Chapter 1902 1902. Second phase

The sudden event didn't surprise Noah too much. He didn't expect it to happen right after completing the ethereal center of power, but he had long since been ready for it.

Noah's mental sphere had been on the verge of the ninth rank for years already. The lack of the ethereal center of power was the only feature that stopped it from advancing and reaching the last stage of the known cultivation journey.

However, that limit disappeared once the borderless ethereal center of power took form. Noah had forcefully unlocked the path to the ninth rank by creating an artificial version of what his core organs would have eventually built on their own. His mind suddenly found space where to expand, so it didn't hesitate to start the breakthrough.

Alexander had confirmed that the breakthrough to the ninth rank didn't cause mandatory Tribulations. The knowledge obtained in the Mortal Lands had turned out to be true. Heaven and Earth's system only put limits before the heroic and divine ranks, but it didn't set anything for the existences that approached the peak.

Noah had already wondered and found an explanation for that feature. The existences that could approach the ninth rank had already spent an entire cultivation journey surviving the three mandatory Tribulations of the system. Sending them again when they were about to reach the peak was simply pointless.

Heaven and Earth preferred to send stronger or unique punishments meant to counter each specific existence, and Noah was sure that they had something ready for him. Yet, he was inside the old rulers' city, so nothing arrived. The world couldn't even sense his breakthrough.

The faint worry that the old rulers could do something to interfere with the breakthrough reached Noah's mind. Still, he wouldn't care too much about that after spending centuries developing the ethereal center of power inside their structures. Moreover, his companions decided to come out as soon as they sensed their Master losing control of his thoughts.

Night, Duanlong, and the Demonic Sword shot out of his body and took their place around him. The parasite also joined that gathering by making a series of roots pierce Noah's right palm and surrounding him with those corrosive materials.

Snore and Shafu wanted to help, but they were too big for that training area. They limited themselves to stand at the edges of the separate space and prepare themselves for every threat that dared to approach their Master.

Of course, Noah could use his understanding of space and the dark world to create better defenses that included his bigger companions. Still, the sudden arrival of the breakthrough and his faint indifference didn't make him invest time in preparing those protections. He didn't believe that something in his arsenal could protect him if the old rulers decided to attack or something else managed to seep through the city's formations.

Mental energy spread inside the ethereal center of power, but that fuel was still too weak for the high standards that Noah had set. Most of it dissolved as it entered that ghostly structure, but a few small brims remained.

The ethereal center of power didn't stay still either. It had only stabilized before, but Noah had yet to reabsorb it closer to his body. The faint blackness that made its edges turned almost invisible as it shrunk back toward Noah's figure. The mental energy trying to flood its insides didn't manage to stop that process.

Noah had two very different sensations trying to take control of his mind. The first was the odd feeling generated by the ethereal center of power condensing over his back and transforming into an invisible force that remained connected to his existence in ways that even he ignored.

The ethereal center of power was artificial, so his dantian, body, and black hole felt that something was off when they obtained access to its space. They had the innate urge to fill that space, but they also knew that their time had yet to come.

That urge became almost unbearable at times, and part of their energy inevitably fell into the ethereal center of power due to that instinctive sensation. Still, the insides of the blackness shattered it. It was clear that rank 8 fuels didn't belong to that realm. They couldn't even touch it due to the lingering pressure that it contained.

The second sensation mostly featured pain. Noah's mental walls trembled to no end as his mind enlarged past the limits of the eighth rank and completed the breakthrough.

The mental sphere continued to send massive quantities of mental energy toward the ethereal blackness, but that center of power didn't accept anything below the ninth rank. Only the tiny brims of fuel that had managed to step into that realm managed to remain inside that area, but they couldn't affect that incredible structure built from Noah's potential.

Noah's mental sphere soon became empty, but the breakthrough ended at that point. The center of power began to generate a denser and more powerful version of his usual mental energy that quickly filled its insides before flowing toward the ethereal blackness.

Everything happened so quickly that Noah didn't have the time to inspect his new mental energy before it disappeared again. His mental walls were still stabilizing, so pain continued to fill his consciousness and obstruct his inspections. Yet, he trusted his centers of power enough to let everything happen without his supervision.

The new mental energy could finally fill the ethereal blackness without being destroyed by its lingering pressure. The new center of power inflated in a dimension that felt different from the spaces that Noah created through the Shadow Domain. It didn't even seem to be similar to the areas that contained Mortal Lands among the void. It was something completely different and extremely personal.

Understanding dawned upon Noah while he continued to struggle through his pain. He recalled that rank 9 existences had to become worlds, and his ethereal center of power set the beginning of that space.

Noah now had a personal dimension defined by the edges of the world created by his existence. That area was utterly black, heavy, and unsuitable for life, but it also was the perfect culmination of his cultivation journey. The only issue was its incompleteness.

The new mental energy didn't even fill a tenth of the total space inside the ethereal center of power. Moreover, a force sent it back toward Noah's mental sphere after it had bathed among the potential for a few seconds.

Noah's mental sphere had generated new mental energy during those moments, but the arrival of the empowered fuel sent everything into chaos. The insides of his mind didn't suffer through proper changes, but his mental walls did, and that transformation forced him to endure something similar to a second breakthrough.

The transparent mental walls that carried a faint scarlet color darkened as the empowered mental energy crashed on their surface and fused with their fabric. Noah's mind had reached the ninth rank, but the ethereal center of power didn't accept that level.

The potential in its blackness had forced its standards on the mental energy that had affected the mental sphere once flowing back inside Noah's body. The second phase of the breakthrough began, and Noah saw only darkness during that process.