Dyon hardly reacted to the news. His eyes remained cold and indifferent. He had not a shred of sympathy for Lionel, nor could anyone ever make him feel that way. The only part of the story that was odd was Evelyn’s choice, they didn’t seem like a couple that came together for the sake of love. And even if there was some like between them, it was definitely not to the point where Evelyn would leave behind her sister. Something was definitely odd about that. But, he didn’t know enough to make any conjectures.

Deciding not to dwell on it, Dyon changed the topic.

“Have you two explained to Clara the deal behind the Epistemic Tower?”

“Mostly.” Ri and Madeleine answered at once.

“Although,” Ri continued, “Because we knew you’d be angry about her participating in martial world matters, we held back more than we should.”

Dyon blinked away the pain, accepting the flick to his forehead. Judging by the fact he didn’t have to fake it this time, it seemed his Ri really had gotten a lot stronger.

Acknowledging his wrongs, Dyon decided to explain most of it right now.

After a few minutes, Clara grasped the key concepts.

“So, how far up the tower can we go without conquering any other universes? It is a domination quest, no?”

Dyon nodded, “Yes. Other quadrants have a leg up because their key wielders are usually already part of Emperor God Clans, which is the minimum requirement for reaching the top floor, but we’ll have to work from the bottom up.

“As for how far up we can go, I think we can reach the peak saint level floors without conquering anything.

“To go to peak celestial floors we need to become a King God Clan.

“To go to peak dao formation floors and beyond, we need to become and Emperor God Clan.

“So, in reality, we have some time before we reached locked floors. In the mean time, the most suitable of my grand teacher’s powers for you to learn is the Innate Aurora.”

Clara looked at Dyon in confusion, “Don’t I already have that?”

“Yes, which will make it easier, but, there are a few steps past where you’re at now. The perfect innate aurora has an innate soul strength of the peak of the 4th stage, not the 2nd.”

Clara pouted, immediately realizing that when she gloated about having a peak 2nd stage innate soul, that Dyon was probably chuckling inside.

Dyon smiled, lovingly hugging Clara who had somehow made it back to his lap. “Usually it would take ten years, at the fastest, to master one of his 5 main powers. But, considering you have such a leg up, it might only take one or two years. And, there’s a great reward at the end of it as well. You’ll be able to replace your meridians so that you can energy cultivate.”

“Oh, so that’s how you fixed yours. But, why can we not use the energy kernel instead.”

A look of longing mixed with a complex expression surfaced on Dyon’s features.

“Probably because of heavenly tribulations.” Madeleine guessed.

“Really? What do you mean?” Clara looked eager to fill in her still lacking martial world knowledge.

“After the saint realm, and with each subsequent realm after that, excluding the half step to transcendent realm, there’s a tribulation. However, that tribulation is based on your energy cultivation talent. If you took in the talent of billions, you’d be asking to die.”

Although Clara understood, she still seemed confused by that answer. “Why isn’t there punishment for soul or body cultivation talent?”

“I’m not sure anyone knows the answer to that question.” Ri said.

“I might have a guess,” Dyon interjected with a pensive expression, “It may be for the very same reason some are gifted with special body constitutions.

“The universe seems to be pushing us toward following all three disciplines with equal balance.”

“If it’s for equal balance, then why isn’t there equal punishment?” Clara asked.

“My best guess is that it’s an incentive. Those with overwhelming energy talent would likely die early deaths despite being geniuses. However, if they took their time and slowed their cultivation to appreciate aspects of the martial way that they weren’t just as good at, then they’d have a better chance at survival.

“Imagine, for instance, if a person broke into the saint realm, but had a celestial level body. How easy would surviving that tribulation be? That person might not even need to move an inch.”

“Then that means body cultivating gives you a huge advantage, no? Considering soul talent is so difficult to translate into real strength? Then why don’t more people body cultivate?”

“Although body cultivating is easier than soul cultivating, it’s still a very difficult practice and it’s very painful as well. Not many are willing to do it.

“Remember, body cultivating is literally altering your own blood line. It feels like drilling millions of holes into your bones and into the depths of your marrow in order to effect change.” Dyon explained.

The source of blood cells in the body came from the bones. That meant that if you wanted to change your bloodline permanently, it was about more than just absorbing the blood, you had to fundamentally change your bone marrow as well, or else that blood you absorbed would eventually be overrun by your regular blood, thereby diluting it.

“Also,” Madeleine giggled, “Not everyone is lucky enough to have the whole blood essence of one of the greatest body cultivators to ever live just handed to them.”

Dyon smiled at her teasing, but obviously didn’t mind it too much.

He spent the rest of the following weeks secluded from everything but his wives and little siblings. He even spent a bunch of time with Eli to appease the nagging Ava, Delia and Elvin girls who felt wronged that he had stolen three of their best friends from them.

Soon, Dyon’s reappearance into the world of campaigning was upon them.