BARING

Leonel's eyes narrowed. The Spirituals…

He hadn't really thought about them since the time he left. He had only glanced at their throne and then left directly.

Honestly speaking, they were very lucky he hadn't just wiped all of them out. He had been wanting to turn over a new leaf. The old him would have definitely razed them to the ground.

Now that Anastasia mentioned them, he realized that she was correct. They would definitely be the best for all of this. After all… they were also human.

But, given how sensitive he was about such things right now, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't wipe them all out if they pissed him off again.

He still had a belly of anger that he was currently suppressing. These months had helped him to mellow out a bit. But as their baby's due date was swiftly approaching, he really didn't have patience for nonsense.

Then again, he wouldn't be surprised if the situation of the Human Race was quite terrible right now.

'If for no other reason than the Dwarven Race, I'll have to return no matter what… I'll see what the situation is then.'

"Okay. I'll think about it. For now, how are things going with the Sea Gods?"

Anastasia frowned.

"Not good?" Leonel followed up.

"… The problem with the Sea Gods is that they aren't a naturally selected Race by evolution. There's a reason for that.

"As powerful as they seem, their flaws are larger.

"If you wanted to save a few nice seedlings from them, they could be useful. But I believe you want to use them to rule the seas, right? Well… that's a lot more difficult."

"Mm," Leonel nodded. "Go on."

"The bulk of it is that Water Force isn't a good foundation for a Race. There's been no real path before. The Sea Gods are just ultimately like any other Race with extra steps. That's why they need to pump their water full of so many minerals.

"Ultimately, they're reliant on Earth Force just like everyone else."

"And what's the problem with that?"

"Their existence is antithetical to reality. You'd have an easier time reversing all their evolution and turning them into land creatures."

Leonel was still having a hard time wrapping his head around it. Sometimes when he was speaking to the new Anastasia, she felt simple and easy to tease. But times like these where even he was lost were becoming more and more frequent.

He still didn't quite understand what the problem was.

"Remember, the Sea Gods were part of the creation of the Barbarian Race. Or rather, they at least helped them to evolve.

"According to the first path that Incomplete World would take, the Sea Gods would be phased out. It was the Barbarian Race that interfered and helped them to become superior.

"The reason for that is that the Barbarian Race wanted to bolster their own natural Clairvoyance. The Barbarian Race is very in tune with the Earth and they have a passive sort of Clairvoyance ability that can be considered to be a bastardized version of Aina's.

"However, because it's spread across an entire race, it obviously makes them extremely talented on average.

"What they wanted to do was create a version of their Clairvoyance that was a lot closer to the real thing. But Earth is rigid and very difficult to progress.

"That was when they came across the Golden Tablet and realized that Wise Star Orders were sort of the opposite of what they wanted. So they decided to use it as a template."

Leonel was getting more surprised the more Anastasia spoke. That was because he had deduced a lot of this, but not to this level of detail. Anastasia had only been passively observing everything before, but she still figured out far more about it than he had.

But that made sense… she understood more about the underlying mechanisms for these things than basically anyone else would.

She could pick up on things he couldn't connect.

"It can be said that the 'flaw' of the Sea Gods was done on purpose by the Barbarians because this was their method of making Earth more malleable. However, it was basically poison to the Sea Gods.

"A Race that needs to terraform their enemies to invade is inherently a weak Race. The seas you would want to target would all be special waters, ones that had high concentrations of very specific Water Forces and wouldn't easily allow the Sea Gods to terraform.

"The only way to give them a chance would be to reverse what the Barbarians did to them, which is why your Cleansing Waters idea isn't bad…

"The issue is that even if you succeed, you would just be destroying their greatest strength in exchange. The end result would be a mediocre race, one Existence should have already phased out."

Leonel vaguely understood what Anastasia was trying to say, though it was still a bit over his head. It seemed that he needed to study Force Pill Crafting more. Just how many deductions was he missing out on because of this lack of knowledge?

"Do you have a solution?" Content © provided by .

"Uh… yes. But the solution might as well not be one at all, because it could practically be the solution to everything."

"And that is?"

"Help them gain a high affinity for Creation. If they can gain that, they can self-correct a lot of their own weaknesses. But there's a reason most Races, families, and Lineage Factors are founded on the simplest Forces in Existence.

"Building a Race with high affinity for an equally high Path would not only burn a ridiculous amount of resources, there would also be a large number of 'duds' among them. Their own Lineage Factors would be unlikely to awaken among their kind, effectively making it just as rare as usual."

Leonel's lip twitched. This really is a worthless solution.

Were the Sea Gods just screwed, then?

As Leonel was about to fall into his thoughts once more, Anastasia suddenly looked off into the distance.

"Not good…"

"What happened?" Leonel looked up.

"The Pluto just declared war on the Void Race."

Leonel's heart skipped a beat.

This sounded like something that didn't have anything to do with him, but his heart was suddenly doing cartwheels.

This was the worst-case scenario.

The Pluto were baring their fangs.