For nascent soul practitioners capable of flight, the return trip should have been short, but as it often happened, Samuel forgot to take into account Lucia's proclivities.
She loved to see if there was any talent in the villages they passed through, and he applauded the effort of trying to get new cultivators into the fold.
Even though the chance of finding a heaven's chosen master was next to none. There was always the chance for one or two decent disciples.
In the name of expediency, Lucia took the fastest approach. Namely, allowing all the notable younglings to use her like a toy and feed on the elixir naturally created in her breasts. All the while, performing dual cultivation to try and awaken their potential if they had any.
This reminded him of how he awakened his own potential. Though his one was a lot more dangerous with next to no chance of success.
So he did not mind the detour, he understood the desire to break past one's limits and would not begrudge the youngsters their chance. Even if it substantially increased their travel time.
She had yet to find a single one but that hardly mattered. The chances were less than one in a hundred so that was to be expected. If there was anything he did mind; it was the amount of time she spent doing small talk with the locals afterward.
Then there was the fact that she would drink from him increasing the time they spent on the road.
Twenty or so men and women could be an exhausting activity especially as she tended to try to refine the mortals with her essence.
This act was incredibly draining, given that first she had to reduce her essence to a fine point otherwise they would die. Then slowly and carefully try to create an essence circuit inside the mortal, a very very difficult venture.
So much so that only enlightenment, two stages above her cultivation rank, can do this with any degree of certainty but that did not stop her even though up till now all she had to show for it was failure.
Such an outcome would not have stopped Samuel and it did not stop Lucia as she seemed determined to get it right. As a silver lining it was not completely out of merit, every mortal slept with became a lot more powerful than normal mortals.
"Have you had enough yet?"
Samuel looked at Lucia with a raised eyebrow. She looked haggard though still leagues more beautiful than most women.
"Hah. Being funny are we? But yeah... I am done for the day."
The mental fortitude required to do what she did would make him pause and he spent all his life trying to refine his essence control. It was no wonder then that he was still in the early stages of the nascent soul while she was in the late stages.
The woman was a machine when it came to cultivation despite her bubbly and friendly outlook.
Samuel would never admit this to her face but one of the major reasons he was considering taking in a disciple was directly from her influence.
The rest of their journey was rather swift as Lucia did not make any more pit stops, but he knew that her 'day' was far from over. She had over a dozen disciples under her care, all of whom were eager to use her to advance their cultivation and she would be assaulted upon reaching the sect.
This was the greatest difference between heaven's chosen masters like themselves and the disciples under them.
A heaven's chosen master could break through to new cultivation stages by their own merit or by using heavenly treasures but regular cultivators could not, relying on the vital essence of a higher-rank heaven's chosen to help them do so.
This led to the smutty harem-like culture all masters were subjected to. Given that the average was one master for every one hundred cultivators... and one could understand why he was hesitant to dip his toes in this aspect of cultivation.
He had been fine being a recluse until now, but he had hit a wall ever since he had broken through to the early nascent soul stage. Try as he might he could not break the rut he was in and it had been fifty years since his last breakthrough, a blasphemy given his breakneck pace.
Having exhausted every other option available to him outside of heavenly treasures, something he vowed he would never touch, he now had to turn to properly engaging with the sect that he was a part of instead of dealing with a select few masters and hiding away with his cultivation.
The sect had resources that could help him without the need for heavenly treasures but given that he barely did enough to maintain his outer sect elder status... those were not his to use.
This was the second major contributor to his recent change in mindset. As an outer elder, despite being among the top powerhouses of the sect outside of the core sect, his access to some of the more powerful benefits of the sect was not available to him.
While still deep in thought, they both arrived at the sect and just in time too as his enhanced sight caught on the mass of mortals standing at the platform at the base of the massive sect carved directly into the mountains.
The was a time when Samuel found it hard to believe that a sect that turned a mountain large enough to pierce the heavens into their home was only a mid-grade sect but given the other sects he had come to know during his sporadic missions he realized just how large top-grade or even high-grade sects were.
Not that his sect was any less in its beauty, from the winding steps that spiraled the entire mountain to the village-like collection of houses dotted across to the magnificent castle at the very top, his Heaven's Climb sect had to love about.
Currently, however, his vision was focused on the crowd of newcomers most of whom would not be able to become a cultivator, and a few who would die trying to chase the ultimate awakening just as he once had.
Here, he hoped he would find a path for his future.