Chapter 407 Putting A Card Up The Sleeve



The wicked neon-red core dissolved into red light and flowed straight into the dragon, where it manifested and reconstituted straight within his chest.

Red crystals forming complex and crooked lines layered one upon another as printed silicon glass circuits grew around it.

The blue, glowing veins around it prolonged and enveloped it in intricate webbing. Their color immediately altered, their natural blue mixing with the evil red one, tinting them purple.

Ding!

//

You have used 4000 META points and 1 X greater curse core to create a new organ unlocking a new ability.

Corrupted Mana Well (LV 1):

Description: Intricate and complex organ capable of cursing your own mana circulating through your mana veins. When active, it slightly decreases the purity of mana and, by so also, its effectivity. On the other hand, it will use the mana as a medium for curses, automatically cursing anything that comes into touch with your mana, either through your spells or abilities.

It can stack with manually cast hexes to increase their power considerably.

//

'It truly worked...' Vesuviuse's soul sparkled at the pleasant surprise as his idea proved correct, 'I can use my mana as a medium for curses. Of course, manually cursing my mana would be a bother as it constantly flows, vanishes, and regenerates. Still, with this organ, all of my mana-consuming abilities will carry my curses.'

The longer he spent tampering with his body and soul through the system, the more monstrous he became. He could already feel the terror his enemies would face when fighting him.

That led his eyes towards the large glistering orb of no color. It looked like only slightly curved nothingness.

'Orb of time... to use you will be risky, but on the other hand, you might save my life in the future.' He always faced a lack of time, and now he had a way to fix it.

His mind remained to ponder over the choice. On the one hand, he witnessed the power time, but on the other time, he glimpsed the level of persecution against those using it.

Still, he knew the truth deep within him. He knew it didn't matter how much he abided by the artificial rules of the gods, as he would eventually become their enemy anyway.

'It doesn't matter; when I take the authority of space, the majority of gods will come after me. The rules are here only to keep this already in power in power.' He felt like a defender of a besieged fortress with enemies everywhere and only a few allies.

'The god of death and the dragon god are my only two potential allies in this, and even that is questionable.' His determination grew as he finally chose, 'In that case, I can only do everything to prepare for it, to survive. Yes, I will use the orb, but I should keep it hidden until the day when I will go all out.'

In his eyes, if he would be hunted anyway, there was no reason to try and abide by the laws. Instead, he should gather more weapons to defend himself even at risk.

'System, take the orb and integrate it into my body. Also, seal it with me being able to unseal it at any time.'

The orb vanished as if it never existed, only to rematerialize buried deep within his thick skull. It lay there dormant and moveless without even a single drop of energy flowing through it. It was now nothing more than a small ball of hardened and perfectly clear glass.

Ding!

//

You have spent 10000 META points and 1 X Orb of time to integrate the orb of time with your body: Time Magic (LV 0) --> ? (Sealed)

Recommended modification:

Connect the time orb with your divine kingdom to upgrade it. Cost: 5000 META points

//

'Ohhh? You have really done it system. Last time you didn't allow me to copy time magic... Is it because I already own it anyway? Still, you could have at least told me what I got... Anyway, do it, but as before keep it sealed.'

Ding!

//

Your ability <<Awakened Incomplete Divine Kingdom (LV 5) - (Catastrophe - incomplete)>> was augmented:

(Sealed) (New:) You can control the level of time dilation within your kingdom and change the flow of the time inside it compared to the outer world. The scale of the dilatation increases the upkeep of mana needed to keep it active.

//

The dragon nodded as he finally reached the last point on his long list of body and soul alterations.

'I have around six thousand left. That should be enough to upgrade my muscles.' He couldn't simply overlook something that took up so much space in his body and already felt he knew how to improve them.

'Use that space-altering effects that are already present in my body to compress my muscles and make them much stronger.'

Ding!

//

You have used 5000 META points to use some space mumbo-jumbo weirdness to empower your musculature.

//

Right before the dragon's eyes, all the muscles were duplicated, forming semi-transparent images overlapping with the original muscles.

His head spun as he watched the space warp and shift straight within his body as his muscles overlapped, multiple of the exact same ones being on the exact same spot, but in some magic way not obstructing each other.

Ding!

//

Your ability Apocalypse Dragon Battlelord's Compressed Muscle (LV 1) --> Apocalypse Dragon Battlelord's Phase-shifted Muscle (LV 1):

(New:) The muscles were doubled and paired with their own copy shifted through the fourth dimension, allowing them to be in the same location in the three dimensions of the space.

All your muscle strength is directly doubled after already counting in all the modifiers and multipliers.

//

'What is even this? I wanted to compress my muscles not do this... I could understand compressing dimensions, but the fourth dimension? That is simply too much. I feel like my body is slowly becoming more messed up than the center of a black hole.'

Even through his ranting, Vesuvius was more than just content, as he was now complete.

'I will spend the last thousand of cosmetics and some small tweaks and I am done.'