Ryker was shocked to feel that Nariel was actually telling the truth.

In the last few days, he had felt many things that were impossible had actually become the exact opposite.

Before, he hadn’t thought it was even possible that Circles were missing anything, only to find out that they were meant to be fused with Daos.

Then he thought that Daos could only have three, six, or nine Circles… only to form one that required 36.

Now it felt like the last pillars of understanding he had were crumbling.

Is that why it was possible to form a Dao with 36 Circles? Was it because monsters like this Eldertree existed?

When Nariel saw Ryker staring so intently at the tree, he couldn’t help but sneer.

“You’re overestimating yourself. You have no idea how much trouble they had to go through just to get it in Cyrus’ body. But that fool actually died even with such a monster helping him.”

“Talk less, you’ll live longer,” Ryker said almost casually.

He moved over and picked Rynn up by her neck as well, moving them both toward the enormous tree. At the same time, he was thinking.

Should he take the Eldertree as a contract?

The obvious answer seemed to be yes. He only had four Contracts right now, which left him with more than enough space. But the problem was that there were too many questions about this tree. He had no idea what kind of thing it was.

There was something in Nariel’s words that let the cat out of the bag a little bit.

‘Deep slumber… Laws of the World…’

The latter was obvious. Nariel should be referring to those that comprehended the Dao; it was just that they didn’t use the same name for it he did, but that didn’t change it.

Now, the question was who he was referring to exactly because there could be two groups.

Was he referring to their jailers? Or was he referring to those hidden worlds?

Ryker was almost certain that the answer was the latter. That was because it didn’t make sense for the jailers to be so invested in them.

Of course, he didn’t dismiss the possibility entirely. That was because while it was the case that it was unlikely, they did create these Iterations for the sake of experimentation, and this seemed like yet another experiment.

In addition, what were the odds that they would allow such a powerful existence into the Iterations?

That said, Ryker still felt that it was the less likely of the options for a few reasons.

For one, why would their jailers ever let the Mystery Master and Spiritual Pattern Alliances know about the “Laws of the World” after putting so much effort into cutting them off from the Daos?

Second, the people in those hidden worlds had to come from somewhere. At some point or another, they should have come to learn the truth of this Iteration before the last reset. That allowed them to hide in a corner of the world and avoid the blank slate reset.

The fact that they would have ties to the Mystery Master and Spiritual Pattern Alliance, the two most powerful organizations of their Iteration, only made sense.

However, this was where the second problem came in.

Deep slumber…

Why did they insist on giving such a valuable thing to these Alliances? As powerful as they were, without comprehension of the Dao, they were destined to be wholly inferior.

The only explanation, then… was that this tree was a great danger. Not only was it a great danger, but it presented a risk they weren’t even willing to take.

If Ryker was correct, they wanted to use Cyrus and the others as guinea pigs to find a method of understanding this Eldertree while it wasn’t in its strongest state. When they succeeded, they probably always had the intention of killing Cyrus, or whoever else had this Eldertree at the time, and taking it back before giving it to whoever they felt was the best candidate.

It was ironic. In the end, they were trying to escape this prison they were all in by becoming jailers themselves.

As the saying went, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Ryker tossed the two to the ground and pressed a palm to the bark of the tree, his mind calm.

“Stay away from that tree, boy!”

The roar of the bronzed God came from above, but Ryker didn’t even bother to give him a glance this time, lost in his own thoughts.

Should he take such a risk?

He thought about the one thing he had been wanting these last few days. Although they were rare, he really wanted a Healing Type beast. They were existences that almost didn’t exist at all because it required a rare mutation of Combat Type and Spirit Type to create a beast capable of healing.

Then he thought about the one ability of the tree that he had seen Cyrus use. He had essentially regrown his leg.

Of course, it was just a prosthetic replacement and couldn’t really be considered true healing. However…

Ryker’s gaze flickered. Something told him that there was definitely more to it.

‘This tree… it’s probably the trump card these people plan to use to break out of this prison. They’re putting so much effort into unearthing its secrets because of this… I’m almost certain.

‘In that case, this risk should be mine to take.’

Ryker’s soul power flared and his Circles hummed.

High in the skies, the bronzed God’s pupils constricted. However, deep within, there was a sinister light. Clearly, he felt that this was an opportunity.

This same light was in Nariel’s eyes as well. In fact, not only was the bronzed God not enraged by Nariel’s warning, he even gave him an internal thumbs up.

Someone as arrogant as Ryker, who was also so smart, wouldn’t fall for a normal goading. He wouldn’t be so stupid.

However, a person like Ryker would definitely take calculated risks if the situation deemed it worthwhile.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The problem was that this risk wasn’t nearly as calculated as Ryker thought it was. He had no idea that it took nine Gods working together to help Cyrus succeed, one of which had come from the other side.

This wasn’t a False God like them, but rather a True God who had sublimated his Soul with the Laws of the World.

Without the help of such a figure, Ryker would be shattering his own soul apart. Even in a deep slumber, this Eldertree wasn’t something that Ryker could fathom, and he was about to get himself killed.

Ryker suddenly frowned slightly and the sneer of the bronzed God deepened.

Leopold seemed to have realized that something was wrong, but it was already too late to stop Ryker. Plus, he had spent almost two decades trying to convince Ryker to give up his first contract. If there was anything he had learned in all these years…

It was that Ryker didn’t listen to anyone but himself.

When he saw Ryker frowning, he realized what the problem was.

Ryker was a child so talented he contracted a mirror with barely a soul when he was just three years old. Most grown children couldn’t even easily succeed in their first contract, and yet he had under the wildest of circumstances.

Now that he was truly an adult and had matured greatly in his comprehensions and Spirit Energy control, how could he possibly struggle to complete a contract?

The only reason he would be frowning was if something had gone wrong.

Ryker definitely felt like something was wrong. There was a great pressure on his soul right now, the kind that he could have never fathomed coming from a contracting process.

This had always been easy for him and he couldn’t fathom ever failing. But it felt like that was about to happen right now.

It was ironically subtle despite the pressure on him, but the Eldertree was rejecting him despite the fact his soul was so pure and he had so many Circles to give.

‘What’s the problem…?’

If a contract failed, there would be a backlash equivalent to the strength of the target. This was why most chose a Circle Talent weaker than themselves as their first contract. 6th Circle Talents would choose a 5th Circle Infant Spirit Beast, so on and so forth.

But not only was this Eldertree certainly not an Infant of any kind, it was apparently a shocking 36th Circle Talent, whatever that meant. Even now, Ryker couldn’t quite understand what that meant.

However, even before he started, Ryker knew what the problem might have been.

The Dao.

He was missing the Dao the Eldertree wanted to rely on. And since it needed 36 Circles, it was almost certainly another fusion like his Dao of Chaos was.

His Dao of Chaos required perfection of the Dao of Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind. Did this Dao also need that?

He didn’t want to move Phoenix and the others out of the Dao of Chaos to make space because without the support of the Dao of Chaos, Phoenix just might lose their clarity again.

Plus, if the Dao of Chaos was what this tree wanted, he would be sensitive enough to feel that. But instead, it was pining after a Dao that he didn’t have.

In fact, not only did he not have it, but it seemed that he didn’t even have the pieces of it, or else there would have been some faint connection made.

That was a bit shocking to Ryker. That was because aside from the four Daos that made up his Dao of Chaos, he still had the Dao of Space, the Dao of Time, and the Dao of Sealing, all of which took up a full nine Circles.

Between them and his first four Daos, he only had 18 Circles left. That meant that if he wanted this Eldertree, he would probably have to give up at least two of those nine.

The obvious choices were the Dao of Space and Dao of Sealing. That was because the Silver Mirror was relying on the Dao of Time and he couldn’t get rid of it.

However, there was no way he could accept such a loss. If it just meant giving up the Dao of Space, that was fine. It was something he had comprehended by accident anyway and he didn’t have any beasts to tie it to yet. But there was no way he could give up the Dao of Sealing. Not only did the Dao of Sealing help Prometheus exhibit a much greater strength—even if the Spirit Beast was now tied to the Dao of Chaos—it was also inextricably linked to his Spiritual Resonance.

Without his Dao of Sealing, the effectiveness of his Divined Chains would plummet off a cliff, ruining one of his strongest trump cards.

That was unacceptable to him.

However, he had already begun the contracting process. That wasn’t just something you could undo, or else he wouldn’t have been tormented for 18 years.

He had chosen to take this risk; now he was suffering the consequences.

However, there was a calmness in Ryker’s heart right now that others couldn’t fathom. His mind was unprecedentedly clear.

He would never have to deal with episodes again, at least not in the past sense. The Dao of Chaos gave him a clarity, dispelling the greatest weakness of his Temporal Weave Spiritual Resonance. That meant that for the first time in a long while…

His mind, his body, his soul were all fully under his control.

In the past, if faced with the possibility of becoming a cripple once again after all these years of finally climbing back to the top, he would have probably fallen into madness again.

But this time… he was almost stoic.

‘A damned sleeping tree wants to ruin my future? Amusing.’

Ryker’s eyes flashed and he cast [Soul Ripple] while activating Temporal Weave and his Dao of Sealing to their greatest height.

He used [Soul Ripple] to pierce right into the tree’s soul. He wanted to feel it, understand it down to its smallest measure. At the same time, Temporal Weave amplified his soul strength by several times over while also slowing the contracting process down to a crawl. Like this, the backlash wouldn’t be coming any time soon and he felt like he had years of time to think even if only a blink of an eye was passing in the outside world.

Finally, his Dao of Sealing was present for no other reason than its ability to sense.

The Dao of Sealing worked by comprehending a target and sealing its strengths. In this case, Ryker didn’t actually want to seal the tree as he wasn’t sure if he would even succeed in the first place. Instead, he was aiming to understand it to a deeper extent.

He took yet another step, laying the Dao of Time over Temporal Weave and amplifying it to yet another extent.

Ryker’s mind pierced through the veil of the world and for the second time, he seemed to see the canopy of Time and Space.

Back when he first sensed the embryonic Dao of the fox beast, he had been able to likewise sense the Dao for the first time. Back then, he had seen constellations of stars that reflected the mysteries of the world.

But since then, he hadn’t been able to repeat that feat and had to instead rely on observing the elements directly to comprehend them.

Ryker didn’t quite understand why that was until he completed the Dao of Chaos.

He had foolishly fed the seed to Prometheus in order to speed up its growth, not realizing that that seed was the key to him comprehending Daos faster.

But now that he had fully formed the Dao of Chaos…

He could peer into these Constellations to comprehend the Dao whenever he wanted. That meant that if there was a Dao the Eldertree needed, he would find it right here.

It hardly took Ryker any time at all. He layered the feelings the Eldertree was giving him and pinpointed the Dao he was looking for in the skies.

‘The Dao of Spirit?’

These words seemed to roll off his tongue as though it whispered its name into his ears.

It was a Dao on the same level as his Dao of Time or Sealing, taking up nine Circles. However…

‘I see. The Eldertree doesn’t require 36 Circles; that’s just a roundabout method. It requires nine Circles… but… those Nine Circles must be supported by a Dao with a completed 99 Paths.’

There was no way that Ryker would have enough time to do this no matter how much of a genius he was. However, if 36 Circles was a roundabout method, couldn’t he find another roundabout method?

If he comprehended two Paths of the Dao of Spirit and allowed them to occupy two different sets of Nine Circles, he bet that he could fit this Eldertree into just 18 Circles instead of 36, appeasing it for a moment.

As for whether he could do that or not…

Ryker sneered.

Was there even a need to ask?

The moment he pointed the Dao of Spirit out of the skies, he had already understood what it was.

It was an ethereal Dao, one that touched onto the underlying meaning of life.

There was a reason the Spirit Type Beast was so broad, and there was a reason beasts were known as Spirit Beasts in the first place.

It touched onto so many concepts that it was impossibly broad… But because of that, it could be summarized in one line…

It was everything.

SHOOM!

Nine Circles pulsed within Ryker’s dantian and a new Dao formed. All of a sudden, the pressure coming from the Eldertree plummeted by over 80%. Suddenly, Ryker got even more time to lengthen things.

‘Interesting. With this, I could probably comprehend all 99 Paths before it crushed me. But, I don’t have the time for that.’

His grammy’s Tribulations was still roaring above and considering how long it had been delayed, it would certainly be a long and powerful one. The rest of their enemies would definitely get here before it was finished.

In that case, he would have to speed this up.

The grin on his face only deepened. Or rather, the grin of his soul. Time had slowed so much to him that his body hadn’t even sent the synapses necessary to change his expression yet.

‘And nothing at all.’

The moment Ryker thought these words, his dantian trembled and his last set of Nine Circles pulsed with life.

That was when something entirely unexpected occurred.

Ryker’s body seemed to sublimate.

Large amounts of Spirit Energy rushed toward him from all directions.

This time, it was Ryker’s turn to be speechless.

This Spirit Energy wasn’t coming from the Eldertree. Instead, it was because he had filled all 81 of his Circles with Daos.

It seemed that he hadn’t known that it came with this sort of reward.

In what felt like an instant, all the Spirit Energy of Planet Valorian rushed toward him. And just as quickly, he broke into the Second Ascended Realm.