'Fuck all those control maniacs'
Noah cursed in his mind as he walked alongside the river.
As he arrived in front of his accommodation, he strongly knocked on the door.
"Ivor! We are moving."
Ivor didn't take much to came out of the small house and was a bit surprised to find Noah in that bloody state.
"Was he that strong?"
Noah snorted and directly turned toward the source of the river.
"No, they just delayed my victory to see if I revealed more of my power."
Ivor understood immediately why they did something like that.
"Did you do it?"
Noah snorted again but didn't answer.
He focused on his body and his bones emitted a soft cold aura.
As he walked, his many wounds began to heal and new skin was created under his burned flesh.
"Did you make another breakthrough?"
Ivor noticed the speed at which his body recovered and was quite surprised.
"I entered the upper tier of the third rank of the body a while ago, just these superficial injuries are nothing."
By the time they reached the source of the river, all his cuts had stopped bleeding and his burns showed signs of recovery.
'This place is better than I assumed.'
Noah thought.
The accommodations became bigger as he neared the source and the density of the "Breath" increased by another fold.
It wasn't at the same level as the big chunk of "Breath" blessing but it was still an amazing area where to cultivate.
The last house in sight was a two-story building with a large balcony on the first floor.
Noah directly moved toward the entrance door and pointed his academy token at it.
The door released a mechanical sound and unlocked, Noah pushed it without thinking twice.
"Welcome back, young master!"
Three cheerful voices rang as soon as the door opened as three young girls wearing revealing clothes welcomed him.
However, once they saw Noah bloodied figure and Ivor shabby one, they stammered and one of them mustered her courage to speak in a trembling voice.
"W-where is Master Manuel?"
Noah was still irritated by the events in the arena and didn't waste time to explain the situation.
"This house is now mine, gather his stuff and go away. If I still see you around after two parts of incense, I will personally escort you out."
He released a bit of his aura to make his statement clearer.
The maids panicked and hurriedly picked everything that belonged to their master and ran away from the front door.
Ivor couldn't help but shake his head seeing the three beauties leaving the building.
"Why didn't you let them stay, we could have had fun!"
Noah forcefully closed the door and directed an angry gaze at Ivor.
"I barely have time to sleep and you want me to waste more time? Also, everything that I will do from now on must be completely secret, I can't have those weaklings running around my house."
Ivor complained some more.
"But they were so beautiful! Why don't you ever think about your poor Master when you make those decisions?"
"My poor Master should stop being a scrounger and start helping me. All you do is drinking wine and sleeping."
"Well, there isn't much that I can do if you don't start forging."
At these words, Noah showed an excited smile.
"Don't worry, I will start soon."
Noah inspected the whole house and felt satisfied.
There were seven rooms divided between the ground floor and the first one.
What hat he appreciated the most though was the underground basement of the habitation.
It was clean and twenty square meters large, both its walls and floor had inscriptions that increased their durability.
'This is perfect.'
He sat on the mat previously owned by Manuel and calmly focused on his recovery.
In two days, he was back at his peak form.
Noah sat cross-legged on the mat.
Inside his sea of consciousness, many small dark blue spheres gathered in the hands of Noah's ethereal figure.
The balls fused with each other, slowly forming a single big sphere that emitted a faint light.
A faint pressure was emitted from it which made Noah nod internally.
'This one has reached the liquid stage.'
Its matter was denser than the previous balls that he had accumulated, he could clearly feel that the power of the one in front of him had surpassed the limits of the gaseous stage.
'Now, I just need to create more of these until I have enough "ink" to start forging.'
A week slowly passed in which Noah focused mainly on accumulating "Breath" in his sea of consciousness.
After he felt that his headache was about to return, he decided to stop.
A seemingly dark blue lake stood over the sea in his mental sphere, releasing an immense pressure.
Noah, however, simply looked at it casually.
He was a rank 2 mage, the "Breath" on the level of rank 1 cultivators wasn't enough to make him flicker.
'If I continue to absorb more, I can surely make it reach the level of the solid "Breath" but my headache will return. I should just test with this to gain some experience with the process.'
"Ivor."
He called his Master that was peacefully snoring in a corner of the basement.
Ivor opened his eyes and it took them a while to gain focus.
"What?"
Noah had patiently waited for him to wake up and answered calmly.
"I'm ready to start. I've gathered enough to attempt in a breakthrough in the solid stage."
The quantity of "Breath" in his sea of consciousness wasn't even close to the one in his dantian.
However, since it was mixed with his mental energy, it could be compressed freely to reach the same amount of density of his dantian.
Ivor stood up and held back his excitement.
"Now, you have to start a second refinement to insert your will in it. Remember, simple intentions are the easier to imprint on your energy, so try to start with something easy and that you are familiar with."
Noah thought for a while and decided in his mind.
His ethereal figure immersed itself in the dark lake and they both descended in the sea below them.
Noah reviewed in his mind all the moments in which his sabers had cleanly cut in half his opponents.