Seclusion

Seth and Caitlin both appeared inside the garden of the Imperial Chambers, where everyone was gathered and waiting for them.

As the girls started congratulating Caitlin, Seth pulled Hollie to the side.

“So?” asked Hollie, looking Caitlin up and down from a distance.

“The will appeared normal and… I guess complete, but it was still a little strange. It looked indeed like two opposites coming together to form a whole, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like a single being.”

“Supposing lust was not lying to you; this only confirms our thoughts. Did you get any clue on how to use your lust and perception to suppress other wills?”

“None yet, but that can wait until after Leora awakens. Now that everything is taken care of, we should begin our seclusion as quickly as possible.”

“Maya and I took care of everything. We can go whenever you want to, but there’s someone else I think we should take with us.” Said Hollie with a nod.

“You mean Alice?” asked Seth.

“Yes. You still need to make things right with her. I know she must have been one of the few you wanted to bring to your harem from the beginning.”

Seth shook his head with a smile. “You’re wrong. It’s not her I need to make it up to. It’s her mother who loved me in the past, not her. She was just a friend and a teacher.”

“Who are you lying to? Me or yourself? She will sooner or later end up in your bed anyway. Why not bring her with us so we can grow stronger? Who knows how many nests we’ll stir up when a divinity forms in this world….”

“We already have quite a few ascended in Asteria, but I doubt any of them will even make a difference with what’s to come. If thousands of them mean nothing, what difference will she make? Let her stay in Endora. She’ll grow stronger anyway.”

Hollie looked into his eyes for a good moment before shrugging. “Fine, have it your way. When are we going?”

“Now. Did you send word to Elise?”

“Yes. She said she’ll remain in Loss and slowly eat up at the enemy ascended stacked at the border.”

“Alright. Let’s go.”

With a nod from Hollie, they approached the others, and Seth told them they would begin their seclusion that very day.

The girls shared a knowing look, and Maya giggled, “We’ll go, but give me some time to announce it to the people. We also need to inform them you’re accepting… customers.”

Seth chuckled with a nod. “Go with Henrietta and Hollie to make the announcement. Tell them I’ll begin in one week and spend the entire day on that. Once you’re done, come to the spring.”

The three accepted his arrangement, and Seth created a portal for the others to move underneath the city. Passing through the portal, everyone was greeted with a vast underground cave and a huge mansion built on the side.

Straight ahead of them was the spring, arranged precisely as Seth requested. The spring was coming out of one cave wall, branching further into a series of multiple small pools where everyone was supposed to cultivate.

Due to the influx of energy inside the cave, even the air felt somewhat heavy to breathe in. While the others began looking around at the place, Ava approached Seth from the back.

“Are you sure we can do this? Living inside an energy spring can be toxic to an ascended.”

Seth nodded and said: “That’s true for everyone under the seventh shell. The density of foreign energies will slowly seep inside the source, polluting it.”

“Then?” asked Ava in confusion.

“Watch.” Said Seth with a chuckle, moving towards one of the side pools. Moving to the pipe feeding energy into the small pool, Seth placed a hand above it and made a small destruction filter to block any energy besides destruction from passing through.

After he was done with the spring, he cleared all the water in the pool and turned toward Ava. “Now you can go inside. There will be only destruction energy coming from the spring through here, and since ascended don’t need to breathe, you’ll be able to remain submerged for as long as you wish.”

Ava looked at the pool that was filling with nothing but destruction energy and asked: “Isn’t that specialized water?”

Seth nodded and walked to the next spring. “It’s even better since it’s coming from a spring and almost completely devoid of impurities. You should still use the source pipe for drinking energy as often as possible to maximize the pool’s potential.”

Ava nodded and shamelessly removed her clothes, entering the small pool of water. Since Seth had just cleared the water, it was barely reaching halfway up her thighs while she was sitting down, and Seth couldn’t stop his gaze from roaming over her body.

“Do you want to take a dip with me once it fills up?” asked Ava, sensually tracing a trail with her finger over her thighs, stopping only as it reached her private area.

Seth smiled wryly and shook his head. “It will have to wait until later. I need to set them all up. Also, we didn’t come here for that.”

Ava shrugged and laid her head down in the water. “Too bad you can’t do anything about the temperature, or I wouldn’t mind living here forever.”

Seth touched the water in front of him at her words and did indeed realize it was pretty cold. After pondering for a moment, he looked at the girls that were going to explore the mansion and called out to them. “Tiana, come here.”

Tiana’s ears perked up, and she quickly rushed to Seth, abandoning the others to look around the place on their own. Arriving next to him, she quickly asked: “Do you need my help… master?”

Seth chuckled and nodded: “I need you to spread your energy inside the earth beneath each pool to heat the pools ever so slightly.”

Tiana nodded before looking curiously at the spring and asking: “Can’t I just warm the water as it comes out?”

“You want to warm up energy water directly?” asked Seth with a smile.

Tiana blushed and lowered her head: “Sorry. I didn’t think. I’ll start warming the pools right now.”

Even if ascended didn’t mind cold, Seth still wanted to make the place as comfortable as possible. They were going to spend a great deal of time there.

With Tiana busy warming up the place, Seth went from pool to pool, working with the system to destroy all other energies besides the energy of the person that would use the pool.

By the time he was done, Maya and the others had also returned.

Coming up to Seth, Maya and Hollie looked around the place, and Maya exclaimed: “Can’t believe we’re going to be living here for the next 50 years. Maybe even more.”

“That’s if we’re lucky and no one will come to bother us. I made different pools for each of you, so you can go inside whenever you want.”

As Maya and Hollie used their energies to look for their pool, Henrietta smiled cheekily and asked: “What do I need a separate pool for? Can’t I sit with you?”

Maya’s face twitched, and she turned towards Seth, waiting for his reply.

Seth chuckled and shook his head. “While it’s true that we can use the same pool, we’ll just end up stealing each other’s energy.”

Seth pulled the smiling Maya in his arms before continuing. “Also, someone might get jealous and freeze our assess inside.”

Maya took the chance to nest into Seth’s arms, and Hollie spoke from the side. “Isn’t there an extra pool?”

“Huh?” exclaimed Seth, following her eyes and looking at a pool on the side.

“Earth energy?…” Seth muttered in confusion, not understanding why he would make an earth energy pool.

“Did you bring us a secret sister?” asked Henrietta from the side, her words making a frown appear on Seth’s face.

In the end, his frown dissipated, and he shook his head. “I must be getting tired from separating other energies….”

The others nodded as well, and Seth started instructing everyone on what to do during their seclusion, most importantly, that they must either stay inside the house or completely submerged in the energy-water since the atmosphere outside was still polluted with other energies.

With everyone starting to walk to their pools, Seth turned around to check on Leora. With her situation showing no change, Seth spent some time with Katy next, who chose to live in the underground mansion as well, even if there was no real advantage for her.

After an hour or so, Seth went outside, where Caitlin was waiting for him while munching on a handful of sweets.

“Where did you get food from in here?” asked Seth with a laugh.

“I had Henri pick some for me. Also, it’s not fair that Katy got a taste before us all.”

Shaking his head, Seth walked up to her and made all the sweets disappear inside his storage space. “Put your appetite on hold. We’ll leave both food and sex for later. Go inside and start cultivating.”

Caitlin nodded, licking the sugar from her lips before sitting up and pecking Seth’s lips. “Tasty.”

“Before I go inside your body, there’s something I wanted to ask you.” said Caitlin with a pondering look.

“What is it?” asked Seth.

“Ever since I broke through, I feel something calling out to me. Like there’s somewhere I must go no matter what... Is that Yggdrasil’s divinity?”

“No,” said Seth with a shake of his head. “It’s the Tower. It should have appeared as soon as you broke through, but it didn’t for some reason. Ignore that feeling and focus on cultivating.”

Caitlin nodded, her body slowly turning into energy and entering Seth’s.

<Using perfect body control to recover life energy as it’s consumed.>

Seth smiled at the notification and went to his spring, filled with his four fundamental energies. After drinking a vial’s worth of energy from the spring, Seth submerged himself completely and started focusing on absorbing all the energy inside and outside his body.

‘I’m leaving monitoring everything in your care. Let me know of anything that is of importance.

<Affirmative.>

With the system taken care of, Seth and the girls’ cultivation officially began. A deafening silence slowly befell the entire place, everyone focusing on growing stronger, aware of the danger that might befall them with Leora’s awakening.

---

In the void of space, just at the edge of Seth’s world, a young man was sitting with his arms crossed, the world in front of him continuously exploding and forming back together.

“With the Tower in slumber, I finally found it. This is definitively the source of the time anomaly.”