In actuality, the essence flow in the game world came from the origin point on the hidden island where the Eternal Ascendancy headquarters stood. Ether Clone had arranged it carefully, keeping in mind his grand vision.
Even though the game world now had essence flow, it was scattered evenly across every place—player lobbies, world lobby, sect lobbies, maps, training sanctums, everything.
Unlike the real world, where essence flow was denser near origin points and weaker farther away, the game distributed it equally everywhere.
So all locations had the same amount of essence flow. But if anyone wanted more concentrated essence flow in a specific area, they had to use vyuhas—just like in Ecliptic Bound Sect lobby.
But currently, no one knew about these vyuhas. Ellie had used them only for Sanya's sect lobby.
Even the Concords and others didn't know about this function. If they had asked their special AIs, they would have learned it—but they hadn't asked, so their AIs hadn't told them. The AIs thoughts were, "There is no immediate need for vyuhas yet. The game world have enough essence flow for now. Concord doesn't have any need for huge amount of essence flow."
But for the future? Nobody knew.
Ellie had used vyuhas to make the sect more powerful. Breathing techniques were not that strong, but a full cultivation system was on another level.
Sanya planned to let all sect members learn the cultivation system. That meant every member would use essence flow to cultivate, forge, refine pills, or do any other work. If there wasn't enough essence flow during a urgent need, it would be bad.
So it was good that vyuhas existed to concentrate essence flow where needed.
There were more vyuhas inside—for helping with forging, aiding alchemy, calming the mind and heart, and many other things.
The sect had everything—just like a sect in xianxia novels.
From grand palaces to hidden grottoes, from spirit rivers to floating peaks, from learning pavilions to forging halls… everything was there.
And there were still many unused places in the sect—ready for future members to use.
After Sanya and Rudra had visited all the important places in the sect, they returned to the central mountain.
Then they decided to call the sect members.
Rudra began inviting every disciple who had sent him a friend request.
The disciples who were online came immediately.
The ones who were offline and couldn't join right now would come another day. For now, Rudra had invited five disciples.
The five disciples who accepted the invitation emerged on a floating island. There was no human being to welcome them.
Only a cute little panda was there.
The panda spoke lazily, "Hey, are you new sect members? Well, you're the second group I see here. So it looks like you are. Ok good, go and look around. I have to sleep."
Then the panda lay down on the green grass, still chewing a bamboo stalk, and fell asleep.
The panda wasn't an adult. It was just a baby panda—same as in the real world—but with the ability to talk and show intelligence.
In actuality, this panda was one of the sect guardians. There were ten such guardians in total.
Normally, neither sects nor individual players could have beasts or pets. Only Concords were allowed to own one.
But even for Concords, beasts were extremely expensive. No Concord had bought one yet.
The beasts came in baby form with no powers. They needed to be raised from infancy to adulthood and could cultivate just like in the real world.
Even though there were benefits to cultivating them, the cost was too high. Concords preferred to use that money to cultivate their own members instead.
Why could only Concords have beasts? And why couldn't sects or players?
Because beasts required constant care, just like in real life. They could survive on game food like game characters, but they couldn't grow strong with that alone. They couldn't use human breathing techniques or cultivation systems. They needed their own special methods—and guidance.
Only a special AI could provide that guidance and the unique cultivation path for beasts.
That's why only Concords could have them—their special AIs could take care of the beast 24/7 and guide its growth.
Sanya's sect also had this special AI (Ellie), so she could own beasts too.
Players and normal sects couldn't because they lacked a special AI.
The special AI was the key to unlocking beasts.
Ellie belonged to the sect, not to Sanya personally—so Sanya couldn't have a private pet.
But if she talked to her brother… maybe.
She didn't know it yet, but her brother had already planned something that would one day allow players and normal sects to have their own pets too.
For now, the baby panda guardian slept peacefully on the grass, bamboo in mouth, as the five new disciples looked around in wonder.