After Barbara and Ava left, Leyvi turned around to face the spiritual vein in his chamber.
He wondered if his newly acquired spiritual touch could actually grab it.
Leyvi sent out his spiritual sense, and with a single thought, it quickly formed a large invisible hand, much faster than the first time he conjured it.
He reached toward the pointy end of the spiritual vein and tried to grasp it. To his surprise, the contact was real! He could feel it clearly. The texture was indescribable, unlike any physical object. It pulsed with an otherworldly essence.
He couldn't quite describe the sensation, but just by touching it, he could tell it wasn't a physical object.
So this is what it feels like to touch a spiritual entity, huh. Interesting. If I ever see a nascent soul like Fantylia flying around, I could just grab it easily, right? Leyvi thought.
Curious, he applied a bit of force and tried to pull it, but it didn't move. It was like tugging on a rope tied down somewhere.
"Weird… how does this work?" Leyvi muttered.
"Since it's a spiritual entity, the earth around it shouldn't be the reason it stays put. It should be able to phase through physical matter. So logically, it could just float or drift around, right? Then why is it fixed in place?" He continued to reason aloud.
Using his see-through spiritual sense, Leyvi had long observed the spiritual vein in its entirety and confirmed it wasn't attached to anything. That made it even stranger that he couldn't move it.
Oh well, I'll just ask Barbara later. Now's the time to spend with my wives.
With that, Leyvi left the chamber.
Leyvi scanned the area and noticed that Anda was no longer busy with her alchemy. Instead, she was seated among the others, cultivating within the flowing stream of spiritual energy. The open space where everyone gathered to draw power from the spiritual vein had grown significantly. It was now nearly three times larger than before. It seemed Tamina had been hard at work again.
Among all of them, Anda was undoubtedly the fastest in cultivation. Her spirit root was of the legendary grade, just like Dastan's. Those who possessed a legendary-grade spirit root naturally formed an invisible vortex around them during cultivation, creating an immense spiritual energy absorption effect.
Normally, this vortex would remain unseen. However, with the glowing spiritual vein nearby, an entity made of the purest spiritual energy, the phenomenon became visible. Spiraling streams of radiant energy were drawn into Anda's body at an incredible rate. With that luminous vortex surrounding her, she appeared ethereal, as if she had stepped out of a divine painting.
Huh? Where is Dastan?
The thought struck Leyvi suddenly. He realized the crown prince was nowhere in sight. He stretched his spiritual sense to its limit and swept the entire area carefully, but there was still no sign of him.
Weird… where did he go? Wait a second. Do not tell me he has been assassinated already. But how? Could an assassin have discovered our location on this island?
Damn it. I need to ask someone. Tamina, where is Tamina? There.
Leyvi spotted Tamina not far from Anda. She was seated in quiet focus, cultivating as well. He had thought she would still be obsessing over excavation work, digging up every inch of the area, but it seemed she had realized that if she did not cultivate, she would be left behind.
He walked over to her.
"Tamina, where is Dastan?" Leyvi asked abruptly through sound transmission.
Disturbing someone during cultivation was normally considered highly inappropriate, even rude, but he did not care about that right now.
Tamina frowned slightly as she opened her eyes and carefully halted her cultivation. When she saw Leyvi, she did not look annoyed, only a little puzzled. Why did he seem so worried?
"Tamina, where is Dastan? I do not see him anywhere," Leyvi asked again.
"Dastan? Ah… hehehe. Are you worried about him? He went somewhere secluded to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm. It has been two months already," Tamina replied through sound transmission as well.
Leyvi was dumbfounded. "Wait, wait. Why would he enter the Nascent Soul Realm? What about the portal later? Do not tell me he has decided not to return. What is this guy doing?"
Seeing how much more anxious he became, Tamina could not help but chuckle inwardly. Looks like my fiancé has finally found himself a real friend.
"Brother Leyvi, there is no need to worry. He can temporarily revert his cultivation to the Core Formation Realm later, so crossing the portal will not be a problem. It is a proven method used by the Royal Family," Tamina explained.
"Whew, is that so? Thank goodness. I thought he had been assassinated already. Having an assassin on the island would be terrifying for us." Leyvi let out a long breath and patted his chest in relief.
Tamina chuckled. "If that is the case, we would all be dead too. The assassin would definitely drool over the spiritual vein and make sure no one else ever found out about it."
Leyvi blinked. "You are right. I did not think about that. Hahaha! By the way, how long does it take for someone to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm?"
He was genuinely curious. He had never actually witnessed anyone making that breakthrough. Even in Bara City, the cultivation level of most people was far below average. The strongest there were only at the Core Formation Realm, still a long way from reaching Nascent Soul.
The only Nascent Soul Realm cultivator in Bara City was Treasure Pavilion's Branch Manager, Linda, but even she was someone the Pavilion had sent purely for business purposes.
Thinking about Manager Linda, he could not help but recall her perfect hip sway. He and Anda would always admire the graceful rhythm of her movements whenever she came to the Leyan Family mansion. Since Anda had told him that Manager Linda enjoyed it when people appreciated her perfected art, he stopped holding back and indulged in the sight to the fullest. It was a win-win situation.
The only reason Anda had never tried to recruit her was because Linda was too deeply tied to the Treasure Pavilion, making it nearly impossible to earn her loyalty to the Leyan Family. Otherwise, her mastery of that art alone would have been enough reason to bring her in. After all, who would not want to witness such elegance every single day?
Tamina blinked, finding it odd. "You do not know?"
"Hahaha. Do you not hear what your fiancé usually calls me? Country bumpkin. He is not wrong. I am a country bumpkin. And as a country bumpkin, I do not know much common knowledge. I learn as I go. That is the lore about me." Leyvi said with confidence.
"Pftt." Tamina almost burst into laughter. He was exactly as goofy as Anda always described during her "bragging about her husband" sessions.
She quickly regained her composure and explained, "The breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Realm is much, much longer than any of a cultivator's previous breakthroughs. The process of merging the sea of consciousness with a completed core is slow and arduous. It needs to be done very carefully. The fastest it can be done is around three months, and for some, it can take up to a year. It depends on the quality of the core and the sea of consciousness. The better their quality, the longer the process takes."
"For someone like His Highness Dastan, who has been carefully nurtured with the best resources, it is possible that it will take even longer than a year. And if problems arise during the breakthrough, it could take two or even three years… or fail entirely."
"That long?" Leyvi was stunned.
From Foundation Building Realm to Core Formation Realm, the breakthrough usually took an average of a day or two. In his case, it had taken an entire week, but his case was far from normal.
From a day or two to months, maybe years. That was an absurd leap.
Leyvi gulped. Oh no. My core… If I extrapolate my breakthrough duration compared to the average, that would be seven times longer. Are you telling me I might have to spend seven years just to break through? Seven years? Fuck! That is too long. How is this even fair? I already have to cultivate far longer than anyone else with this ridiculous core.
Wait. Wait. I am a spiritual cultivator now too. My sea of consciousness is not just above average, it is ridiculously good. Since both the sea of consciousness and the core affect the duration, it could be worse. It could go over ten years. Ten years just for one breakthrough.
Leyvi's eyes widened in horror. What the hell did he get himself into?