Chapter 1128
Timothy never wanted to be the face of the Scarlet Alliance, but he ended up in that role by virtue of being the most personable Domination cultivator they had. Which was to say, one of two which was already a surprising result.
While they had some hope for others to soon reach Domination, it couldn’t be guaranteed even if they considered the level of cooperation they had. The two had more or less accidentally bypassed a long period of understanding necessary by being forced to handle Domination energy. So even for the other members of the One Hundred Stars, they couldn’t necessarily guide them along a safe path.
The actual responsibilities Timothy had didn’t shift. He was responsible for defensive coordination, and otherwise went along with the will of the council. Fortunately, Domination cultivators weren’t known for frequent interaction with others, so he only really had to deal with outside contact every few years.
Reaching Domination actually made the council wonder about the Harmonious Citadel, with their emphasis on unity. They had been infiltrated by the Citadel of Exalted Light, and it was the opinion of the council as a whole that it was probably being used as a sort of experiment. The exact details were unknown- they hadn’t been written down anywhere- but most likely Zaur was hoping that several might eventually reach Domination together. A test at the stability of multiple Domination cultivators in a sect, essentially.
Because while Zaur Beridze certainly wasn’t the sort to share power, having stronger subordinates would have been useful. As for why he couldn’t just guide someone to Domination, the answer was actually relatively simple- the total amount of devotion required might be insufficient.
That wasn’t an issue for Timothy and Catarina, both because of their relation but also the total population of the Scarlet Alliance. They had a greater emphasis on the population in general, instead of just a select group of cultivators, which meant they had more people with a relatively high average of cultivation compared to individual sects. They were still far dwarfed in numbers by the great powers as a whole, but they likely had more population than the largest sects.
Of course, Domination cultivators weren’t made with just Devotion. They needed an anchor, which usually meant materials of great value. Then again, given what Timothy had experienced that might be a partial red herring- the transformative aspects of Domination had created far more value than the teleportation platform had originally had. It might not have survived the process if it wasn’t sufficiently worthy to begin with, but it wasn’t like they could easily experiment with that. Especially since failure would mean damaged cultivation or death.
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Catarina looked at a teleportation platform, but not the one that was hers. Her understanding of higher level cultivation was obviously influenced by her grandfather, so she might just be fooling herself… but she felt fairly certain that she could create another anchor out of the platform.