Over the following week, a flurry of activity unfolded.
I reached Meridian Opening third layer after carving the twelfth and final primary meridian. The breakthrough happened during a late-night cultivation session, energy flooding through newly opened pathways until they solidified into permanent channels. Twelve meridians total. Five down, seven to go.
The real chaos came from Earth.
A new set of portals appeared, centered around Chengdu China and spreading across the Eastern hemisphere from there. I'd activated the anchors I'd placed during my Hong Kong trip, letting them bloom into full portal access. Chinese people flooded into Chinese City with an enthusiasm that made the American response look cautious. Within forty-eight hours, the city went from empty to packed with cultivators testing their newfound abilities.
Not just the Chinese though. Japanese portals activated in Tokyo. Korean portals in Seoul. Indian portals in Mumbai and Delhi. Russian portals expanded beyond the initial Moscow location to cover Vladivostok and Saint Petersburg. The entire Eastern hemisphere gained access within days.
I estimated maybe another week before every major city on Earth had a portal. The coverage was spreading faster than I'd anticipated, bringing unprecedented numbers of people into the Eastern Region.
Over thirty million people had established residences across all six cities now. The merit point economy exploded as cultivators competed for resources, rented spaces, purchased knowledge from the All Paths Library. American City alone housed nearly eight million residents, with Chinese City rapidly catching up.
I made a point of appearing as the Eastern Region God every few days, enforcing city rules and making my presence known. A group of German cultivators tried to start a brawl in German City's market district. I materialized in front of them, divine pressure radiating outward until they dropped to their knees. Twenty-four hour ban for all involved. The incident spread through the forums within minutes.
I'd found dozens of posts containing recordings from people who'd witnessed my appearances. The virtual space let them capture their memories and share them freely. Videos of my interventions circulated like wildfire, each one showing the Eastern Region God descending to maintain order. Comments filled the threads.
"Saw him break up that fight in American City. Dude didn't even move, just looked at them and they froze."
"The divine pressure is real. Felt like a mountain landed on my chest when he appeared near me."
"Eastern Region God confirmed real and active. Don't fuck around in the cities unless you want a personal visit."
The posts kept my persona popular and visible. People knew I existed, knew I enforced the rules, knew challenging a God would end badly. Exactly what I needed for future plans.
But the Heavenly Dao brought me something I hadn't expected.
I sensed it during a meditation session, a new energy flowing into the world bead that felt different from spiritual energy. Lighter somehow, more ephemeral, carrying emotional weight and intent. The Heavenly Dao shared images with me, showing threads of this strange power connecting from millions of cultivators directly to the world bead itself.
Faith energy.
People were worshipping the Eastern Region God. Not just respecting him or fearing him, but genuinely praying to him, offering devotion and gratitude. The energy accumulated in a separate reservoir within the world bead, distinct from the normal spiritual energy that saturated the realm.
I couldn't use it. Faith energy only worked for cultivators who'd achieved actual Godhood, a realm so far beyond my current Meridian Opening cultivation that it might as well be myth. But the world bead stored it anyway, collecting the faith like a battery charging for future use.
Thirty million people and growing. Even if only a fraction offered genuine worship, the accumulation would be massive over time.
I returned my focus to the cauldron on my workbench, pushing thoughts of faith energy aside. That was a problem for future me, probably centuries from now. Right now, I had alchemy lessons to prepare.
The forums loaded in my mental vision, thousands of discussion threads organized by category. I navigated to my previous post about inscription lessons and stopped.
Over one million subscribers. The number kept ticking upward as I watched, climbing past 1,002,000 before stabilizing. Comments filled the thread, people asking when lessons would start, what materials they needed, whether they had to pay merit points.
I created a new hosted private lobby, configuring the settings for a teaching environment. The virtual space responded to my intent, building a massive classroom that existed in some impossible dimensional fold. Each student would see themselves sitting directly in front of me, first row center, while simultaneously being aware of thousands of others sitting beside and behind them. From my perspective, I'd see the entire audience spread out before me, their positions shifting based on who needed attention.
I crafted the invitation link and posted it to the forum thread.
"First inscription lesson begins in twenty minutes. Click here to join. Materials will be provided."
The lobby began filling immediately. Virtual bodies materialized in seats, each one appearing exactly as they did in reality.
I didn't care. This was about teaching, not vanity.
The virtual space helped me configure the automatic material distribution. Each student received a spiritual quartz crystal about the size of a thumb and an engraving tool with a diamond tip. The items appeared in their virtual hands, feeling completely real despite existing only in shared consciousness.
Ten minutes passed. The lobby count hit fifty thousand and kept climbing.
Fifteen minutes. One hundred and twenty thousand virtual students filled impossible seating arrangements, all of them seeing themselves in the front row while somehow being aware of the massive crowd around them.
Twenty minutes. The count stabilized around two hundred thousand subscribers who'd actually joined the lobby. Not everyone who subscribed bothered attending, apparently.
I materialized at the teaching position, standing on a raised platform that gave me a clear view of the entire crowd.
Two hundred thousand faces turned toward me.
"Welcome to the first inscription lesson." My voice carried to every student simultaneously, reaching each one as if I stood directly beside them. "Today you'll learn to create a Glow inscription, the simplest and most fundamental pattern in the inscription craft. Master this, and you'll understand the basic principles that govern all inscriptions."
I held up a spiritual quartz crystal identical to the ones they'd received. The crystal floated in the air before me, magnified to ten times its actual size so everyone could see clearly.
"The Glow inscription consists of three main components." I gestured at the magnified crystal, and glowing lines appeared across its surface, highlighting different sections. "The input spiral draws vital energy into the inscription. The conversion node transforms that energy into light. The dispersal array spreads the light evenly across the crystal's surface."
I zoomed in on the input spiral, the view expanding until the hair-thin channel looked like a canyon carved through quartz.
"Start at the edge and work inward. Keep your pressure consistent and move slowly. The channel needs to be exactly one millimeter deep along its entire length. Any variation will disrupt energy flow."
Two hundred thousand virtual hands lifted engraving tools. The sound of diamond tips scraping against spiritual quartz filled the lobby, a chorus of focused effort.
I watched the crowd, my enhanced perception letting me observe thousands of students simultaneously. Most held their tools at awkward angles, pressing too hard or barely making contact with the crystal's surface. A woman in the third row, her face scrunched in concentration, had already carved a crooked line that veered off course.
I manifested beside her, my virtual presence appearing directly at her workstation.
"Your angle is too steep," I said, keeping my voice gentle. "Hold the tool at forty-five degrees, not vertical. Like this."
I demonstrated with my own crystal, positioning the engraving tool properly. She adjusted her grip, and the next section of her spiral came out cleaner.
I moved through the crowd, appearing beside students who struggled. A young man had pressed so hard his crystal cracked. I replaced it with a fresh one and showed him how to let the diamond tip do the work rather than forcing it. An older woman carved too shallow, her channels barely visible. I guided her hand, helping her feel the right depth.
"How do we know if we're going deep enough?" someone called out.
"The channel should catch the light at a different angle than the rest of the crystal's surface," I projected my voice to reach everyone. "If you tilt it and see a faint line glittering, you've carved deep enough. If you see nothing, go deeper."
Questions came from all directions.
"What if my spiral isn't perfectly round?"
"Close enough works for your first attempt. Perfect circles come with practice."
"Mine cracked already. Did I fail?"
"No. You learned what happens when you press too hard. Try again."
I distributed fresh crystals to anyone who needed them, the virtual space providing unlimited materials. Failures were part of learning. Better they break a thousand virtual crystals here than waste real resources later.
Twenty minutes passed before most students completed their input spirals. I returned to the teaching platform and magnified my own crystal again.
"Now comes the conversion node. This is where most failures happen, so pay close attention."
The view zoomed into the crystal's center, showing the six-channel intersection that formed a three-dimensional starburst pattern.
"Each channel must be carved at a precise angle and depth. The first channel goes straight down, one and a half millimeters deep. The second channel intersects it at sixty degrees, also one and a half millimeters. The third at one hundred twenty degrees. Continue the pattern until all six channels meet at the center point."
I demonstrated slowly, carving each channel while the magnified view let everyone see exactly how deep I went and what angle I maintained. The starburst pattern took shape, its geometry perfect and symmetrical.
"The conversion node is what transforms vital energy into light. If the angles are wrong, energy will flow backward and create a feedback loop. The crystal will heat up and crack."
A hand shot up in the virtual crowd.
"How do we measure the angles without tools?"
"Feel it." I tapped my temple. "You may not have spiritual senses yet, but you can still perceive what you see with your eyes. Trust your instincts. If it looks wrong, it probably is."
The scraping sounds resumed, slower this time. I moved through the crowd again, correcting angles and demonstrating proper depth. A teenager had carved his channels too close together, creating a muddled cluster instead of a clean intersection. I showed him how to space them evenly around the center point.
Crystals cracked throughout the lobby. Dozens at first, then hundreds as students pushed too hard or carved at wrong angles. I replaced each one without comment, letting the failures teach their own lessons.
Thirty minutes later, maybe a quarter of the students had completed acceptable conversion nodes. The rest kept trying, their determination evident in focused expressions and careful movements.
"Don't rush," I called out. "This isn't a race. Take your time and get it right. A perfect inscription carved in two hours is better than ten broken crystals carved in twenty minutes."
I manifested beside a young woman whose node looked nearly perfect. Her channels met at precise angles, their depths consistent throughout.
"Excellent work. Now the dispersal array."
I showed her the web pattern that would spread across the crystal's outer surface, dozens of interconnected channels that distributed converted energy evenly. She nodded and began carving, her confidence growing with each successful line.
The teaching continued for another hour. I demonstrated the dispersal array pattern on the magnified crystal, showing how the channels branched and connected like veins carrying light through the quartz. Students worked at their own pace, some finishing quickly while others struggled with basic channel depth.
Finally, the first completed inscription appeared. A man in his thirties held up his crystal, the web of channels glittering across its surface. The pattern looked rough, several channels slightly crooked, but the basic structure was sound.
"Test it," I said, manifesting beside him. "Channel vital energy into the input spiral."
He frowned. "I haven't reached Meridian Opening yet. I don't have vital energy."
"The virtual space will provide it. Just will energy to flow into the crystal."
He focused, his brow furrowing in concentration. The crystal remained dark for several seconds. Then, a faint blue glow appeared in the conversion node, spreading through the dispersal array in uneven waves. The light flickered and dimmed in spots, revealing imperfections in the channel depths, but it worked.
The man's face lit up brighter than his crystal.
"I did it! Holy shit, I actually did it!"
Applause erupted through the virtual lobby. Two hundred thousand students cheered as the first successful inscription glowed in his hands.
More completions followed. Crystals lit up throughout the crowd, their blue light casting azure shadows across virtual workstations. Some glowed brighter than others, revealing skill differences, but they all worked.
I let the celebration continue for a few minutes before raising my hand for silence.
"Congratulations to everyone who completed their first inscription. For those still working, keep practicing. The lobby will remain open for another two hours."
After the class ended, I copied a recording of the entire session and uploaded it to my forum post. The virtual space preserved everything perfectly, every demonstration and correction captured in crystal clarity. Anyone who missed the live lesson could watch at their own pace, pausing to practice each step.