William had secretly given him the second Kesier rune right before the guard from the inner circle took him away.
The piece of paper he slipped inside his clothes was precisely that.
Noah continued to cultivate while he stared at the rune on the wall.
Immense pressure was applied from inside his sea of consciousness, making the waves continuously crash on the mental sphere, enlarging it.
Since he was cultivating and looking at the rune at the same time, his mental energy was expended at a higher speed and he had to stop staring at the rune after just one hour.
Then, he spent the rest of the night focusing on enlarging the dantian and only when the first light of the day showed up he stopped and laid on the bed.
'Even by sleeping only every two days my training is slower compared to when I was in the outer circle.'
He thought of Lena and her water bullets.
'She has no special talent and yet she managed to become a rank 1 mage at the age of seventeen. The advantage given by all the potions and pills can overcome any gifted individual.'
He thought of his situation.
'I can train harder in the second rune, but that will give me no immediate increase in strength. On the other side, reaching the liquid stage can boost both my martial art and my body.'
That was the solution he found during his months there.
He would focus more on the cultivation technique since he could not obtain anything else.
'However, the more time I spend here the more I will lose my initial advantage. I must find a way to escape soon.'
His escape was something set in stone in his mind.
Now that his mother was dead he really had no more reasons to hesitate.
'I must be ready at any time. The academy surely isn't waiting for me to knock at its doors.'
Time passed but there were no changes to his daily routine.
Every dawn he would wake up and attend the siblings and after a full day enduring their treatment, he would go back to his room to train all night.
His complexion became paler as he began to sleep only every three days to increase the time spent in training.
Cultivating was refreshing but it couldn't replace sleep, he was relying on the vitality of his rank 3 body to keep up with his schedule.
Sometimes Rhys would show up and look at him from the distance.
He had a smug smile every time he looked at his bastard son being used as a training dummy for Lena's spells but the bandage on his left eye made his figure less lofty.
Noah continued to endure and only showed a cold face to anyone while his mental sphere became sturdier and sturdier with the passage of time.
The external experiences could reinforce one's state of mind and in that environment, Noah's mind was becoming extremely tough.
He could not accumulate merits since his duties were merely inside the mansion, so he waited patiently for the right moment to come.
A few weeks after he became fifteen, that moment came.
It was dawn and Noah was about to leave his room when someone knocked at his door.
Noah opened it and found the head of Evan's personal guards standing in front of him.
Since he was his direct superior, Noah bowed and made a respectful greeting.
"Good morning, captain Logan."
Logan nodded at his etiquette and handed him a few papers.
Noah took them and gave a short look at the title on the first page.
'Shosti's inheritance ground.'
Logan explained.
"A month from now, the Shosti family will open the inheritance ground to all the families in its domain. Since you have the required age and strength, you have been selected to be one of the guards accompanying the descendants in this event. All the relevant knowledge about the event is in those sheets and you'll be free of your duties in the period time till its opening to prepare for the task. Remember to bring honor to the Balvan family."
Noah felt that Logan's speech was over so he bowed again to his departure and then closed the door of his room.
His eyes became dark as he sat on the floor to read the contents of the sheets.
'Finally an opportunity!'
'The Shosti's inheritance ground is a separate dimension supposedly left behind by a powerful cultivator. It is said that what made the Shosti family a large-size noble one was the discovery of this place. However, it is required an age below twenty years to explore it so the Shosti's had no other options but to involve the other noble families in its exploration. They will then offer huge rewards to any family whose descendant manages to obtain something from it in exchange for what they had gained. The dimension will open every twenty years, so each descendant has only one attempt in retrieving something from it.'
Noah had to stop reading to sort the first line of text in his mind.
'Separate dimension? How does it work? Even in my previous world humans didn't achieve in such a task!'
Then his focus moved to the age requirements.
'This powerful cultivator, was he looking for an heir? Also, the Shosti family's move to open it to every other noble is smart, they can accumulate prizes while improving their image to those they govern.'
The sheet then listed the known rewards that had been retrieved since the first opening.
'Mostly cultivation resources of high quality, but there are also magical weapons, high-rank techniques, and powerful spells.'
Noah was astonished.
'How powerful the cultivator that set it up has been to accumulate all this wealth?'
As he kept reading, a smile appeared on his face and his eyes became colder.
'I can do it, this is the perfect chance to escape even if I obtain nothing from it. It is time to use the Earth pill in my space-ring.'