The wild spiritual energy eventually settled throughout into a state of minimal excitation. The city hadn't been completely unharmed despite their best efforts, but cracked streets and a few unstable buildings were an acceptable result. Earth cultivators could handle any pressing issues, but they would mostly be needed for the continuation of the operation. The Gloom Desolation still had quite a large area to cover, and the process would continue in shifts.

After dealing with one of the troublesome nodes beneath a city, Astrid was quite pleased to deal with the much easier day-to-day efforts. Even when they did come upon another concentrated node, it was far easier to deal with. It covered an area that would have been farmland… if the soil had been at all fertile. However, either due to the lack of earth element in the area or something else most of the Gloom Desolation was unsuitable for even the most basic farming.

In short, it didn't matter if the ground was torn up and some energy went wild… within reason. If handled poorly, Astrid was quite certain that they could accidentally accelerate the decay of the seal beyond their control. On a potent node such as they were, there could also be other troublesome consequences. If it all came out at once, it could be an explosion as powerful as a volcano's eruption. While the Green Sands was always quite prepared to deal with their local specimen, there wasn't really anything the Gloom Desolation could do to prepare.

It wouldn't actually be a volcanic eruption either, but huge chunks of stone could fly through the sky, propelled by spiritual energy. Astrid didn't want to know what consequences there might be with the light element as well. So they had to be careful.

But they could still be a little bit looser than with a city. She had been constantly on her toes, shifting elemental cycles back and forth until excess agitation of spiritual energy had calmed down. Now, she could just let the light element burst forth into the sky in bright beams. Concentrated to a narrow line, there actually wasn't much interaction with darkness element that would take place- especially not compared to expanding in a sphere.

Eventually it would settle in with everything else, mixed into the local environment. Even if some of the light element was annihilated, it wouldn't be entrapped again so some could flow in from the surroundings.

There had been some concerns about the border regions. The seal might have been packed with light element at the edges where it absorbed whatever flowed in- but whoever had set up the underground formation to last for centuries obviously thought about things more clearly. Both earth and light were absorbed and mostly evenly distributed throughout the land. It was impossible to tell if the concentrated nodes were intentional, a required part of the seal, or if they were merely a result of things breaking down over time. If it was the latter case, it was actually critical that they take active steps to deal with it. It would be impossible to say until a later assessment took place.

-----

Row by row, Astrid planted her own spiritual energy, feeding off of the earth element beneath to create stalks of twisting firegrass. The grass was the basis of her cultivation, something with which she was intimately familiar. Creating a reverse process was easy enough, releasing the light she filtered out from underground as it was disentangled from the earth element. Others all had their own methods. Simply disturbing the seal was enough in many cases, though it was important to balance their efforts overall.

The process was exhausting, day after day of the same thing. Astrid kept up the maximum pace she could maintain, but she missed the stretches of time she would normally spend meditating on her progress. Cultivation took place over the course of many years, but this project had to reach fruition over the course of a month… or two. As always, estimations of how long a project would take were only that- estimations. Sometimes things took longer. There were always confounding factors even if the pace was kept.

Concentrated nodes of spiritual energy appearing under cities were one thing, but in some places they were deeper underground. That meant searching for tunnels or digging up the landscape to properly reach the seal. If a particular group had a powerful earth cultivator they might accelerate some of that trouble, but not every team had a perfect balance at every point. They only had so many cultivators, after all, and some simply had higher cultivation.

As one of those, Astrid felt even more inspired to pull her own weight. She had confidence in her own value, of course, but sometimes she felt she didn't deserve her position. Even if she had built up the Summer Sun Sect into its current form, paving the way for Nicolas to take over after her- and likely produce more Ascending Soul Phase cultivators- being around certain other individuals made her feel lacking.

That included John's children. Not that it was any fault of their own, of course- they were generally quite humble or at least they didn't put others down. However, they were rather close to her own age… and her cultivation was lower than theirs. It was a difference of only a rank or two, but such a thing wasn't trivial, especially at the Ascending Soul Phase. She couldn't help but compare to them.

Then there was John- not the highest cultivation among his peers, but close to the top. He would soon reach the late Ascending Soul Phase, and he had a unique cultivation path that Astrid couldn't match. Even if she could have, she hadn't made such bold choices early in her cultivation career. Did it make a difference that he was transmigrated? She could only say that it was his good fortune- it still took guts to make the choices he had.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ultimately, Astrid didn't feel special. Not on her own, at least. John did make her feel confident about herself. They were a good duo, and he was quite supportive. Astrid knew she was just having a long stretch of mental fatigue, but she was looking forward to having another notable accomplishment that wouldn't be tied to John directly. Obviously there was Melanthina, but a single step of removal was good enough.

-----

When they finally finished their cut across the narrow direction, the total perimeter they had to handle began to narrow day by day. It was a sign of the end of the project which filled everyone with increased vigor. There were still a few snags, but by the end of the task they only had the southeastern portion of the Gloom Desolation, along the coast. It was actually easier there, as the nearby water element helped balance things out.

After that was over, there were social events to attend. Fortunately for Astrid, everyone was tired and so her particular fatigue wasn't exceptional. The locals had much to say about the success of the project, comments on the current quality of spiritual energy, speculations about how things might turn out. Astrid listened to them as they all came in one ear and out the other, hopefully with enough lingering to be considered later.

She wasn't going to be involved with any planting projects, though she would keep an interested eye on things. The seal's removal would have a large impact on the region in the years to come, but saying precisely what that impact might be was impossible at the current time. Hopefully it was positive, because she had added her reputation to the project.

-----

A few days of sleeping and meditating in alternation brought Astrid back to a better mental state. Even though it was far different from her standard training, she felt a significant amount of internal growth. Her rank hadn't advanced, but that was more or less a formality with some time, once she had the proper insights. It was possible to force growth without such insights, but it would be harder to control the necessary spiritual energy.

It was somewhat detrimental within a phase, but it was an extreme risk when advancing. Even John had nearly killed himself with imperfect insights advancing to the Ascending Soul Phase. That was in part because of his ambitious haste. He had mentioned an obsession that came about after the death of Matayal- and how pointless it all was. He had only pulled away from his children who remained- they were what truly mattered. The reason he wanted power was to be strong enough to protect them, but he almost lost both them and the power.

She had been aware of some version of those events when she first began courting him, but the details were obviously more sparse. Information about influential cultivators abounded widely, not all of it true. The same was the case for Astrid herself, including some that had come about after her marriage. There were a number of less than flattering descriptions of events, but with a well rested head on her Astrid felt quite comfortable ignoring them.

John supported her, and she supported him. The current situation was one that didn't work with just one of them alone. It didn't matter that he was the one who taught her how to balance all of the elements, and that he'd initially taken the burden upon himself. The point was that she understood, and they did it together. She was going to support him all the way to the Exalted Soul Phase. She had less hope for reaching it herself, but she could at least do that much.

On the journey back, she was eager to meet him. It must have been torturous for Matayal to be away from him for so long during their marriage- especially while they were younger. At her current age, Astrid didn't find a few months or even half a year to be terribly long, but when she was still only twenty or thirty years old it was quite a different picture.

She wondered if he had missed her as much, or if his duties had kept his mind occupied. Was it reasonable to wish your partner suffered without you, even just a little? Perhaps not, but it wasn't really about that part.

-----

The first thing that John did when Astrid returned was to sweep her up into his arms and kiss her. She bore a radiant smile as she looked into his eyes. "How was it?" John asked.

"I am certain you've heard," Astrid replied. Then she looked beyond him towards a crowd of visiting dignitaries. "Don't you have business to get to?"

"They were able to wait weeks to get here. They can wait a few minutes while I greet my wife. Anyway, I'd rather hear about things from you."

"Or Melanthina," Astrid grinned.

"I'll hear her version separately. I must admit, I never really thought there was a solution for the way things were. I mostly accepted that the Gloom Desolation was as it was."

John had seen some very strange places, after all. One of their neighbors had constant and almost random lightning. A darkness element region where plants didn't grow wasn't the strangest thing- even if he should have taken greater note of the lacking elements.

"It was long and boring," Astrid said. "Interspersed with moments of far too much excitement and effort. Clearly the seal was never meant to be undone. I think it might have happened on its own eventually. They are still assessing the results, but initial thoughts are promising. At the very least, it is expected that they will be able to grow more darkness herbs. I was thinking we might send a few samples from our gardens to motivate the greater sects. They can be encouraged to share with the rest."

"An excellent idea," John said. "Now, I really should get back to listening to complaints about why the rules for some event should be changed to benefit a particular element or to completely eliminate them from the competition. And then I'll talk with the actual games commission, who will probably keep things more or less the same and suggest that people punch out their problems in the arena. Relatedly, we might have improved the formations to a point they can support group fights at the Ascending Soul Phase."

"That will be quite a treat for people, I am sure," Astrid said. Then she spun John around to get him walking in the right direction. Though before he even took a step, she couldn't help but hug him from behind. Just for a moment.

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