Liam continued to undertake various 4-star quests, slowly increasing his points.
4-star quests were becoming increasingly rare and sometimes they had to travel nearly 1500 km from one quest to another.
Meanwhile, Ilbert and Ruvia took several weeks to fully understand the first levels of their new meditation technique.
Even though they did not practice it yet, just their understanding of the technique made them realize how clumsy their previous method was.
After some time, Ruvia was the first to seek out Liam's incarnation.
She now fully understood the first three levels of the technique and was ready to rebuild her foundations.
After reaching rank 2, one could no longer change techniques at will.
Each technique modified the body or the soul of a person toward a certain direction.
Unless the two techniques were very similar, switching from one to another would cause conflict and lead to serious consequences, ranging from permanent stagnation to direct explosion.
So, it was often necessary to completely destroy all progress with the original technique before restart everything from the scratch with a new technique.
Fortunately, it wasn't the only method. Human kind had discovered many natural treasures able to release enough the foundations to allow someone to modify them with another technique.
Apart from that, there were also potions, pills, secret ways... A whole bunch of methods had been discovered to facilitate the transition from one technique to another.
Liam, however, had none of these methods at his disposal, but he still had a way.
It was the most direct and easiest to implement for the gods: burning faith points.
As long as it was in sufficient quantity, faith energy could do almost anything, including reshaping the foundations of powerhouse.
However, it was not cost-effective at all.
If it took 1000 faith points to help a rank 2 being break through rank 3, then reshaping the foundations of a rank 3 being would take 50 000 points; fifty times more.
Nevertheless, Liam was willing to do that.
He had only three mages in his divine realm, (including Nevra, who was not really a mage yet) and he wouldn't skimp on the means.
Thus, he spent his faith points and helped Ruvia adapt to her new breathing technique.
The change was far from immediate.
She would need several months to fully reshape her foundations and return to her previous level; the process was much shorter than starting from scratch and would have no side effects as long as Ruvia took it seriously.
On his part, Ilbert took two more months to understand the 4th level of the technique.
As with his granddaughter, Liam did not hesitate and spent half a million faith points, totaling over a million faith points for the two Valyrs.
During such a process, the greatest concentration and a huge energy supply were required.
So, the grandfather/granddaughter pair was in the largest house of the city, completely immersed in their spiritual sea.
Liam had therefore warned everyone not to disturb them for anything and had established a unidirectional sound and spatial isolation formation: one could go out but not enter.
The two Valyrs were sitting cross-legged in the center of a sealing formation, surrounded by a huge pile of spirit stones.
...
(Mage system explanation here, you can skip if you're not interested)
Mages were both very similar and fundamentally different from cultivators.
A cultivator would attract spiritual energy inside through their meridians and make it circulate inside their body to their dantian, where they would refine it into their own internal energy.
A mage did the same, but drew internal energy into their spiritual sea, where they refined it into mana.
Before touching the laws, the ranks were mostly based on the quantity and purity of energy accumulated by someone.
A mortal fundamentally had no particularities regarding whether physic, energy, or soul.
An apprentice mage (rank 1) used several complex mental images to strengthen their soul and spiritual sea. They used their mental power to engrave runes into their spiritual sea that would greatly strengthen their mental power.
As their mental power strengthened, they would gradually be able to impact their environment with their pure will, like moving small objects, condensing water in the air, or lighting small flames.
That's also why it was rare to find rank 1 mages on battlefields. In a sense, their combat power was very limited, and they could easily be killed by a mere mortal.
To become an acolyte (rank 2), they had to expand their spiritual sea relying on runes as a foundation and would quickly increase their mental power.
Although they still often needed to use ingredients to amplify their spells, they would become much stronger and would begin to display mage supremacy.
It's only by reaching rank 3 that they would begin to accumulate mana in their spiritual sea and use it to amplify their spells.
They would no longer need ingredients and could form a protective barrier around their body, making them much less vulnerable than before.
It was only at that time that they could be qualified as real mages.
To reach rank 4 and become a magus, they had to continuously baptize their spiritual sea with very pure mana.
This would lead to a qualitative change that would greatly enhance the density and purity of their mana without causing instability in their spiritual sea, further strengthening the runes they had been continuously reinforcing and adding since rank 1.
...
Thus, over two and a half years passed, and there were only a few weeks left until the end of the exam.
Ruvia had already finished a long time ago and had taken the opportunity to breakthrough from a beginner mage to a confirmed mage.
That day, Ilbert Luminara finally opened his eyes after several years of isolation.
His body changed a lot. Between Liam increasing his lifespan, his healing, and the creation of an extremely solid foundation, he seemed to have returned to his forties.
Beyond appearances, he felt much stronger. The density of his mana had at least doubled.
As he looked around, he saw that most of the spiritual stones had lost their bright glow and looked like ordinary stones: he alone used around two hundred.
Using his mental strength, he picked up the dozen or so stones that were still usable and left the room.
...
In the void, Liam frowned as he looked at the holographic screen in front of him:
[1: 872,800 points]
[2: 852,600 points]
[3: 831,900 points]
[4: 830,400 points]
...
The quest he took last time had a particularity that was not displayed on the quest board: the will of the world itself had to attest the capture of Ruvia and personally wanted to finish off the Valyrs.
This clause was not marked anywhere, and he had only been informed afterward, inwardly cursing the world's will for being so petty.
If he completed the quest, then his troops would be spotted by the world's will, and even if exceptionally, his score would not be fixed, his troops would no longer be able to move in peace in the plane as won't just hand over Ruvia.
On the other hand, he could no longer undertake another mission, and his score had been relegated to around twentieth place.
Liam tried to talk to the teachers, but he had hit a wall and couldn't do anything.
With no other choice, the nagas split into several teams led by a great warrior and roamed the plane.
A rumor started to circulate in the cottages that demonic serpents were lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to attack.
Mothers used it to scare their children, and drunkards joked about it at night.
The nagas followed Liam's orders and took ample supplies from the plane: magical herbs, rare ores, weapons... they literally picked up everything they could find.
There was no spiritual energy in a demi-plane, that's true, but there were still ways to bypass the problems.
One reason there was no spiritual energy in a demi-plane was that it did not produce any.
The other reason was that even if it was added, the demi-plane would absorb it to grow.
Whether it was spiritual stones, magical objects, or even plants and ores, the demi-plane would slowly siphon off all their spiritual energy.
Only conscious beings could maintain control of their energy and prevent it from being absorbed by the demi-plane.
Thus, Liam had set up a huge isolation formation outside the city.
The principle was quite simple: the formation would form an invisible dome, and spiritual energy could not exit.
This only restricted volatile spiritual energy and imposed no restrictions on living beings or objects, which were free to come and go as they pleased.
He piled nearly a thousand spirit stones directly into it, and the concentration of spiritual energy quickly reached the standard of lower planes.
It was the only place in the divine realm where it was possible to find spiritual energy.
However, it wasn't like a plane: all the spiritual energy absorbed by plants and ores couldn't be recovered.
On average, it consumed a spirit stone per month.
After all these years, the area seemed to come from a separate world.
Most of the trees were nearly forty meters tall, and the vegetation was extremely dense.
All the animals in the area were much larger than their counterparts, and several had already reached rank 1.
For his part, Liam didn't pay much attention to spiritual plants below rank 3.
They were quite simple to raise and reproduced easily.
So, they were randomly distributed in the area and left in the wild.
He estimated there must be several hundred of them.
Rank 3 ones, on the other hand, were very valuable and much rarer, and he had only about a dozen, including two fruit-bearing trees.
Those were carefully protected by Sylvera's enormous tortoise, which was already at the pinnacle of rank 2 and would soon become a great beast.
She was very smart and could follow her master's orders to the letter.
As Liam took stock of his divine domain, he felt his incarnation send him a message: Ilbert had woken up.
...
There was a stone house with a small garden in the middle of a dense forest.
Beside it, there was a huge green tortoise with black patterns.
Even though all its limbs were retracted, its shell alone was over two meters tall, looking tiny next to the giant trees of the forest.
Inside, Sylvera, Liam, Ruvia, and Ilbert stood solemnly around a round wooden table.
Liam was the first to speak.
"We have barely a few weeks left before the closure of the spatial channel. Now that Ilbert come out of his isolation, it's time search for real treasure vault of Vinaya city."
It was not like he didn't wanted to go there earlier, but the part Ruvia entered was only a lure and could be considered as an outer layer of the treasure.
Most things had relatively low value and even rank 3 items were rare.
The real treasure was hidden farther away, and only the Valyr royal family knew how to open it.
As he never talked about it to Ruvia only Ilbert knew how to access it.
Fortunately, he finished in time and they could do it following the rules, otherwise Liam would have not hesitated to use brute force and break down the door, even if it meant damaging part of the treasure.
The old man, who didn't seem so old anymore, nodded.
"I'll accompany you there. Even though Vinaya city fell shortly after the capital's fall, the Drakos and the crow men were really busy at the time. They only attacked to eliminate our most powerful men before they learn the destruction of the capital. As soon as the war ended, they retreated at full speed and holed up like rats in their cities and didn't have time to plunder anything."
Sylvera nodded and spoke.
"That's true. It matches what we saw there: even though part of the city is in ruins, the rest has almost no traces of fight."
Liam nodded.
"Vinaya city is not too far away, but it's still over two hundred kilometers from the portal. Once the last expedition teams have returned, we will head to Vinaya and move the portal again. Spread the news and have everyone ready."
"Yes, Your Excellency!"