Ethan's teleportation method was far from invincible.
For one thing alone, Cultivators. They were a threat to his life, an actual threat.
Cultivators had something inside them that the book called The Circulation; a process which made them constantly circulate their Essence inside their bodies.
Colorless Halo Cultivator or a Golden Halo Cultivator, it was the same. This process made their bodies stronger and generated a weird phenomenon around them that was similar to a planet's gravitational field.
The process would bend the surrounding dimensions around a Cultivator, making it impossible for Ethan to teleport, or in accurate terms, Dimensional Travel, around them. It would be impossible to do it how Ethan was used to doing it on Earth.
Cultivators were doing this process subconsciously, but the one thing that had power over Dimensions was the World Essence; the more they had, the more subconscious control they would have in their surroundings.
Even though a Colorless Halo Cultivator only had access to Colorless Essence—a much weaker form of the World Essence—it didn't change the fact that World Essence could influence the Dimensions.
This was not really bad, as it also meant that if he himself cultivated to higher stages, he should also have more control over Dimensions… even though the idea behind it all was a blur to him.
But it was something that he had to take a clear and hard note of.
If he met a Cultivator, he would not be able to teleport around them.
Yet, the book also mentioned that if he had equal or higher cultivation to his opponent, he could teleport around them easily, which sated a lot of his fears over losing his crucial advantage. And then, there were Spell Formations.
Those things were also operated using World Essence, and clearly enough, they also removed the chance of Teleportation around them for him. It was no wonder he felt as if he was standing in front of a Spell Formation when Hungjun came.
Cultivators were similar to Spell Formations and vice versa. Both were counters to his Teleportation, too. Yet, the book mentioned another thing: these formations were tiered and measured in power by Cultivation Levels, and they also worked using Essence.
So they were not invulnerable.
If a formation worked using Colorless Essence, that formation was a Colorless Tier Spell Formation, and if it worked with Golden Essence at its core, it was a Gold Tier Formation.
According to the book, if he also had that level of Essence inside him… he should also be able to hop beyond those things using Dimensional Travels.
In the end, it was rather complicated but simple to understand.
If a Cultivator was of a higher stage, Ethan should not mess with anything they put together. Just play around with people of the same level as himself—that was the motto.
Ethan had no problem with that.
He'd rather bully the weak than fight with the strong unnecessarily. Only Scarlett was reckless enough to fight people of higher levels for no reason, he'd rather read a book at home.
With a sigh, he closed the book.
When one had to act, they had to act.
***
It was late at night, and the Black Forest had once again turned absurdly cold.
Inside their new house in the wilds, Ethan and Scarlett had a laptop in front of them, and it was running a romantic movie. Yet, both of them were lost in thought, hardly caring about the show—it was hard to immerse themselves in something like a time pass when they had so much work to complete.
The duo was currently on their bed, inside a fluffy blanket, hiding from the cold and sharing each other's warmth. Planning something in hushed murmurs even as the movie continued.
Suddenly, Scarlett moved out of the bed and closed the laptop.
"It's distracting me," she said and retreated back into the fluffy sheets, into Ethan's embrace. He looked at her with slightly twinkling eyes; she was in fluffy pink pajamas, and there was a rather annoyed frown on her face.
Learning a new language was irritating even though the dictionary made it much easier than the normal process on Earth. She huddled closer to him and asked, "So when would we move?"
He scratched his brows.
"In daybreak," he answered, "There is not much reason to stay here anymore... We can't raise our strength by doing nothing—we have to go meet the Human Matriarch and get resources for our Pills of Comprehension." Scarlett nodded hesitantly, and he continued: "Perhaps we might not even have to risk meeting the Matriarch herself and would get it easily from the...underground human city."
They had a lot of supplies in Ethan's Dimensional Pocket, and they could spend as many days as they wanted here, but as Elderly Hungjun had warned, there was someone who could and would threaten their life inside the Black Forest.
Supposedly, two of the three cultivators here were amiable creatures, but not the third one. The Storm Dream Patriarch.
Ethan would rather not take another person's words at face value, but it was the only way to see things now, as Hungjun seemed like an ally more than an enemy. Emmy also had a good impression on him, and there certainly didn't seem to be any reason for the Elderly to scheme against them either.
After all… the old man's words were true. Usually, Ethan and Scarlett would be waiting for their Sects here, and soon enough, an envoy would arrive and save them. Why would an aboriginal of the Black Forest sow bad seeds with such a person and, by virtue, the force that was behind bringing them here?
Even though Ethan and Scarlett didn't have any Sect waiting for them or anyone coming to bring them, Hungjun didn't know that. Thus, his words were worth listening to.
If so, that dangerous person, Storm Dream Patriarch, might not notice them now, but if Ethan and Scarlett waited here forever, who knew when death would grace them with a visit in the form of that particular Patriarch?
No, even that was naive.
What if the other two cultivators, Hungjun and the Human Matriarch, figured out that they were Heritage Awakened with no backing whatsoever?
Ethan's Dimension Sect was nonexistent, and Scarlett's Devour Sect was an enemy. Poof, all good feelings and emotions might be thrown into the bucket, and everything would then be determined by benefits.
Killing Ethan and Scarlett to research them wouldn't be too far-fetched.
They had to be proactive.
They had to rise in strength and understand their surroundings.
Mingling among humans seemed a nice idea.
Scarlett sighed.
Her blissful time being pampered was over. She could see their situation.
Putting ice in buttholes and watching romantic movies would have to wait.
Yet, she wished she could lose her actual virginity too….
She smiled, a shy blush coating her cheeks as she glanced at him from the side of her eyes.
She was not rushed.
She ruined their actual virgin moment with that fiasco, but it was her choice. She would let him decide how he took her virginity in the front.
Ethan's hand wrapped around her waist under the blanket, and hers wrapped around his.
Through her thin pajama cloth, she could feel the grasp, and as he kissed the side of her nape, she heard him speak, "Through whatever that may come, I am with you. Either through hell or heaven."
She turned her face, and their lips met, noses touched.
They smiled sheepishly, their eyes twinkling.
"…Through hell or heaven, it is then."