Thousands of years later...
While Maximus was helping the members of the Order of Maxim reconstruct the Ether Devices, he noticed the Ocean of Knowledge had reached saturation.
"A bottleneck?"
Reaching 9% progress, no matter how much energy he put in, the Ocean of Knowledge could no longer progress.
"It seems I have to fool a few more Masters of the Ocean of Law..."
Deducing new knowledge, helping those who branched from his Path, or even integrating Seeds of Path—all were too time-consuming.
Just one complete Ocean of Law had helped his path advance to such a degree.
What would happen if there were a few more?
As for incompatibility from merging Paths of the same tier, as the Master of Knowledge, he could deduce a solution for everything.
Suddenly, Maximus thought of those homeless Devourers.
Like Valoros, most of them were wandering alone, forging a lonely path without anyone or a place to rely on.
"This is feasible!"
As long as he had enough strength and resources to entice those Masters, he could have them directly join his path.
Maybe, in time, the Order of Maxim would reach the rank of a top sect, even rivaling those overlord organizations.
He also thought of Iris.
If merging an Ocean of Law could be a key to breaking the bottleneck in his River of Knowledge, then an Absolute of Law should be able to help the Ocean of Knowledge when it hits a bottleneck.
Shaking off his thoughts, Maximus continued helping the members of the Order of Maxim refurbish the Ether Devices.
After hundreds of thousands of years, with the endless work of the Order of Maxim, he now possessed 67 billion Ether Forges and 1.97 billion Ether Refiners.
These Ether Devices could net him a total of 5 sextillion units of origin energy and 19 billion strands of causality every day.
After being refurbished to match his current strength, these Ether Devices could produce three times more energy than before.
Unfortunately, although refurbishing each Ether Device was faster, it wasn't easier.
For his advancement to the Overlord Realm, how could Maximus tolerate any imperfection?
Soon after another thousand years, having helped the top members of the Order of Maxim fully master the current peak of the Rune of Maxim, Maximus turned his attention to the Source of Knowledge.
"It's time to merge the Eternal Book!"
Advancing to the ocean level, it was now easier to integrate another ultimate treasure or seed of path into the source of knowledge.
With more abundant space, he would have more room to integrate anything he desired.
Just when he was about to call his family to start working, they seemed to have disappeared in place.
After teaching them the Rune of Maxim, they quietly escaped.
"These guys..." Maximus sighed.
Finding them in the simulated space practicing with all their might, Maximus could only let it go.
After the advancement of his Path, the simulated space had also undergone great changes.
Not only had it become more realistic, simulating thoughts, emotions, and battle intent, but it could now even fully replicate the imperfections of an enemy.
In the past, although the simulated space could replicate everything perfectly, it was too perfect.
While imperfection might seem disadvantageous, in chaotic battles, it could create opportunities to confuse the enemy, potentially making the difference between life and death.
There were also the Ultimate Treasures. Fighting against those prodigies, they could now fully experience the abilities of these ultimate treasures.
In the past, all abilities simulated by the ultimate treasures were based on information from the perspectives of others.
Some of this information was vague, meaning the simulated treasures couldn't fully exert their strength.
Now, with the Ocean of Knowledge, it could fully deduce the abilities of the ultimate treasures by following the traces of laws and causality they emitted.
Although it still wasn't perfect, it had about 90% of the treasures' capabilities.
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With a few hundred thousand years remaining before the Dimensional Competition, his family was no longer in the mood to help him.
What they wanted now was to make a final sprint of training before the fated day.
"I can only work alone..."