Devouring the Heavens (ATG)

A/N: Here have an extra-long bonus chapter 3.7k.

Honestly, I could have probably split this one up but I just couldn't find a good place to stop so it is what it is.

Enjoy the chapter.

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If Shane thought that everything was going to be fine in the morning, he would have been wrong. Despite being healed back to 100% health, he was still forbidden from taking even a single step out of the courtyard for another two days.

It turned out that Dusty and Coral were pretty pissed at him too, which was definitely giving him a headache. If Coral, that obsessive little chick, was mad at him, then he had clearly fucked up.

The thing is, he wasn't even that badly hurt and with his abilities, the injuries were healed in practically no time at all. So at first, he was only outwardly apologetic, while inside he was indignant and felt as if they were overreacting.

But after thinking it over, Shane realised that they were probably more concerned with his lack of care at being injured to that extent than the injury itself. Worrying that he would do something reckless in the future that would end up costing his life...

There was no way that Qingyue didn't realise how dangerous it would have been for her if he let the compressed domain free at that time yet she would have rather faced the backlash than let him do it. Wasn't that a little hypocritical?

Obviously, Shane would never let her get hurt in any way, especially if he could be injured in her stead and so he pushed on without feeling anything. It was more than that however, at that time, he felt that the injury was a more than acceptable payment for the outcome.

Perhaps, having experienced that suffering and death once, he had become a little indifferent to his own life, a sobering thought...

It wasn't indifference per se, he actually was very much attached to his new life, after all, it was more like an acceptance of the danger involved with the so-called risk and reward actions and lack of care for the consequences.

Shane found that as long as he could achieve his goals and didn't actually die, he would deem almost any injury or ailment as fair payment, knowing that he could just heal it away the next minute.

although, perhaps that was the problem.

He didn't enjoy pain or getting hurt, he wasn't a masochist, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he couldn't quite find it within himself to care that it had happened. He cared much more about the effect his injury had on Qingyue than he did himself.

That was another rather sobering line of thought and this one actually scared him a little...

Perhaps, it was some sort of side effect of the profound beast's bloodline or the soul shenanigans.

The saving grace of all of this was that the indifference only extended to himself, as the mere thought of Qingyue getting a slight scratch, made his blood boil like molten magma.

Well, he would talk to his wife about it and she could reel him in if he went too far in the future, they were a team after all.

So, after thinking things through and putting himself in their shoes, Shane felt that the easiest solution would be to just stay back, relax and spend time with the three of them for a couple of days while doing a few experiments.

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On the first day, other than carrying his little wife around like a Koala for most of the day, Shane started casually working on the creation of a more stable version of the profound gathering formation that he used during the forging.

By the second afternoon, he managed to work it out by linking seven smaller formations together into an array, each of them being about 1m in diameter.

One of them was positioned in the centre of the array and the others around it in the shape of a 6 pointed star. The whole formation would remain stable with a total diameter of around 15m which was just fine for fitting in his courtyard.

On the second evening, Shane decided to test it with Coral and a small piece of Purple Veined Divine Crystal. Qingyue decided not to partake as she was still getting used to her strength at Spirit Profound and after their nightly activities, she was already halfway to the peak of the [1st of Spirit Profound].

Dusty, being the goodest girl that she was, was happy to let her younger sister have this one to herself, however, she still stayed back in the shallows of her pool to watch.

With Coral laid out in his lap like she was taking a vacation, Shane sat cross-legged on the floor of the courtyard and rapidly drew formation letters in the air.

The letters connected together and formed 7 identical formations that, once completed, span freely in the air, while slowly floating around him.

He held his palm out flat and lowered it towards the floor, causing the separate formations to stop spinning and spread out from him before sinking into the ground.

A pulse of profound energy was sent into the ground, causing the formations to glow and blinding white channels of light to form between them, connecting them together.

The whole thing became a singular entity and pulsed once more before the surrounding hundreds of meters of profound energy rushed towards the centre eye where Shane and Coral sat.

He was lucky that the Xiao clan was truly massive and the formation wasn't that powerful, or else everyone would be alerted before he could complete his task.

Taking out a tiny piece of the crystals, he pinched it between his fingers and it turned to dust, releasing an overwhelming aura of pure power into his immediate surroundings.

The formation glowed strongly from the overload, but in the end, it managed to hold long enough for the small tornado above Shane's head to absorb all of the crystal's Profound Energy into himself.

The cyclic energy sharing kicked in, and Coral's Cultivation realm began to rise at an alarming rate. She went all the way through from the peak of the [1st of True Profound] to the peak of True Profound in under half an hour, surprising even himself.

When Shane thought she would use the excess energy to charge straight into the Spirit Profound Realm, She suddenly broke the connection and sent it all back towards him. *Phi Phi!* She called little Dusty over before taking off into the sky and quickly exiting the range of the now crumbling formation.

The cute little snake didn't protest and appeared on his lap in a flash, replacing Coral as the link formed again. It wasn't long before she broke through into the [6th of Spirit Profound] and then quickly began approaching the peak.

Shane's cultivation, however, had only barely reached the [5th of Spirit Profound] and his eyebrows knitted together in annoyance. By his estimates, the remaining 5kg of Purple Veined Divine Crystals would at most be enough to raise him to the realm of Thrones.

Frankly, that was a waste of a valuable resource that he could use to boost both Qingyue, his maid and his beast's cultivation. There were always plenty of beasts to devour, bloodlines to collect and formations to improve for when he wanted to advance quickly.

Shane licked his lips in anticipation. 'Especially all those tens of thousands of beasts in the Dragon God trials.' Though he would need to wait until at least Sky Profound Realm if he wanted to make the most out of that one.

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When his quarantine was finally over, amid a flurry of protests, Shane firmly decided to use the forge one last time before fully focusing on improving his cultivation and combat ability.

Right now, what he needed to do was improve his and Qingyue's combat capabilities as far as possible before making a push towards Earth Profound and completing the quest.

The canon timeline was fast approaching and the blood of the Heretic God would boost his strength tremendously. Enough that Shane would easily be able to contend with Chu Yueli who should be at the [7th of Sky Profound] while only being at around the middle of Earth Profound.

Once he then had that power to punch far above his weight, firmly within his grasp, it would become rather easy to increase his own cultivation further and in a ridiculously short time at that.

He wanted to make sure that Qingyue would still be able to follow him at that time...

In his opinion, there was absolutely no point in being all-powerful if you had nothing to acquire that power for or nobody to share it with...

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Shane, now familiar with the Elemental Forging technique, dived into it and reformed the pair of True Profound Swords for the two Xiao kiddos and also the set of True Profound Daggers for Dongling, within a single afternoon.

The swords would serve as a fitting congratulations gift for his little pseudo students for when they reached nascent Profound and still be useful to them for a long while.

He didn't do anything crazy with them or imbue any concepts, he just forged them as a pair of sister swords that could be fed with profound energy to create wind slashes or use the wind to make the blade sharper.

Simple things...

He also only used some of the Purple Veined Heaven Crystals found in the mountain range as a catalyst instead of the Purple Veined Divine Crystals, so the effects weren't that strong.

Maybe it was due to being forged together as a pair, or whether it was the effect of Shane's ever-increasing Will but these swords did have a peculiar ability.

Both of the blades shared some sort of resonance with one another, causing the wielders to be aided by the wind, their movements becoming faster and faster, the longer they fought together.

The daggers forged for Dongling ended up being a weapon that was infinitesimally close to Spirit Profound in strength and really he couldn't wait to see the maid's reaction when he gave them to her.

These weapons were not only incredibly sharp, they also had a concept imbued. Chameleon.

It allowed the daggers to camouflage as a pair of simple looking silver and gold rings that would remain hidden from even the invasive Profound Senses of a Throne. Although that hadn't been tested for obvious reasons, he didn't doubt Appraisal.

It was Shane's hope that he could train this little maid up to be their unsuspected trump card that would attack from the shadows...

Or perhaps there was just something about having a combat maid that tickled his fancy.

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With how busy everyone was, the rest of the following two weeks passed quickly. Shane and Qingyue spent a lot of time getting used to their new weapons and could be found sparring with each other in the back mountains for a large portion of each day.

Shane pushed himself incredibly hard, often training late into the evenings to handle the huge and extremely heavy hammer. Fortunately, after just a few days, he could swing it about as if it were a sword or a simple stick and by the end of the two weeks, he could carry it around in its mini form at his waist without sinking into the ground or missing a step at all.

The teahouse in the centre of Floating Cloud City was also almost completed and scheduled to open in a week's time. The building itself was two storeys like Shane had planned but the size was definitely more than he expected.

It was a large pavilion type building with pagoda-style eaves roofing, at least fifty meters in width, and thirty in height, making it look very grand and imposing.

He decided to call it Spirit Cloud Pavilion and Xiao Lie, who had visited it along with the four of them, was happy to write a little bit of Calligraphy for the sign. That actually shocked Shane quite a bit, as he had thought this world was the basic bitch of all cultivation worlds.

That little trip went mostly without incident as both Qingyue and Lingxi were wearing veils. Funny thing to note about that is that a side effect of consuming Shane's vitality pills is apparently making a startlingly positive difference to a young lady's skin and complexion.

The young men of the Xiao clan were practically drowning each other in their saliva while falling over each other to try and talk to little Lingxi, when she visited the clan's technique tower one afternoon.

At one point during the outing, a few idiots sent some killing intent towards Shane for either his handsome looks or the fact that an absolutely gorgeous woman was hanging off his arm, could have either.

He furrowed his brows, trying to decide whether to pressure them with his cultivation or killing intent when many extreme things happened in the split second of time it took him to make a decision.

An absolutely massive unbridled aura of killing intent exploded out from the beauty next to him, slamming directly into every person in the street. That was followed near-instantaneously by a meter long ice blue blade appearing in her hand and the activation of her movement technique.

It all happened so fast that Shane was only just able to keep hold of his wife's little hand but could do nothing to prevent what happened next.

With a flash accompanied by a throaty bellow, a huge, mesmerising, emerald-coloured, Draconic headed snake of almost 30m in length announced her presence to the world.

She, Dusty, the quiet one, actually roared at the group of young men and surrounded them with her body, her foot long, usually flat spines were all angrily erected, their incredibly sharp tips glinting in the sunlight.

*Screeech!* As if that wasn't enough fanfare, With a melodious cry that would put a bald eagle to shame, Coral used this chance to reveal herself as well. Although she remained on his shoulder, at the size of a large peacock, her flames were anything but small and she shrouded the sky with a large conical inferno.

Shane, still instinctively gripping Qingyue's hand and poised to pressure the group of youths, though just a single step too late, had his jaw wide open before facepalming. Hard.

Although he felt warm in his heart, Wasn't this overreacting a little much to a bunch of nobodies? He was still a man for crying out loud, not some gigolo who needed their protection, especially not from these ants!

There was absolutely a small part of him that got incredibly turned on from his wife's yandere-Esque actions but that would remain hidden for a while longer.

Qingyue's cultivation pressure aided by her anger, killing intent and the sheer aura of her sword caused an absolutely tremendous effect on that group of imbeciles, leaving their whole bodies shaking like leaves in a gale-force wind.

When Dusty surrounded them, mouth open and bathed in shadows due to the gout of orange flames released overhead, they pissed and shat themselves in fear before their eyes rolled back in their heads, fainting dead away.

Thankfully, the youths passed out and were unable to open their mouths, as Floating Cloud's mayor along with a few of the other clans would have almost definitely lost their son's that day.

If the girls hadn't also been disgusted by the smell, Shane and Xiao Lie would never have been able to calm them down as easily as they did and prevent the incident from blowing out of proportion.

Not that he was afraid, With his weapon in hand, he had no need to be wary of anyone in Floating Cloud any longer. There just wasn't any point in leaving behind trouble for Qingyue's father and Xiao Lie for a bunch of insects

Training with weapons and bullying Young master's were not the only things Shane did during these two weeks. His successes with formations were only minor during this time but he did manage to stabilise the Profound Gathering formation slightly.

The singular formations, now 1.5m in diameter, could operate smoothly for around an hour without any interference and each draw in Profound Energy from the surrounding 50m.

Shane didn't know if the larger array he used to advance Coral would be more efficient as there wasn't any need to test it and risk alarming anyone by draining hundred of meters around himself dry of the ambient profound energy.

He had also been working with the other two formations from the Pearl in tandem and had an interesting idea to implement it into the teahouse. The only problem was, he was missing a couple of different insights into new formation letters and completing them through trial and error would take an enormous amount of time.

It would be a better idea to visit the Black Moon Merchant Guild in New Moon City if they had time during their training trip and attempt to buy a book on formations and arrays. If that wasn't possible, an artefact that contained a formation might be a good alternative

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Qingyue, being as much of a little monster as always, along with their nightly Dual Cultivation sessions, had already reached close to the peak of the [2nd of Spirit Profound] these two weeks.

Shane himself wasn't even halfway through the [5th of Spirit Profound] causing him to sigh endlessly and yearn for some worthwhile beasts to hunt.

The energy needed for him to advance now was just too massive to waste time cultivating, so instead, he chose to work on other areas while waiting for an opportunity.

Sparring daily against Qingyue was improving both of their skills at a frightening pace and along with perfecting his elemental control, he was still satisfied with his progress.

The reason Shane hadn't gotten too antsy and impatient, at least in his opinion, was that he had been preparing to take Xiao Che, little Lingxi and Qingyue on a trip to Cyan Forest Town for a while now.

He wanted to use the last week before the teahouse opened to take them to see the world outside of Floating Cloud and hunt some beasts in the preliminary areas of the Scarlet Dragon Mountain Range. He was only waiting for them to break through into the [1st of Nascent Profound.]

Now that he had spent so much effort on fostering their loyalty, it would be a shame to leave the two Xiao kiddos without any actual combat experience.

Obviously, he would still take Qingyue alone to hunt, even if the pair of them weren't ready.

This was an opportunity to hunt some of the stronger beasts around that area to improve his and his wife's own cultivation as much as possible.

After all, Shane was sure that those exceptionally strong auras he felt when passing through the small mountain range belonged to late Spirit Profound or even Earth profound beasts.

He was just waiting for the right time to take them all and whether by luck or hard work, it finally came!

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Both Xiao Che and Lingxi had reached the Peak of Elementary Profound by the end of the first week and for the remaining week, they were sword sparring against Shane whenever possible to stimulate their bodies.

He had limited his strength to the [6th of Elementary Profound], relying mostly on skill alone, but it was still enough to absolutely destroy them, emptying their profound energy over and over.

Right at the end of the second week, on literally the last possible day and when Shane was starting to lose hope, for taking them with him, it happened...

Little Lingxi had been cultivating for much longer than Xiao Che and the more Shane pushed her limits, the closer to breaking through she came.

She wasn't hugely talented in the way of cultivation and so Shane had to push her more, repeatedly draining her energy, so that the boundary between realms started to waver.

Seeing Lingxi on the verge of a breakthrough, Shane hooked his training sword under the approaching Xiao Che's legs and flipped him onto his back.

A Nascent Profound 'pill' was then flicked into the kid's open mouth but repeated sparring sessions had told him that staying down was akin to asking for death, so he started to roll away.

"Enough! Sit down and cultivate. You are both ready to break through into the Nascent Realm." Shane waved his hand and Xiao Che flew through the air and landed in front of Lingxi.

She smiled at him, pumped her fists, and grasped his hands before cutely yelling. "Let's do our best little Cheeeeee-ahhh!"

"Soo cute!" Qingyue appeared at a speed neither of them could follow and pinched Lingxi's cheeks while Shane flicked a 'pill' into her open mouth as well, a perfect example of husband and wife teamwork.

With Shane quickly drawing formation letters in the air, a Profound Gathering formation took shape in seconds, before it sank into the ground below the two of them and another pulse of his Profound energy activated it.

He would probably never be able to get over how cool writing formations in the air looked. They were formed from sparkling white lines of arcing profound energy, looking similar to the magic circles used in the movie Doctor Strange yet just… more… profound.

All of the profound energy within 50 meters was drawn towards them as Shane and Qingyue looked on with warm smiles. The two Xiao's sitting cross-legged together and holding hands broke through to the [1st of Nascent Profound] at almost exactly the same time and without any troubles.

Opening their eyes, and standing up, the two stared into each other's shining globes for a second before Lingxi closed hers again, leaned forward and pecked Xiao Che on the lips.

It was only a momentary contact but it left him totally rooted to the spot, in a daze and with a silly smile all over his face. He still didn't let go of her hands, however.

"Bowchickawowow! You get him, Tiger!" *whistle* A few catcalls from Shane and a surprisingly loud wolf whistle from Qingyue broke the pink atmosphere and Lingxi went completely red before running over to hide behind Dusty.

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A/N: Soon, the hunting trip will commence and then Shane and Qingyue's cultivation will rise sharply, he will also be able to get those juicy quest rewards.

After that, there will be the wedding and a few more things to deal with in floating cloud and then I can hopefully get up to the start of canon and that fateful meeting with the Crimson haired murder Loli.

There are probably still around 10-15 chapters before that happens and they meet face to face (the whole Chu Yueli fiasco will take a couple of chapters too) but 'This Princess' will be appearing again soon.

Have a great weekend!