"Wh- What is this thing?! I- I could already feel the pressure building up on me..." with some fear in her voice, the mermaid cautiously asked.
"The remains of a third-tier creature"
"The remains? Does this mean it's dead and no longer alive?"
"Yes" Cylius was also cautious as her as he knew that this creature had unfathomable strength when it was alive. This was the strength of a second stage third-tier creature after all.
With a flick of its finger, it would be able to destroy him.
Each of its movement would affect the surrounding dimension and create spatial tears. It didn't require any strength at all. Although it didn't have the full strength of a domain being, it definitely wouldn't be shy from fighting one.
In a place with no fourth-tiers, these false domain beings governed and were the absolute peak power of a spiritual planet.
No organization would refuse these second stage runic existences; they would welcome them with open arms and also promise many benefits.
As much power they had, achieving this stage was also as hard.
Any creature could reach the first-tier with enough resources but starting from the mature stage, cultivating would become hard. They would need to break their limit of genes and advance to become an existence that have broken the limits of the body. Most would stop at the maturity stage and only a few could reach the limit break stage.
The ratio of people at the limit break stage compared to the maturity stage was 1:100. One person from a hundred. You could see the difference. So they were also precious resources although not much.
And from the limit break stage people, the chance of one advancing to the second-tier was 0.1%.
If they had some luck, they may be able to absorb some runic crystals and become a second-tier, although the chance was low.
Generally, the average genius could only stop at this realm of second-tier. Even if they spend their entire life cultivating and comprehending, reaching the realm of runic existences was hard, very hard. They would at most, stop at the semi-converted realm.
So, they would need resources to grow. Only with resources, could they even hope to reach the third-tier. Of course, most people couldn't do it and ends up dying in the realm of second-tier.
After the normal genius, would come the upper average genius. They usually end up at the peak of second-tier and with some luck, they would be able to enter the third-tier.
After that would be the geniuses in the upper tier. Almost all of them would end up becoming a third-tier, a runic existence. However, fusing the core and the rune together to form a glimpse of the domain would be a bit hard.
As these two things were independent things that came from two different sources, there would be continuous loopholes and mistakes when doing it.
Rune comprehension and spiritual energy. It was like trying to combine a rock with water like fusing water and soil to create mud. It was definitely hard and would require an immense amount of research and knowledge of the said things.
From what he had read, the consciousness of spiritual planets was more advanced than normal ones so they could communicate with their inhabitants and also choose their guardian.
It may be likely that this monster who seemed to be a dragon, was exactly this planet's guardian.
It had comprehended something related to the planet and received the planet's information and resources to grow to this realm.
However, all things had their own cost. At this cost, it may have just become a puppet for the world consciousness and lost freedom.
The world consciousness was the amalgamation of the spirits of lifeforms living within the planet. When a lifeform is born, a part of its soul goes to the core of a planet and when the number reaches a certain line, the planet consciousness is formed.
That's why, when the mother planet dies, the species that have lived on it also dies. As the planet consciousness is destroyed, it would equal to a part of all of the souls also getting destroyed which would result in the rest of the soul failing to function gradually.
Due to this, the body would also slowly have failures and some abnormal conditions would be detected which would ultimately lead to death.
Well, if the creature has enough power, they could try to get the rest of their souls back from their planet. As this part of the soul was preserved from the start, it had no pollutions and was very pure. If the creature could get it back, it could help them immensely in cultivation.
This was also a part of the requirement for a being to advance to the fourth-tier.
Of course, like what had happened with the planet, their souls wouldn't be contained within their galaxy consciousness.
The galaxy consciousness depended on spiritual energy and rune strings to come to life. As they are made from these two, their base is far stronger than the planet consciousness.
The supercluster would work the same way.
Galaxy clusters didn't have their own consciousness and were considered a part of the supercluster.
Just by looking at the bones, the mermaid could feel the pressure building up. However, along with the pressure, the greed within her own heart was also rising minute by minute.
She couldn't resist or rather the temptation was too great. She was a second-tier peak initial stage creature. A creature that has comprehended the illusion and water runes.
And right before her, the remains of this false domain existence, that excelled in the water and another indescribable rune was there. It had immense temptation to her. Her mind constantly told her to go and absorb this.
'Devour it devour it devour it devour it... if you devour it, endless power and future is waiting for you. You could do everything you want..."
If she could devour it, how much could she gain? How much can she advance?
With this thought in mind, greed started to cloud her mind as heavy pants could already be heard.
Cylius also knew of this point. Therefore, he tested her. Whether she would be able to resist her own subconscious mind. She still had her uses; having great information on where the monsters resided and what their information was.
Well, her information was starting to get depleted as the number of monsters he hunted was increasing. He reckoned that she only knew about five monsters that they hadn't attacked yet but it was good enough not to sacrifice her.
Well, she could try resisting in her mind while he would be exploring the monster's remains as the contract was still valid; she would die if she violated it.
Going down, he was really amazed by the monster's size. At least 100 kilometers for the length and a wingspan of a few hundred kilometers. Compared to it, he was like a speck of dust to a mountain.
Of course, strength didn't matter on the size. Fourth-tier people, who were the size of ordinary people could still squash this dragon-like creature. But still, having this large physique expressed how powerful it was. It would require an immense amount of energy to sustain a body of this size.
Even with the existence of spiritual energy and rune strings, it would require a creature to be of enough strength to sustain this kind of size. But, considering it was a false domain existence, this wasn't much and could even be considered small and a well-suited body.
There were creatures that had the sizes of planets out there, mostly runic beings. Advancing to the higher tiers, there were even those that had the size of stars.
Just as he was thinking, a thing caught his attention.
It was an egg-like thing within the body of this creature. An egg that didn't have any signs of life at all, but yet, it was slowly absorbing the surrounding's spiritual energy and sometimes, even rune strings would go into it.
Absorbing rune strings, this creature definitely held potential... Maybe it was the egg of this giant being?
If so, great! This would be the egg of a false domain existence! Although he can't say for sure if it would reach the stage its parent did, he surely knew it would be able to reach the third-tier.
Not to mention that it still hadn't hatched so if he could find a way for it to hatch, he could be recognized as its parent and raise it.
Instantly teleporting to there, he came right in front of this egg.
The egg was the size of a mountain; suitable considering the size of its mother. He wasn't surprised at all.
Placing his hand on the egg, he immediately felt a force sucking the energy within his body. The spiritual energy contained within him was crazed as it suddenly jumped out of place and instead of circulating within his body, all of them suddenly turned directions, heading towards his palm into the egg.
He didn't stop this though. He still had immense spiritual energy he gained from the inheritance. No matter how greedy this creature was, it shouldn't be able to absorb all of them.
So once all of the energy circulating within his body was absorbed into the egg, he released the spiritual energy within the Illusion Realm.
He had tried infusing the Illusion Realm with spiritual energy before. Sure, he seemed to have unlocked something as the space within it suddenly enlargened but it was the end.
It absorbed 10% of the total spiritual energy gained from the inheritance.
Next time he tried sending spiritual energy into it, it seemed to have already got full, it didn't accept it at all. So, when he tried sending rune strings into it, it gladly accepted.
It required rune strings to unlock the next stage. But, it required an immense amount. He guessed at least ten spiritual planets. He didn't have that kind of strength now, so he gave up on developing it completely. He better just absorb them to advance his cultivation.
This supposed Illusion Realm with enough potential was a greedy black hole that was absorbing everything within him. He obviously wouldn't allow it to stop his cultivation because of it.
He was currently storing all of his spiritual energy within this separate space.
So once he released all of them, it rushed into the egg like a tsunami, flooding it until it was packed full and couldn't absorb any more.
Its colors became much more brighter as it now looked much more healthier than before.
"Crack" with this, a little crack was created on the shell of the egg.