After I calmed down a little bit, I felt more about the world bead I was in. The euphoria was still there, but now I could think clearly enough to actually process what I'd inherited.
Compared with the star systems ruled by the Gods, the world bead was small. Only about twice the size of Earth. The sky, sun, and moons I saw overhead were imaginary constructs, not real celestial bodies. Just elaborate illusions maintained by the world's natural laws to provide day and night cycles.
According to the memories of Jihasti and the world bead, not far from my current location was where Jihasti had placed his entire treasure vault. Everything was stored in one of those magic storage rings I'd read about in cultivation novels. The kind that could hold entire warehouses worth of goods in a space the size of a marble.
I found it right where the memories showed, nestled in the tall grass like someone had dropped it during a picnic. Next to the vault ring was Jihasti's personal storage ring that he'd carried with him. When he'd self-destructed his body, he'd already planned to hitchhike on the world bead, so he'd taken off his personal items before self destructing his body.
From Jihasti's memories, the way to bind a storage ring to a master was to have it absorb your blood.
It took a few tries before I managed to bite my finger enough to draw blood. I didn't know if I could ever get used to this. Once the rings absorbed my blood, I felt the connection to them deep in my mind.
With a thought, I examined the contents. The sight dazzled me.
Both his personal and vault rings had massive spaces inside—not as large as this world bead, but impressive nonetheless. Each ring contained nearly the same amount of space, roughly the size of the entire Earth.
Inside were endless assortments of heavenly materials of every kind I could think of. Metals that glowed with their own inner light. Herbs that pulsed with vital energy. Stones that seemed to bend space around themselves. However, through my own senses and from the warning of the world bead's Heavenly Dao, I knew that just the aura alone from most of these treasures was powerful enough to completely destroy my body if I were to take them out of the ring.
I had the Heavenly Dao help me by transferring everything dangerous to the vault ring, while transferring everything else I could interact with into the personal ring. During the process, I couldn't see anything as I was being completely shielded by the Heavenly Dao. A golden dome of light wrapped around me, blocking out the world. The sensation was strange, like being wrapped in warm honey.
Through the connection with the Heavenly Dao, I sensed items moving between the rings at incredible speed. Thousands of treasures sorted in moments.
Then something went wrong.
The golden shield flickered and vanished. One of the items being transferred lay on the ground before me. A sword. The blade gleamed with an opalescent sheen that shifted between silver and deep blue, while intricate patterns ran along its fuller. The craftsmanship was breathtaking, even to my untrained eye.
The sword refused to enter the vault ring, simply laying there on the grass. Fortunately it didn't kill me with its aura.
The Heavenly Dao tried several times to move it, but the sword remained stubbornly planted in the grass like it had grown roots. Each attempt created ripples in the air that I could actually see, yet the blade didn't budge an inch.
When I tried to pick up the sword, it didn't budge one bit. I wrapped both hands around the grip and pulled until my face turned red. The thing might as well have been welded to the planet's core. It was far too heavy for my mortal body to carry. Just as I stood up and decided to forget about the sword for now, it flew up on its own and sliced a shallow cut on the palm of my hand.
"What the hell!"
I panicked and landed on my butt trying to escape, scrambling backward through the grass. But before I could get more than a few feet away, the hilt of the sword entered my own hand and then I felt the connection. A warm sensation spread up my arm, like drinking hot chocolate on a winter day.
Just like how my blood bound the storage rings to me, I immediately understood what had happened. The sword had drawn and absorbed my blood to recognize me as its master. Through my connection to the sword, I understood it had decided to recognize me as the master because I had growth potential. A person who refined a world bead would certainly not be ordinary.
From Jihasti's memories, I recognized the sword as a Divine treasure he had found a long time ago, and spent millennia trying to refine it, yet failed. It turns out he did not know it had a will of its own, and tried to refine it like a normal treasure. If it were weak like the world bead who had just been born, he may have refined it, but the sword seemed to be much more powerful and could completely resist his refinement.
However, as a Divine weapon, it required a massive amount of vital energy to power it, and that was far beyond my own strength to even use as a letter opener. I didn't even have my meridians formed, let alone vital energy. For cultivators, vital energy was the spiritual energy a cultivator refined into their own body for their own use.
The blade shimmered once, then began to shrink. It collapsed down to the size of a toothpick, then smaller, until it disappeared entirely. I felt it settling somewhere near my stomach, like a warm stone that had found its home.
Just like those cultivator treasures, I felt it residing in my body somehow, but I had absolutely no control over it so I could only forget about it for now. The sword seemed content to just sit there and wait.
Returning my awareness to what was left in the personal storage ring, it basically only contained information crystals with all kinds of knowledge in them, other storage rings, and spirit stones. Thousands upon thousands of crystalline memory devices, each one containing libraries worth of cultivation techniques, alchemy formulas, and divine arts. Unfortunately, I basically knew all that knowledge because Jihasti knew everything in them as well.
The crystals were like finding a collection of movies I'd already watched a hundred times.
A storage ring could be stored inside another storage ring as long as the internal space was smaller. In the cultivation world, storage rings with a ten-foot space were commonly seen everywhere and often used when trading in large bulk.
Spirit stones were solidified forms of spiritual energy. They came in a variety of qualities: Low, Medium, High, and Top Quality. They could be used as a source of spiritual energy for cultivation or to power artifacts and array formations.
Looking around the endless green landscape, I took in my surroundings with fresh eyes. According to the world bead's consciousness, this spot where I'd awakened was the central node of the entire dimension. The core of everything. Spiritual energy flowed thicker here than anywhere else in the world bead, like standing at the bottom of an invisible waterfall of power.
'This will be my personal cultivation place.'
The decision felt right. If I was going to build a new life in this pocket dimension, I might as well start at the center of it all.
Understanding flowed through me from the Heavenly Dao that as long as I remained within this world bead, I held absolute authority over the terrain and even the laws of this world. I could even increase the flow of time in here to allow me to cultivate for extreme lengths of time inside when only a short time passed outside. This was one of the main reasons why world beads were so coveted by the Gods. The consciousness conveyed this knowledge with the same gentle guidance it had shown earlier, like a patient teacher explaining the rules of a new game.
However, manipulating the laws would drain the world bead's energy itself. The Heavenly Dao conveyed a sense of caution, showing me images of the world dimming, the grass withering. I understood that as long as it wasn't used too often, it could be done safely without permanently harming the world bead. Time acceleration especially consumed vast amounts of power. The consciousness showed me acceptable limits: perhaps a few months of accelerated time per year, no more.
I started small. Crouching down, I pressed my palms against the grass and focused my intention. The earth responded immediately. Dirt and rock pushed upward, forming a simple wall about waist high. The sensation was incredible. Like having invisible hands that could mold clay on a massive scale.
"This is insane."
I stood up and gestured at the wall, willing it taller. The stone obeyed, rising until it towered over my head. With another thought, I curved it into an arc, then added decorative patterns along its surface. The rock flowed like thick honey, reshaping itself according to my mental blueprint.
After realizing how effortless the process was, I began to play in earnest. Jihasti's memories contained images of magnificent divine palaces, structures that defied earthly architecture with their impossible geometries and soaring spires. I started recreating them, though my versions came out simplified and smaller than the originals.
Even those reduced copies were more monumental than anything I'd ever seen on Earth.
I raised a central tower first, willing the ground to surge upward in a spiral pattern. The stone twisted as it climbed, forming natural buttresses and elegant curves. Windows appeared where I imagined them, perfectly shaped without any need for tools or measurements.
"Why stop at one?"
Soon I was constructing an entire complex. Connecting bridges arced between multiple towers. Courtyards opened up with intricate geometric patterns carved into their floors. I added a grand entrance hall with columns that stretched impossibly high, their capitals blooming into stone flowers.
I went completely overboard. Once I started, I couldn't stop myself. Every architectural fantasy I'd ever had came pouring out through my connection to the world bead. A library with reading alcoves carved directly into living rock. Gardens where the pathways rose and fell in gentle waves. An observatory dome that opened like a flower when I willed it.
The Heavenly Dao watched my construction spree with what felt like amused approval. No warnings came through our connection, just a sense of patient indulgence as I played with my new abilities like a kid with unlimited building blocks.
Hours passed without me noticing. I created balconies that jutted out at impossible angles, their supports hidden within the stone itself. Staircases spiraled up the outside of towers, each step perfectly level despite the curve. It wasn't until the artificial sun overhead began to set and darkness fell that I realized how long I'd been at this. Apparently the artificial sun was designed to match Earth's time for my own convenience.
When I finally stepped back to admire my work, I'd built something that belonged in a fantasy movie. The palace complex sprawled across several acres, all of it rising from the same green plain where I'd first awakened. I decided to call it my Core Palace from now on.
Moving on to the rest of the world bead, there weren't only these two storage rings here. According to Jihasti's memory, he had placed his entire divine kingdom in the world bead. Besides the subordinates who had all been sacrificed to buy him time, his kingdom had also been filled with an entire world of beasts at all cultivation levels.
However, throughout the eons it took for the world bead to travel through chaotic space and reach Earth, many offspring were born and flourished throughout the entire space.
I expanded my awareness through the Heavenly Dao's consciousness, letting it guide me across the vast landscape that stretched beyond my Core Palace. What I saw made my breath catch. This wasn't just empty grassland extending forever. Massive continents floated in the artificial sky, each one teeming with life that radiated power I could barely comprehend.
Dragons the size of skyscrapers soared between mountain peaks. Their roars echoed across valleys where lesser beasts scattered like leaves in a hurricane. In dense forests, creatures that looked like walking trees uprooted themselves and stalked through the undergrowth, each step shaking the earth. Ocean-sized lakes held serpents that could probably swallow entire cities without choking.
These beasts were distributed throughout the continents found in the world bead and far beyond my own strength. A single breath from most of these creatures would probably vaporize me completely. However, being the master of the world bead, I had full control over the space and could relocate most of the lower level beings at my own will.
The Heavenly Dao conveyed this knowledge with gentle reassurance, like reminding me I held the remote control to a very dangerous television show. I could change the channel, but I couldn't affect the actors who were too powerful for the device to handle.
Understanding that the best way for the world bead to grow was to allow humans from Earth to enter this world and cultivate, I had already decided to designate a portion of one of this world's continents for Earth, but it needed to be a place that didn't have beasts that were too powerful in it, or my fellow Earthlings would just die there.
The plan crystallized in my mind as I surveyed the available territories. Bringing people from Earth into this cultivation paradise would benefit everyone. They'd gain access to spiritual energy and the chance to transcend their mortal limitations. The world bead would grow stronger by housing cultivators. And I'd have company that didn't consist entirely of creatures that could eat me as a light snack.
I found what I needed after scanning through the continents with the Heavenly Dao's guidance. A relatively large area, roughly half the size of Earth, inhabited only by the weakest beasts. According to Jihasti's memories, these creatures were at the Beast Soldier cultivation realm. The lowest tier of cultivating beasts, barely more dangerous than wild animals back home.
It turns out they'd migrated here because the spiritual beasts that occupied the more densely spiritual energy areas were stronger, pushing them down here where the spiritual energy was the thinnest. The location sat on the opposite side of the world, furthest away from the Core Region where the spiritual energy pooled thickest.
I floated high in the air to get a proper look at the entire continent, willing my body upward through sheer intent. The Heavenly Dao supported me, lifting me until I hovered thousands of feet above the ground.
The sheer scope of what spread beneath me stole my breath.
Forests stretched to the horizon in every direction, their trees so massive they made California redwoods look like saplings. Individual trunks had to be hundreds of feet across, their canopies forming interconnected ecosystems that probably housed entire food chains. Mountain ranges carved jagged lines across the landscape, peaks that dwarfed Everest rising into clouds that swirled around their summits. Rivers wider than the Mississippi carved through valleys, their waters glittering with what looked like dissolved spiritual energy.
This was a primordial world, untouched by human hands. Raw and magnificent in ways Earth had forgotten millennia ago.
After studying the arrangement of the continents on this world, I decided that this region would be known as the Eastern Region because it occupied the eastern part of the biggest continent here. Simple, straightforward, and it gave me a framework for naming the other territories later.
I descended toward a large flat area somewhat in the center of the Eastern Region, though positioned closer to the Western Region where higher level beasts resided. The ground there was mostly grassland, interrupted by scattered groves of those impossibly large trees. Perfect for a gathering point.
Reaching out to the Heavenly Dao, I borrowed its power to erect a monument that would serve as a portal hub for American portals.
The monument rose from the earth like a geometric flower blooming in fast forward. Obsidian pillars twisted around a central platform, their surfaces carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles. At the top, a sphere of pure white stone hovered without any visible support, slowly rotating as energy currents flowed around it.
Standing before the completed structure, I felt the weight of what came next. Soon I'd be opening a doorway between worlds, fundamentally changing the lives of everyone who stepped through. The responsibility was staggering, but the potential was even greater.