Coiling Dragon (Pan Long)

The eighteenth floor of the Necropolis of the Gods. It seemed to have turned into a sea of earthen yellow elemental essences. As for Linley, he hovered there, eyes closed, an awesome presence emanating from his body. Beirut, Bluefire, and Bebe all watched unblinkingly from nearby.

Within Linley’s sea of consciousness.

His original body, wind clone, fire clone, and water clone were seated in the meditative position on the surface of his sea of consciousness. The four bodies just so happened to form a square, and right above them hovered a swiveling, glass-like gemstone. A surge of invisible, untouchable ‘Will’ was circulating towards Linley’s five souls.

The souls of his original body and his four clones were, in reality, one and the same.

At this moment, the soul of his divine earth clone was rapidly improving, while the souls of his original body and his other three divine clones were improving somewhat slower.

“Indeed, it is as Lord Beirut had said. The Will of a Sovereign is virtually inexhaustible, but completely focused within the Sovereign spark. Their actual souls contain very little Will.” Linley could sense that although the amount of Will within his five souls had increased somewhat, there was a limit to it.

The soul of his divine earth clone, after having transformed into a Sovereign, had only gained an increase in Will that was comparable to the Will which a Highgod Paragon possessed.

As for his original body and his three other clones, they only gained roughly 80% of the Will which a Highgod Paragon was in possession of.

“No wonder. So this is why even if a Sovereign were to send his clone to enter a material plane, he still wouldn’t be able to kill a Highgod Paragon.” Linley sighed to himself, then mused, “However, even before becoming a Sovereign, my Will had already surpassed that of a Paragon! Now, I’ve only grown stronger!” Right at this moment…

An awe-inspiring flood of gold suddenly entered his mind. This formless golden flood merged into his sea of consciousness and sank into his soul.

“This…”

Linley felt as though he suddenly became tens of times more clear-minded, and that his soul’s analytical abilities were increasing dramatically.

“This is…the energy of faith!” Linley was completely stunned.

Actually, Linley had always been absorbing faith energy, but that bit of faith energy which he received from the Yulan Plane, to the current Linley, was nothing at all. Still, even that bit of faith energy had allowed Linley’s training speed to increase by quite a bit.

Currently, however, it was as though a flood of faith energy had entered his sea of consciousness. The amount he received every instant was comparable to all the faith energy he had built up over the past few thousand years.

The eighteenth floor of the Necropolis of the Gods. The flood of earthen yellow elemental essences had disappeared. The world once again returned to an azure color.

Linley opened his eyes, staring at Beirut and Bluefire in shock. “Lord Beirut, this faith energy…”

“You are a Sovereign, now. You are no longer weaker than me. There is no need to address me as Lord Beirut. You can just address me as Beirut!” Beirut just laughed.

Linley felt gratitude towards Beirut. It was Beirut who had given him the Sovereign spark; in fact, had given him two! In addition, for thousands of years, he had constantly been taking care of Linley. Linley couldn’t forget any of this. “Lord Beirut, if we didn’t know each other, naturally we would use our comparative power to determine our comparative status. But Lord Beirut, even I myself have no idea as to how I should repay the kindness you have shown me…”

After his soul mutation, Linley had become as powerful as a Highgod Paragon.

If they were to determine status through comparing power levels, given that Linley didn’t know that Beirut was a Sovereign, logically speaking, Linley should’ve already started to address him as ‘Beirut’. Linley, however, had not.

In Linley’s heart…

Beirut was like a patient, helpful elder relative who had always taken care of him.

“Haha, since you say that, then I’ll thicken my face for once and ask both you and Bebe to address me as Grandpa Beirut. What say you?” Beirut chortled. When he had discovered Bebe’s existence, Beirut had begun to pay attention to Linley as well. Beirut had always been watching Linley, ever since he was a youth.

Unconsciously, the care he felt towards Bebe had naturally been partially transferred to Linley as well.

“Grandpa Beirut.” Linley said hurriedly.

“Haha…” Hearing this, Beirut was absolutely delighted. Right now, Beirut’s mindset had somewhat changed. Previously, Bebe’s existence made it so that between Linley and Beirut, there existed a relationship that was akin to that of an elder and a junior. This relationship was a bit of a vague one, however, and had never been formalized.

Although one of the reasons why Beirut had chosen Linley was because Linley’s power had qualitatively risen greatly, it was also because he wanted to borrow Linley’s strength to fight back against the Chief Sovereign of Light.

But in this instant…

When Linley also began to address Beirut as ‘Grandpa’, Beirut naturally began to feel differently. He understood…that Linley’s power was going to vastly outstrip his. For him to have helped raise such a supreme expert, and one who was a junior in his own family…naturally, Beirut felt very gratified.

“Excellent, excellent.” Beirut laughed. “Just now, you were speaking of faith energy…”

“Right. As soon as I became a Sovereign, I could sense a terrifyingly dense stream of faith energy flood into my sea of consciousness. What is this all about?” Linley was stunned.

The nearby Bluefire laughed. “Linley, prior to this, weren’t you asking about why all Sovereigns have fused at least five types of profound mysteries?”

“It’s true that not all Sovereigns are innately gifted. For them to all have fused five profound mysteries or more is indeed inconceivable.” Linley suddenly came to his senses. “Are you saying…that this is because of faith energy?” Linley recollected the purpose of faith energy; it allows experts to be able to gain insights faster and train faster.

But of course, there was a limit to how much faith energy could help.

If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so few Sovereign Paragons.

“How could there be so much faith energy? Terrifyingly much…” Linley said hurriedly.

Beirut explained, “Linley, there are countless material planes. Some worship churches of light, others of darkness, others of earth, others of lightning, others of Destruction…there are all sorts of temples that have been built across the countless planes. The amount of faith energy they draw in is terrifyingly great.”

“Let me give an example. In the countless planes of the universe, how many living creatures worship light? The number is incalculable. All of that faith energy will build up, and 99% of it will be acquired by the seven Sovereigns of Light! The faith energy they receive every single instant is a terrifying amount.” Beirut laughed. “Precisely because they are infused with so much faith energy, Sovereigns train much faster and gain insights much more easily. This is why every single Sovereign has fused at least five profound mysteries.”

“So that’s the situation.” Bebe mumbled. “That’s cheating.”

“If it weren’t for that, why would the Sovereigns have made it so that their churches would be founded throughout the planes of the universe? Why would they have to compile all sorts of types of magic?” Beirut laughed.

“Compile magic?” Linley was startled.

“What, is it very odd?” Beirut laughed calmly. “Linley, think about it. What are magical incantations comparable to?”

In executing a magic spell, one had to use spiritual energy to support the magical incantation needed to use one’s own mageforce to activate the elemental essence of the world and form a magic spell. Some powerful magi could even use their powerful souls to instacast spells without needing to rely on magical incantations! For example, a magus of the eighth rank could use incantations to cast spells of the eighth rank, but if he wanted to instacast, he would only be able to instacast lower rank spells.

“Magical incantations lower the requirements for casting magical spells! A magus who relies solely on his own power is only able to cast lower level spells. But by relying on magical incantations, he is able to unleash far more powerful magic!” Linley instantly understood. “By relying on magical incantations, one’s attack power will immediately increase greatly. This is much like how the profound mysteries of the Laws can increase one’s attack power!”

“Right.” Beirut smiled. “Magical incantations are the simplified versions of the profound mysteries of the Laws. Although they aren’t as powerful as the Laws, they are still very useful.”

“Right, right.” Linley suddenly understood it all. “Haha…for example, the wind-type forbidden level spell, ‘Dimensional Edge’. It’s simply a basic version of the ‘Dimensional Attack’ profound mystery of the Laws of the Wind. And the ninth rank spell of the wind, ‘Void Extermination’. This is a simplified way of applying the ‘Spatial Wind’ of the Laws of the Wind!”

The nearby Bebe, hearing this, nodded and said in delight, “Right. The ‘Supergravity Field’ of earth magic is just a simple version of ‘Gravitational Space’. And many ordinary earth-type magic spells are based on the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth.”

When they did a serious comparison, Linley and Bebe now completely realized that many magic spells were simplified, basic versions of the profound mysteries of the Laws!

Although magi didn’t know a single thing about the profound mysteries, by rote memory and repetition, they could memorize magic incantations and thus unleash powerful magic! As they understood more about the profound mysteries, they would constantly rise in power, to the point where magi would naturally give up the incantations and embark on the true, great path of analyzing the profound mysteries directly!

“Magical incantations actually are a simple, superficial way of applying the power of the profound mysteries of the Laws.” Linley sighed in praise. “One needs to have an extremely deep level of insight into the nature of elemental essences and the profound mysteries of the Laws in order to develop magical incantations. If I had to develop new spells, it would probably take me very long as well.”

The principle behind magical incantations was actually a type of auto-hypnosis; one would adjust one’s spiritual energy to better fuse with the elemental essences. But developing new incantations? That was extremely difficult.

Beirut laughed. “For the sake of making sure that their supply of faith energy would continue, it only makes sense that the Sovereigns would spend vast amounts of time developing magic spells.”

“However, the Sovereigns are now virtually all at their limit. And so, their control over the material planes has lessened.” Beirut laughed calmly. “Naturally, some of the material planes have produced a few churches that solely worship a single figure, who receives all of their faith energy for personal use. This is what is known as ‘heresy’, which absolutely must be exterminated. The Sovereigns would even go so far as to send their planar projection clones to go eradicate any traces of heresy. However, the Sovereigns are now paying less attention to heretics. It isn’t like before, where they would annihilate all heretical churches.”

Linley nodded slightly.

The population of the Yulan Plane was tiny; compared to the Okerlund Plane, which had a population of eight quadrillion, how much faith energy could it provide? The amount of planes the universe held, all added up, came to a terrifying figure.

“If…for example, the humans of the Okerlund Plane worship the ‘Radiant Goddess’. Where does the faith energy go to?” Linley asked.

“The Radiant Goddess?” Beirut laughed. “If there isn’t a clear figure of worship, and just a vague ‘Radiant Goddess’, more than 99% of the faith energy will be taken by the seven Sovereigns of Light. Only a very small amount will be acquired by the light-type Deities of the Okerlund Plane.”

Linley sighed to himself. Sovereigns truly were dominating.

However, this wasn’t determined by the Sovereigns; it was part of the Edicts of the world.

“No wonder Sovereigns are so powerful. With so much faith energy, my own training speed will increase explosively as well.” Linley mused to himself. And then, he looked towards the second Sovereign spark in the stone box…the water-type Sovereign spark!

Drip!

A drop of fresh blood fell atop the water-type Sovereign spark and was absorbed by the ‘jewel’. A dazzling azure-green aura suddenly sprang up.

“Rumble…” The world once more became filled with a thick amount of elemental essences, this time of water. The liquefied water-type Sovereign power flooded towards and swirled around Linley, beginning to enter his body. Just like before, Linley’s five souls once more began to increase in power!

Bluefire and Beirut exchanged glances.

“Beirut, what level will Linley reach?” Bluefire asked.

“Uncertain.” Beirut said solemnly. “But I know that upon fusing two Sovereign sparks, the power of one’s Will in the soul will be quite a bit greater than the rest of us normal Sovereigns have. In addition, he himself is a four-way Soul Mutate to begin with, and already possesses the power of Will. Even if we don’t consider other things, the power of his Will should already be comparable to an Intermediate Sovereign’s.”

The nearby Bebe said hurriedly, “And his fused Sovereign power.”

“Right. There has never before been a fusion of two different types of Sovereign power. And his power has still more room to grow.” Beirut smiled and nodded. “Fused Sovereign power should be even more powerful than a normal Intermediate Sovereign’s power. Paired with an Overgod artifact…”

“Paired with an Overgod artifact, he should be comparable to those Chief Sovereigns who do not have an Overgod artifact.” Bluefire said, rather excited.

“Right. But of course…it’s hard to say if something special would happen for a Fusion Sovereign.” Beirut said.

And right at this moment, the levitating Linley opened his eyes.