Heaven's Greatest Professor

Chapter 325: Plan for the Future (1)

While he wasn’t able to inspect the scripture thoroughly, he became aware of two of the item’s main functions: Sealing and Stabilisation—these two may sound ordinary to the ears, but their functions were nothing less than extraordinary.

The sealing function could suppress a divinity and seal it completely for millions of years, while the other function stabilised higher laws like dimension and temporal laws—it most likely could stabilise other elements, but those weren’t as important as dimension or temporal laws.

It was because of the latter function that the subspace stood hidden for so many years without collapsing on top of the front lines.

"So what do you do from here?" Agnes asked. "If you cannot remove the sceptre from the core in fear of the traitor god running amok in your soul..."

"Well, I already have a plan," Gale said. "It’s just a little slow with me chilling around, or invested in other things. If only there was someone who could handle dark essence like it was their second nature, and the dark essence would be helpful to their growth... But how could I find such a person?"

Agnes shot him a pointed look. "What are you implying?"

"Exactly the same as the subspace was doing to the core," Gale smiled, "except you’d be directing it all."

"How long would that take?"

He shrugged. "Not something I can calculate without any practice," he said. "But I’d say it would depend on your mileage. If it was me doing it, perhaps I could finish in five years... so about twenty years for you..."

Agnes raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing that it would take such a long time.

"Unless you miraculously advance to Gold rank, absorbing some high-quality dark essence, and your capacity increases tremendously," Gale continued, grinning at her.

"Why are you making it sound lucrative to her?" June asked.

"Because it would be a torment to refine the dead god’s intent from the essence," Agnes answered with a groan. But soon her eyes turned calculative. "How long do you think it will take me to reach Gold rank?"

"That would depend on how much time you spend on it," Gale said, tilting his head. "How long did it take you to advance to Silver?"

"Close to six years," she said darkly. "I could have done it in two or three years if not for working for the military."

That’s already quite fast, considering dark essence was scarce compared to regular essence. If she were to have a weakened divine core to power up her speed... Gale made a quick calculation in his mind.

"If you were to take refining dark essence as your primary job and promise to spend 100 hours a week," he paused. Finding her facing the facts straight, he continued, "Then I can promise you will be a gold ranker before me."

Agnes raised an eyebrow, clearly judging his words. She shook her head. "Your advancement is wacky as hell... just give me a number in real time."

"True, I wouldn’t know how fast my growth would be with this soul domain, and with one of my feet into transcendence," he said.

"It couldn’t be more than a year," Dawn said. Everyone’s eyes flashed towards her, and she looked down, even though she seemed like she had more to say.

"Continue," Gale asked her. Explore new worlds at NovelBin.Côm

"Umm, apologies if I say something wrong," Dawn began. "I’m very sensitive to the nature of essence, and her essence is very close to what emanates from the core. Her path perhaps aligns with the dead god, or it’s because she has refined the same dark essence before. Either way, she would only need to cleanse the foreign intent."

Gale nodded. "A year seems feasible, with some good amount of rehab in between," he said as a plan laid out in his mind. "But if I were to put in my radiance essence to help her cleanse the corruption..."

He let his voice trail off as any of them were able to see where he was getting at.

Agnes closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. "Okay, fine," she said, mostly to herself rather than to others. "I can do this. I’m in."

"It’s going to be hella trying," he reminded her. "Far more than how it had been within the subspace..."

"You’ll never see me complaining," Agnes said, her eyes glowing with cold determination.

Gale could see that. Agnes was too headstrong; she would break, but never bow her head. It was something he appreciated about her, but he wouldn’t want to see her break. Not more than how she already was.

"I need this strength," she said, her palms clasped into fists. "I’ll do anything you ask if you can help me with this."

Gale nodded. "I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t want to give it to you," he said. "I’ll say this though, you have to completely abide by me if you were to do this. Perhaps you know dark essence better than me, but I know corruption more than you, and what it could do to you..."

Agnes nodded her head solemnly. "I’ll give you my word."

"What about your new job?"

"They haven’t offered me anything yet," Agnes said. "I’ll decline if I have to... Though I don’t think it would be as time-consuming as being a slave of the military."

"I guess," Gale thought for a moment before continuing, "We’ll talk about it in detail later."

"Thank you," Agnes said, letting out a breath.

Gale was giving her time just so that she didn’t make a hasty decision, though he didn’t believe her decision would waver. For reasons unknown to him, Agnes had a strong determination to gain power. Perhaps working in the 16th infantry for years without any autonomy embedded the feeling into her, but he felt it was something deeper.

"So are we going to travel further down?" June asked. "Or should we get out?"

"Further down? What makes you think there’s still more in there?"

"A woman’s intuition," June smiled smugly.

"You think I could hide something even more immaculate than a dead god’s corpse, core, and a divine artefact?"

"I can never know with you," June laughed.

Dawn nodded solemnly, as if empathising with her. Gale really didn’t believe there could be anything more grave than what he hid here, but Dawn probably knew him better than himself.

"Well, there might not be any more of this," he continued. "But I do want you guys to see something..."

Gale snapped his finger and they disappeared from the underground soul locker—he didn’t know what to call it. Their figures materialised above the tower. Strong winds blew from all around, surging forth, though they didn’t affect the tower any more than necessary.

"What is it?"

Gale waved his hand towards the pillar atop the tower; it stood over eighteen metres tall, engraved with complicated runes he had merely begun to unfold. Clearly, his past expertise didn’t catch up with these high-rune formations.

"This is one of the gifts my master gave me," he said. "Well, an old record of her..."

"Fascinating," June said, her eyes shimmering in silver light. She barely began to study runes, but even she could tell the scripts were out of the ordinary.

"You’ll still say the same once you get to understand them," Gale told her. "Apparently, she had a good idea of what I’d need when I step into the transcendent rank."

Jenni probably would lose her mind if she glimpsed upon the intricate formations.

"Other than these, the soul domain is pretty empty," he commented, looking up at the sky. The lone sun was merely a reflection of his radiant core, while the wind and chaos were his other power. Void was a large part of the expansion, but he kept it mostly outside his core.

"Looking and hearing all this," June said, "I feel like I shouldn’t slack off either, or you’ll leave me in the dust."

"I’m only a puny silver ranker," Gale smiled at her.

"As if I’m going to believe that after you invite me into your soul and let me see a dead god," June said. Her eyes darted to all of them. "None of you are puny silver rankers... it is only me who was suppressing her potential in fear."

Gale clasped her palm, kissing her on the forehead. "I’ll be there with any help you need," he said. "Well, I’ll be there even if you don’t need me... it’s pretty late to turn me away."

He pulled her into a hug. "Besides, you’re already halfway into Gold rank... right?"

The other two women stared at them with mixed feelings. Maybe they were feeling left out with him, acting all intimate with June all the time. But he couldn’t help it...

"Alright, you guys could stay here for some time, while I go check on the adepts," Gale said. "I’ll be only out for a couple of hours."

With that, his figure vanished from there, though his voice lingered... "If you need me for any reason, just utter my name, and I’ll be there."

The three women stared at each other, unsure what to do there. True, the place was fascinating in more ways than they could recognise, but it just felt odd among themselves.

None of them were familiar with each other and only became acquaintances because of Gale. And now without him, only a silence descended among them.

"So," June muttered, her eyes towards the blue horizon. "How do we get down from the top?"