Lucien didn't think too much about what to do with this particular clone, it was obviously the best possible spy for the Holy Empire. Since it was Rank 1, he would send it to join the church. Each and every clone was a completely new body that only contained the Paths he gave them, which meant they were not polluted by his Devil body.
Wearing a golden robe, the clone left on his journey to the Holy Empire, but with Rank 1 Strength it might now even be able to leave the Mountain so Lucien had to escort it out.
Lucien realized that he was well in his 18th year at this point, he had spent seven months in the mountains. And considering that from 9 liters of peak Rank 2 blood, he would be getting less than 2 liters of its Rank 3 counterpart, he would need more than two years at the current pace and only if no mishap happened, which led to an early departure.
Time continued to tick and Lucien went back to absorbing soil at night. Since getting a clone took a bit over a month, Lucien managed to create all Fire, Water, Earth, Metal and Wind clone in the next half an year. This time he took a bit of risk and sent them all to the Barbarian Empire. He wanted them to join some clans and gain some information about the Empire. Any bit of information would help him later when he was planning a move against it.
Lucien had also gathered 1180 square meters of high grade soil, which shockingly upon conversion was over 1 Million Existence Points.
Including the Water,Metal and Wind Herb he also got an Earth Herb. It was Rank 1 and it was guarded. In the last month of his time here, he also found an unguarded Fire Herb, it was Rank 0 like the Metal one when he found it. Now he was missing the Light and the Lightning to complete his set. His milestone was to have them all at Rank 1, if that didn't display a change, then he would have to postpone the strengthening of the Crimson World for a later moment.
The Metal Herb has already completed its evolution towards Rank 1 in the past months. With peak soil and All Existence to speed up time, he was only worried about finding the Herbs.
He also tried compressing some high level soil into peak and then tried to compress that further. The effect he got in return was the whole Crimson World shaking, before All Existence informed him that the world couldn't contain such level of soil in its current form.
The clones that he sent to the Holy Empire were doing perfectly fine at this point. His Rank 1 Light clone even created a bit of a commotion when it was joining. Since it was created for the Light Path from his own body, even through it didn't have the golden blood to enhance its potential all the time, it was still shockingly talented according to this worlds standards. It rose in the ranks of the church at the speed of light.
And his Soul Devour Clone was taking it time after devouring a village to practice and lay low, so it still hasn't met with mishaps. Even if it met with something later on, the other Clone would have some influence to help it. The Light Clone was also incredibly close to Rank 2, it had already started with stats at the peak, and it was not surprising.
There was no need to mention the clones in the Scarlet Empire, considering they were all Rank 2 and they were on the home turf. They even had the support from the Darkness Clone that was the Third Prince at this moment.
The only Clones that got close to death on multiple occasions were the ones he sent to the Barbarian Empire. Lucien finally got to know how the Barbarian Empire looked like from the inside.
And the only remark he could make was that... they were insane. They kept their commoners safe by law. If a low rank Practitioner intentionally injured a commoner, he would die for it. This came to be because of the fights that occurred all the time. If the commoners were not protected, the Empire might have ceased to exist.
Any problem that might occur in that Empire was solved by fighting, and they had one really special law that made the fighting incredibly intense. It didn't matter who your father or grandfather was. In a fight... you fight for yourself. If a Practitioner is killed in a fight, his family was forbidden from seeking revenge for the weakling. If the royals learned of someone breaking this law, the whole family would disappear.
In turn this made the Empire a place where if you were not strong enough, it was better to stay at home and not venture outside. Cultivate till you have the confidence to survive. People rarely saw Rank 0 Practitioners, even more rarely than they saw Rank 3s. Rank 1 Practitioners were the forces that were seen to roam the streets. Fight erupted constantly, people flying out windows of bars. It was truly the land of the savage.
Since the clones split, there were a couple of times they got into fights, even when trying to avoid them and each clone had gotten close to death already, barely surviving. It took them more than 3 months to find families in which they could live.
Luckily, not even one of them died, only the Water Clone that was focused on Vitality had a harder time and lost an arm. Once it got to Rank 2 it could regenerate it slowly, but for now it was treated with a bit of scorn by everyone in the family it joined. It was like a servant even through it had Rank 1 cultivation.
His eyes and ears were spread all around the world at this point, he might have no access to high level information, but he was spreading his network on the lower levels like a spider web that was slowly tangling the whole world into his hand.
His main body that was connected to all the clones was receiving all this experience and his will was slowly tempered by all the things his clones were experiencing.