"Alright, enough with this bullshit." Aetherion stood up, then looked at Ash. "What are you going to do now that you have taken revenge on your little girlfriend and have a better place?"
"To be honest, I don't have a plan in mind right now." Ash shrugged his shoulders, then looked at Aetherion and asked as he raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any suggestions? In general, I just want to become stronger as fast as possible and summon my siblings here."
"My suggestion is simple, familiarize yourself with your current strength and have more battle experience before going to the next rank. Even though the system could help you in becoming stronger instantly, it couldn't give you the battle experience needed to become the strongest of the same rank or even possess the combat power to cross the rank." Aetherion replied with a smile.
A moment later, he continued. "Don't think about your achievement in killing your little ex too much. Even though you could be said to possess a combat power of a higher rank, it was mainly because of your opponent's strength and your space and time abilities."
Before Ash could respond, Aetherion waved his hand. "Go enter the secret realm with your current strength. It should be a good starter for you to experience it."
"Alright then, if you say so. But let me learn some swordsmanship first before going there. Because, as you already know, I'm only experienced in hand to hand combat and have never fought against someone who used a sword with my bare hands." Ash responded with a nod.
Aetherion rolled his eyes and snorted. "Hmmph! Such an excuse, just say so if you want to learn swordsmanship just to look cool."
Cough!
"Let's go back and finish some things first before heading out to try our luck in finding some geniuses to recruit." Ash coughed and walked toward the outside.
Subsequently, the trio went back to the Vohn family and handled everything there before moving the entire family to the Heiyu family's residence.
…
Half an hour later,
"Uncle Liam, this is the key to the treasury inside the main hall. You can use them as you wish. Don't forget to crush the token if there's trouble while I'm away." Ash handed the black token to Uncle Liam with a smile.
Ash thought for a moment and gave another token, this time it was the token from the Clear Spring Holy Land. "Take this to buy time in case the trouble is bigger than expected."
"This…" Uncle Liam hesitated to accept the wealth from the treasury, as they were Ash's trophies.
"It's okay, these things are useless for me anyway." Ash waved his hand with a smile, then continued. "Don't forget to clean up the mess inside before letting the others settle down. Let them get used to this since we might move like this every once in a while."
"You mean…" Uncle Liam raised his eyebrows when he heard the last sentence.
"Maybe, we'll see if there's someone who dares to mess around." Ash chuckled and turned around to Aetherion and Li Jian. "Let's go."
"Alright." Aetherion waved his hand, creating a spatial crack around 2 meters big.
"Where does this spatial crack lead to?" Ash raised his eyebrow and looked at Aetherion curiously.
"We're going to check the secret realm's location first before going to look for geniuses to recruit." Aetherion replied.
"Why?" Ash raised an eyebrow.
"Just so that we could estimate when it will open and we could prepare in advance, what else?" Aetherion chuckled.
"Fair enough." Ash nodded and took a note that Aetherion should be able to detect something like this because of his mastery of space and time power.
…
The moment Ash stepped out of the spatial cracks, he looked around to see a vast grassland surrounding him.
"Is this where the secret realm is going to appear?" Ash asked Aetherion beside him with a curious look.
"Why don't you try sensing the space power in the surroundings and tell me where you think the spatial crack is going to appear?" Aetherion smiled, giving Ash a little challenge while he was at it.
"I can do that with my current capability?" Ash looked at Aetherion with an excited expression.
Even though he actually preferred to learn swordsmanship, he didn't mind getting stronger in another way since he knew that space and time are one of the strongest kinds of power that exist.
"You'll never know if you don't try it right?" Aetherion responded with a grin.
"You're right, let me try it then." Ash nodded in agreement and immediately closed his eyes.
Breathing slowly, Ash focused his mind on the ripples around him. He utilized his bloodline and physique as much as he could while extending his senses outward in all directions simultaneously, but all he felt was a muffled haze.
Trying it once again, he searched for even the tiniest disturbance in his surroundings. Yet each effort ended in frustration.
Aetherion watched quietly, noticing that Ash's sense was flowing, but it was dissipating into the air like searching for a needle in a haystack.
"You're using your sense outward in a sphere, but this method is actually not that effective because you're still too weak to search for every inch in this entire surroundings. You need to project your sense along in a single direction first, then rotate your perception carefully step by step."
At Aetherion's words, Ash opened his eyes. He then nodded his head as what Aetherion said made sense. "Thanks for the advice. I couldn't feel anything even after using both my bloodline and physique before. I even thought that I wasn't strong enough."
"Because you're trying to feel everywhere at once." Aetherion said as he stepped forward.
Planting a hand on Ash's shoulder, Aetherion closed his eyes. "Imagine a straight line extending from your body to forward. Channel your sense along that line only."
A thin strip of shimmering void power snaked from Ash's chest as Aetherion instructed, forming a focused beam forward.
Ash followed as he directed his focus northward, listening intently along that line. Slowly, a faint resonance tickled his awareness as he sensed a buzz of distortion barely stronger than the wind's rustle.
"Good." Aetherion nodded. "Now rotate that beam clockwise slowly and scan again."