Just like this, many months came to past. The girl carried around the ring.

Sometimes, she would sit in a secluded place and take out an array plate to study. Array alchemy had always fascinated her, and this was a plate that someone from her family had brought back from their trip to the human continent. She had never seen such a low-level array done so well. It fueled her fire to want to improve her foundation and build towards a higher level of formation expertise.

In fact, her passion for this was a large part of the reason why she took the risk of keeping the ring. Meeting such an expert would help her improve by leaps and bounds.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for Dyon, this array plate happened to be the same plate that he had made thousands of while trying to make money at Focus Academy. It seems that The General had done his job of collecting and selling the unused plates well, to the point where it had made its way over the seas and to the land of another species of people.

But, Dyon was oblivious. He remained unconscious. Little Black would often lick his face to see if he could start him awake, but it was to no avail. The worst part was, that Little Black wasn't the only one who was worried. Madeleine had been sending messages to Dyon everyday for the past 6 months. She had even given up on getting him to respond, it was almost like her messages to Dyon had become a diary of what she did everyday. The countless messages all culminated in a single thought: I miss you.

All this time, Dyon's aurora was working towards healing Dyon. If it had just been a few arrows and a spear wound, maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. But, Dyon had put untold stress on his body by tapping out his wills to the limit. And, that wasn't even mentioning the stress of using the Demon Emperor's Will technique with already damaged organs. Plus, with the infusion of the sage demon's blood, the quality of his body had improved so much that it had taken all this time to even heal him to a reasonable point. And yet, he was still unconscious.

On top of all of this, the device Chenglei had used may have seemed simple, but, it was anything but. It was a transcendent level treasure called the Demolition Cube, and if it was used by someone with real power, it could just barely match up to the weapons of the pseudo 33rd heaven's layer. If it wasn't for the fact that it was a person with such weak cultivation using it, even the 25th White Mother's will wouldn't have been enough to stop it. In fact, had Chenglei been strong enough to use it repeatedly, Dyon would have long been dead. This was the reason Chenglei hadn't participated in the final battle: he was too drained. Instead of risking the geniuses exposing his treasure, he chose to leave in the shadows. The loss of such a weapon was a bigger hit than the Daiyu clan could take. And, the fact they even had such a weapon would expose them to the world well before they were ready – this was something Chenglei wasn't willing to risk.

However, this battle wasn't without its benefits. Dyon's soul was able to increase in power from the initial 4th stage to the peak of the middle levels of the 4th stage. This also gave him experience he hadn't had before. In order to fight all of the geniuses at once, he relied heavily on the enhanced reflexes given him by the essence blood he had absorbed as well as the 6th sense granted him by his mind's eye. But, now he realized this wasn't enough. He needed to increase his control over his techniques and his wills. He had already begun to understand that wills, despite what levels they had reached, could have different depths of understanding. For example, Dyon's 9th level of music will would hardly find competition against the 9th level wills of most others. This probably led to his first mistake in his battle: he hadn't used his music will although it was his strongest asset.

The second problem, was his speed arraying. With Dyon's level of soul, it should have been impossible for the arrows of geniuses at the initial layers of meridian formation to ever pierce his defenses. But, because of the flaws of speed arraying, there was no way for him to have time to create better arrays. So, he relied much too much on an ability that should act as a supporter rather than his main abilities.

His third problem was his stamina. The battle had lasted less than 10 minutes, but Dyon was already tapped out by the end. If it hadn't been for Saeclum's ill advised attack, and the memories of his master letting him know that it was smart to conceal his soul strength, he wouldn't have been able to get up.

His fourth problem was that his most powerful aspect, his soul, was nearly impossible to use in real combat. Soul experts usually specialized in auxiliary abilities. Direct attacks using the soul were exceedingly dangerous as Saeclum had found out the hard way. Dyon had come across many soul techniques since it was part of the expertise of the Celestial Deer Clan, but he hadn't learned any of them because he had no one to rely on while executing techniques that took so much focus. It was nearly impossible to come up with a speed technique for something so delicate. So, Dyon could only use his soul as the power source for his array alchemy, but, that led right back to the problem of his speed arraying. Unless Dyon powered his soul to such an insane level that he could speed array formations originating from the peak practitioner level and beyond, he wouldn't be able to win a fight against so many geniuses.

His fifth problem was that he understood too many wills. He had many tricks, but no masteries. Much of his wills were too shallow. His understanding of the sword had reached the 7th level of wills, but it had no form or substance. He might as well be swinging wildly. On top of that, he had no idea why his understanding of the sword had progressed so quickly. For example, his time will was only at the 1st level. His celestial will, despite being one of his most important abilities, was only at the 3rd level, and he was nowhere near understanding its true essence. With his most useful abilities being so shallow, there was little to say about his other understandings like wind, demonic, space.

At this point, Dyon could only make use of space will on himself and it was only at the first level. The same point went for his understanding of wind. Imagine if he could apply wind will to his sword will? Imagine if his sword could transport itself through space and appear in the body of an enemy? Imagine sharpening his sword with the ripples of space itself?

Dyon's unconscious mind was running through all of these possibilities. What he didn't know is that the level of comprehension he was angry with himself for not having reached, was something even experts at the saint level and beyond were still pondering. The true understanding of wills, the fusion of them, their applications in more ways than just yourself, those were things that an expert may go their whole lives without understanding for a single will. Let alone Dyon who wished to do the same for all of his wills. He had opened himself to a new level of comprehension: will paths.

Despite his indignation, it was impossible for Dyon to train in his current state. He could only allow his body to slowly heal while his soul reached a new sub level.