Consolidation

Leo left Alice and Clara to their Palace and returned to the underworld. Although he was already at the seventh level of soul foundation, he could only stay in the mortal realm for a maximum of 2 hours using his portal interface which was already two times the amount when he didn't have any cultivation.

Leo felt like someone was pulling his heartstrings when Alice refused to let him come to the underworld, she cried and cried, but somehow Leo managed to console her saying he would be back soon. He was also very reluctant to part with her but time waited for no one. Before they knew it, two hours passed in a flash.

As the saying goes- when you are having fun and want to spend more time, time seems to run faster but when you are sad and want to desperately pass time, time seems to crawl as if it exists to annoy you.

To release his frustrations, Leo couldn't help but smash up the assassination alliance's headquarter. After seeing hundreds of souls in his system space, Leo finally felt a little happy.

Back in the underworld,

Leo consolidated his gains over the week.

Firstly, Emma was reincarnated in a powerful cultivator's family. She was the youngest in her family, having two loving parents and two powerful brothers who spoiled her every day.

As for how she reincarnated, it was no doubt a tragic story. Emma's body's previous owner was playing outside with her friends, one of her friends who was extremely jealous of Emma's life used poison in drinks to kill Emma. As for the consequence, without any suspense, Emma's brothers went mad and ruthlessly chopped the killer's head in the middle of the street, in front of her family, before massacring her entire family, relatives, and anyone related to the relatives.

Fortunately 'Emma' came back to life otherwise, no one knew where they would next vent their frustrations. Emma regained her memory and started to slowly fit in with her new family. Not wanting to make the same mistake again, Emma started to seriously cultivate this time, which was very much supported by her family.

Her number one trading system was also helping her realize her dream which was to become the number businesswoman in her world. Leo generously gifted her a soul chant, a welcome gift along with the instructions of how to cultivate the soul through her system.

Currently, Leo's immediate goal was to make Emma and Alice reach soul apprentice-level so that he could kick start the soul alter exchange system. Then he could roam around freely in the underworld without worrying about his Divine soul. Moreover, he selected the ice element soul chant for Alice and, the Fire element soul chant for Emma, so that he could use different elemental powers when he exchanged soul alters in the future.

Secondly, Leo used 500 crystals to buy a top-notch metal element body in the underworld market and customized its face to the previous life, Leo, on Earth that way he would not feel alienated when he sees his reflection in the mirror.

Later, he started using all his resources without holding back to achieve back to back breakthrough. Within a week, he jumped from nothing to the seventh level soul foundation level. His soul foundation had already reached a solid-state which was a defining characteristic of the seventh level. No one would believe Leo's progress if they heard it but Leo's soul made it happen. Leo finally started experiencing how heaven-defying his Divine soul truly was.

There was no such thing as the bottleneck and all his crystals were refined with 100% efficiency without using any soul chant. Both the actions were just a fantasy to the underworld, even deity level experts never heard of such things in their entire life.

Now, let's come to crystal usage.

For the first level breakthrough, he used 20 crystals, then for the next level he used 40 crystals, for the seventh level breakthrough he used 1240 crystals. Overall he used 2520 crystals for reaching his current cultivation level. 500 crystals each for buying soul chants for Alice and Emma and another extra 500 crystals for his metal element body.

Overall he had pretty much used up everything from his last jackpot except the last 500 crystals. Leo needed approximately another ten thousand crystals to reach soul apprentice level. He was looking forward to his next trip along with the soul treasures from Emma and Alice to tide over the barrier.

As for the trip to Alice's planet,

He didn't plan at first, but, when he saw her dire situation, he didn't hesitate to use his chance in the portal to help her. While parting with Alice, he generously gave her 500 crystals to increase her cultivation as quickly as possible.

Presently he had a few hundred average grade souls in his inventory which was his recent war spoil. They provided him approximately a hundred crystals as the conversion rate was only 2:1 for a normal soul(2 average grade souls exchanged for one crystal). As his wealth increased, he didn't bother to care about a few hundred crystals. He just threw them in the system space.

There was a saying every dog as its day. A few weeks back, he was a pauper, worrying about his basic needs but today, he was a rich guy who didn't care about a few hundred crystals. Even in the underworld, 100 crystals were enormous, it was equivalent to 2 years of saving for a common man.

He didn't worry about crystals anymore because his assets, Emma and Alice were in a good place, and they could easily gather a good amount of treasures. But as their cultivation increases, their cultivation expenses would also increase. Hence, to remain one step ahead, Leo always looking for new avenues for making money.

Currently, his 3 sources of income were: trips to the mortal world, Emma and Alice. But he couldn't go on trips all the weeks in a month as he had the obligation to meet Alice at least 2 times a month. A new obligation didn't make him regret his decision to meet Alice, as he was clear in his mind that, pursuing power without having anyone to protect was meaningless.

Apart from the above three, there was one more way to make quick money.

Potion hall!

Yes, Leo had already bought the potion hall equation from the system using 100 crystals. He was just waiting for the right timing to present it and pocket a million crystals.

The timing was nothing but a few hidden requirements.

One, along with him at least one person between Alice and Emma had to reach soul apprentice level to change his identity using soul exchange alter system.

Two, he needed to gain a sufficient reputation in the potion hall before dropping his equation bomb. Otherwise, no one would believe that it was him who came up with the idea and, there was a high chance that someone would claim that he had stolen it.

Three, create a reasonable background to manage the consequence.

Once he meet all three requirements, he would naturally proceed to take action.

Leo silently thought 'Cultivation is not a problem now, but I have no idea how to build a good background. Let's ask Alice.'

Leo used his all-in-one chat interface to send a message to Alice.

"Hi, sweetheart, what are you up to?"

Leo currently used the chat interface only to talk with Alice. He had yet to talk to Emma and was planning to do it soon. As for the exchange system inside the interface, he was waiting for their cultivation level to reach the apprentice level before starting it. As he felt it was pointless currently due to everyone's low cultivation.

When everyone's cultivation level reaches a high level, they could go for adventures and find various treasures before placing them in the exchange system. But for now, their priority was to reach soul apprentice level.

Alice replied immediately,

"Just received the parcel from my father and was calculating the number of soul treasures. There are around 200 soul treasures. According to the system, they are valued at around 4000 sin crystals. What should I do with the crystals?"

Leo nonchalantly replied "Use the crystals to reach soul apprentice-level quickly. I will help you buy ice element treasures in the underworld market in a while. Using all the resources, I am sure you will be able to reach soul apprentice-level soon."

Alice knew Leo's priorities very much and agreed readily before asking, "How is Emma?"

Leo was taken back from her random question, he carefully replied, "Why do you care? She is doing very well. You will be able to chat with her as soon as I tell her everything. All in one chat interface is a multi-way communication interface after all."

Alice replied after some time, "Alright I am looking forward to it."

Leo wiped his cold sweat and thought to himself 'Fortunately I dodged the bullet this time.'