Back in seclusion Yang Rai began to think on how he could make a rank 4 resource. At the moment the trees were using an ungodly amount of world energy. He knew that he might need to manage his glyphs a bit better. Thinking about advancing them to the next tier as an option was a bad idea since he wouldn't be able to split the glyphs into 2 so he decided that he would test something. Either way it would be beneficial.
Yang Rai took 9 sets of Rank 1 resources and fused them into 9 glyphs. The strength of these 9 glyphs was far more than he thought was going to be. Each of them were now stronger than 9 glyphs. That gave him an idea. He followed through it and split the 9 new glyphs apart into 81 T6 R9. He just found the easiest way to increase his glyph counter. He decided at that point to start upgrading all of the glyphs. He first upgraded the glyphs in the trees. The reason was that a single T7 R1 was worth slightly more than 9 T6 R9. Which meant that the excess energy would go to the development of the people in his small sealed world bead but predominantly the World Spirits.
After upgrading the trees to all have T7 R1 glyphs Yang Rai gathered 81 Rank 3 sets. He was practically begging for this to work since it would mean his theory was correct. It would have helped if he could have seen what a rank four looked like but it didn't matter too much. Yang Rai was ready. The star Spirits were barred from borrowing power for any reason. So they just watched in awe of what a truly heaven defying refiner Yang Rai was. The forces of the energy began to flow out from 72 sets of resources. The remaining 9 would be the first foundation. A week passed by and the first step finished. The remaining 9 sets of resources were brimming with a ton of energy. It wasn't quite close enough to break through the barrier. At least on their own.
Yang Rai continued to swirl the energy around condensing the materials properly into finished 4th rank materials. It was a technique that took a ton of energy. So Yang Rai took a short break before doing it again. He took the time to upgrade his glyphs to T7 R1. He was bound by the no more than 1 rank difference in his glyphs. While he was able to do this now it was clear that a T7 R2 would derive T7 R1's. He had been increasing the rank of all of his glyphs. He was burning through his Rank 1 materials like a fat man at a restaurant with deep pockets. He brought himself to 531441 T7 R1 Glyphs.
Yang Rai began to repeat the process of creating rank four materials 8 more times. He then was able to synthesize a single Rank 4 tree. He had to use all 9 sets of resources to accomplish this. This took him 6 months to accomplish. And all he had to show for it so far a single Rank 4 tree. However this is who he is. This is his path. To others they may think it was impressive to even create these resource trees let alone as an Emperor realm. Yang Rai would spend the next several months increasing the number of Rank 4 trees up to 9.
Once he finished that he heard a mess of excessive noise outside. This was enough of an annoyance to motivate him to move. He was pissed since he was just about to start creating the Rank 5 materials.