SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 602: What the Higher World Builds

The public archive charged two silver for a day’s access.

Leon chose a cultivation primer written for children.

The text compared the body to a country. The spiritual root gathered energy from the world. Meridians carried it inward, and the dantian stored and refined it into qi the cultivator could control. Without open meridians, even a powerful spiritual root had nowhere useful to send what it gathered.

The later Chapters described what happened when those structures grew together. Meridians widened and became harder to damage. The dantian changed in quality as well as capacity. At higher stages, the cultivator’s spirit and energy became woven tightly enough that destroying flesh no longer guaranteed death.

That last section was simplified for children, but Leon recognized the beginning of the path that eventually produced a cosmic anchor.

Leon read the section twice.

They build an additional structure inside themselves.

Local cultivation did more than increase the same attributes measured by the System. It created a second foundation: roads, reservoirs, filters, and a circulation network designed over countless generations.

Leon’s own power entered through his two hearts and the framework of his class. His body had no spiritual root, dantian, or proper meridians. The method worked, but it skipped every stage these cultivators used to compress and refine their energy.

He could not copy their system blindly. He needed to understand what advantages it produced and find a way to answer them through his own foundation.

He copied the diagrams instead of trusting himself to remember them. Later, he could compare them with anatomy from Velaria and ask Loriel whether living beings inside his world showed any dormant equivalent. Even a failed comparison would narrow the problem.

The same books helped him place Moonfall’s experts.

Most citizens never cultivated. Many who began stopped within the lower realms and worked as guards, artisans, or caravan hands. Golden Core cultivators received respect anywhere in the city. Dao Palace experts, whom the System recognized as Archons, could protect a regional family by themselves.

Void Immortals stood much higher. They served as supreme elders, ancient ancestors, and the foundations of influential organizations. Resources meant for them cost more than many merchant families earned in years.

Above them were Earth Immortals, the local equivalent of Ethereal Lords.

Qingyue belonged somewhere within that greater realm.

Leon left the archive near sunset with copied notes and three more introductory manuals.

Outside, a group of young cultivators stepped aside for an elderly man wearing a plain brown robe. Nothing about his clothes marked him as wealthy, but the pressure contained beneath his skin made the System identify him as an Archon. Shopkeepers bowed as he passed. A formation hall closed its front doors so he could inspect a commission in private.

Nobody announced his rank. The street’s behavior did it for him.

That evening, he prepared the herb samples.

He did not open a passage inside the Shen guest wing. Instead, he used the private connection to his dimensional world and routed the sealed package directly into an empty quarantine plot far from inhabited ground. The roots, seeds, and potted herb remained separated behind layered barriers.

Loriel inspected them there. Her answer returned through the same connection the next morning.

”The roots are alive, and the seeds should germinate. The potted one is stronger than most medicinal plants we have cultivated. Send a small soil sample, but keep it sealed until I test it.”

Leon purchased soil from the same seller, divided it into several containers, and transferred only one. Nothing would enter the dimensional world’s farms until Loriel confirmed it carried no pests, spores, or harmful energy.

The precautions cost little. A careless contamination could cost far more.

Later that morning, Leon visited the street outside Moonfall’s largest auction house.

Formation lamps burned white above the entrance. Sedan chairs arrived without joining any queue, and guards bowed when they recognized the crests on their passengers’ robes. Leon watched an Archon cross the threshold without being searched while a wealthy merchant waited outside with three attendants and a sealed chest.

The merchant was eventually admitted only after an auction official came out to vouch for him.

Leon had enough money to enter the public sales. The private rooms required a recognized name, an introduction, or goods valuable enough to make the auction house interested.

That distinction appeared everywhere once he knew how to see it.

Moonfall had shops for ordinary people, shops for independent cultivators, and an almost invisible trade serving the organizations that ruled the region. The best goods rarely reached an open counter.

By the sixth day, Leon had learned enough to begin planning. The city offered resources that could improve cultivation, medicine, formation work, and food production inside his dimensional world. Access would take time. He needed trusted contacts and a better understanding of what he could safely sell.

The Shen compound also changed that day.

Two inner courtyards closed before noon. Guards left the warehouse rotation and took positions around the rear grounds. Servants stopped using one covered walkway and began taking the longer route through the kitchens.

Yanning crossed the guest courtyard twice carrying documents. Both times, she walked faster than usual.

Leon noticed and did not question her. The Shens had given him a map that clearly marked their private areas. Their hospitality did not entitle him to family secrets.

Nothing suggested immediate danger. The guards appeared alert rather than frightened, and the household continued its normal work.

At dinner, Leon heard two servants mention that the rear kitchens would remain closed through morning. One complained about carrying water around the long route. The other told him to lower his voice and follow the steward’s instructions. Neither sounded as though an attack was expected.

Late that night, Leon sat on the floor of his room with the meridian chart spread before him. A spirit-stone fragment rested in his palm while he compared its natural circulation with the routes engraved into the copper.

Then something crossed the wall of the third ward.

Leon felt four disturbances moving through the night. Each was smooth and controlled, as if the air had forgotten to resist them.

The System responded a moment later.

[Ethereal Initiate — Early Stage]

[Ethereal Initiate — Early Stage]

[Ethereal Initiate — Early Stage]

[Ethereal Initiate — Late Stage]

Leon lowered the stone.

Any one of those cultivators could serve as the ancestor of a lesser organization. Four of them were crossing a merchant ward together with their presences concealed.

He considered the alarm bell in the caravan yard and rejected it. If they were targeting the Shens, an alarm might send them through the household before ordinary guards could react. If their objective lay elsewhere, sounding it would expose Leon before he understood the situation.

He extinguished the lamp and suppressed his aura until it blended with the room.

A short spatial fold carried him onto the guest-wing roof without disturbing a tile.

The four intruders entered over the eastern storehouse. They passed through a weak seam in the wall formation, waited for a patrol at exactly the right moment, and moved as soon as it turned away.

They knew the estate’s layout and its schedule.

Leon followed from the rooftops, keeping twenty paces between them.

The intruders crossed the outer grounds without triggering a ward. At the first inner gate, their leader placed a flat disc against the stone. The formation dimmed just long enough for all four to pass.

Beyond it waited the sealed courtyards Leon had noticed that afternoon.

The intruders headed straight toward them.