From what Ryker could tell, this space had no treasures to take at all. There were techniques and such, but almost all of them were inferior to what Ryker had seen in the Valorian Clan. Insofar as these techniques were special, it was just in the fact that they could do things he had never seen.

For example, the one that was capable of granting a Spiritual Resonance. There were a few capable of cultivating the soul directly, another surprise for Ryker who had always assumed that the soul simply progressed along with normal cultivation. And aside from those, there were some unique battle methods that he hadn’t seen before.

However, like he had said, how novel a technique was wasn’t a measure of how good it was.

The Spiritual Resonances were subpar at best and not worth Ryker’s time. His Temporal Weave and Divined Chain Spiritual Resonances were so far beyond they couldn’t even be compared. In fact, most of the Spiritual Resonances available were just offshoots and derivatives of what Ryker assumed were the Spiritual Resonances of the three Clans that masterminded all of this in the first place.

The soul cultivation methods were interesting, but after reading one that relied on the lesser versions of his own Spiritual Resonances, he realized that he would likely have to cobble them together and form a new method that worked well with what he had.

Luckily, there were a couple that relied on the Temporal Weave and Divined Chain methods that could act as a foundation. As for why Ryker didn’t want to use them directly, that was because just comparing and contrasting them, he realized that many of them had holes that only the others could fill.

The soul was a very sensitive part of the body and Ryker didn’t want to be casual with how he used his.

His experience with the Divine Daggers was telling enough. He had almost harmed his own soul while testing them on himself. Had he not had a Pure Soul, then he would have likely ended up crippling himself due to his own sheer stupidity.

This was all to say that insofar as there were things to gain from this place, knowledge was at the top, and even the techniques themselves would have to be herded into this category, used as reference rather than true power enhancers.

That meant that in terms of actual, tangible treasure… There was nothing.

Well, nothing except the materials this space was made out of in the first place.

Ryker had caused all this commotion, and yet he hadn’t left a single scratch on anything. In fact, even the bookcase that had just been blasted to smithereens had managed to easily withstand his first blow. It wasn’t until he used his original Time Type Spirit Energy method with his newly awakened Temporal Weave Spiritual Foundation that he was able to blast it to smithereens.

To Ryker, all of that meant money and an astonishing amount of wealth.

To withstand a blow that was just barely on the verge of the Elevation Realm without even a single strike, and to do so as a mere wall or bookshelf… how amazing were the materials that made up the construction?

What was the most enticing to Ryker was the fact that this space itself clearly existed in a sort of in between state, and it was connected via several locations across several galaxies.

In that case, in order to support such a space, the materials had to have a strong spatial inclination, and if he was really lucky…

A time affinity as well.

If he could get some of these materials in their raw form, he could use them on the Silver Mirror and finally begin setting it on the right path. By that point, his strength would see another huge leap forward.

Unlike with fleshly creatures like himself or Phoenix, Mystery Type Contracts weren’t as restrictive in many ways. To this day, the Silver Mirror was still stuck in the 1st Enlightenment Realm because its materials were too inferior. But on the other, so long as it could get some of these materials in it, its improvement pace, especially considering the fact Ryker had given it the maximum nine Circles, would be a blaze.

The only reason Mystery Masters were invincible was because having a treasure that was beyond you as a Contract would make it impossible to wield. The pressure on your soul for the act of just swinging an Ascended Sword once as a 9th Enlightenment Realm expert would probably drain at least a fifth of your reserves, and that was assuming you at least had a Rising Soul.

However… why would Ryker be worried about this? He still couldn’t let the Silver Mirror get too far beyond him, but several Realms wouldn’t even make him break a sweat.

‘I’m getting ahead of myself,’ Ryker chuckled, reeling his emotions back in.

The main thing stopping him was obvious: he couldn’t even scratch these walls. So how in the hell was he going to take anything from this place?

But that was when inspiration hit him.

All forms of Spirit Metals were concentrations of Earth Type Spirit Energy in some form or another. Of course, these Spirit Metals also often had other affinities, but as with worlds themselves, Earth Type Spirit Energy always formed the foundation upon which everything else was built.

Under normal circumstances, even knowing this, it would still be impossible for Ryker to do much of anything. The Earth Type Spirit Energies were too far beyond his ability to manipulate. If Phoenix tried to use Earthen Spike here, for example, nothing would happen. If they were lucky, the ground might rumble a bit, but no deformations would occur…

Unless Ryker used Temporal Weave.

He grinned to himself.

Temporal Weave could be used with his Spirit Beasts as a proxy, but Phoenix was far too injured right now. Instead, he felt that he could do it himself.

He flooded his body with Earth Type Spirit Energy for the first time, and then his Time Type Spirit Energy followed suit. Whereas before it took him several seconds to get going and bring the Time Type Spirit Energy where it needed to be, right now it happened in a near instant. He could imagine himself switching between these methods in battle finally.

He tossed this to the back of his mind and then pressed a hand down, activating Temporal Weave once more and pumping the floors full of his Earth Type Spirit Energy.

Earthen Pillar.

The ground rumbled and whined. Beads of sweat formed on Ryker’s brows as he pushed and pushed, until suddenly he ran out of Earth Type Spirit Energy.

Ryker blinked, falling back in a gasp. This was definitely a first for him, he had never experienced such a thing before. However…

He looked forward, and right there, standing about six inches up from the ground, there was a small pillar. It was barely six inches tall and what couldn’t be more than three or so inches thick, but it still made Ryker grin ear to ear.

He didn’t care that the pillar was so small. So long as he could make it budge, he would be the winner in this scenario.

Quickly, he entered a meditative position and large amounts of Spirit Energy began flooding toward him.

Ryker only went for a few seconds before his eyes snapped open, once again filled with shock.

He had actually neglected something so important… this entire space was filled with such a high concentration of Spirit Energy that it was easily ten times that of his Valorian Clan’s world.

‘I’m such an idiot. A space like this needs a huge amount of Spirit Energy just to function properly. It’s either got to be generating its own, or it’s pulling it in from the surroundings in some way.

‘If it’s the former, it’s more than like Spirit Stones, but it would have to be an absolutely obscene amount. Maybe only the Patriarch would have a few thousand at his disposal. But this place would need far more than that… millions? Billions, maybe? More? Maybe they’re of a higher quality or caliber?

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‘But in the second case, this place is even more valuable than it seems. If it has an ability to forcefully gather so much Spirit Energy naturally… or by some Runes of some sort…

‘I have to see them…’

Under these conditions, it took Ryker no more than a few minutes to top up completely, his talent on full display. In fact, he couldn’t help himself, so using the momentum, he broke into the 7th Enlightenment Realm completely.

Even though the Spirit Energy was only ten times more, Ryker’s cultivation speed increased by a hundred fold.

This was because the bottleneck for Ryker’s cultivation speed had never been his own talent, but rather how fast Spirit Energy could flow from one location to another.

If one imagined Ryker’s cultivation area like a sphere, then one could imagine the Spirit Energy within that sphere to be the amount that he could siphon into himself at any given moment.

The trouble was that Ryker could take from that sphere faster than the sphere could replenish itself with Spirit Energy, so much of the time he spent cultivating was actually spent just waiting around for that sphere to fill up again.

Unfortunately, Ryker didn’t have infinite range. His body only had so much surface area and Spirit Energy had to be absorbed through the mouth and nose. Well, technically speaking, any orifice would work. But these were the two most cultivation methods focused on as they were the most reliable.

However, the concentration of Spirit Energy in this place was so high that Ryker’s speed of absorption and the rate at which the sphere was refilled reached a state of equilibrium.

As fast as Ryker could absorb was just as fast as the Spirit Energy in his sphere was replenished.

For the first time in his life, Ryker wasn’t being bottlenecked by what the world around him was capable of and his cultivation speed increased to mind numbing Realms.

He had only just entered the 7th Enlightenment Realm before, but in half an hour he entered the Middle 7th Enlightenment Realm. Another half an hour later he entered the Higher. Then, an hour later, he entered the 8th Enlightenment Realm.

Ryker wanted to laugh up to the skies, but he couldn’t. The faster he cultivated, the heavier the weight on his heart became.

Was this what prodigies on the outside were capable of? In that case, by the time they were 21 years of age like himself, how powerful would they actually be?

Ryker became more and more solemn.

It took him another hour to break into the Middle 8th Enlightenment Realm, another to reach the Higher, another to touch the Peak, and finally, after yet another, he entered the 9th Enlightenment Realm.

His cultivation moved in waves and billows, his hair rustling beneath the movement.

All 81 of his Circles had been unlocked, and finally, his speed began to slow down.

To Ryker’s astonishment, the equilibrium between himself and the world around him collapsed and he once again entered a familiar cycle of absorbing energy too fast for the world to keep up.

He narrowed his eyes and eventually came to stop. Without the equilibrium, it would take him days to break through again in this environment. Of course, that time was still blindingly fast. But he couldn’t leave Patience alone for that long, who knew what was happening in the Federation during Auberon’s absence?

He stood and flooded his body with Earth Type Spirit Energy once again. This time, the result was far more devastating than the last.

With a boom, the pillar erupted from the ground, almost a meter thick and nearly two meters tall. Unfortunately, this result drained Ryker. But that much was still fine. Luckily, it still only took him a few minutes before he could go again, then again.

He was absolutely relentless. Every time he pulled up a new pillar, he would toss it into the Dream Cloud Clam box and continue.

Eventually, he had dug a hole that was almost 200 meters deep… and ran into a barrier.

‘Found it…’

Down below, there was a huge net of Runes. Through the hole, Ryker could only see some of it, but he was certain that it was far more profound than anything he had ever laid his eyes on. Even the Divine Daggers were insignificant compared to it.

The gap was large enough for him to go down personally, and that was part of the plan. However, he wouldn’t go forth blindly.

He used soul ripple, rebounding his senses against the Silver Mirror and amplifying them until the entire net reflected in his eyes.

“… Wow…”

It felt like he was looking at a vast tapestry of stars, beautiful and twinkling in contrast to the vast darkness they stood within.

Beyond this tapestry there was nothing but the void of darkness, almost regal in a way.

Ryker felt small, smaller than he had felt even when he stood beneath that 500 meter tall door that led him here to begin with.

After some thought, Ryker took out the injured Phoenix.

“Hey, big guy. This place will be much easier on your cultivation. You should break through quite fast in this place, and heal much faster as well.”

Earth Phoenix nuzzled his nose up against Ryker and then lowered his head. All three of them were very tired and had been in a deep sleep, but Ryker had brought them out anyway. This opportunity was too important for them to miss.

After making sure they were stable, he took a step and dived down, pressing his palms against the walls of the hole to slow himself down. It was a bit cramped, but nothing that was too difficult to deal with.

Eventually, he made it to the end, looking down at what was going on with his own eyes.

He whistled. This place was absolutely enormous.

After some hesitation, he allowed himself to drop down the rest of the way.

As expected, the net of runes caught him. Or, rather, the barrier of energy around it did. It even felt somewhat buoyant and elastic beneath his feet.

He looked around, basking in the sheer weight of it all for a moment before he dashed in a specific direction. He was headed toward the location he thought was the core of the place, and central hub of this net of runes.

As he did, he began to sense some peculiarities.

‘I see, so there’s a give and take going on here. It’s not just the runes or just the Spirit Metals. They work together in a careful balance, but even when there’s harm done to one, the other can easily pick up the slack. That’s why taking out that slab didn’t disrupt anything going on here.’

Ryker made it to the core. While this place was large, it was still only a jog that took him a few seconds.

‘This…’

The core was a bundle of chains, wrapping around an object he couldn’t quite see properly.

The sight reminded him of exactly the sight in Phoenix’s Beast Core.

Ryker stared at it for a long moment, trying to piece things together until he felt like it slowly clicked.

‘… Whatever’s in there should have the ability to seal and control a space like this. The Valorians somehow used their Divined Chain to seal it, and using the Runes that manifested to counter this thing, it was able to power all of this?

‘That’s one hypothesis… but I can think of three others. All four of them together should just be opposites of one another.

‘The opposite of this one should be that rather than sealing and controlling space, this thing does the opposite? Maybe it uses space to attack, to swallow, or something of the sort?

‘The third and fourth possibilities are either that this thing is good at swallowing energy, or ejecting it…’

The reason Ryker was going back and forth on this was because the Divined Chains were designed to understand and then counter something.

Intuitively, this should mean that whatever Runes the Divined Chains formed to counter whatever it was trapping had to serve the opposite function of whatever was inside.

However, in practice, Ryker wasn’t sure it worked exactly like that. After all, wasn’t he able to use his Divined Chain to comprehend the truth of Phoenix’s Talents?

He was going back and forth like it was a chicken or the egg situation, not sure which was which.

‘If I try to see what’s inside, though, wouldn’t I bring this whole thing crashing down? It’s impossible to tell what would happen in that case…’

One thing was for certain, this place definitely didn’t run using Spirit Stones. It accumulated its own energy, and this was the central hub of everything.

‘Wait… Those Runes…’

Ryker’s eyes narrowed as he saw something he recognized.

Those Runes right there were one the Divine Daggers. However, they weren’t part of the abilities of the dagger itself, but were instead part of the wells that stored the energy it accumulated. It was thanks to these Runes that you could save up nine beast essences before erupting with it all at once.

‘Storage Runes? No, not quite… That should mean…’

Ryker’s brows shot up.

If his translation was appropriate, if he took this core, he should be able to take the entire library with him.

But the question was… why should he do so? Wouldn’t it be like carrying around a ticking time bomb? It was through this hub that these people could come in and out of this world.

‘Unless, maybe? If I take it away, would they lose their access point?’

Ryker slowly reached toward the bundle of illusory chains, still hesitating somewhat. But eventually, he pressed his hand down and picked it up.

Nothing happened.

He stood there, looking a little silly for a while. He had practically been holding his breath, but in the end, it was all fine.

‘These people… are so unbelievably insufferable…’

Did they really look down on Ryker and everyone else trapped in this prison that much?

There were no protections around anything, no safeguards, he hardly had to leap through many hurdles to benefit as much as he did.

‘You’ll come to regret it.’

Taking the hub, Ryker rushed back to the hole he had created, a bit surprised to find that it was actually starting to close.

He smiled bitterly. Maybe these people had the right to be so arrogant.

With a leap up, he pressed the tips of his toes against one side then accelerated up with a boom.

He landed lightly on the other side, exhaling a calming breath.

‘I’ll have this thing with me, and there’s also the bits I’ve already stolen away. I’ll have to find a fire strong enough to melt them down and take a look at the individual Spirit Metals that make up the alloy. Hopefully, one fits with the Silver Mirror’s needs…’

For a flame that was strong enough, he’d definitely need an Earth Flame…

An Earth Flame was usually located at the core of the world. A normal world would definitely be fiercely protective of it, but Ryker had a feeling that he could take advantage of the ignorance of these people.

He cast a glance at Phoenix. Every time the big guy took a breath, a large pull of Spirit Energy rushed into them, shoring up their injuries.

‘At this rate, they’ll be good to go in a day at worst.’

Ryker nodded and left. It should be safe to leave the big guy here.

Soon, he found himself outside, staring at an enormous 500 meter tall door.

A sneer quirked the corner of his mouth. Then, with a wave of the hub of chains, it vanished, leaving a gaping hole into the endless void.

Ryker turned and left.

A clock was ticking in his mind and he realized he didn’t have much time left before everything crumbled around him.

‘A year… no. Half a year at most. In that time, I have to reach the God Realm.’