New Moon City is one of the larger cities of the Blue Wind Empire, and it sits at the intersection of trade routes coming both from the mountainous tribes and the rural villages.

  Merchants, craftsmen and service industry members make up the majority of its population, while serving as a home for a handful of cultivator sects who make their presence felt.

  For the same reason, land towards the mountainous North was much cheaper than the fertile land down South. This allowed Elder Song to purchase a huge plot of land, reaching the base of the mountains even, for only 3 million spirit stones.

  And here at the base of the North Spine mountains I shifted outside to deploy the Sect Arrays and numerous stone buildings constructed by Grandpa and stored in my spatial ring, including a skyscraper-size stone Tower. In less than a day, the Outer Tower was built and functional already, despite lacking people. So I had to fix that.

  As a start, I went with Chen Feng to visit his older sect, the Shadow Chasing Sect, and simply absorbed them into the Outer Tower. I could use their information network, and their low level cultivators as well. I didn't expect much from their library or treasury, and indeed, they didn't have a single Saint recipe or technique and a single Saint-grade artifact held by their former Sect Master, now called Elder Tang of the Outer Tower.

  "Elder Tang, choose one box from this set." I offered while filling a table with Bagua boxes.

  The man hesitated for a minute, then sliced his hand to open a random box with his blood. Another Godhead bead. His luck was pretty good, even if the Godhead wasn't Golden.

  I tapped his shoulder to send him into my Tower dimension, for a day or two. No point wasting a Godhead on someone who might die in his Saint Tribulation. The man was stuck at level 10 of Xiantian, just like Elder Song had been.

  Miss Lin waited beside Elder Song, looking a bit afraid. Level 1 in Houtian Realm was indeed a pitiful cultivation realm, even worse than I was at 6 years old when I arrived on this planet.

  "You don't need to injure your hand like that fool, Miss Lin. One drop of blood is enough." I said in a light voice.

  "Ah. That makes sense, Tower Saint." the young woman said and poked her forearm with a needle to extract a tiny drop of blood.

  As the box lid opened, I glanced inside. A vial of peachy liquid. 'Divine Peach Nectar. Drink this to obtain your Divine Sense. Worth 9 billion spirit stones."

  I just sighed inward. Some people did have all the luck. "Drink it, Miss Lin. It will help a bit in your first year of cultivation." I said in a mild voice. I didn't even have this Divine Sense, which was an attribute gained with Divinity.

  She drank it and instantly climbed into level 2 of Houtian. Then she looked around in wonder. "No wonder cultivators are so powerful. I can see everything around for miles. Hear every whisper, too." she revealed in an awed voice.

  I wasn't envious. No. I will get it too, soon enough.

  "What was it, Young Master?" Elder Song asked curious.

  "Peach Nectar. It can give someone the Divine Sense." I answered in a calm voice, then shifted back inside the Tower.

  The Inner Tower was almost a clone of the Outer Tower, with the new buildings raised in the past days. Only the Tower itself was much taller and larger, meant to hold thousands of people without making them crowded.

  Individual rooms of my Tower were the size and height of a basketball field, which were quite handy for training in closed cultivation. I also bet that Grandpa could make even larger things, since he mentioned star castles before. Those had to be Dyson Spheres weaponized for combat, maybe even projecting Nicol beams of focused sunlight.

  "So this is the real Tower? No wonder I couldn't find it, even with our best spies. It is not in the real world, right?" Elder Tang asked while looking around the main plaza.

  'Tang Ten Lin, Xiantian Realm, body level 2, soul level 3, essence level 10. Age 84.' Grandpa sent as I invited the man to sit down.

  "It's a pocket dimension, the size of a planet. What you see here is only the main building of the Tower." I explained politely, then took out two bottles of Xiantian pills. Only Perfect pills, one bottle for body and the other for the soul.

  "Take a pill every three days, and train inside those arrays with the fake enemies. Use these techniques." I demanded while giving him a metal plate inscribed with a few Xiantian sword techniques, and a few Soul combat techniques as well.

  "...But this will take years. My disciples..." he asked in a worried voice.

  "You can spend 500 days in here, and return tomorrow morning in the Outer Tower. You'll learn more with time." I spoke curtly, then flew away.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I also had more training to do, more pills to fail, and more wives to pamper and kiss all over.

  Beside the Soul Array, Linhua and Caihong were resting while their wounds healed, and were both showing signs of soul upgrades. Grandpa's methods and arrays might be brutal and painful, but they did work wonders.

  "How was it?" I asked on a whim.

  "I killed two. My soul has grown stronger from that rainbow." Caihong answered with a proud voice, while Linhua just shook her head. "Still only one for me. You need to rub my soul harder, husband." she answered with a coy voice.

  I was planning to do that anyway, but sure. "Just remember you asked for it, my lovely wife." I whispered in a loving voice, then jumped inside the Soul Array.

  As the Demon shouted at me, I kicked him in the jaw, while assembling my Aegis armor and my weapons, one a Vajra Cross-bow loaded with Lightning soul bolts, and the other a triple-barrel Caliber Stormbolter, firing soul-reactive mini-grenades.

  The Divine Demon opened his jaw to shout again, and I simply placed a Lightning bolt inside his open mouth. His head exploded, and two Demons appeared instead.

  Again, I fired a Lightning bolt into an open mouth, while shooting the other Demon with three Soul Caliber bolts and exploding him twice, since one bolt was parried by his hooked halberd.

  I nodded to myself for a great idea, inspired by those Jedi hunters using three barrels to deny the Jedi their parry ability.

  More testing had to be done, since demonic weapons could be three-pronged spears and other things like whips and discs, and a thousand weapons in between. Maybe Grandpa was exaggerating a bit with the weapon diversity, but on the other hand, in a trillion galaxies there could be a trillion different weapons too.

  It was better to train against stupid-looking weapons, than be surprised on the battlefield by a weapon you have never seen before.

  I crossed the waves with ease until the last one of 64 Demons, where things always got harder. One of these last Demons was faster and tougher than the rest, just like the Saint ghosts.

  However, this time my Aegis Ward was not too damaged, and my soul energy was over half-full, so I stood a decent chance at finishing the array without injury.

  A chain with hooks grabbed my soul cross-bow, so I had to abandon it and run away, taking a dozen hits on my Aegis scales, despite rolling for dodge. These Demons were not stupid, which was a bit of cheating from Grandpa. At least half of them should be stupid, right?

  As I fired and dodged, I began to consider this problem. Were Demons much smarter than humans, in general? Or was it because of the natural selection to reach the Divine Realm? The stupid ones might die before they reached this realm.

  If so, humans at Divine Realm should also be generally smarter than the majority. Plus, because humans took much longer to ascend, they should be wiser too. Unless they took pills to shorten the time.

  "Do Demons take pills too?" I asked while shooting down two more Demons, leaving only 6 in the array.

  "Is that what bothers you, Young Master?" A Demon answered in a demonic voice.

  "Ignoring different weapons, all these Demons seem to be exactly the same for smarts and skills. I thought they might take a certain pill to equalize their stats." I continued, while jumping and kicking two Demons at once, then shooting two more and falling into a back roll.

  The remaining three Demons froze, as Grandpa appeared inside the Soul array.

  "Training a genius is harder than it seems. To think you can analyze and discern their skills and intelligence, while fighting for your life. But no, in real life, Demons are as different as humans are, in smarts and skills. There are only two Demons copied in here, one was a veteran and the other a regular corporal. See these marks on the armor? Each one represents a conquered world." Grandpa showed me while pointing at some random scratches on the Demon armor.

  I looked at the other two Demons, and indeed, they lacked those marks. "Seems a bit random, if you don't know what to look for."

  "You can bet the Demons do know. And so do human veterans who survived a gate campaign. Someone like the Wind Emperor, for example. He is better than you." Grandpa said with a joking voice.

  I just shrugged. "If you're comparing me with an Origin Realm cultivator who trained and fought for millions of years, I should be joyful instead."

  "Well, I can't compare you with those moron Divines that joined recently. No offense." Grandpa argued with an irate tone.

  "None taken. I did behead one of those quite easily, at the auction. You've trained me well, Grandpa." I answered with a small bow.

  "Indeed. And it will get even easier once you become a Divine as well. The problem is the special Demons, those coming from War God clans, and forged in blood and battle. They can also fight above their realm." Grandpa warned me, while one of the Demons changed, growing long horns and spikes from his forearms.

  "Natural weapons aside, they should have a stronger soul too, right?" I asked to make sure.

  "Stronger souls, better techniques, better training. And durable bodies as well. This thing can kill the Blue Wind Emperor in a minute, even if he's still at Divine Realm." Grandpa said while holding out a crystal lotus.

  "So that's a Demon Prince. You copied him?" I asked curious.

  "The creature inside the lotus is at Divine Core Realm. It would murder this entire world easily." Grandpa answered and shook his head.

  "...And that's why the monk gave us the Nirvana Pill. Something to counter this Demon Prince. Right?" I asked and took out the purple pill from my ring.

  The old ghost barely glanced at the pill, and stored the lotus away. "You would only be food for that thing, Young Master, just like those weak Divines would be for you. And not only food, but food that respawns and gets eaten again and again, just like that Spirit Feast box of yours."

  I shivered for a minute at the prospect of becoming eternal food for a Demon. That would suck.

  Such a beautiful trap, you won't see it coming until it was too late.

  Not that it would work twice on me. I had my Concealment Skill to evade this, and a pocket dimension to hide inside.

  Eventually, I would become strong enough to kill this Demon Prince.

  "A great trap, I admit. It won't work anymore, but this was a bit scary for a minute." I said while relaxing my shoulders.

  "So you still intend to use that pill?" Grandpa asked with a soft voice.

  "After I Ascend to Divinity, yes. There are Divine skills I need to master before getting that much power. I bet newly born Dragons also make a mess wherever they go." I concluded in a wiser voice.

  The Nirvana Pill vanished from my hand, and Grandpa rolled it in his ghostly hand for a second.

  "A bit foolish, but you're only young once. Without mistakes, we never grow." he offered in a wry voice, then vanished, letting the veteran Demon skewer me as it unfroze.

  I glanced down, taking note of the damage. Fatal blow, through my Dantian. Two more halberds struck me in the sides, while I stared at the Demon veteran and memorized his armor.

  Then I died.