Ankit stayed in the greenhouse and started cultivating right there.
He informed his parents through the MindWhispering technique, then raised a shield around himself— to block sound and vibrations—until the outside world faded into a soft blur. Only then did he sink fully into cultivation.
Even so, he did not abandon the Mortal Foundation Sutra. Between longer sessions, he still ran through its stances, breathing, and quiet sitting. There was a reason.
After merging with his clones, he had wanted to test something: if all his clones practiced the sutra seriously, would the benefits stack when they fused back into him?
The result surprised even him.
When he merged with Root, Solar, and Sacral after their six‑month routine, Ankit discovered that the Mortal Foundation benefits multiplied in his body.
Each clone's training settled into him as if he had personally practiced. In total, he received roughly four times the usual effect.
In other words, even though his main body had not practiced the Sutra for the full six months, the system still recognised him as a Genius among Mortals.
On top of that, when the gains were calculated, he effectively received the equivalent of about two extra years of Mortal Foundation practice stacked onto his base.
Means for his system, he is a Above-genius.
But There was a catch.
This strange stacking only worked because he was the creator of the Mortal Foundation Sutra.
The scripture recognised his will and treated all three clones as "extensions" of him. For anyone else—his parents, Sanya, even Rudra—clones or helpers wouldn't change the result.
They would only ever get the benefit of their own, single body's practice.
Ankit sighed when he realised that. It would have been nice if his family could simply copy his cheat, but the rules of the sutra were selfish in this one regard.
He also confirmed an important point in his notes: the "genius titles" given by the Mortal Foundation Sutra were separate from innate talent.
- Innate talent = what someone is born with.
- Sutra talent = what they carve out with discipline.
If a person was born with the talent of a normal genius, and then earned a Geniusamong Mortals title through the sutra, the two stacked.
Their overall talent would rise above that of most peers who had only one of the two. Innate talent was mostly fixed—but, as Ankit wrote with a wry smile, there were always natural treasures and magicalaccidents that could bend even those rules.
Because he remembered a voice saying all things are possible.
*****
While Ankit cultivated, the rest of the household returned to their routines.
Sometimes the family passed through the greenhouse to water herbs or just to relax. Whenever they did, they saw Ankit sitting cross‑legged on the grass, eyes closed, motionless inside his translucent barrier.
No matter how much they chatted nearby, he didn't twitch or open his eyes, as if sound could no longer reach him at all.
Rudra, being Rudra, had once toddled straight toward Ankit, hand outstretched to poke his brother's face. Gyu intercepted him just in time, scooping him up and distracting him with a leaf puppet.
After that, the family simply let Ankit be and continued their day.
On the other side of the fortress, SolarClone headed east, toward the origin point in East India.
Months ago, Root Clone had left a small network of puppets there to monitor the anomaly and gather resources. Those puppets stayed active, combing the region methodically.
Because the distance between that origin point and Dark Haven Fortress was enormous, a single puppet needed six to seven days of continuous high‑speed travel to bring back a load of materials.
To keep the flow steady, the clones had set a schedule: one courier puppet dispatched every fourteen days, each one returning with whatever resources the others had collected and sorted.
But yesterday's delivery had been different.
The latest courier arrived carrying a chunk of new metal—a material Solar had never seen before. Its structure, behaviour under Essence, and reaction to heat and impact screamed forging treasure.
A brief round of tests confirmed it: this metal could become the backbone of weapons several stages higher than his current stock.
Waiting half a month for the next shipment was unacceptable.
The puppets needed almost a week to cross the distance. Solar, however, could ride his own techniques and travel there in minutes. So he left immediately, streaking east to seize the metal at its source instead of nibbling on scraps.
While Solar was gone, Sacral Clone quietly advanced his own work.