A few more days passed, and in that period, Ning spent most of the time either in the guild or back home helping the new cultivators get used to cultivation.
He helped them understand how Qi worked, how divine sense worked, and many other things that came with being a cultivator.
Both Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee broke through to the Core Formation realm in just 3 days despite cultivating for just some night.
Chase was the same, but his schedule was slightly broken due to having to come and go at irregular hours, so he didn't get as much time to cultivate at all.
He also called his Uncle and Grandmother over to stay in his house for a few weeks. That, however, was just an excuse to keep them close just in case.
One day late at night, he got a call from the director. He accepted the call.
"Director Sung, I didn't expect to hear from you at this time," he said. "It's quite late."
"I just got some news, I thought you would want to hear it too," the director said.
"What's the news?" Ning asked.
"That S-ranked hunter, the first one to go in, he's come out," the director said. "He says that it's been less than an hour since he entered. You were right, time is flowing differently in those dungeons."
"I knew it," Ning said. "See, you won't have to worry about sending in hoards of people."
"I hope so," the director said. "I already sent what I think is the right number, but with such delay, I might have to send more to stop the dungeon from evolving."
"Good luck regarding that," Ning said. There was nothing he could do to help regarding that situation. The system probably had some ways, but Ning still didn't have any communication with his other body.
It would be about a week or so before he got any feedback from Ning.
"Oh right, about that meeting, how's that going?" he asked.
"It's… going as well as we could hope at the moment. Information has been delivered to all the countries, and I'm sure they are intrigued, but since they want to see the demonstration in person, it will take a while to create the meeting," the director said.
"How many of them said anything about coming to the meeting?" Ning asked.
"All of them," the director said. "They're very curious how you got the information you gave them. Besides, I think they're actually coming for you rather than the information itself. A 5 god blessed Apostle is not something you see every day."
"I see," Ning said. "Thanks for letting me know."
"Of course," the director said.
The call ended there and Ning went back to cultivating. The nighttime was the most peaceful, so he did nothing but cultivate.
The next few days, he went to the guild and helped complete a few dungeon runs to train the secondary team of S-ranked fighters.
Then when the weekend came, it was time for him to leave.
Apparently, since the world leaders wanted to see the magic circles in work by themselves, they held the meeting in person rather than over the internet, like most of the meetings nowadays took place.
The place where it was going to be held was the United Nations headquarters in New York, despite the fact that the United Nations barely did anything at this time and age.
Each country was out for itself and wanted to see the other one's downfall. Unless there was a global threat, no one even remembered the existence of this global body.
People from all around the globe were flown into New York on the weekends, all of whom were guarded by an apostle.
Of the remaining 129 countries, each and every single one of them had come to this assembly and Ning was going to be the one to address this.
Ely sat on top of a tall skyscraper along with Ning and looked at the sprawling city of New York.
"It's not like what I thought it would be," she said as she looked at the city.
"I don't think anything is like what you thought back then," Ning said. "Those dungeon breaks really did reshape most of the world."
Ely nodded. "Still, it's not that bad," she said. "Certainly has a lot of the tall buildings still."
Ning nodded and continued watching the city. The sun slowly rose from the east as the morning came to light.
"That's very pretty isn't it?" Ely asked.
"I suppose," Ning said. "But it's not as pretty as those stars and nebulas I talked about. Now that is true beauty."
"I'm looking forward to seeing them someday then," she said.
"Sure, I'll take you out to the stars after all of this mess is over," Ning said.
Ely smiled and said nothing as she stared at the morning sun. To Ning, it might not look as pretty, but to her it absolutely was. To lose love for such a sight, she wondered what could be so much more beautiful than this.
She turned to see Ning put on a somber face as she looked into the distance.
"Are you nervous?" she asked. She wouldn't have thought that was possible.
"No, I'm not nervous," he said. "I'm just… thinking."
"About what?" Ely asked.
"About life, I guess," Ning said. He turned to see Ely looking confused at his statement.
"You see, ever since I left Kumia all those years ago, my goal had been to return back to you guys, which I did. Then, along the way, I had another goal added to my journey, to save earth from these gods," Ning said.
"I've already fulfilled my first goal, and if I complete my other goal soon too… then what do I do?" he asked. "I have an infinite amount of years to leave, and I'm worried I won't be able to do it at all."
Ely got contemplative for a moment and smiled. She grabbed Ning's arm and leaned into his shoulders.
"Don't worry. No matter how many years you have to live, I will be by your side forever to live them with you."
