The troops returned to the city on the mountain peak, Lisa had issued a celebration to honor that overwhelming victory.

The soldiers would drink to their fullest and take a break from the constant battles that they were forced to fight.

The mental state was an important factor for a cultivator's battle prowess, exhausted soldiers would perform poorly on the battlefield after all.

Noah, however, wasn't in the mood for parties, his mind wandered between the many possibilities that the Elemental forging method offered.

Also, he didn't share the same feelings of the soldiers, the Odrea nation wasn't his home after all.

That's why he went in the Mausoleum, nighttime was the best moment to use his cultivation technique and the battle in the day had been quite easy, he had no reason to skip his training.

The second layer of the Mausoleum was empty, Noah quietly cultivated at its bottom on top of his "Breath" blessing.

Cultivating had become a habit by then, he could easily concentrate on other matters while the vortex between his hands absorbed "Breath".

His thoughts were on the possible items that he could forge, the Instabilities were useful but they had a great weakness: they could not be used next to allies.

'The explosion is not enough by itself, I can't remove the spikes from the structure. Also, I have no control over the direction of the spikes, the whole point of the Instabilities is to exploit the natural destabilization of forged weapons… There should be a way to apply the same theory on items that can be used after the armies have clashed.'

To do that he needed to think of a way to reduce the area of effect of the weapon without reducing its power.

'Precision over destruction, lethality over sheer power, the blueprint of the Moon needle might actually work.'

The main problem of his inscription method was that the items created in that way would need a cultivator of the darkness element to express their full power.

That's why Noah chose to create disposable weapons, the issue with the conflicting elements was solved in that way.

Yet, another problem appeared due to that: the precious materials were expended too quickly.

'I will wait for the Empire to develop a countermeasure to the Instabilities and then forge something else, I should create a weapon only after I've discovered the weaknesses of their battle formation.'

Noah simply concluded that it was better to see how the Empire reacted next month rather than blindly create a new weapon.

'A bit more than one hundred Instabilities and all the spikes of the rank 4 Brown hedgehogs in the inventory will be depleted, I should use the Steeled corals next.'

Noah was already planning the new rank 4 material to use for his Instabilities when a person entered the second layer of the Mausoleum.

Noah noticed the newcomer and slightly opened his eyes.

He recognized the cultivator, she was the red soldier that had protected him during his first battle, one of Logan's personal troops.

She casually walked inside the room and neared Noah, the smell of wine and sweat immediately filled the air, Noah guessed that she had just come out of the party.

The battle had just ended, the soldiers didn't care about their smell enough to wash before the celebration, both she and Noah had still some red stains on them.

Noah didn't mind her and simply closed his eyes again to resume his brainstorming, that place was usually crowded after all.

Yet, she didn't sit on a mat to cultivate and neared Noah's position while wearing a smile.

"You should relax too."

She spoke in a soft voice, stopping at a few steps from Noah, she didn't want to forcefully stop his cultivation.

"Did Lisa send you?"

Noah, however, was already guessing that the encounter was a scheme to bound him to the nation.

The woman was, after all, attractive.

She looked in her thirties, her body was slender and fit, and her black curly hair perfectly matched her dark skin.

"Our only obligation is toward the monthly battles, the Lord would never control what we do in our free time. This nation is already a prison, if even our actions were to be restricted, we would feel like prisoners rather than soldiers."

She calmly answered while sitting right next to the mineral, she would eye Noah from time to time as she stared at the pa.s.sage leading to the first layer.

"I knew I would find you here, I've never seen someone so dedicated to his training. The other soldiers would have enjoyed your presence to the celebration though."

"I don't belong to this nation, I'm just being paid to fight."

Noah honestly replied, there was no reason to lie.

"Yet, the other blue soldiers look at you with admiration, they respect you."

"They would just fear me if I was their enemy."

Another quick exchange of phrases resounded in the room, Noah was just replying honestly to her.

"Then we can consider ourselves lucky that the mighty hooded devil was captured by the formation, I really don't know what we would do if your weapons were to be used against us."

She laughed at that statement, she didn't seem to mind that he had no attachment to the Odrea nation.

"Why did you come looking for me?"

Noah sighed, the conversation wasn't bothering him but he was still wondering about the actual reason behind her presence there.

"I figured that this was the only time where I could have a conversation with you alone. I was born here, everything I know about the outside world concerns the Empire, seeing an outsider like you awakened my curiosity."

Noah arched one of his eyebrows as he gazed at the woman below him.

She was smiling and was looking at him with eager eyes.

"You… Do you want to know about the outside world?"

She nodded at that question and continued to stare Noah, she seemed really interested in his knowledge.

Noah lowered his gaze, reviewing all the information that he knew about the various countries before opening his mouth to speak a few simple words.

"The world is cruel."