Within a guest room in Dragonblood Castle, Zassler stood there, looking at Linley and Delia, wondering why they asked him to remain behind. However, he had an inkling in his heart, because he had long ago hypothesized that this Deity-level expert was a practitioner of the Edicts of Death.
When Linley killed the Grand Warlock, he had definitely gained some special items, which others wouldn’t even be able to use.
“Lord Linley?” Zassler had a visible smile on his face, only, Zassler’s face was simply too eerie and astonishing to begin with. Even smiling, he looked terrifying. “Why did you ask me to stay?”
Linley removed an interspatial ring and tossed it to him.
“Zassler, this interspatial ring belonged to that Deity. It should be much better than yours. Go ahead and bind it by blood. Go ahead and withdraw its contents as well.” Linley had great faith in Zassler. Actually, if Zassler intentionally left something inside of it, Linley wouldn’t know about it.
“Yes.” Zassler, trembling slightly, accepted the interspatial ring.
He didn’t care much about the interspatial ring, but of course he was greatly desirous of the possessions of Deities. After binding it with blood…
Zassler waved his hand, and withdrew a large pile of things from within the interspatial ring, filling up almost half the main hall. Amongst them were many herbs, jars, and the like, as well as some scattered pieces of ore. Seeing these things, Zassler’s eyes instantly lit up.
“A golden pearl of souls?” Linley looked at the Gold Soul-Pearl held within a translucent glass. He could sense the dense concentration of spirits within it.
Through the Coiling Dragon ring, Linley directly drew the Gold Soul-Pearl into his Coiling Dragon ring. Actually, Linley had absorbed perhaps just 1% of those liquid gold soul essences. To absorb all of them, it would probably take Linley half a year.
But Linley could clearly sense how beneficial it was for his soul to be growing stronger.
“Lord Linley, many of the materials here are extremely valuable, and very beneficial to me. But these two divine artifacts should be used by warriors.” Zassler pointed out two divine artifacts.
Linley couldn’t help but laugh.
So the Grand Warlock didn’t just have that black sickle. He had two other divine artifacts as well.
“Zassler, do you want to become a Deity?” Linley looked at Zassler, a not-quite smile on his face. Behind him, Delia also grinned towards Zassler.
Zassler was stunned.
“Become a Deity?” Zassler was somewhat numbed. Become a Deity? Who wouldn’t?
Someone as intelligent as him immediately understood from Linley’s words what Linley’s intentions were. But Zassler still found it rather hard to believe. Zassler knew exactly how important a divine spark was. Even Dylin had felt incredibly grateful towards Linley for gifting him with a divine spark.
A divine spark represented the creation of a Deity.
“Can it be that you don’t want to?” Linley asked. “If you don’t want to, then forget about it.”
“I want to. Of course I want to,” Zassler said hurriedly.
“Haha…” Seeing the look on Zassler’s face right now, Linley immediately started to laugh. Delia couldn’t help but laugh as well. “Linley, stop teasing Zassler. Where’s that Death-style divine spark? Give it to Zassler.”
“This is the divine spark of a Deity. Go and fuse it.” With a flip of his hand, Linley retrieved the Grand Warlock’s divine spark, then tossed it over to Zassler.
Seeing the divine spark fly towards him, Zassler felt as though his entire body had turned light and airy, as though he were on a cloud.
This was a divine spark. After fusing with it, he would become a Deity!
Zassler couldn’t help but swallow. Trembling, he stretched his hands out and caught the divine spark. Zassler felt as though this divine spark in his hands weighed trillions of pounds, and his hands couldn’t help but shake.
“Lord Linley, thank you, thank you.” Zassler was extremely grateful.
Before meeting Linley, he had been an Arch Magus necromancer of the ninth rank. Finally, he had become a Saint, but Zassler knew very well the limits of his talent… it had taken him eight hundred years just to reach the Saint level. To reach the Deity level, the amount of time it would take him would be measured in ten-thousand-year units.
Who would have thought that without having experienced any difficulties, a divine spark would just suddenly appear in front of him like this?
“Don’t say thank you so many times. But Zassler, you have to work hard. Your understanding of the Laws is deeper than Barker, but Barker has already begun fusing with his divine spark before you. I want to see who amongst you two will become the third Deity of Dragonblood Castle,” Linley said with a laugh.
Without question, the second Deity of Dragonblood Castle would be Delia. After all, she was already more than halfway through fusing with her divine spark.
“Lord Linley, don’t worry. I will definitely work hard.” Zassler’s heart was burning with eagerness!
The goal of countless experts, and even countless Saints of the Yulan continent, was to become a Deity.
Next, Linley asked Zassler to leave.
“Linley, in another few dozen years, our Dragonblood Castle will have a total of five Deities,” Delia said with a laugh. Linley, Delia, Zassler, Barker, and the fully-grown Bebe. “Five.” Delia felt amazed as well.
“But for some reason…”
Linley frowned. “Delia. I still feel a bit uneasy. Right now, the Yulan continent feels like a chaotic pond. No one has any idea anymore what is inside the pond, nor will any of us be able to predict what sort of experts will suddenly appear from within it.”
“Right.” Delia nodded slightly.
The sudden appearance of the Grand Warlock, as well as that mysterious god, ‘Muba’, of that secretive church… and that was just what Linley knew about. Many Saints had appeared in the past few years in the Yulan continent as well which had previously been unknown.
Who knew when a full God would emerge?
Even though Linley’s side had the advantage of numbers, the disparity in raw power would be too great.
“Linley, how about we go ahead and put this wind-style divine spark to good use as well?” Delia said. “Desri and the others haven’t come looking for you in the past few years. I think they won’t come asking for this divine spark again.”
Right now, Linley still had an unused wind-style divine spark.
A divine spark would have to be fused with for dozens of years before a Deity would be created.
“The wind-style divine spark?” Linley paused for a moment. “No rush. Right now, we aren’t lacking for Deities.”
After this last battle, Linley’s life returned to its normal tranquility. His divine clone focused on training in the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’. Presently, Linley’s ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ had only reached a fairly early stage. It was still very far from full mastery.
After all, after the Profound Truths of Velocity was fully mastered, that represented the simultaneously mastery and fusion of the ‘Fast’ and ‘Slow’ aspects, which together formed the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’.
At that time, Linley would enter the realm of full Gods.
“Given my current speed, who knows how long that would take? A thousand years? Ten thousand years?” Linley himself wasn’t certain. The more he trained, the more he felt this Profound Truths of Velocity was inconceivably vast and complex.
At the same time, Linley’s original body focused on training the Profound Truths of the Earth.
In Linley’s original body, due to having absorbed the soul essences, his soul continuously grew. In just three short months, he had absorbed half of those liquid gold soul essences, and his original body’s sword-shaped soul had already increased by a sizable amount, while the power of his soul had increased nearly sixfold. For a soul to increase sixfold in power… this was truly
astonishing.
Actually, even the Grand Warlock’s soul would have been strengthened multiple times after absorbing those twenty million soul essences. In addition, the Grand Warlock’s soul was much more powerful than Linley’s to begin with, and so it was only logical that Linley would grow stronger at such a rapid rate.
One of the great benefits of his soul growing stronger was…
The pace at which he gained new insights in the Laws and was able to visualize attacks was rapidly rising!
After ascending from the Saint level to the Deity level, Linley’s soul had been slightly touched by the natural laws, and so had begun a fundamental transformation, allowing his hypothesizing abilities to increase greatly. Now that his soul was six times more powerful than normal, Linley’s hypothesizing ability was nearly a hundred times faster than in the past when he was a Saint.
In addition, Linley was constantly draining and refining souls, allowing his hypothesizing abilities to continue to increase.
In the past, it might have taken him eight years for a breakthrough, but now, in just those three short months, Linley broke through from the 64 Fused Waves of the Throbbing Pulse of the World to the level of 32 Fused Waves. But upon reaching the level of 32 Fused Waves, Linley clearly sensed that the difficulty had just increased yet again.
“Given this level of speed, breaking through to the 16 Fused Waves level will most likely need another year. Then… how long will it take to break through to the 8 Fused Waves?” Linley was rather astonished.
The Throbbing Pulse of the World rose exponentially in difficulty as one learned more of it. From the 256 waves to the 128 Fused Waves, and then to the 64 Fused Waves, the difficulty increase hadn’t been too great. But the further one went, the exponentially harder it became. In truth, the Throbbing Pulse of the World was one of the fairly high-level components of the Laws of the Earth. It was extremely hard to fully master it at the Saint level.
Fortunately, Linley’s soul had dramatically risen in power, after he had absorbed so many soul essences.
69
Haeru
These quiet, comfortable days passed, one after the other. In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.
The liquid gold soul essences had been completely absorbed by Linley. Right now, although his sword-shaped soul was just one size larger than before, in terms of quality, it had absolutely transformed.
“No wonder that Deity wanted to collect so many souls and refine them.” Linley couldn’t help but laugh.
But unfortunately, despite the meticulous efforts of the Grand Warlock, in the end, it had all been to someone else’s benefit.
After completely absorbing the soul essences, Linley left the secret pocket dimension, wanting to take a stroll about Dragonblood Castle. Just as he walked along a flowery path, Linley saw a black blur flash right past the air above him from afar.
“Master.” The black shadow flew over to Linley. It was the Blackcloud Panther, Haeru.
“Haeru, heading off to the Forest of Darkness again?” Linley laughed.
Haeru nodded his great head.
Linley knew that Haeru as well those three Saint-level dragons actually were not accustomed to always living alongside humans. The four of them only occasionally stayed in Dragonblood Castle. Most of the time, they flew to the Forest of Darkness, the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, or the Mountain Range of the Setting Sun.
Those places were their real homes.
“Hm…” Linley suddenly had a thought.
“Haeru, you are darkness-style and wind-style, right?” Linley asked.
“Yes, Master. What of it?” Haeru was quite puzzled. Why had Linley suddenly asked this?
Linley laughed and said, “Nothing.” Linley continued walking forward. Haeru stared at Linley’s back, puzzled. But Haeru didn’t think too much of it, and he immediately flew to look for his three good friends; those three Saint-level dragons.
Arriving at the training fields in front of Dragonblood Castle, Linley saw Wharton and several others training.
“Wind-style… Haeru actually would be a good choice.” Linley had been pondering the question of who to give the wind-style divine spark to for quite some time now.
Gates and the others had almost no affinity for the Elemental Laws of the Wind. Although any Saint was capable of fusing with a divine spark, it was best to fuse with a spark of an element one was skilled in. For example, Delia was fusing with a wind-style divine spark, while Barker was fusing in an earth-style divine spark, and Zassler was fusing with a Death-style divine spark.
And now, Linley had found another candidate; Haeru.
Haeru was a dual-element, darkness and wind affinity magical beast. It indeed would be an excellent choice for him to refine this divine spark.
“Big brother Ley,” a familiar voice rang out.
Linley looked over. It was Jenne.
“Jenne.” Linley revealed a hint of a smile on his face. Jenne was wearing water-blue magus robes. The passage of time had left no mark on her face at all. Back in the day, Jenne was a famous ‘iron lady’ of the Baruch Empire’s administrative bureaus. Nowadays, Jenne was in a magus academy working as a magus instructor.
Jenne had worked very hard in her magus training, and she had spent thirty-plus years refining her abilities.
Currently, she was at the level of a magus of the seventh rank. She was more than qualified to be a magus instructor.
“Haha, Jenne, you are back. Ever since you became a magus instructor, you started to spend less and less time here.” Wharton and the others walked over as well.
Actually, everyone in Dragonblood Castle knew how Jenne felt towards Linley. Only, they all knew Linley’s temperament as well, as did Jenne… they rarely spoke, and Jenne didn’t try to force Linley to spend more time with her. As Jenne saw it, her life was already a very blessed one, for her to occasionally be able to see the person she liked, and for her to be able to do something she enjoyed. She enjoyed this sort of leisurely, fulfilling life.
“There’s nothing I can do. There’s only two breaks each year at the institute,” Jenne smiled as she spoke. “Wharton, where’s Arnold?”
“Arnold is playing around in the rear flower gardens, along with the maidservants.” Wharton laughed.
Jenne glanced at Linley. “Big brother Ley, I’m going to go find Arnold.” Linley laughed and nodded. Jenne doted on Arnold very much. Everyone in Dragonblood Castle knew this.
Within the pocket dimension.
The multicolored energy streams swirled in the chaotic space outside the membrane. Dimensional cracks could be seen everywhere. Linley and Delia, husband and wife, were quietly training here. Linley’s divine clone and his original body were separately training in the ‘Profound Truths of Velocity’ and the ‘Profound Truths of the Earth’.
“Whew.” Linley stopped training.
“Delia,” Linley called out.
“What is it?” Delia opened her eyes, looking at Linley in confusion. “Is something wrong?”
“Delia, right now, we still have one more divine spark left. I’m preparing to give this divine spark to Haeru and have him fuse it. What do you think?” Linley wanted to ask Delia for her opinion first. Delia’s eyes lit up. “Haeru? If it is Haeru… that actually is an excellent choice. He is your magical beast, and all these years, him and those three Saint-level dragons have handled many tasks on behalf of the empire during those battles.”
Delia appreciated Haeru very much.
Haeru was very low-key in Dragonblood Castle, but whenever any problems arose, Haeru would carry out the tasks that others didn’t want to carry out without a single word of complaint.
“Then it is settled,” Linley made up his mind.
After becoming a Deity, Linley was no longer under much pressure. Generally speaking, he would let his divine clone fully focus on training, while his original body would occasionally go wandering about Dragonblood Castle. After all, there was more to life than just traini
ng.
Within the main hall of Dragonblood Castle.
Dozens of people were seated around that ten-meter-long table. They were eating together, and Linley was seated in the main seat.
“Rumble…”
A unique energy ripple came from the south. The other people in the main hall didn’t notice anything, but Linley raised his head, staring towards the south in amazement. “Yet another person has become a Deity!”
Linley, who had once sensed the energy signature of the natural Laws, was very familiar with that energy wave.
Although that energy wave had travelled a great distance and was now very weak, Linley could still sense it very clearly. That was a unique energy wave generated by the descent of the natural Laws when a person became a Deity.
“Someone to the south became a Deity. Who?” Linley secretly wondered.
To be precise, right now, both Tulily and Desri were located to the south of Linley. Aside from those two familiar figures, there were also the various Prime Saints who had appeared out of nowhere in recent years, such as those two in the Rohault Empire. All of them had the capability of reaching the Deity level.
So who was it?
“You keep eating. I need to make a trip.” Linley rose to his feet.
Wharton, Gates, and the others stared at Linley in confusion, but they didn’t ask him about it. Linley walked out of the main hall, then immediately flew into the air.
In mid-air, Linley could now clearly sense the area the energy ripples were coming from. “Directly from the south. It shouldn’t be Tulily.” No longer wondering, Linley immediately spread out his spiritual energy. Upon reaching the Deity level, spiritual energy could also be described as ‘divine sense’.
Linley’s divine sense instantly spread out. If he hadn’t absorbed those twenty million soul essences, Linley’s divine sense would only be able to cover roughly a thousand kilometers or so.
But now… Linley’s divine sense was able to cover ten thousand kilometers. But of course, this was only in the Yulan continent’s plane. If he were in some other, higher planes, the area his divine sense covered would be much smaller.
Gods of Yulan: Book 4 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 55
