Chapter 2126: Tea
June updated Noah on what she had found, and he performed another inspection of the fourth floor afterward. Sadly, he couldn"t uncover much. He found a vague connection between the filter and the area"s edges, but that was it.
The house had managed to trick Noah too, and he had remained stunned in front of that feature. His superior senses were something that even the best hybrids envied, but he still failed to see the small habitation during his first inspection.
It was clear that the house was a central spot on the whole floor. The powerful presence inside it might even have something to do with the key, but Noah hesitated. He didn"t know how to approach the habitation without destroying the prairie.
"We can"t just stay here," Noah thought after finding himself out of options.
"I"m going down," Noah revealed, disturbing the silence that had filled the group.
The upper tier turtle suddenly came out of its sh.e.l.l, and its underlings imitated it. The leader wanted to say something, but Noah preceded it. "I won"t fight, probably. I want to have a talk with that being."
"What if you can"t talk with it?" Fiery Mountain asked.
"There are really few things that can"t understand my roars," Noah rea.s.sured.
"And we will destroy everything if it starts causing a mess," June added as a broad smirk appeared on her face.
"I"m surprised you managed to hold back," Noah joked. "You even interrupted a fight. Are you sure you didn"t lose something during the teleport?"
"You can check if you are worried," June teased.
Noah"s reptilian pupils sharpened as he kept his eyes on June, and she also wore a knowing smile. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, but Fiery Mountain cleared her throat before they could do anything.
"Boring," June complained while diverting her gaze.
Noah chuckled and turned to begin his descent, and his underlings took that chance to exchange whispers. Old Tyrant even sounded quite p.i.s.sed about Fiery Mountain"s behavior.
"Why did you interrupt them?" Old Tyrant scolded.
"Maybe she wanted to give me a chance," Gabrielle joked.
"I have just saved the entire floor," Fiery Mountain proudly announced.
"From what?" Old Tyrant asked. "The boss deserves some fun after what he had pulled off."
"Trust me on that," Fiery Mountain tried to explain. "I have never seen anything like that. I bet that our turtle friend here would have run away too."
"I can hear you," June sneered. "Don"t sound so jealous."
"Can I sound jealous?" Gabrielle asked while wearing a sweet smile. "Also, a great being like Defying Demon deserves more than one-."
Gabrielle completed her line, but deafening crackling noises filled the sky and made it impossible to hear its last part. June didn"t move, but her aura alone began to darken the white clouds on the floor.
"June!" Noah scolded from his position near the filter, and the crackling noises immediately went quiet.
"Do you have a death wish?!" Fiery Mountain questioned as she dispersed the fear caused by June"s short outburst.
"You should stop pretending that you are still an outsider," Gabrielle declared while wearing a stern expression. "Besides, she would have already killed me if she thought that I was serious."
"You should stop holding back, especially in front of the boss," Old Tyrant added while glancing at Fiery Mountain. "It will only hurt your growth to refuse to accept your new state."
"Even the turtle is accepting it," Gabrielle explained. "It might pretend to be grumpy and everything, but I"m sure that part of its mind has already submitted to Defying Demon."
The three cultivators weren"t trying to keep their conversation a secret, and they wouldn"t be able to do that anyway. The floor was too small, and everyone"s auras mixed in the sky to create a faint membrane that allowed instant communications. A barrier might interrupt that connection, but Noah, June, and the upper tier turtle could pierce it easily.
Noah heard everything the three cultivators said, but he didn"t give those words much importance. It was only normal for rank 9 experts to hate the idea of submitting to strangers, no matter how powerful they were. They wouldn"t have reached that level otherwise.
Noah soon arrived right above the filter, but his distance from that structure didn"t change the amount of energy that reached the surface. Its efficiency was incredible, and it even made him desire to test its limits.
Still, Noah held back from doing anything reckless. His mind had yet to recover completely, and the turtles" condition was far from ideal. He wanted to avoid creating problems even if he could fix them later since it would prolong their stay inside the fourth floor.
"How do I even get to the house without breaking everything?" Noah wondered as he flew until he was right above the small habitation.
The existence inside the house could very well be another trapped being, and the magical beasts in the human ranks might be a consequence of its power. Yet, that felt unlikely since the entire floor seemed to want to portray the scenery that only the Mortal Lands could have.
In the end, Noah felt forced to perform a few risky tests. He created a small version of the dark world and activated the workshops to make them divide his dark matter countless times. There was a limit to how weak his higher energy could get, but he relied on his potential to go past them.
The ethereal blackness didn"t like that project. Its purpose was to empower. Noah could find a loophole by improving the workshops, but the potential stopped giving power after they managed to divide the higher energy past its limits for a while.
The seventh rank was the lowest Noah could reach, which remained far from ideal. A tiny part of the prairie could survive if he could contain the influence released by that weakened energy, but most of the environment would still crumble due to its sheer weight.
"This won"t do," Noah sighed before dispersing his creation and changing approach.
His dark matter left his figure and flew down to create a thin layer that began to hover right above the filter. Noah carefully pushed it to make it touch the incredible structure, and his higher energy started to imitate its functions.
The filter transformed part of the dark matter in the tiny tendrils that reached the surface, but most of the black layer remained in place to study the structure. Little by little, Noah"s higher energy fused with the ethereal blanket that covered the entirety of the prairie.
Noah would be able to take control of that strange structure soon, but something suddenly began to move. A hole opened on the filter, and the edges of that cavity stretched downward to land on the prairie. The house soon remained outside that layer, which allowed Noah to reach it without resorting to challenging approaches.
"Is it inviting me?" Noah wondered. "What if I never threatened to take control of the filter?"
The answers to Noah"s questions probably were inside the house, and he didn"t hesitate to approach it. The small entrance opened on its own when Noah landed in front of it, revealing an almost empty room.
Noah stepped forward, and his eyes immediately fell on the figure sitting at a short table placed over a praying mat. The old man there was playing with a tea set, and Noah noticed that a fuming cup was already on his opposite side.
"Were you waiting for me?" Noah asked as he walked toward the table.
The house remained in one piece because its insides featured materials in the divine ranks. That detail had been impossible to sense from the outside, which made Noah curious about the inscriptions required to prevent that valuable fabric from making the magical beasts on the prairie go crazy.
"Only after you decided to respect the floor," The old man replied calmly, and a faint laugh even followed those words.
"What would have happened if I destroyed everything?" Noah asked.
"I would have disappeared only to return after many years," The old man explained and responded to one of Noah"s questions. He was part of the floor, so one of the steps to clear to find the key.