Jeevian drank a cup of liquid. The power within made his entire body course with unimaginable might, and he couldn’t stop himself from cackling in joy. If his father could witness this crazy child turning a dragon monster into an incredibly potent elixir, he would have spat blood and resigned from his position as an elder of the Descending Heavenly Dragon sect.

After a while, the transformation of the dragon who had attacked Neave and his companions was undone. The small, humanoid form expanded into a massive pile of gored dragon flesh, and they all partook in the elixir the child created with it.

It was splendid. Truly, this was something that defied all common sense. Consuming all parts of a dragon’s body without limit or restraint… It was something he could get addicted to.

Jeevian had informed Neave and his allies of the demigod’s current plans. He had sent a servant back to Langen, where he would likely recall several of their high paladins to fight. Given that it was Hosolar, he definitely already knew that the emperor and his companions had been thoroughly defeated.

Given that that was the case, the paladins that would come after them would be… problematic. When it came to establishments like Langen, they were really just damn cults. Their lives and power all belonged to those above them, and Hosolar was pretty damn far up that chain of command.

He would undoubtedly inflict them with curses that would boost their power far above their rank in return for draining their life and dooming them to death. There were many diamond-path cultivators on the Langen continent. Usually, having a large number of diamond-path cultivators under one banner bred conflict. Everyone wanted a share of the pie, and if split too many times, many would be left dissatisfied and would initiate conflict in search of more.

That was the primary reason why Jeevian had a strict policy on how many diamond pathers could be part of the empire. Too many and they would quickly lose their utility, growing more focused on fighting one another than handling the threat that hung above all of them.

Meanwhile, Langen had no problem hoarding them. Because all of them were fucking brainwashed.

Worst case scenario, they could face hundreds of diamond-path cultivators hunting them with the ferocity of wild beasts and the power of those whose very souls had been ignited.

Neave… well… he didn’t seem displeased to hear this. In fact, he acted as if this was good news. Frankly, Jeevian couldn’t comprehend this insane child’s thought process.

Once they were done consuming the dragon, Neave distributed a few cores to Kingean and even offered some to Jeevian. While Jeevian wasn’t averse to sullying his spirit, it would mean losing the spirit powers he had built up over his life. Traditional spirit powers and those that came from monster cores couldn’t coexist in the same body. And, even with several potent spirit powers being offered to him, he still believed that his were better. Monster cores were too risky and unpredictable.

Frankly, although he had consumed far too much monster flesh and spirit beast meat to even reasonably quantify, the benefits he had received from this black dragon far outweighed all the treasures he had consumed before that point. Seriously, this child was a menace unlike anything Jeevian had ever seen. How was it possible for someone at the very beginning of the foundation realm to have powers that even gods would envy? Truly, his worldview had been even smaller than he thought.

There was one thing, however, that he would accept from the child. He provided him with the raw material, a cyan metal. It was technically a diamond-ranked metal, given that it was subdivine in quality, but it was far superior to any material that could be found in this realm.

Neave greedily drooled over the cyan bar of metal.

Jeevian handed it to him and made his request, “Please, child, I would like you to turn this into a weapon I can use against—”

“Nah,” Neave denied as he stored the metal ingot in his dimension ring.

“Wh—… What?” he asked dumbly.

“I said no,” the child repeated himself. “I am stealing this metal for myself,” he declared without a single hint of guilt or shame. Then, he turned around and started saying something to someone before interrupting himself and whirling again to face the emperor. “Ah, but don’t worry, I’ll make you another weapon that will be quite amazing!”

The emperor stared for a moment, mouth gaping open, and then laughed violently. How long had it been since someone disrespected him so openly?

“Very well,” he resigned himself. “I trust that you will put it to good use. In fact,” he said, pulling out several bags of other quality material from his dimension ring. “Here you go,” he offered.

Neave gaped once he took a look inside the bag. His eyes bulged comically large, and he looked up at Jeevian with a beaming bright smile. “Really!? Wow, this is fucking amazing!”

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If it wasn’t for the swearing, the kid’s insane physique and just general insanity, and the fact that he was heavily outmatched by this child, Jeevian would almost appreciate the pure innocence in those eyes that openly stared at him in pure gratitude.

***

Neave told his allies to just do what they do best, then turned around and ran into the caverns. They were smart and would figure it out. For now, they needed to work on growing their spirit powers and getting accustomed to the unique variations they received.

On the other hand, he had a lot of work to do.

First, he had been enlightened. Well, it happened a long time ago, during the period he had spent with most of his brain crystallized to prevent sleep from taking him. He could still think, albeit with limited capacity.

But even that limited capacity had had a thought. An absolutely brilliant one.

Once he was a bit away from the others, he found a small part of the caverns and got to work. With insane speed, he caved out a part of the wall and created a base for himself. Once inside, he lifted his finger and used Shapeshifting. A small, fleshy tendril grew out of his finger. By burning like force, he created a body. His own body, to be exact.

During those numerous experiments of trying to find the right monster body… well… he had been an idiot. All he had to do was this. Just grow a body with Shapeshifting. And since burning life force could achieve all sorts of effects, he could make the body however he wanted.

It was common to overlook something obvious like this. He had done it before. And he was sure there were other things he still hadn’t thought of, although he should have.

Using Violet Avatar, he possessed the body. Indeed, although it was technically his own body, it didn’t have any of his spirit powers. Because it didn’t have his spirit. It was also much weaker than his own body since using Violet Avatar was only possible if the remnant spirit within the other body was first removed.

However, it was still a body identical to his own. Meaning that it still had a physique that had been influenced by his spirit powers. And now, although he was doing nothing to control it, his body was getting up to its feet.

The muscle memory aspect of Thunder Nerves had spread throughout his entire body. This had many implications, the first of which was that his body could move independently of his conscious thought. Thus, even though this clone had no awareness, it could still move and fight just like himself, but without access to spirit powers, life force, and movement techniques. All the information was still in that copied brain. It was utterly useless without a soul, but at the very least, with the muscle memory, the parts about fighting could still be utilized.

Now, the next step of his plan would depend partially on luck. Closing his eyes, he entered his spirit realm. He appeared on top of the massive metal mountain and pondered his realm. It was time to put his second enlightenment into action.

First, he went far into the red plains and built numerous metal towers. But these towers were special. A wire traveled through them, and if pulled, that wire would detach the core parts holding them together and make them collapse. Then, he continued building. This time, he manifested an absolutely gigantic metal cube and rested it atop these towers. The structures could barely hold together. Then, he made a tunnel through the cube, reaching its surface above the clouds.

The metal wire was also pulled up, resting next to the opening.

He jumped down the tunnel and stood on the ground below. Then, he left the spirit realm and invested lifeforce into evolving Violet Avatar to diamond rank.

As expected, the diamond-ranked dragon and the other threats he had to face appeared. He had already combined all of his spirit powers and fought the fights like a dumbass, doing all this ‘effort’ stuff. This time, he chained movement techniques until he made his way through the tunnel and to the top of the cube.

The monsters stood in the shadow of the massive metal construct, yelling and screaming. The violet dragon flew up but couldn’t make its way through the tight tunnel.

Before it could get the idea to fly around the cube, Neave lay down, closed his eyes in contentment, and pulled the metal wire.

The entire realm started rumbling as the metallic towers collapsed, and the gigantic metal cube began falling to the ground below.

The monsters stood frozen, staring at the heavenly object descending from above, knowing damn well that there wasn't a single thing they could do to get out of that situation alive.

Moments later, the metal cube crashed, shaking the entire spirit realm and obliterating the monsters, instantly ending the spirit trial.

The feeling of freshness he experienced as he cleared the spirit trial with practically no effort was something indescribable. Indeed. He had overcome many of his limitations and shortcomings.

He used the newly upgraded Violet Avatar and manifested the forty-nine little puppets. They were no more potent than they had been at platinum rank. If this was him from his time in the Nightmare Realm, he would have lost his shit at an upgrade like this. Forty-nine puppets? Who was going to control that!?

But now, as he stared at his army of minions, he grinned from ear to ear. With the metal he plundered from the emperor, he could create some damn powerful golems. Even a tiny speck of that material could make the power conduits numerous times more potent.

There was once a book he read that spoke of a demonic sect that replaced their limbs with golem parts. They called themselves golorgs, a blend of golem and organism. His eyes trailed over the metal bar in his hand, the army of puppets, and his clone.

“Well then,” he said, grinning with drool running down his mouth. “Who wants to get some upgrades?”