While Ankit cultivated in the Himalayas, the underground fortress hummed with steady routine.
Kamal practiced the Mortal Foundation Scripture each morning, then scanned global news related to Magic Energy.
Neelam followed the same scripture drills, then oversaw the fields, ensuring their protein-rich yields sustained the family.
Sanya drilled the scripture too, paired with Butterfly Leaf Footwork—which she had now perfected. At eight years old, she danced circles around her parents, leaving them breathless in mock chases.
Watching Sanya thrive, the Heart Clone, who had comeback from Himalayas and don't have any work to do, saw potential. Mortal techniques built instincts and muscle memory; with the right foundation, his family could transition seamlessly to true cultivation later. He crafted many foundational martial arts, each honing combat sense while channeling raw strength with precision. Like:
Phantom Gale Dash
Leg-coiled explosions chain into afterimage blurs exceeding 200 km/h, phasing through spear walls or encircling foes in lethal spirals that drain zero stamina via momentum loops.
Voidrend Claw Strike
Spinning torso unleashes claw-like finger blades with vacuum-pulling grips, pulverizing granite or imploding organs through layered shock cones—single hits rival hydraulic presses.
Titanforge Aegis
Breath-forged muscle lattices form adamantine bulwarks, nullifying siege catapults or fire blasts via resonant vibration dispersal—survives mountain collapses.
Stormreaver Barrage
Fist tempests multiply impacts via wrist flicks and elbow whips, generating sonic booms that fragment steel plateaus in overlapping waves.
Next, the Heart clone asked if anyone wanted weapon arts—swords, blades, or spears. Ankit himself shunned weapons, preferring to crush foes with pure dominance, but creating them posed no challenge.
Kamal chose sword.
Neelam picked trident or trisul.
Sanya grinned and claimed bow.
The Heart Clone forged perfect mortal-grade weapons for each using solar clone forging chamber—balanced steel humming with latent potential—then tailored weapon arts to their grips.
These weren't dead ends. Like the sword paths in novels—evolving from intent to emperor, god, immortal—these could scale with insight. But mastery demanded depth: grasping the weapon's soul, its rhythm, its harmony with laws.
The Heart clone lacked that vision yet. He resolved to study, experiment, and refine over time, ensuring his family climbed as high as their will allowed.
From that day forward, the family's routines sharpened to a razor's edge: Mortal Foundation Scripture at dawn, flowing into relentless drills of basic martial arts and weapon forms until dusk faded the training grounds.
Steady, unyielding progress etched raw strength into their bones, transforming mortal flesh into something forged for battle.
Meanwhile, the other clones dove into their own relentless pursuits, each leveraging Stage 3 power with surgical precision.
Root Clone had finally perfected his control over the life element—not total mastery of its infinite mysteries, for creating life from nothing still lay beyond him, demanding deeper comprehension and overwhelming power to withstand the backlash.
At his current level, however, he wielded it with flawless command: accelerating healing to mend shattered bones in minutes or purge toxins mid-combat; amplifying vitality to push mortal bodies past endurance limits without collapse; or subtly enhancing allies' growth, hastening muscle adaptation and organ resilience during training.
Space and gravity elements mirrored this precision—folding distances for instant teleports across kilometers, erecting barriers that warped reality to deflect attacks, or crushing enemies under localized gravity spikes multiplying force tenfold.
As Ankit's power climbed, heightened senses would unlock fresh layers of elemental insight. His diligent Mortal Foundation Scripture practice had already earned the rare Genius title.
Sacral Clone turned to puppetry, engineering constructs with specialized functions—his current ambition, a puppet rivaling a Stage 2 Substage 4 cultivator in speed, strength, and instincts.
Resource scarcity limited production to three or four, but that sufficed for now.
Alchemy surged ahead too: he brewed family-strengthening pills—rich in Essence-tempered herbs—that bolstered their routines, distributed daily.
He had also make a elixir potent enough for Stage 2 Peak cultivators.
In Visha (poison mastery), his crowning terror emerged: a colorless miasma threatening even Stage 3 foes, seeping through meridians to corrode cores from within, scaled perfectly to Ankit's advancing power.
Ankit himself stood immune, his intimate knowledge allowing effortless detoxification. A single vial could doom a nation—its stealth and lethality that horrifying.
Solar Clone blazed his own trail. The exotic metal from East India's origin point birthed a prototype weapon capable of slaying Stage 3 Substage 3 cultivators outright, though it hungered for rare supporting materials to reach completion—and untold heights beyond. His Vyuha architect profession ascended dramatically.