Rivers of the Night

From what Theron could tell from the description left behind, the Centennial Blooming Lotus was extremely mysterious.

When it was first plucked, one had to use a strand of their soul to bind it. Then, one would keep it by their side as they cultivated. Every time one broke into a new realm, the Centennial Blooming Lotus would produce a ripe fruit. Upon eating this fruit, the benefit of additional lifespan forming from a breakthrough would be vastly improved by 10x at a minimum.

In truth, this was just the bare minimum. It was called the Centennial Blooming Lotus for a reason. Depending on one's foundation and talent, it could improve one's cultivation up to 100x. The reason this cultivator said 10x was because if you were limited to entering the tertiary entrance, then this was the best you could hope for anyway.

The benefit of lifespan was hard to explain. It might seem meaningless for a genius like Theron who would blaze through the cultivation realms, but this wasn't exactly the case.

The younger one's body, the easier it was to break through. Or, more accurately, the younger one's relative age as a ratio to one's cultivation realm, the easier it was to break through.

On the continent, Theron was a great talent, true. He had made it to the pinnacle of Silver Mancy in not even a year of cultivation.

But, he had spent too long without caring about cultivation, and it was clear that the standards of this world were even higher.

From what Theron could tell about this world through this mysterious cultivator here, the Nightingale Sect was also on the weaker side of things. This man was clearly more than a step or two beyond the limits of the Nightingale Sect if the disciples of the Sect didn't even dare to enter this region in the first place.

After going through the Sect, Theron could see that most of the disciples were in their late teens or so, but all of them were, at worst, in Gold Mancy. And that was just the average for those disciples.

Then there was Sadie, who was the best amongst them, and she was at the pinnacle of Gold Mancy despite being two years younger than Theron.

If that was the standard of this Sect, then other, more powerful Sects had even better standards.

Theron wasn't even sure if he was human. Did he have a lifespan to worry about? Would his cultivation slow from being too old?

He had no idea. But what he did know was that it was a shame that someone had gotten here first.

Luckily, it seemed that no one had come through the secondary or main entrance. The spatial ring, the Core, and the two gems were in his hands now. Plus, it seemed he would gain the cultivation method from the secondary entrance.

He didn't know if it would be useful to him, but this would be his first time studying a method of this new world. It would undoubtedly be beneficial even if he couldn't use it.

'The Treading Cloud Realm…' Theron thought to himself. '… Is that the name of the Realm beyond Gold Mancy?'

Theron thought about the foggy layer around the man's Core. Were these things related?

Walking to the podium of the secondary entrance, Theron reached forward and picked up a small jade about four thumb widths wide.

[Entangling Blood Vein Pupils].

Theron's mind sank into the jade and his expression became serious. He stood there unmoving for over half a day before he finally showed any signs of movement at all.

With a flicker, Theron's gaze regained its focus, his eyes narrowing for a long while even after he had pulled his mind away.

This method… it reminded him a lot of [Blood Escape] and [Songful Blade], but far more complex and layered.

This technique sounded oppressive and violent, but it wasn't an attack method—not directly. It was an auxiliary method.

Essentially, it used a special technique to solidify one's Third Eye into, well… two true eyes. Then, one could gain the ability to sense and use Mana they directly laid their eyes on rather than having to use their Third Eye as a sixth sense.

This sounded useless. Why use an extra step to do something one's Third Eye could already do?

The secret was in the word "entangling." Not only could one sense Mana they laid their eyes on, but assuming affinity, one could also forcefully take control of this Mana with far more stringent control than one could mimic with Third Eye alone.

But this was only the weakest method of using these eyes. The true method was hidden in the Blade Law and the tides that covered this place.

One could tether one's attack to the nature around them, borrowing the momentum of far larger streams of Mana than one had to bolster power without having to directly take control of this Mana.

The bottom line?

With Third Eye, one had to have the specific capacity to control all the Mana one would use in a Spell or technique of any sort.

With the Entangling Blood Vein Pupils, one could entangle Mana one could already control with even more Mana one would be unable to use without Third Eye, essentially amplifying one's power beyond the limit of one's Third Eye.

This was quite shocking. Theron was still getting used to the sheer density of Mana around him and how much more powerful his Spells would be as a result, but before he could even manage that… this had happened.

However, as expected, this wasn't all Theron learned. In fact, the best part wasn't that he could skip a lot of the lower levels by using the Blood Vein Pupils this man left behind.

The best part, to Theron at least, was that he finally now knew about the classifications of Third Eye and the various levels within them. Rather than subconsciously counting the number of breakthroughs he had, he could actually label it properly.

In fact, that still wasn't all.

Because this jade also broke down the levels of Mana Control at the same time.

'Perfect.'

This was exactly what he was looking for.