Overlord Tamer: All My Pet Monsters Have God Potential

Chapter 207: Leveling Up Monster Paradise

John set the map screen to hover between them, unbothered by the four sets of eyes locked onto him from around the table.

"Terms are simple," he said. "First, the Aeonmire Hollow."

The family head’s head snapped up despite the pain still radiating through his blistered arm. "You know about the Hollow?"

"I know a lot of things," John said. "Your family has been sitting on a Mythical-rank secret dimension for three generations and never once managed to crack it open. That’s not a secret. That’s just wasted potential."

The eldest brother’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

That secret dimension was sealed by someone powerful before they established their family here. If they asked help from others, they would have to share it, so they didn’t! And now, someone was asking for it!

"I want full access," John continued. "Not a share, not a lease. Full, permanent access, and I don’t want anyone from your family setting foot inside it while I’m using it."

"And in return?" the family head asked, his voice hoarse.

"In return, your family keeps breathing." John shrugged, as if the concession cost him nothing. "I could have wiped every one of you off this city’s map tonight and called it a lesson in manners. I’m choosing not to."

Silence fell over the table. Vinera’s hands trembled in her lap.

"That’s generous," the family head said slowly, "but forgive me for asking. What’s stopping you from taking the Hollow and still ending us afterward?"

John smiled, and this time it reached his eyes.

"Nothing," he admitted. "Except that dead families make terrible business partners, and terrified ones make excellent ones."

He raised a hand, and a shimmer of light gathered above his palm before condensing into a long, gleaming spear. Its shaft was carved from something that looked like frozen obsidian, veined with threads of pale violet light that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. The spearhead curved into two wicked, asymmetrical blades that seemed to bend the air around them.

Gasps rippled through the room.

"This," John said, "is a gift. Not a bribe. A gift."

He tossed it, and the eldest brother caught it on instinct, then nearly dropped it when the weight of it hit him. It wasn’t heavy in mass. It was heavy in what it represented.

"Duskthorn Voidrend," John said. "Calamity-rank. Should keep your family safe from anyone who thinks your father’s injuries tonight mean you’ve gone soft."

The eldest brother stared down at the spear in his hands, speechless. A Calamity-rank weapon in this city could reshape the entire balance of power between rival families overnight, and this man had just been handed one like a party favor.

"Why," the family head managed, "would you give us something like that after what you just did to me?"

"Because I’m not interested in kicking a family while they’re down," John said. "I’m interested in a family that remembers who put them back up."

He stood, brushing invisible dust off his sleeve.

"Use it well. Protect your people. And make sure nobody disturbs me while I’m in the Hollow." His eyes swept the table one last time, lingering just long enough on Meron to make the boy flinch. "That includes anyone with a grudge and bad judgment."

"Understood," the family head said, bowing his head again, deeper this time. "You have my word."

"Good." John turned to Azelis and Jibril. "Let’s go take a look at what your family’s been sitting on."

The entrance to the Aeonmire Hollow sat beneath the mansion’s eastern wing, hidden behind a wall of shifting runes that had baffled three generations of Ulaang scholars. John didn’t bother decoding them. He simply pressed his palm against the surface and let a thread of Voidspace unravel the lock from the inside out.

The wall dissolved into mist, revealing a staircase spiraling down into deep violet light.

"After you," Azelis said dryly, gesturing at the stairs like she expected a trap.

There wasn’t one. John had already checked.

They descended for what felt like minutes but was closer to a full hour, the air growing thicker and richer the further down they went, until the staircase opened into a vast cavern lit by floating motes of colored spirit energy. Crystalline trees grew from the cavern floor, their branches hung with fruit that shimmered faintly with attribute energy. Rivers of luminous liquid wound between jagged outcroppings of ore, and somewhere deep in the distance, something massive shifted in its sleep.

"Mythical-rank, alright," John murmured, closing his eyes to feel out the dimension’s full scope. "This place is enormous."

"How enormous?" Jibril asked, craning her neck to look up at a canopy that seemed to stretch endlessly overhead.

"Enormous enough that your grandfather’s grandfather made a smart call sealing it off instead of getting eaten by whatever’s living at the bottom of it," John said.

He raised his hand and summoned his pets from Monster Paradise, all seven of them at once, their cocoons dissolving as they materialized around him in a burst of light. Alfred landed first, growling low as he took in the scenery. Pymon shrieked and immediately launched skyward to survey the cavern’s upper reaches. Rexion cracked his neck, flexing wings that shimmered faintly with new patterns none of them had seen before.

"You’re all looking good," John said, grinning at the changes rippling across each of their forms. The Eldritch infusion had left its mark on every one of them, subtle color shifts, faint new markings, an edge of something ancient in their eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Terravax lumbered forward, testing the ground with one massive clawed foot before letting out a low, satisfied rumble. Chronavael’s antlers flickered faintly out of sync with time itself, each flicker leaving a brief afterimage trailing behind him.

"Spread out," John told them through Magic Whisper. "Gather anything with attribute energy, cores, ores, fruit, all of it. I need Mythical-rank materials, and I need a lot of them."

His pets scattered without hesitation, each one disappearing into a different section of the cavern.

"What are you looking for exactly?" Azelis asked, falling into step beside him as he began walking toward the nearest cluster of crystalline trees.

"A breakthrough," John said. "I’m sitting on more soul energy than I know what to do with, but concentrating it properly into a Myth Spark needs the right catalysts. Attribute-rich materials, high-purity cores, the kind of thing that doesn’t exist in the lower world."

"And this place has that."

"This place has more of that than most forces see in a lifetime," John said, plucking a fruit from a nearby branch and turning it over in his hand, watching threads of golden light swirl beneath its skin. "Your Ulaang family really did strike gold and never knew how to spend it."

They spent the next several hours combing through the dimension, John cataloguing resources with a growing sense of satisfaction while Jibril and Azelis fought off a handful of low-tier guardian beasts that had made the deeper caverns their territory. Nothing that gave any of them real trouble, but enough to keep the trip from being boring.

By the time John called everyone back, his storage rings were considerably heavier, and he had a clear picture of exactly what the Hollow could offer him.

That night, after sending Azelis and Jibril back to rest, John entered Monster Paradise alone.

The moment he stepped through, Chuthulos was already waiting for him, his avatar practically vibrating with excitement.

"Brother John," Chuthulos said. "That dimension you just cleared out. Do you know what it actually is?"

"A Mythical-rank secret dimension," John said. "Why, is there more to it?"

"There’s always more to it with you." Chuthulos grinned, his large eyes glimmering with stars. "Monster Paradise can evolve further, but it needs fuel beyond Molding Essence at this stage. It needs to consume something whole. A dimension of sufficient rank, absorbed entirely, structure and all."

John raised an eyebrow. "You’re saying I can feed it the Hollow."

"I’m saying you should," Chuthulos said. "The Ulaang family has no use for it anymore, not with you controlling access. And a Mythical-rank dimension, fully consumed, would push Monster Paradise past its current limits. New islands, new terrain types, new capacity. Possibly new functions we haven’t unlocked yet."

John considered it for exactly three seconds.

"Would it hurt anyone still connected to it? The Ulaang family, I mean."

"No," Chuthulos said. "The connection was already severed the moment you claimed it. Consuming it now only affects the dimension itself."

"Then let’s do it." John grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Waste not, want not."

He reached out with his will, and the boundary of Monster Paradise stretched wide, a vast maw of space and intention that swallowed the entirety of the Aeonmire Hollow in a single, silent pull. The cavern, the crystalline trees, the rivers of light, all of it folded inward and vanished, absorbed into the fabric of his own domain.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Monster Paradise shuddered.

Light bled from every corner of the sky above the islands, violet and gold, weaving together into patterns too complex to follow with the naked eye. John felt the boundaries of his domain groaning, stretching, reforming into something larger, something hungrier for more.

"There it is," Chuthulos said softly, watching the transformation with open delight. "Congratulations, brother John. Monster Paradise Level 4."

John let out a slow breath, feeling the new weight and scope of his domain settle into place, vast and only half understood.

"Alright." He cracked a grin, already turning his thoughts toward what came next. "Time to go pay a visit to the Abyss Labyrinth."