The concert ended with thunderous applause that seemed to shake the entire venue. Emma took her final bow, sweat glistening on her skin under the stage lights, and practically collapsed the moment she stepped backstage.
"That was incredible," Christine gushed, still riding the high from the performance.
I steadied Emma as she stumbled, her legs giving out after hours of nonstop movement. "Easy. You pushed yourself pretty hard out there."
"Worth it." Emma's smile was exhausted but genuine. "Did you hear them? They loved the new song."
The rest of the trip passed without incident. Christine and Emma became inseparable, giggling over inside jokes and staying up late talking in Emma's hotel room. I spent most of my time watching the Hong Kong skyline from the penthouse windows, contemplating the changes cultivation had brought to Earth.
The first class flight home felt shorter than the one out. Emma slept against Christine's shoulder this time, both of them exhausted from their shopping marathon through Kowloon. I closed my eyes and focused inward, feeling the Chaos World Bead pulse steadily in my chest.
Once we landed in San Jose, Emma and Christine headed straight for American City together, arms linked as they disappeared through the portal. I caught snippets of their conversation about finding a good restaurant and exploring the outer markets before the portal swallowed them.
Good. Christine needed friends her own age, even if Emma was technically older.
I teleported directly to the Core Palace, bypassing the Eastern Region entirely. The familiar gardens and impossible architecture welcomed me as I made my way to my meditation chamber. The stone floor was cool beneath me as I settled into lotus position, letting my breathing slow to barely perceptible.
I focused my awareness on the Heavenly Dao's consciousness. The world bead's awareness was vast, ancient, and utterly inhuman. It showed me everything with clinical precision.
I hadn't paid much attention to how my fellow Earthlings were living. Honestly, I didn't want to become some babysitter hovering over every decision. I'd established iron rules of non-aggression in the cities because humans weren't used to the life of a real cultivator. A life full of danger at every turn. At least in the city I enforced safety, gave people a sanctuary to grow. But outside those obsidian walls? No such protection existed.
The Heavenly Dao fed me information in cascading images. Over the month since the portals opened, the furthest anyone had explored was only a few hundred miles from American City. Most people stayed closer. With their minimal cultivation and lack of travel artifacts, the adventurous ones barely made it a hundred miles before turning back.
Still, that was far enough to encounter spiritual beasts.
I watched through the Dao's perception as a group of Body Tempering cultivators fled from a wolf-like creature the size of a bear. Its fur crackled with lightning, and its eyes glowed with predatory intelligence. Beast Soldier Realm, third layer. Dangerous for mortals, barely worth my attention.
The cultivators made it back to the city limits, gasping and terrified. The wolf stopped at the boundary, as if sensing the rules that governed the space, then turned and loped back into the wilderness.
My awareness shifted to the majestic forest they'd been exploring. Trees rose like skyscrapers, their trunks wider than houses, their canopies disappearing into low-hanging clouds. Spiritual energy saturated the air there, making it perfect for cultivation but also attracting powerful beasts.
From American City's vantage point, the forest dominated the western horizon. A wall of green that seemed to call to the adventurous and foolish alike. It had become the first destination for those brave enough to leave the city's protection.
The military presence dominated the outer rim of American City. Through the Heavenly Dao's perception, I watched entire blocks of obsidian buildings converted into barracks. Soldiers moved in synchronized formations through the streets, their morning routines adapted from boot camp to cultivation practice.
Sergeant Martinez commanded the operation from a three-story building near the eastern gate. I'd seen him before, the first person to step through the portal all those weeks ago. He'd risen to Body Tempering fifth layer already, his dedication showing in the methodical way he approached cultivation like a military campaign.
Without their guns and tanks, the soldiers looked almost vulnerable. They drilled with spears and swords purchased from the merit shops, their movements still rough but improving. The portal's restrictions had stripped away their technological advantages, forcing them to adapt or become irrelevant.
Most had chosen to adapt.
Groups of twenty ran laps around the city perimeter, their enhanced bodies allowing speeds that would have shattered Olympic records. Others practiced formation techniques in empty plazas, trying to recreate military tactics with vital energy instead of bullets.
The average cultivation level in American City had climbed to Body Tempering fourth layer. People who'd never exercised in their lives now had muscles like athletes. The spiritual energy saturation in the Eastern Region made progress almost automatic for those willing to put in basic effort.
But the military, despite their numbers and organization, hadn't ventured far beyond the city walls yet. They were waiting. Planning. Building strength before committing to exploration.
Smart, if frustratingly slow.
My attention shifted to the more interesting development. Sects. Actual cultivation sects, formed by people who'd read too many webnovels and decided to make fiction reality.
The Crimson Phoenix Sect occupied a compound in the second ring. Their leader, some guy named Marcus Chen who'd apparently spent his entire twenties reading Chinese cultivation stories, had convinced forty people to join his organization. They wore matching red robes that looked ridiculous but served their purpose. Identity. Belonging.
The Azure Sky Sect competed with them for members, their blue and white color scheme slightly more tasteful. Their sect master was a woman named Jennifer Wu, a former martial arts instructor who'd taken to cultivation like she'd been born for it. Body Tempering sixth layer already, impressive for someone without special advantages.
Smaller groups dotted the city. The Iron Mountain Sect. The Flowing Water Pavilion. The Thunder God Clan. Each with their own hierarchy copied straight from cultivation novels. Outer disciples. Inner disciples. Core disciples. Elders.
I decided to just let them do their own thing. I didn't have the heart to tell them that in the real cultivation world, there may be such things as Sects, but it was not really common.
Instead, it resembled a lot like our modern Earth with companies and governments. The technology of the cultivation world was far beyond that of Earth, with quantum and dimensional technology, faster than light speed travel just a common bus people took between galaxies.
Real cultivators didn't wear flowing robes and live in mountain temples unless they were eccentric recluses. They wore business suits and casual clothes, drove hovercars powered by spirit stones, and lived in apartments with formations that regulated temperature and security. The major powers weren't ancient sects but corporations and planetary governments that controlled resources across star systems.
Jihasti's memories painted a clear picture. Cultivation academies functioned like universities, charging tuition and offering degrees in alchemy, artifact crafting, and combat techniques. The strongest cultivators weren't hermits meditating in caves but CEOs of multidimensional conglomerates or politicians representing entire galaxies in the Greater Council.
Wars between powers looked nothing like the sect battles from novels. Fleets of warships equipped with formation cannons engaged in battles that spanned light years. Immortal cultivators served as admirals and generals, their domains turning entire star systems into battlefields. The concept of challenging someone to a duel for honor existed, but it was the exception, not the rule.
Technology and cultivation advanced hand in hand in the real worlds. Formations powered everything from household appliances to planetary defense grids. Pills came in standardized bottles manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, not hand-crafted by ancient masters in wooden huts. The strongest artifacts weren't swords forged in dragon fire but quantum processors that could calculate tribulation patterns or dimensional anchors that stabilized entire universes.
But Earth didn't know any of that. They only had cultivation novels as reference, stories written by people who'd never seen the real thing. So they built sects because that's what the stories told them to do.
However, there were some differences between the Earth sects and the Sects created in American City.
The Crimson Phoenix Sect and Azure Sky Sect both continued using the merit point system I'd established. They didn't create their own internal currency or barter system like traditional sects might have. They couldn't, really. The identity tokens I'd given everyone handled transactions automatically, integrated so deeply into the Eastern Region's framework that building a separate economy would be pointless.
At least for now. Maybe once they grew stronger and established real resource networks, they'd develop their own internal hierarchies and reward structures. But with barely a month of cultivation under their belts, they were working within the system I'd created rather than trying to reinvent it.
Smart, actually. The merit points held real value. People could rent housing, purchase techniques from the All Paths Library, buy weapons and pills from various shops. Creating sect contribution points or whatever would just add unnecessary complexity when everyone already understood the existing currency.
I shifted my focus to the trade skills situation, and immediately felt disappointed.
The All Paths Library contained extensive knowledge on Alchemy, Inscription, Formations, Talisman Refining, Artifact Refining, and dozens of other specialized crafts. I'd made sure of that when designing the place. But American City's progress in these areas proved rather pitiful.
First problem: cost. The knowledge required significant merit points to purchase. A low-level spiritual Inscription manual—almost the basic knowledge needed for all other crafts—cost ten thousand points. A low-level spiritual Alchemy manual ran five thousand points. And a low-level spiritual Artifact Refining manual cost seven thousand.
Most people were still scraping together enough points to rent decent housing and buy cultivation pills. Spending thousands on trade skill knowledge felt like an impossible luxury.
Second problem: prerequisites. I'd made sure to include clear requirements for each trade skill. Alchemy and Artifact Refining both explicitly stated they needed at least a low-quality spiritual cauldron or furnace artifact to practice. Almost all crafts required Inscription knowledge as a foundation since you couldn't craft proper artifacts or certain pills without understanding how to engrave inscriptions into them.
The logical path was obvious to anyone who actually read the requirements. Start with Inscriptions. Master the basics of engraving patterns and channeling vital energy into materials. Then branch out into Artifact Refining or Alchemy depending on your interests.
Through the Heavenly Dao's perception, I watched groups of cultivators pooling their merit points together. Five members of the Crimson Phoenix Sect stood in the All Paths Library's main hall, their combined resources finally reaching the ten thousand point threshold. One of them, a woman in her thirties with fire affinity, stepped forward and purchased the low-level Inscription manual.
Knowledge flooded her mind instantly. The fundamentals of energy flow, the geometric patterns that channeled vital energy, the properties of different materials. She staggered, overwhelmed by the sudden influx, and her sect mates caught her before she fell.
"Worth it?" one of them asked.
She nodded slowly, eyes distant as she processed everything. "Completely."
Similar scenes played out across American City. The Azure Sky Sect pooled resources for their own Inscription manual. A group of independent cultivators who'd banded together without formal sect affiliation did the same. Small teams of friends, family groups, even random strangers who'd formed partnerships all worked toward that same goal.
Smart. They understood that one person learning could benefit the entire group, especially since Inscriptions had practical applications for everyone. Better equipment, enhanced weapons, protective talismans.
But not everyone followed the logical path.
I found one guy, some overeager idiot in the third ring, who'd somehow scraped together five thousand merit points on his own and immediately purchased the Alchemy manual. He didn't own a cauldron. Didn't even know where to get one. Just saw the word Alchemy and assumed he could start brewing miracle pills right away.
Now he stood in his rented room, staring at herbs he'd gathered from the nearby forest, trying to figure out why grinding them together with a mortar and pestle didn't produce anything useful. The knowledge in his head clearly explained that spiritual herbs required precise temperature control and vital energy infusion to unlock their properties. A cauldron was mandatory, not optional.
He'd wasted five thousand points on information he couldn't use.
'Idiot,' I thought, shaking my head.
The Herbalist manuals proved far more practical. Several dozen people had picked those up, and for good reason. They cost only a thousand merit points, included an extensive compendium of spiritual herbs with detailed descriptions of their properties, and most importantly, didn't require cultivation to use effectively.
Anyone could follow the instructions to create salves, poultices, tinctures, and basic medicines. The techniques worked with mortal methods, just enhanced by the spiritual properties of the ingredients. Grind this herb, mix with that oil, apply to wounds. Simple, effective, immediately useful.
I watched a middle-aged woman with wood affinity carefully prepare a healing salve in her kitchen. She'd gathered Dawnroot from the mountain clusters and combined it with common oils according to the manual's instructions. The result wouldn't match a proper Alchemy pill, but it would speed healing and prevent infection far better than anything from Earth's pharmacies.
She'd already sold three jars to other cultivators, earning back a quarter of her initial investment.
Perhaps the problem lay with a lack of stronger cultivators to collect rare materials. All of the herbs and ores required cultivators to venture outside the safety of the city, where spiritual beasts of Beast Soldier realm were a constant threat.
Knowing from Jihasti's memories, even the simplest cultivation trade skill was not easy to learn. The manuals provided theory and techniques, but mastery required hands-on practice, countless failures, and ideally, a skilled teacher to correct mistakes before they became ingrained habits.
The real cultivation world had academies for this exact reason. Professors who'd spent centuries perfecting their crafts guided students through the learning process, preventing the kind of resource waste that came from trial and error. Even corporate training programs paired apprentices with masters who could demonstrate proper technique and explain the subtle nuances that written manuals couldn't convey.
But American City had no such teachers yet. The only person who could be even remotely considered qualified would be myself.
I opened my eyes, the meditation chamber coming back into focus around me. The stone walls reflected the soft light from formation-powered lamps, and through the windows, I could see the impossible gardens of the Core Palace stretching toward the horizon.
Perhaps I should provide lessons on Artifact Refinement and Alchemy. The thought settled in my mind with surprising weight. Since opening the Heavenly Forge Emporium, many people had asked about its creator. Rachel fielded questions daily about who made the weapons and pills, whether they were taking custom orders, if apprenticeships were available.
I'd avoided answering because I didn't want the attention. But watching people waste precious merit points on knowledge they couldn't apply felt wrong somehow.