A couple of hours later, the group arrived at a settlement filled with people belonging to other sects.
Lin Tai Xu sat in a secluded spot and explained a little to Noah about the various forces before explaining further about the mountain.
"At maximum level to enter the cave is the ninth rank of separation so your cultivation is fine to enter but you will be alone against the other forces.
I was going to bring more people but none of the disciples meet the requirements."
As they were discussing, suddenly, an old man with two young men following him approached them and bowed by way of greeting before speaking.
"Hello. I am Zhou Wen of the Moon Vision Sect. May I ask for your names?"
"Ling Taixu of the High Heaven Pavilion."
"Greetings, Brother Ling. I hope you don't mind, but we had to make a long journey and so we were a little late, so we couldn't secure a spot..."
"What's your point?"
"Each float can bring four people across the lake, and I see you only have a single disciple. Would it be too much to ask you to lend a spot to my two disciples?"
Lin Tai Xu did not answer immediately and instead looked at the two young men.
"Disciple Chen Xueshu greets Mr. Lin!"
"Disciple Shou Xiaoyu greets Mister Lin!"
"Hmmm. The moon vision sect is around the same level as High Heaven Pavilion, besides, these kids seem friendlier and don't seem like the competitive and brutal type..."
"Please rest assured, Brother Lin, my disciples are very friendly. Even this time, they are mainly for the purpose of hunting some beasts to improve themselves. I can swear on my life that they will not cause harm to your disciple!
If it's okay, you can team up with my disciples inside the mountain, so that they can take care of each other."
Lin Tai Xu looked at Noah, seeking his opinion.
"We can cross the lake together, but I need more time to decide if I would like to team up with you."
"Since he is fine with this arrangement, you are free to share the float with us!"
"Thank you very much, Brother Lin!"
"No worries, in fact, it helps that you can join us here to protect our post."
"Sure, I have no problem with that."
"Brother Zhou, I actually haven't been here in five decades. I had no idea it would be so crowded now."
"That's right. Since the incident 30 years ago, this place is no longer a secret."
"What happened 30 years ago?"
"Thirty years ago, some of the disciples who entered the mountain managed to obtain a few drops of liquid treasure capable of tempering the dantian..."
"The brilliant flame liquid!"
"That's right."
"If it was just that, it probably wouldn't have attracted so many forces. The most important thing is that someone managed to get their hands on some spirit cleansing dew!"
As Zhou Wen continued to explain, suddenly, a flash of multi-colored lights lit up the sky.
Noah was the first to react, jumping onto a water lily at the edge of the lake shore.
Zhou Wen's two apprentices also followed him, standing on the water lily beside him.
A blue glow enveloped the three before teleporting them to another location.
The three appeared in a barren land with a murky qi permeating the entire place.
"Brother, do you want to join us?"
"Thank you for the offer but I prefer to go on my own."
Activating his wings, Noah flew out of the place, entering a forest in the distance.
Entering the forest, he drew his sword and saber and began slaughtering any beast he found along the way.
"It seems that my weapons are not affected by the magic blocks in this place."
Due to special training, no magical weapon or artifact should be able to work. Or at least that should have been the case, but because his weapons came from another world and their crafting process was completely different, the magic array detected them as mere common weapons.
Which gave Noah an absolute advantage since not only his weapons, his armor was also enchanted.
As he slaughtered, Noah saw a group of juniors from some other force that panicked as soon as he turned in their direction.
Noah's actions made him look like an asura god in their eyes, slaughtering as many magical beasts as if he was slaughtering chickens.
Although his cultivation was similar to them, the combat power he displayed was equivalent to a true element rank cultivator.
Noah did not hesitate and directly attacked them, cutting off their heads before they could react.
Piercing their chests, he pulled out some blood-red pearls before putting them away and proceeding to collect those from the magical beasts.
He continued in this manner until nightfall, killing any beast or cultivator that appeared in his path, leaving not a trace of life behind.
Seeing that it was already dark, he went into a secluded cave and began to absorb the blood pearls.
Normally, one would have to refine the pearls before being able to absorb them but due to his heavenly devourer ability, he was able to consume them directly and turn them into qi.
At dawn, Noah opened his eyes.
"Seventh stage of separation."
With only the pearls he collected the day before, he managed to advance four small realms at once.
Leaving the cave, he activated his wings and flew in a certain direction.
A few minutes later, he landed in front of a pair of giant skeletons.
Wasting no time, he started digging underneath the skeletons, pulling out two small colorful pearls.
"Better not waste time, I'll absorb them when I get back home."
Saving the two pearls in two separate bottles, he stored them in his magic gourd before continuing his exploration.
As he continued his indiscriminate slaughter, he suddenly spotted a person in the distance.
When he saw who it was, a smile appeared on his face.
On the other side, a young girl together with three fourth order demonic beasts were fighting a fifth order demonic beast.
While the girl was still engaged in battle, she did not notice Noah coming over her head.
At great speed, Noah swooped down and struck the back of the girl's head, knocking her unconscious before shooting off into the distance.
Now in an isolated location, he activated his bondage seal before implanting it into the soul of the young bestial-clothed bestial-clothed cultivator girl.
The young girl suddenly woke up and looked at Noah in confusion for a while before kneeling down.
"Master!"
"Get up! Your mission is simple, continue enslaving demonic beasts and expand your army."
The young woman was a cultivator of the sixth stage of the true element and had a special type of worm that could control the beasts it parasitized.
Leaving the young girl where he had initially found her, Noah returned to his previous kill.
A fortnight later, he opened his eyes and the aura of a first stage True Element cultivator emerged from his body.
"Looks like my breakthrough has attracted quite a few greedy wolves."
Smiling, he caused his aura to shoot out before flying out of the cave, pouncing on one of the cultivators who wanted to ambush him, cutting him in half.
He then turned to another cultivator and flashed him a fierce grin before launching himself into the attack again.
Nine more cultivators joined the fray, making the battle ten against one.
Noah activated his abilities to the limit and engaged in a tough battle that lasted for over an hour before he finally killed the last cultivator who was at the seventh stage of the true element.
"Phew! Finally a battle that truly pushed me to the limit."
Noticing his various injuries, he took out his magic staff and teleported several kilometers away before beginning to heal.
The next day, he fully recovered and began consuming the 11 blood pearls belonging to the cultivators he killed earlier, causing his cultivation to skyrocket from the first to the third stage of the true element.
A day later, he again encountered another member of the same faction that the young beast controller belonged to, the Tian Lan Dynasty.
This time he was the leader of the group and was mounted on a sixth order white wolf.
Noah did not say a single word. He simply unsheathed his weapons, making his intentions clear.
The man mounted on the giant wolf did not get off his mount, but ordered him to attack.
Noah activated his wings and shot off like a rocket as he made his weapons glow red and green light while aiming at one of the wolf's legs.
His speed was so fast that when the wolf lowered its claw to attack, he had already appeared near its left paw, severing the tendon and sending the wolf off balance.
The wolf let out a miserable howl and the man over its head scowled before lunging directly at Noah.
Noah dodged the incoming attack and moved at super fast speed, appearing directly over the demonic wolf's head and injecting a large amount of his qi yang directly into its brain, quickly locating the small worm that controlled it and taking control of it.
The man tried to order the wolf to shake Noah off but surprisingly it did not obey him.
"What have you done?"
"Same thing you did, control him."
Noah signaled the wolf to attack its previous owner and it charged with great ferocity.
With the demonic wolf's help, the fight became much simpler and five minutes later, Noah had captured the man and implanted a slave seal on him before sending him off with his partner to team up so they could gather more demonic beasts.
As for the sixth order demonic wolf, Noah implanted a slave seal on it and took it as his new mount before healing its wounds.
A few days later, as Noah wandered about, he came across a peculiar scene.
An army of demonic beasts surrounded a large group of cultivators.
Members of most of the major forces were among the captured while the two remaining members of the Tian Lan Dynasty were sitting on the head of a fifth order demonic beast as they mocked the captured people.
Noah pulled out his magic staff and teleported behind the duo, grabbing them by the neck before dragging them through the portal and rendering them unconscious.
He then implanted the slave seal on them and woke them up, ordering them to remove their demonic beasts and regroup with the other two.
He decided not to kill the captured cultivators as this might alter the story too much since he didn't know how the other forces would react to learning that most of their genies died inside.
The group of cultivators looked confused as they watched the army of demonic beasts retreat but they let out a sigh of relief knowing that they were safe for the time being.
Noah ordered the demonic wolf to leave with the army of beasts as he flew off in a certain direction.
"Demonic spirit, if you don't want your soul to be destroyed you'd better enter my body and take refuge inside my golden skeleton."
"Eh?"
The demon spirit looked confused but still obeyed.
Noah walked straight into a place filled with fog before deactivating his wings and sitting on the ground to meditate.
This mist was special as it damaged the soul of anyone who entered inside and Noah's soul was no exception but the soul-warming lotus took care of repairing any damage to his soul.
For the next half hour, Noah's soul was constantly in a tug-of-war, with the mist damaging his soul and the soul-warming lotus repairing that damage.
With each repair, Noah felt his soul becoming more and more tempered.
Feeling that his soul had been sufficiently tempered, Noah stood up and began to feel the flow of air.
A few minutes later, he moved in a certain direction and followed the flow of air until he came in front of a rock.
Drawing his sword, he slashed the rock, revealing a hollow interior where all the surrounding mist gathered before condensing into a single drop of a golden liquid.
"Soul cleansing dew."
Manipulating the dewdrop psychically, he sent it into his mouth and swallowed it.
A few seconds later, he snapped his eyes open and an invisible ripple shot out of his body and traveled over 5km before stopping.
Closing his eyes, Noah tried to feel his soul.
He vaguely saw a dark dimension in which floated three objects, the black book, the magic gourd and the soul-warming lotus.
Turning to the rock, he noticed how a second dewdrop was already condensing.
"This natural resource is very valuable, I should make sure to get as much as possible."
Although the soul-cleansing dew was extremely valuable, a single drop required fifteen days to condense and once one condensed, a second would not be consensated again until the first was removed. Noah didn't have enough free time to spend his remaining days collecting dew so he came up with a way.
First he set up a cloaking matrix around the area before establishing the coordinates of a portal.
Then he pulled out a bunch of tools and improvised a mechanized collection mechanism that would suck up the dewdrop and pour it into a bottle.
Leaving everything in order, Noah teleported to the cave where the Tian Lan dynasty group was currently located.