Harem Of Eternal Yandere Beasts: My Legendary Wives

Chapter 62: Stage Three

"You shattered the crystal," Instructor Vale said, her tone carrying a note of genuine curiosity rather than anger. Somehow, that calm demeanor made the situation feel much worse.

Orion sat across from her inside one of the library’s private study chambers, while Selene occupied the chair beside him, looking entirely too amused by his predicament.

"It wasn’t intentional," Orion replied.

Vale nodded slowly. "I assumed as much. Honestly, intentional destruction would actually be far less concerning."

When Orion and Selene offered no response to that rather unsettling statement, Vale simply looked between them. "That wasn’t meant to be reassuring, by the way."

Selene let out another sharp laugh at Orion’s expense. Traitor.

The technical interrogation lasted nearly an hour. Vale didn’t dig for personal secrets; instead, she pressed for specific, methodical data. She wanted to know about core behavior, refinement efficiency, development rates, and precise combat applications. Her questions were those of a dedicated researcher who had spent decades trying to piece together an incomplete puzzle.

Eventually, the discussion wound down, and Vale leaned back in her chair, silently recalculating decades of established assumptions.

"What is it?" Orion asked, breaking the silence.

The instructor looked at him directly. "Your progression rate. It’s ridiculous. You’ve advanced further in a matter of months than most historic Sovereign candidates managed in years."

Selene groaned loudly from the next chair. "I knew it. I knew you were going to be annoying."

Vale stood up abruptly. "Come."

The command carried enough natural authority that neither student hesitated. She led them deeper into the subterranean complex, navigating past archival sections, research rooms, and tightly sealed vaults. The ambient pressure shifted with every step they took, growing noticeably heavier and older.

Eventually, they arrived before the massive, rune-covered vault door Vale had pointed out earlier. Up close, the threshold felt even more imposing. Tens of thousands of ancient inscriptions tightly bound its surface. Within his spiritual space, Cipher practically vibrated with intellectual excitement, the little owl desperate to analyze the entire spell network simultaneously—a feeling Orion thoroughly shared.

Vale placed her palm against the center of the door, causing the runes to illuminate one by one, like stars waking up across a night sky.

"The Sovereign Path was never designed to stop at Stage Two," Vale’s voice echoed softly through the stone chamber. "The problem was never the pathway itself. The problem was survival."

Orion frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

The instructor offered a cold, historical smile. "The mortality rate."

The chamber went dead quiet. Orion looked at Selene, who simply folded her arms. "You haven’t told him yet?" she asked the instructor.

"Tell me what?" Orion demanded.

Vale exhaled a slow, heavy breath. "The original Sovereign lineage produced extraordinary, innovative, and exceptionally powerful cultivators. And most of them died attempting to progress."

The massive door ground open, releasing a draft of cold, dry air that had remained untouched by time. The chamber beyond was surprisingly compact, spanning perhaps twenty meters across. Bookshelves lined the stone walls, research notes cluttered several tables, and complex cultivation diagrams filled entire display sections.

At the dead center of the room stood a single crystal pillar pulsing with a soft, internal golden light. The moment Orion stepped inside, his Sovereign Core flared in immediate, undeniable resonance. The crystal shared his exact attribute.

Vale approached the pillar and rested her hand against its polished surface. "This is the Legacy Archive. Every preceding generation contributed their collective knowledge to it."

The golden light flared outward, projecting a swirling array of images into the air. Dozens, then hundreds of ancient figures appeared—warriors, scholars, and cultivators spanning different eras and cultures, all linked by the presence of the Core. But as Orion watched the historical timeline unfold, the number of projections began to drastically shrink. Hundreds became dozens, dozens became a handful, until almost none were left. The pattern was glaringly obvious.

"They died," Orion stated flatly.

Vale nodded. "The vast majority of them."

"Why?"

The instructor’s expression turned grim. "Because Stage Three changes the fundamental rules of cultivation."

The room grew entirely quiet as Vale gestured toward the crystal, prompting it to display detailed cultivation diagrams, mana circuits, and core structures. Orion studied the floating theoretical pathways carefully, but he froze as he realized what he was looking at.

The requirements were suicidal. The sheer volume of mana demanded by the breakthrough, combined with the structural stress placed upon the physical body, looked like a death sentence. Even with the inherent advantages of the Sovereign Core, the math didn’t add up.

"People actually attempted this?" Orion asked, incredulous.

"Repeatedly," Vale replied.

"And how many survived?"

The instructor gave him a look that provided all the answer he needed. Very few.

Selene stepped forward, crossing her arms. "The old foundational versions were fundamentally flawed. The lineage spent the last forty years trying to fix the bottleneck."

Orion followed her gesture toward the shelves, which were stacked with thousands of pages of experiments, observations, and theories. Generations of accumulated effort had been poured into a single, desperate objective: making Stage Three survivable. His respect for the remnants of the lineage spiked immediately; that level of stubborn persistence was rare.

Vale moved to a separate table where a few newer, frequently handled documents were laid out.

"The solution wasn’t about increasing physical durability," she explained, handing Orion the first file. "It wasn’t about artificially strengthening the Core itself," she added, passing him a second. "And it wasn’t about modifying the pathway channels." She placed a third document in his hands. "It was about understanding the true purpose of the stage."

Orion looked up from the papers. "The purpose?"

Vale nodded. "Everyone historically assumed Stage Three was a standard cultivation breakthrough. It isn’t."

The words hung heavily in the air. If Stage Three wasn’t a standard breakthrough of personal power, then what was it?

The instructor smiled genuinely, as if she had waited a lifetime to deliver the explanation. "Stage One creates the Sovereign Core. Stage Two refines its internal capacity. And Stage Three..."

The golden pillar flared brightly, illuminating the vault as she finished her thought.

"Stage Three expands it outward. No other cultivation pathway in the world was designed entirely around the concept of contracts."

Understanding struck Orion with a sudden, jarring clarity. The Sovereign Path, the Mythic Summoning System, his individual contracts with Luna, Mist, and Cipher—everything was fundamentally interconnected. Stage Three wasn’t designed to empower the cultivator directly; it was designed to empower the network, the spiritual bond, and the system itself.

Selene grinned, watching his expression shift. "Now you’re finally getting it."

Before Orion could voice his next question, the central crystal pillar flashed violently three separate times, then went entirely inert.

Vale and Selene both froze instantly. Orion felt the shift as well, but his reaction was internal. His Sovereign Core gave a powerful, directional thrum, pointing toward a coordinate far beyond the hidden library, far beyond the academy walls, and deep into the distant horizon. Yet, the signature was unmistakably familiar. It carried the exact same attribute and lineage resonance.

Orion’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the instructors. "There are more of us out there."

Vale looked at him sharply, her gray eyes filled with sudden alarm. "You actually felt that?"

"Yes."

The instructor exchanged a tense, grim look with Selene, all traces of her previous warmth vanishing.

"What is it?" Orion asked, sensing the sudden drop in temperature.

Vale’s expression darkened considerably. "The academy branch isn’t the only surviving remnant of the lineage. But the other branches completely disappeared fifteen years ago. That signal... it shouldn’t exist."

The crystal pillar flashed once more, catching the distant, phantom pulse of another Sovereign Core user out in the world—and judging by the rigid posture of the two women beside him, that unmapped connection was a terrifying impossibility.