He was now timeless.

Age no longer mattered.

It was now time for him to breakthrough to rank 1!

So how exactly did ascending ranks work?

Well first he had to connect with the world will.

The framework encoded in his genome still needed a source for supernatural power.

Something that was originally not present in the world.

But he had changed that.

He rotated his visualization technique.

Left, Up, Right, Down.

In many various shapes and dimensions.

He closed his eyes and sat down at his desk.

Left, Up, Right, Down.

It took ten attempts.

He then felt something snap in the center of his being.

In this body at least.

The rank 6 framework required the user to build a spiritual artifact in their sea of consciousness.

Zero was building a clock.

He planned to mimic the one attached to his independent consciousness.

He had multiple after all.

He wasn't simply becoming an ordinary rank 1 though.

He had eight sets of consciousness.

The crystals he split his consciousness into for immortality.

The Prose, The Stasis, and the Four Vital Peas.

There was a consciousness in each of them.

There was also a consciousness in his brain.

As well as the independent consciousness.

In total.

He had eight consciousness's in this body.

The cultivation he designed required not a dantian but a sea of consciousness.

The six crystals sea of consciousness's were empty.

His independent consciousness had his visualization technique and various protocols for his particle isolator.

But it also housed his soul artifact.

His brain itself had a blank sea of consciousness.

Besides the visualization technique.

He wasn't Gaia after all.

If he was, He would have been able to make the entirety of Dimension Zero his sea of consciousness in this world.

He just didn't have the ability.

But now... he would begin construction of his spiritual artifacts.

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The cultivation was linked on a physical and spiritual level.

He already had the rough outline for it.

The energy poured into each sea.

It was like water.

Before he even begun construction of 'it'.

He had already broken through to rank 1!

He had broken through eight times.

Perhaps it is because he has been rank 1 in the past.

But it was surprisingly easy.

He manipulated the energy in each sea and built the case back of his watch.

He then carved this crystalized energy and built the dial and bezel.

He now had completed the outside of his watch.

What abilities did becoming rank 1 give him?

Well, this sort of cultivation was special and unique depending on what was constructed.

Since he had built the case of his spiritual artifact.

Something meant to protect the inner mechanism.

He gained a passive shield to protect him.

But Zero felt it was too easy.

He got rank 1 so easily?

When it took him countless years before.

He felt he could instantly become rank 6.

So that's what he planned to do.

He created the mainspring.

The energy obviously was flowing in from somewhere.

The entrance of each sea was placed below the mainspring.

This would be the engine for each artifact.

As the energy flowed in. It would flow past the winding pinion and wind up the mainspring.

He then created a barrel for the engine.

The energy would wind up the spring, then travel along the paths he established.

It was in this instant that he broke through to rank 2.

What did he acquire now?

Well, now he had the main engine of the watch.

The physical was linked to his sea.

He could now manipulate the energy and push it outside of his body.

He has gained flight.

Now it was time to breakthrough to rank 3.

He then followed the path the energy was taking and built a balance wheel.

And an escape wheel.

This converted the mainspring power into small increments.

He then used these small movements to mix the energy.

These small movements were also used to rotate the visualization technique, which further drew in more energy automatically, an endless cycle.

Once the energy was disturbed... he had it crystalize.

Crystalized energy!

He had become rank 3.

What did he acquire this time?

Tick Toc. Tick Toc.

The ability to briefly freeze time.

But something else as well.

Once more. It was just crystalized energy produced from these movements.

What good was such energy?

Well, now things get interesting.

Remember his passive spells from Owtz's System?

[ECHO]: {Name: "Infinity", Level: 1, Type: Shield, Element: Mana, Cost: 0, Desc: "Form a shield of infinity around the user."}

[ECHO]: {Name: "Infinite Flight", Level: 2, Type: Target, Element: Mana, Cost: 0, Desc: "Allows the target to fly."}

[ECHO]: {Name: "Infinite Mind", Level: 3, Type: Self, Element: Mana, Cost: 0, Desc: "Protects self against all forms of illusions and mind traps."}

[ECHO]: {Name: "Infinite Soul", Level: 4, Type: Self, Element: Mana, Cost: 0, Desc: "Protects soul against all forms of attacks."}

Although he couldn't use runes from the lower reality.

So he could not use these spells.

It didn't prevent him from using it as inspiration.

Maybe it was possible to form a new rune system.

He use to be a formations grandmaster after all.

It should be possible.

He merely needs to design new runes.

Then have them be activated by the matrix over the world.

Things that were totally impossible became possible when the world woke up.

He combined all 4 passive spells together and formed a single ultimate 'ability'.

[ECHO]: {Name: "Infinite Time Guard", Level: 4, Type: Self, Element: ???, Cost: 0, Desc: "Protects existence with infinity and time."}

He had also formed the other parts of his watch.

But it wasn't enough to breakthrough to rank 4.

Rank 4 is a huge change in existence.

His artifacts were complete.

The only thing missing was the crown.

He built the mechanism for it.

Then clicked them all simultaneously.

He also had the special watch in his independent consciousness.

In total he had nine watches.

Eight constructed by himself. One constructed by his main body.

It tried to transport him to the chaos realm.

But such a thing didn't exist in this reality.

So it failed.

Worst then that, it wasn't enough to breakthrough.

Make no mistake. He had enough energy in his consciousness to breakthrough.

The spiritual artifact was also complete.

When comparing breakthrough's.

The hardest parts of progression is rank 3 to rank 4 and rank 6 to rank 7.

He needed outside stimulation to breakthrough.

Despite having a 100% completed artifact, he was only halfway there to rank 6.

Halfway in terms of stages.

He was working on breaking through while working on developing runes while working on advancing his technology.

He was doing many things at once.

It had only been a few hours since he had reconnected with his main body.

Yet, he had already covered the world in a matrix and advanced to rank 3.

He made sure to use his ability 'Save Point'.

His time was up.

All of his decoys had been destroyed.