I airstep over to the meeting taking place in the mansion that still bears the rubble and blood of the king and queen on the main hall's floor.

My double has already received a detailed update from Bri and Rodrigo about the progress in the 8 Great Regions and their restructuring of the contracts and trade routes.

However, as I arrive, I have fresh news to share.

"We're going to be creating many more crimson domes... This is how we're going to do it, and this is what I need from you."

Marcus, the Red Core A-Class hunter, trembles in silence throughout my entire explanation to Bri and Rodrigo. As they nod and take out teleport crystals, I speak one last time to the overseers of the 8 Great Regions.

"Very good. The plan here on Palmyra stays exactly the same. I'll have it ready for you with tens of thousands of loyal citizens once you return. There are roughly 70,000 on this island; my guess is more than half will submit. The ones that don't will be free to go wherever they wish once this is all over, but for now they're staying here. I know this is a lot all at once, but we have four days left to prepare for what could potentially be the Second Great War."

They disappear in a flash of white light, back to the Apex Region, to prepare the citizens in each major city to hear the Flame Emperor speak on a nationwide tour as the trade routes are established.

It wasn't my initial plan to personally show up to each site, but this will be the most organic and efficient way to group many citizens together and give an opportunity to form links of loyalty with me in exchange for varying trade benefits.

Meanwhile, I turn to the Red Core and pull out the drinks I bought at the bar, levitating them over to his trembling hands.

"I know I could have done things more subtly, but this is just the way things are now. Take a drink, calm down, and decide if you want to follow me or not... It would be helpful to have an inside man here on the island."

He stands in silence, still wide-eyed and confused about what exactly is going on, but he takes a deep breath and downs the three shots I levitate in front of him.

I speak up again as he looks me in the eyes.

"So, now for you to follow through on your part. I need everyone on this island to meet outside in the streets, looking up at the sky, in approximately one hour. I'll be notifying them that their contracts are all voided. The entire island of Palmyra will be free, and I have a new employment opportunity for them"

The Red Core's rapid heartbeat slows back to normal, and his hands stop shaking as I begin to explain what I'm about to do.

He nods and replies in a relaxed manner, while I feel a link of loyalty form between us.

"I'll do it. I'll help you free this island. I'd rather serve you, even if the odds are stacked against us."

I grin while sharing self regeneration with him to rid the alcohol from his system as it's already done its job, then reply through our newly formed telepathy link, "Good. Have transmissions sent out to each of the dungeon hubs and hunters' housing, and have them ready to meet their new leader. Notify me through this link when it's done"

He replies with a gaze full of commitment, awe, and newfound confidence as even his fatigue is healed by the new skills passive perks.

"Yes, Sir. I'm on it."

After this, I leave the mansion and float down toward the sea.

As the Red Core sends pings to all the contracted hunters that he usually controls and sends orders to for the king and queen, I plunge into the depths of the sea.

A dense barrier of mana shields my body, keeping the saltwater from touching my skin. I'm not going to be down here for long, so a single deep breath of air is enough to last the full hour if I need it.

My creation of the shielding around me is more so for the intense pressures of the sea, which collapse around me as I dive kilometers underwater.

It's similar in pressure to the massive shifts in gravity that divine energy exerts on me, creating hundreds of times more pressure at the bottom of the ocean than above sea level in the open air.

It is pitch black down here, but my Qi senses are all I need, as I'm taking this opportunity to collect valuable resources surrounding the palm.

Monk's words repeat in my mind from the first time I ever came in contact with these naturally growing Qi crystals beneath Valor City.

If I absorb their essence too fast, draining the crystals completely dry, they will never recharge to their current state. The same goes for detaching them from the black stone base they grow from.

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The massive haul I've found here is thousands of times more crystals than I have back in the Dark Continent.

The conditions down here would make it quite literally impossible for anyone below the rank of a Yellow Core to survive the pressure.

Monk's process of collecting trace amounts of Qi from living crystals is also a delicate one, requiring long amounts of time and equipment in stable environments.

With the pressure, currents, and total darkness down here, I see no practical manner in which he'd be able to safely and efficiently farm this material.

The crystals jut out from the bases of this originator artifact, and when I approach, two thoughts come to mind.

Harvesting everything here could give thousands of citizens back in the Dark Continent a one-time boost, allowing them to awaken Qi, elevating them above many of their mana-wielding peers.

However, I could also use it all for myself.

Increasing the strength of my Soul Energy in general does make me far stronger, but it's not as significant a jump as strengthening my Divine Core.

Taking advantage of the Qi at my disposal and adding as many people as possible to my Rising Emperor's domain at once would begin to make a noticeable difference.

No one thing will magically bring me to the overwhelming strength level of the big three, but many small things do add up and bring me closer. Until I find the final missing clue to this puzzle, I need to grow in every avenue possible and continue searching while following the faint outline of a thread.

Still, with a small hope for a potential future Qi farm in mind, I pull out my Flame Emperor's blade, tether it with divine energy, and slice a square around the crystal cluster in front of me.

I can't sense anything coming off the massive black stone artifact.

Other than the small areas surrounding the Qi clusters, saturated with white flowing Qi, the rest of the massive hand is only visible to me through my eyes.

If I didn't sense the mana, Qi, and tiny trace amounts of divine energy in the air, I wouldn't even know this enormous structure was in the sea.

It only fills a negative space in my mind, devoid of all energy.

So, as the energy from my blade slices through the stone to carve out a chunk, hoping to preserve the natural regeneration process of the Qi crystals, I feel another phenomenon take place.

Trace amounts of divine energy that make contact with my sword are sucked into the massive artifact, disappearing from my senses moments later.

It feels just like the growing seeds I picked up from the Divine Construct.

While this massive palm reaching into the sky is not as violent or hungry as the greedy black seeds, I definitely felt it tug at my True Core, taking a few small threads from the remnants of my attack.

The cluster of Qi falls to the ocean floor beside the wall and pulses, while the seemingly fluid-like aura of Qi within the attached section of the artifact contracts back into the bright white gem.

Without any external pressure or movement from me, once the Qi floods back into the crystal cluster and becomes fully saturated, it simply falls off the black fragment of the artifact, showing that it will no longer grow.

'Well... there's no way to save them, it looks like I have no choice,' I think to myself while letting the white crystal cluster of Qi fall into my item storage, keeping one small gem behind to fall into my open palm.

I allow the pure, dense Qi to flood into my body, restoring and even oversaturating my soul energy core, yet the crystal isn't even halfway drained.

The process I used to create the crimson dome, draining all my soul energy into it and using a limited amount of Qi pills to restore it over weeks, comes to mind. It not only strengthened the defenses of the crimson city but also increased my Qi control significantly each time. I could fully drain my soul energy and restore it multiple times with a single crystal.

This appears to be the equivalent of hundreds of Qi pills, and as I let my perception do a count, I note over a thousand clusters around the palm, each holding dozens of gems.

Once my attention comes back to the next cluster, I witness the small portion of originator stone I've carves out begin to heal before my eyes.

The dim light of my aura is all that illuminates the phenomena of the black stone regenerating very quickly, without any energy output or readings coming off of it.

In less than a minute, the surface of the artifact looks untouched, as if I never sliced through it, and as if there was never Qi attached to it at all.

The portion of stone that was carved away loses its dark black coloring, turning grey, then white, then dissolving away into the sea. It reminds me of the time the green divine serpent crashed into the forest of black trees, and they too dissolved away, only leaving behind their cores.

I'm curious, but there is nothing more for me to process, as no energy readings were present during this odd event. So, I move onto the next cluster and repeat the process.

Over the next hour, I swim from cluster to cluster, slowly carving out dense pockets of crystals, and watching the black rock regenerate as if it's living, while above me there is a lot of movement on the island of Palmyra.

Tens of thousands of workers are being called in early from their shifts in the dungeons, and those sleeping are being woken up and told their quotas for the new day are not yet processed and that there's an announcement they all must hear.

Every slash through the water adds dozens of white crystals to my storage, but simultaneously drains tiny trace amounts of divine energy from my core.

By the time I'm halfway around the base of the wrist, I've lost about one yellow fragment's worth of divine threads.

It isn't much in the grand scheme of things, as from this island alone I've netted thousands of fragments to my core, but it is odd.

I begin trying to observe the flow of divine energy closer and closer with every slash, trying to figure out how its healing, or get some hint of where the lost energy is going. It's not until I hear a telepathic voice in my head from the Red Core kilometers above me that I finally discover something.

"Sir, Flame Emperor. The Kingdom of Palmyra is almost ready for your speech. It should not take more than ten minutes to retrieve the final stragglers that are finishing up their boss room battles in the dungeon farms."

While Marcus speaks in my inner ear, I slice through another portion of the massive black artifact to separate an abnormally large cluster of Qi, and in return, a massive shift in water pressure changes all around me.

My eyes widen, despite being in pitch-black darkness kilometers under the sea, as my senses finally pick up on something while massive amounts of seawater start flooding into the hole I've opened up.

The sensation of a very strange divine energy source becomes visible in my mind's eye, and the threads that escape my blade from this last strike flow toward it, following the inside wall of this massive structure, deep underground, many kilometers below the ocean floor.

The inside of this massive stone sculpture is hollow... and I've just created a temporary entrance.