The next 2000 days of Tower immersion progressed rapidly, for several reasons.

  My pill practice was mostly over, with a lack of Saint pill recipes. I only made some Xiantian pills for the new recruits, and focused more on blacksmithing and Formation Arrays, using the large inventory of metals and rare substances from the Yuan Quan treasure vault.

  Of course, most of my blacksmithing projects were of poor quality and were simply melted down and recycled over and over. The arrays had a lot more use, since even poor ones would be life savers for the new recruits, while the average-grade arrays would be useful even for Saints.

  The problem with arrays was their very nature as a Literature Dao Fruit. Anything composed of words, ideograms, symbols, sigils and geometrical designs followed the way of the literature, with grammatical syntax overlaid with Qi energy and Dao concepts.

  However, due to my occasional demonic digestion of beast souls, my own Soul cultivation had reached level 8, while the spirit stones and my practice in cultivation arrays had finally raised my Essence cultivation to level 10, matching Ming Yue in energy size.

  Meanwhile, everyone else in the Tower also progressed, producing 13 more new Saints, while the older members gained new levels of body and essence cultivation as well.

  Their soul cultivation lagged behind, but that was kinda expected. The soul was the most difficult thing to cultivate, and the safe environment inside the Tower didn't create enough conditions for breakthroughs. Only the Soul array actually stressed the soul hard enough, but since those Demons were at Divine Realm, the experience of soul combat was very short. One shout for most people in the Tower.

  The one with most growth among the new members was Chen Feng, with his new level 3 soul, by the grace of a lucky soul pill.

  His soul also allowed him to perform great inside the Sword array, reaching 49 kills in just 5 years. Sadly, the formation of a Dao Heart was not something that could be induced with pills or meditation. Only constant and diligent training would do that, but the exact time of emergence was not certain. It could be tomorrow or the next century.

  Old Man Xialong would have secluded himself in pill refining if I didn't force him to train as well.

  "Old man, since you joined my Tower, you also have to obey the rules. Daily training, and no procrastination. You have been lazy your entire life until now, and got punished by the Heavens for it. Not to mention, your granddaughter is already 2 level of cultivation above you, and can kill 7 ghosts in the Sword array." I said with a sad tone, and definitely mentioning Feng and her progress as a cultivator.

  "Bleh. Sword fighting is for young and bold people. I can kill 2 ghosts, isn't that enough? Outside, I would be seen as a legend, not the last place and the bad example for new people to warn off." the old man complained in a morose voice.

  He was partly right, since a Saint Realm pill refiner that could also protect himself would be well seen, at the level of a small sect's master or such. However...

  "It seems you want to die, old man."I pointed out with a careless shrug. It wasn't even a threat, just a simple observation.

  The old man frowned and glared at me for a minute. "I want to live a peaceful life, how is that wanting to die?" he asked, a bit cautious.

  "You can live a peaceful life as a Divine Realm Elder. Otherwise, you will die of old age, while the rest of us keep ascending. Give it all you have, struggle for 100 years, and then you can rest, after you ascend again. But not before." I demanded grumpily, and flicked his forehead like he was an unruly child.

  The old man rubbed his forehead and stared after me, until I entered the Soul array for my own training.

  The newest model of soul-powered armor was ready now, as was the burst-firing Soul Caliber boltgun. Since I could only use soul energy to craft my weapons, I didn't have a practical way to construct an automatic fire boltgun. Instead, I linked the trigger to fire the Stormbolter twice at every pull of the trigger, which was usually enough to kill a Divine Demon if I hit a critical area like head or heart.

  But wait, you ask. Isn't everything powered by the soul, even a standard plate armor? Yes, but this was different. Tiny scales beneath the solid soul plate were imbued with small barrier arrays, creating a soul shield made of hundreds of tiny barriers, which could withstand a Demon weapon once.

  I called my scale barriers the Aegis Ward, for old times sakes. It took over 100 iterations until the Aegis Ward reached its final form, via a mixture of theoretical engineering and combat testing, often ending in my own soul getting blown to bits by erroneous armor design.

  The first Demon waves had become rather easy to pass now, leaving only wave 64 as a final battle. Each Demon beyond the 50th was a difficulty upgrade, since it strained not only my soul but also my Dao Heart. Turns out, wanting to shoot a dozen Demons that run and jump and do their best to chop you into soul noodles wasn't easy. Who knew?

  Still, I persevered, jumping and dodging myself while taking shots whenever I could line up a target. Tired and mostly drained of energy, I reached the 60th Demon kill, mostly by the grace of my Aegis Ward which took the hits I couldn't evade.

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  With only 4 Demons spread out around me, things were both easier and harder. I could choose to shoot at the demon in front, but that left me exposed to the ones behind and to the sides. I could shoot akimbo, and try to kill the Demons at the sides first. Or I could jump, and shoot downwards...

  Bad choices, all over them. I have been killed in the array thousands of times. Instead, I dropped on my back, and shot the Demon behind me, who was not expecting to be targeted. Then rolled backwards and jumped, dodging three weapons that struck the ground.

  I began firing before even getting my arms straight, forcing the side Demons to evade as well, and leaving the front Demon holding the idiot ball in front of two Stormbolters.

  I shot him using my left gun, while rolling to the side and shooting the Demon on the side, who was still raising a polearm to strike. The last Demon still got me, piercing the Aegis Ward through a broken scale, but as I was falling I managed to pull the trigger on the left gun, striking him in the chest with one of my soul bolts.

  I found myself on the floor, leaking soul guts from the fatal wound when wave reset, and 128 Demons appeared all over.

  I fired by reflex, letting the Stormbolters fall to my sides as I died. Then I got thrown out, and saw Grandpa's ghostly face looking worried as green runes covered me. Then nothing.

  "That was close, Young Master. Almost got me worried today. To think you could kill 127 Divine Realm Demons as a little Saint..." he spoke in a serious voice.

  "How are my injuries?" I asked, since I couldn't feel much inside this green array.

  "Your body is quite alright. Your soul...not so much. You over-drained yourself." Grandpa said in a stern tone.

  I tried to laugh, but couldn't. Something was very wrong with things below my neck.

  "Isn't my soul in my head? I got hit in my stomach..." I muttered while closing my eyes to do an internal diagnosis.

  The first scan left me confused. There wasn't anything at all, below my neck. Then I realized this was the array, blocking my senses.

  "Considering your state, I will restrict the Soul Array to wave 64. There's no point exposing any of you to 128 Demons for now. Anyway, things are quite bad, as I said. So you will die. In the next 10 minutes." Grandpa continued in a level voice.

  Uh? My amazing harem...and the prospect of immortal life. Gone because I trained too hard? It seems old man Xialong was right after all. A peaceful life was better.

  "...Can't you do anything? You have skills..." I grumbled in slight annoyance.

  "On the other hand, you managed to kill another Demon while you were being torn apart, so your death will be only temporary." Grandpa spoke in a lighter voice, then took out a wooden box and opened my eye to drop a crystal tear on it.

  'Eternal life, eternal suffering. Now you have an eternity to regret your choice.' a voice filled my head as pain kept increasing, likely because my soul was being torn to shreds by a sharp rainbow with a million hooks.

  I have died before, I realized, standing on the Other Shore of a dark river, where rotten bodies and screaming souls passed by.

  At least the pain had stopped. I tried to look behind me, but I couldn't move.

  'The way back is forever blocked for you, Pef Heavengaze. Swim your way across the river if you want to live again, or stay here for eternity.' the same voice rang in my head, this time louder, like a thousand giant bells.

  I measured the dark river with a suspicious gaze. I had to swim through that? For how long? It looked disgusting. There were rotten corpses too...It seemed to go on forever, this river, but I also knew it wasn't infinite in width. People have crossed it before.

  It took a minute to center myself, then I grit my teeth and jumped into the river. I had people to go back to, and a harem of beautiful women crying on my deathbed. Yes, the river was filthy, but I could take a bath and get clean on the other side.

  I kept swimming, despite random waves sending bits of filthy black water into my mouth. Unhappy souls screamed in my ears, and corpses tried to cling to me for nefarious reasons, but I pushed on.

  Eventually, a tiny rainbow guided me to a stairwell on the other side and I climbed out. And then opened my eyes, and puked my guts out. Somehow, nothing came out, although I knew for sure I had to have a few liters of death water in my stomach.

  "How was it? On the Other Shore?" Grandpa asked as the green array around me vanished.

  "They didn't let me look around. Only towards that filthy river filled with souls and corpses. Which I had to swim through, to get back. Bleh. I never want to do that again..." I muttered while wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  Grandpa just stared at me with his empty dead eyes. "Practically everyone in the world would sell their souls for the chance to swim back to life. And plenty of them did, sadly." he said in a sad voice.

  "I mean, it was pretty bad. But I might have to do it again, if I die. And my soul feels fine. Maybe a bit stronger..." I mused in a low voice, while testing my Godhead and shaping a few basic weapons.

  "Your soul is not stronger, Young Master. But it is purer. It some instances, that will also mean stronger, I guess." Grandpa said with a calm voice.

  "Pure souls counter Demons, right?" I asked to make sure.

  Grandpa just shook his head and vanished, leaving me alone at the side of the Soul Array.

  Now that the array was locked to wave 64, it shouldn't pose much challenge anymore. Perfecting my skills and weapons a little, until it became as easy as the Sword array. On the other hand, it did kill me, so it deserved a measure of respect.

  Ming and Amelia flew down beside me, and stopped to examine me for a moment. "What did you do, Pef?" Amelia asked with a suspicious tone.

  "I beat the array. 127 kills." I spoke with a small white lie.

  Ming frowned, and placed a hand on my face. "You did, and your soul changed?" she asked curious.

  I just nodded. "I will need a week to prepare a Soul technique with my armor and weapons, the Aegis Caliber Sutra." I said instead, and Ming smiled.

  "Well, if the Tower Master could beat the Soul array with those weapons, they should be good for us as well. I am still stuck at the 14th kill." she said with a thankful voice.

  "I reached the 15th kill, but it's already very hard. It's unfair you can kill 127 Demons with your Saint level soul." Amelia complained, despite having a Divine Soul now.

  "Eventually, everyone in the Tower will beat this array too. Even if it takes 1000 years, that's only 1 year outside. We can spend a single year on training, right?" I asked a bit rhetorical.

  Amelia slumped to her knees, showing despair on her pretty face. "Just kill me now. I can't do it anymore." she grumbled in a pitiful voice.

  Having seen what's on the other side, I knew she wasn't serious. Then again, I have seen death because I've trained too hard.

  "Don't push yourselves too hard, though. Take time to heal between fights. I can't heal death." I answered in a lighter voice, then flew up to my room to rest. So I closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.

  Tears began streaming from my eyes, as my Perfect Memory recalled the corpse-filled river vividly.

  Inwardly, I sighed. What an ironic way to find the meaning of crying a river.