Chapter 761: Deity Ascension
The servants of Hell’s Devildom’s Royal Palace were greeted by the sight of a 30 (31) year old young man dragging his 10,500-year-old mother down the hallways of the Royal Palace while they busily moved around to handle all the tasks related to the birthday party of the said 30-year-old.
"Arthur, you could at least wait for the party to officially end."
"I’ve waited a dozen years. I don’t wanna wait anymore."
That was Arthur’s reply to his mother as he pulled her into the Royal Family’s break room, where a Cosmic Gate was already open, connecting directly to an Apex World in the Varona Realm.
"Where does that thing lead to?"
"A random inhabitable planet I stumbled across while testing my Authorities in Varona."
Arthur replied casually as he pulled Cattleya into the portal, practically ’dragging’ her along as they passed through the spatial tunnel, pushed through space-time, out of the Burning Realms Galaxy, and into one of the galaxies within the Varona Realm.
Naturally, such a long-distance journey wasn’t something Arthur could handle on his own. He had the Cosmic Teleporter to thank for that.
As soon as they arrived, Arthur warped them again, relocating them to an empty grassy plain, where he finally released Cattleya’s arm.
While the woman took a moment to scan her surroundings, Arthur reached into his subspace and pulled out the massive orb Jamie had handed him a dozen years ago.
It had only been taken out of his subspace once, when he showed it to Lucifer, and since then, it had remained suspended in time within.
The moment it appeared, Cattleya instinctively turned to look, her eyes widening in mild surprise.
"Did you stuff a planet into that thing?"
"A third of a Prime World. The one that tried to kill me, remember?"
"Oh..."
The reminder made Cattleya frown for a moment, but she brushed the memory aside and stepped closer, placing her hand on the EXP Cache to scan it.
As she moved, the hem of her gown caught against the grass, and noticing this, she snapped her fingers, transforming her party dress into a totally different outfit—a black shirt layered under a long-sleeved brown jacket and matching brown pants.
"You’ve gotta teach me how to do that cloth swap thing," Arthur muttered, watching the transformation.
Cattleya nodded absentmindedly, still focused on analysing the EXP Cache.
"It has some foreign elements..."
"Foreign elements?" Arthur echoed.
"Yes. There’s a strange mixture of universal laws here... and they seem to be binding the energy to... are these souls?"
"Ohh!"
Arthur’s eyes lit up as he instantly understood what Cattleya meant.
"You know how I’ve been calling this an ’EXP Cache’ instead of just an ’energy orb’ or something similar, right? It’s because it’s more than just raw energy.
It contains energy, plus the existential records, and all the other components that make up what the system in Valmone classified as ’EXP’."
He explained while Cattleya listened in silence, her Authority of Knowledge breaking down the composition of the orb in her hand.
"I see... that makes sense," she murmured.
"Are you done with your analysis? Can we start now?"
"Why the rush?" she asked, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Because I want to get stronger as quickly as possible. That’s why," Arthur replied almost instantly.
He held Cattleya’s gaze as he added,
"If I can shave even a single day off that path, I will."
Then, he removed his concealment ring and Cosmic Teleporter, tossing them into his subspace before sitting on a nearby rock.
"So, what’s the first step?"
"..."
Cattleya looked at him in silence, then she turned to the EXP Cache hovering at her side with a sigh.
"This... is for the final phase."
Facing him again, she spoke.
"First, you’ll need to use the power of your Authorities to lay the groundwork for a new barrier around your soul."
She closed the gap between them in a single step, appearing just behind Arthur and resting a hand on his back.
"I’ll show you how it’s done. The process is the same all the way up to the High-Tier Deity Realm."
With that, Cattleya’s magic power surged into Arthur’s body, rushing through specific energy circuit pathways directly linked to his heart and soul.
"Direct your energy to flow along those pathways, but beyond that point, the pattern is yours to decide. How does the energy forming the framework of your current Soul Barrier move? Follow that pattern."
"I see..."
Arthur nodded as he muttered, beginning to trace the pattern as instructed.
Satisfied, Cattleya withdrew her hand and began to walk slowly around him, continuing to speak.
"First, you create the framework for a new barrier around your soul using your Low-Rank Authorities. The quality of your soul is already elevated simply by possessing a Low-Rank Authority, since the Origin Core requires that level just to form. Use the power of those Origin Cores to build that barrier skeleton around your soul.
Next, compress your energy to raise its quality, then use that high-quality energy to strengthen your physical body to its absolute limit.
At this point, you’ll likely run out of energy, which is when you start absorbing ambient energy to replenish it. You need to filter and then compress that ambient energy to increase its quality, using it to expand your energy cores to a level matching your newly strengthened body."
She pulled a chair from her subspace and sat down in front of Arthur, watching him as she went on.
"Once all three are balanced, the fully constructed barrier framework, the body strengthened to the absolute limit, and the energy cores expanded to their max, then..."
She reached out and tapped the EXP Cache before continuing,
"You can absorb this to forcibly break past those limits, feeding your soul the energy it needs to complete the next barrier, giving your body the fresh energy to grow stronger, and filling your energy cores with the new power to sustain it."
Her voice echoed in Arthur’s ears and he silently committed her instructions to memory. Hearing that this process applied all the way up to the High-Tier Deity Realm was pleasing as well.
In between those realms, the usual approach of comprehending laws to gain Authorities that elevate his soul’s quality, and accumulating raw energy to bridge the gaps within each stage applied.
The energy demands of the Low-Tier Deity Realm far exceeded those of the Half-Deity Realm. Similarly, the Mid-Tier Deity Realm, often referred to as the vastest among the Deity Realms, required energy on a scale leagues above the Low-Tier Deity Realm.
Ironically, despite being called the vastest, it wasn’t actually the largest. It had earned that reputation simply because it was the hardest to surpass, thanks to the massive jump in energy required to ascend to the High-Tier Deity Realm.
At the Low-Tier Deity level, one was still dealing with energy quantities comparable to stars and nebulae. But upon reaching the Mid-Tier Deity Realm, the requirement suddenly escalated to the scale of an entire galaxy’s worth of energy just to ascend.
The difficulty spike was absurd.
And the High-Tier Deity Realm was even worse. Advancing a single stage demanded several times that already astronomical amount.
High-Tier Deities didn’t spend hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years in that realm without reason, after all.
But those astronomical demands posed little concern for Arthur because of something he hadn’t yet shared with anyone in Hell—the fractured divine spark of the Titan god Novak, currently compressed within his subspace.
He planned to reveal it only once he reached the superior stage of the Low-Tier Deity Realm and was on the verge of becoming a Mid-Tier Deity. After stabilizing his existence realm at that level, he intended to unleash it to essentially skip the Mid-Tier Realm altogether.
Novak’s divine spark was, in effect, Arthur’s ticket to bypass the Mid-Tier Deity Realm. Having already broken records as the youngest deity, he might as well break records for the shortest time spent in the Mid-Tier Realm.
Though such thoughts flitted through his mind briefly, Arthur pushed them aside, returning his focus to the present task: breaking through to the Low-Tier Deity Realm.
◇ ◇ ◇
The Deity Realm existences who ruled the planet Arthur had chosen for his Low-Tier Deity Realm ascension quickly noticed the energy surges he was causing and how a vast majority of the ambient energy in the planet’s northern hemisphere was being pulled toward his location.
Naturally, they attempted to investigate. But as they approached, all they encountered was the massive dome of destruction energy Cattleya had erected around the area.
Instinctively, they understood that trying to breach it meant certain death, so they hesitated, unsure what kind of existence had come to their world or what purpose it served in draining so much energy.
Arthur, however, was unaware of their concerns, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t have cared.
His sole focus was on becoming a Low-Tier Deity, a goal he eventually achieved after a considerable time. He nearly made a few mistakes, but thanks to Cattleya’s presence, those mistakes were corrected before he could even fully make them, sparing him from the misfortune of a failed breakthrough.
That Arthur had reached the Low-Tier Deity Realm at the age of 31 was news that would make virtually anyone in the Cosmos doubt its authenticity.
Even most of his fellow Progenitors, who could comprehend universal laws before reaching Transcendence, had not reached that level at such a young age.
This was despite the fact that Arthur could have technically stepped into the Low-Tier Deity Realm years earlier, back when he obtained his Low-Rank Authority of Destruction. He had simply chosen to wait till he got more Authorities.
Setting that aside, Arthur’s success was undeniable. He had now become a Low-Tier Deity Realm existence.
The calendar now read January 1, Year 731.
