woods to the palace.'