She was so busy that she didn't think about Arthur at all. To be fair, she wouldn't have bothered with him even if everything was going her way.
There is just too little to be gained from Arthur now that she knows that there is a restriction on his soul. The best that she can do is watch his every move. But that hasn't borne any fruit, so she has given up on him for now.
While the higher-ups of the sect were playing cat and mouse, Arthur was focused on the cultivator. After a year of dedication and hard work, he has finally reached the peak of the third mortal coil.
He exhaled forcefully when this happened. He had to because he felt filled to the brim.
The sensation wasn't entirely an illusion. It is similar to when he had a stomach and used to feel full.
He doesn't have a stomach anymore, but his life seeds have replaced his stomach and are also full right now, so he is feeling a sensation akin to eating too much.
When he exhaled, air full of his mana gushed out of his throat. This was because his life seeds are also serving as his lungs now.
His mana is a violet-colored mixture of lightning and wood, so when it left his body, it caused the environment to be dyed in a violet color.
He felt full of energy, and in this case, it is literal. His power has climbed to a new peak. Everything about him is good, and he is ready to advance to the fourth mortal coil. But there is something still missing.
What is missing is the last 5% of the Life and Death Lightning Art. He thought that when he expressed the full potential of his foundation as 1,024 life seeds, filled up those life seeds, and even combined all 1,024 of them into one power tool that can work together, he would be able to complete the last step of harmony between the two elements.
But that wasn't the case. On the other hand, it was easy for him to connect all the life seeds together.
When all 1,024 of them became full, the terminal within them lit up and became visible. He was then able to use his divine sense to connect the positive terminals to the negative ones and let the electricity produced by his life seeds flow in one large uninterrupted circuit.
So the two host techniques are now at 100%. Even his foundation power is at a total of 1,024. But that last step of harmony of lightning and wood is missing. This caused him to be frustrated.
He asked himself, "What am I missing?"
He tried to figure out what it was that he could be missing that made the Life and Death Lightning Art lag behind.
The problem with this technique is that it doesn't actually provide a solution. What it provides are questions about the unity of wood and lightning.
The Life and Death Lightning Art uses this question to paint a picture that serves as the goal of what harmony between the two elements can be. But it doesn't tell him what specifically the end product of the unity should be.
This lack of a step-by-step guide towards a goal is also why the technique is very small despite being a rank 3 technique. So it can't offer him any help at this point.
While he was ruminating on this question, he received a message on his ID card. Before he checked it, he said sarcastically, "Let me guess, this message is probably from Stella."
He didn't say his sarcastic thoughts out loud because he doesn't trust the privacy of his house anymore. He is not sure that she won't be able to hear what he says, so he didn't try to tempt fate.
As he pulled the sect ID card over to himself with his mind, he promised himself, saying, "I have to get a rank 4 barrier formation as soon as possible. If I can get a rank 5 one, that will be best."
He is already being watched by a patriarch of the sect, and he doesn't like it. So he surely doesn't want another peeping Tom to join in the activity of spying on him.
In order to stop them from spying on him, he wants to get a barrier formation. He wants to get something very powerful, like a rank 5 barrier formation that can interfere with the layers of space and truly block him from the world.
With his promise made, he checked his messages. He wasn't surprised when he saw that the message was sent by Stella.
He rolled his eyes as he read the message. She said, "I can sense that you have reached the peak. But that mana you exhaled from you as a little bit of disharmony. Have you tried to sort out the disharmony?"
He exclaimed, "Damn! She can sense even that?"
He is still unhappy that she is spying on him, but that doesn't mean that he can't be impressed with her skills. It made him begin to feel jealous of her God Physique.
He texted back, "I have tried, but I don't know what to do."
She replied, "Have you tried using the two elements at once?"
He thought he was always using both elements, so he was confused by her suggestion. This made him ask her, "What do you mean?"
She replied, "You have both elements and can use them individually without causing them to clash with each other. This gives you the advantage of being able to use the spells of both schools."
"But to have total harmony, I think that you should be able to use the two elements to do something neither element can do on their own. Only in this way will the two elements be able to perfectly complement each other instead of simply existing without clashing with each other."
When he saw this message, his eyes lit up.