Symmetry.

—

[576 years later]

And so, 576 years passed in the blink of an eye until Tian Xing was able to move his body again. Throughout the ordeal, not once did Tian Xing close his eyes and fall unconscious. Despite the unbearable pain he suffered in his mind, like his brain was being raked by thousands of needles, not a single second passed without him employing Butterfly Echoes to hold the fate of his entire pack, ensuring their lives remained relatively peaceful, all things considered.

Now that he could move again, Tian Xing instantly called all of his beloved to resume dual cultivation. With all creations now more eager to cultivate and challenge the heavens, especially after his display six to seven centuries ago, where Tao allowed it, he did not want to fall behind—even compared to the Heaven Chosen he had appointed as leaders. He joined the race, especially since he no longer had access to the parameters of the highest heaven.

Although he often found himself anxious, knowing his calculations were now blind to the highest heavens, Tian Xing dismissed his anxiety and polished his Dao Heart once more, believing that no matter how high others ascended, he would always be able to surpass the gods above him.

Thus, he continued dual cultivating day and night with all of his beloved without stopping, until all of them reached the cultivation levels of third to second realm practitioners, shortly after he achieved that realm from his wife's breakthrough. He made each of them drunk with love, to the point where even those who were typically shy and embarrassed, like Curie and Wanda, became slaves to their lust, such that even the term "cheap harlot" did not adequately describe their state.

On and on, decade after decade, Tian Xing kept elevating his beloved and his wife's cultivation levels through dual cultivation, ensuring his family wouldn't endure the same hardships he did. If they were stuck due to a lack of experience or certain resources, he instructed Ember's forces and Lanfear's forces to find the necessary materials. For experience, he had them spar with the Asura forces, now allied with his daughter.

If they truly needed a life-and-death battle, Tian Xing upgraded the main Violet Serenity Pagoda that Asura had, making the illusions even more realistic since they reflected their potential futures. This created a situation where they were under constant tension each time they entered the pagoda, experiencing stress akin to his own when he increased Tian Ming Dao to the point where he could remove Heaven Primordial Dao without his soul body being fixed—all to ensure they didn't suffer the same fate as he did.

Although his body still had weaknesses, akin to an illness that couldn't go away, Tian Xing repeatedly polished his Dao Heart, using his paranoid mind to keep anxiety about his future worries, which enabled him to dismiss this weakness as if it were mere child's play, not worth considering.

Thus, after two thousand years passed using this effective grinding method, he finally nodded in satisfaction, knowing that every one of his beloved, his wife, and even their female subordinates, who had no direct attachment to him, had achieved a perfect pyramid-like symmetry in cultivation at a foundational level.

In summary, within the Serene Lotus Pavilion, he and his wife stood at the top with third-realm cultivation in all three energies. His six beloved were in the middle, with third to second-realm cultivation in all three energies, and all their subordinates willing to become sect members, totaling about nine thousand women, had second-realm cultivation across the board in all three energies. This created a scenario in the floating city where he was continually dual cultivating with each of them, one by one, to ensure they all followed the same template they could later build upon.

However, unlike his own sect, the Everen nation, created by Ember and joined by his friends and children, had a very different, mixed cultivation approach. They didn't follow his method of effective grinding but instead followed their own preferences, each with distinct understandings they chose to pursue. From dwarves to elves and even the wisps led by Sylphrena, everyone followed their own cultivation methods, developed through various encounters during their ascent to the heavens or created and improved by the Serene Lotus Pavilion.

Because of this, Tian Xing could only guide them to the best of his ability and offer suggestions to his daughter on how to improve their cultivation and foundation so that it could spread throughout the Everen nation. This led to the nation having eight individuals who achieved the third realm, including Long Chen Chen and Ember herself. This count didn't include him and his sect, which were also part of his daughter's nation, adding five more individuals: him, his wife, Lanfear, Mei Li, and Tsunade, who now acted as his personal assistant.

After they finished preparing to ascend to the Fourth Heavens, Tian Xing concluded his dual cultivation with the last two members of his Serene Lotus Pavilion. Releasing his Yang Essence inside Yelena's subordinates, Hanabi and Benedetta, he then used it to balance their positive-negative particles. Then, he withdrew his sword from their chakram and turned to his vanilla cream ice cream, Tsunade, and asked, "Is that all?"

Nodding her head, her bare buttermilk jiggled with her movement, and Tsunade replied, "Yep. That's everyone. We are now in the second to third realm in Jing, Shen, Qi energy cultivation. As for comprehension, each of them has been granted our initial Dao of Concealment for Yelena's subordinates, Chaos for Wanda, Jack of All Trades for Mei Li, Mechanic for Curie, Dream for Lanfear, and lastly, Medical for my subordinates."

Nodding as he listened to her report, Tian Xing turned to Hanabi and Benedetta, who were still drunk in ecstasy from their blissful experiences over these hundred thousand years inside the time dilation room in the floating city. He kissed them one last time before getting out of bed. As he walked, his body suddenly short-circuited, and he became unable to move. Before he could fall to the ground, Tsunade caught him, knowing something like this would likely happen because his previous severe injury was only patched up, not healed.

Sighing as she carried her Dan Kato to the sofa, Tsunade gently caressed his forehead. Now in a temporary vegetative state, she softly whispered, "Oh my Dan, my Dan. Why do you always keep working so hard? I know you do this because you don't want us to go through what you did. But can you at least take it easy for a bit? Because you're the only one who suffers while we just enjoy being pampered. So, once again, please?"

Seeing her tablet displaying a series of sentences, Tsunade sighed helplessly after reading a particular sentence from the string of coincidences that could be summed up with one word: "No."

—