Breakthrough!

Grabbing the spatial ring, Minos inspected it quickly before nodding in satisfaction, though he didn't sit down straight away.

Instead, he walked towards the door and gave it a few rhythmic knocks, causing a strange mechanism to activate from beyond the door.

With a near silent whirl, the wall opened a slight gap which Minos barely squeezed through before arriving at another set of stairs.

As a cautious person, it was natural that he didn't just have one secret chamber, or even two, but rather dozens.

Some of these chambers were known to his closest associates, but the majority of them were still a secret only known to himself.

This second hidden chamber was among them, meaning that everything beyond this point was unknown to anyone but him.

This wasn't to say he didn't trust his own loyal servants, but one could never be too certain, especially when it came to their own lives.

After making it through a few more of these hidden maze-like chambers, Minos finally arrived at the lowest room.

By this point, he was thousands of meters below the earth, so deep that any noise made here would dissipate long before it ever reached the surface.

Satisfied, he sat cross-legged on the futon before opening the spatial ring, revealing a vast wealth of resources amounting to millions of Nux Stones.

Pulling the first pill out, Minos swallowed it before slowly absorbing the Nux, allowing the water-like Nux inside his Inner Heaven to slowly condense.

After five years of cultivation, the water-like Nux had long since reached saturation, only requiring the final push in order to finally break through and reach the next cloud, the Earth Cloud.

With these resources, such a push should be no problem, so with full confidence, Minos began rapidly consuming resources like a whale swallowing water.

As the Nux inside his Inner Heaven reached a critical point, Minos paused his consumption for a moment as he concentrated fully on his Inner Heaven.

Gathering his water-like Nux, Minos began running the Pure Nux Ascension technique at full force, slowly compressing all the Nux within his Inner Heaven.

Such a process may seem simple, but externally, Minos was already sweating copiously, the blood vessels on his forehead bulging as he used all his strength to push the Nux together.

Doing this was akin to grabbing a handful of carbon and using the strength of your hands alone to squeeze it into a diamond.

The strength, willpower, and patience required to do such a task were all tremendous, which was exactly why every breakthrough was a new threshold that held more people back then it let in.

Fortunately, Minos lacked none of these things, so despite the pressure he was feeling, he grit his teeth and kept pushing with all his strength.

Completely consumed by the struggle, Minos's mind went blank for a moment, his entire mind consumed by the sole task of breaking through.

Akin to going to sleep, time seemed to pass by in a flash, Minos only being awakened from his reverie as an explosion-like sound went off within his body, shaking him out of his concentration.

As if a dam had finally collapsed, all the pressure turned into ease, Minos looking internally as he watched his Nux naturally collapse into a single point of incredible density.

Unlike his water-like Nux from before, this Nux was completely solid, which not only made it much stronger then its previous counterpart, but also afforded it a whole new set of abilities.

Lifting his finger up, Minos gathered the Nux, but this time instead of forming a misty-cloud, it gathered together into a solid piece, like a floating stone.

Gathering more and more Nux, Minos expanded this small stone into a large sword that levitated with ease above his finger.

Despite the sword having a solid form, it still felt as light as air, the miraculous nature of Nux being slowly revealed as Minos's cultivation progressed further.

Amazed by the amazing nature of this sword, Minos couldn't help but reach out and give the sword a feel.

But just like a real sword, it was completely solid, in fact much more solid than any regular sword a mortal could ever make.

Just from a quick feel, Minos could tell it's quality was at least comparable to a Four-Moon Weapon, and this was just one he had made haphazardly, imagine if he refined such a technique further?

Of course while the quality seemed amazing, one shouldn't forget that Four-Moon Weapons weren't just a measure of quality, but also came with a whole host of interesting abilities that made them more practical.

Still, to be able to easily conjure a weapon most cultivators would fight to the death for made Minos feel a bit odd, as if he was getting further and further away from the average cultivator, reaching a whole new realm entirely.

Pulling his hand back from the sword, Minos took control of it with his mind, sending it off towards the wall at a bullet-like speed.

Like a hot-knife through butter, the sword easily stabbed deep into the wall, tunneling through it haphazardly before Minos called it back into his hand.

With another thought, the sword collapsed back into small fragments which were easily re-absorbed into Minos's hand, allowing him to regather all the Nux that had been lost on the move.

Compared to water and air-like Nux, solid Nux had the extra bonus of being much easier to reabsorb after use, which made Earth Cloud Cultivators much more generous with their Nux usage.

Still not done with his tests, Minos once again gathered more Nux, but this time he formed it into a large disc, which he proceeded to step on with a bit of caution, not sure it could hold his weight.

However, even after putting his full weight on it, the disc kept levitating, not moving even an inch.

Unable to hold back his excitement, Minos controlled the disc to slowly levitate upwards, only stopping when his head reached the ceiling.

Smiling uncontrollably, Minos began flying around the room on his floating disc, shooting from place to place unable to get enough of the novelty.

While he had traversed the sky before, it was only gliding, but this was true bonafide flight, flight that allowed him to stay airborne as long as he pleased.

Laughing loudly, Minos enjoyed the thrill for a second longer before gently landing back on the floor, not able to fully enjoy the experience in this small enclosed room.

Sitting back on his futon, Minos cultivated for a bit longer before getting up, his Inner Heaven having reached its limit.

Hiding the spatial ring in the room, Minos walked back up the long tunnels, finally arriving back at the library after nearly a half hour of walking.

Flipping the switch, the bookshelf opened up, letting the morning light into Minos's eyes, which shocked him slightly.

While he knew he'd spent long on cultivation, he didn't expect that an entire night had flown past in the blink of an eye.

He'd already told Tinka last night that he'd only take a moment, but who knew that he was way off, making him feel bad that he had lied to his wife.

Slapping his forehead, Minos couldn't help but admonish himself. It was his wifes first night back and he hadn't even spent it with her.

Quickly running out into the hallway, Minos called out to the first maid he could find before asking her where his wife was.

"Miss Tinka? She's in the dining room eating breakfast."

Nodding, Minos thanked the maid before heading towards the dining room, soon finding both Tinka and Rinka enjoying a small breakfast.

"Finally up?" Tinka said with a smile, seemingly not minding that her husband had left her waiting.

"Sorry… I didn't think I'd take so long." Minos said awkwardly, not sure how to apologize.

"Don't worry, it's just good that you're here now." Tinka said, giving her husband a kiss on the cheek.

Smiling, Minos returned the kiss before giving his daughter's hair a shuffle, much to her annoyance, before sitting down at the table.

"So dad, what are we going to do today!" Rinka asked with excitement.

"Let's see… First you've got your history class, and after that is geography, then you have your chess/strategy class, then your business class, and finally your day will end with a course in etiquette." Minos replied after a little thought.

"...What?" Rinka said after a slight moment of shock, not expecting her day to already be so filled, and so boring!

"Did you really think you were going to spend your days playing games and eating candy? And don't worry too much, tomorrow will be much more fun, you'll learn talismans.."

"As for after that, it'll be alchemy, then weapon-refining, and finally formations, giving you a full and productive week."

"How about the weekend…" Rinka asked with some hope, not sure her heart could take it if her dad had also planned for her to study then.

"Weekends you can have off, you didn't think I was that cruel, did you?" Minos asked with a laugh, his wife giggling at his side.

"Thank heavens." Rinka said with relief.

"But all that is on the basis that your cultivation and studies keep up, so I'll be checking in every day to see your progress. Don't let me down."