Rows of text materialized before Neo.
[ Neo Hargraves ]
[ Rank: Half-Step Ascension ]
[The World: ???]
﹂World Core rank: N/A
﹂World Energy rank: Stage-1
[ Stats ]
﹂ Strength: 5451
﹂ Speed: 5567
﹂ Dexterity: 5765
﹂ Constitution: 5970
﹂ Luck: 0
[ Affinity ] Enjoy new adventures from My Virtual Library Empire
﹂ Death, Shadow, Darkness, Void, Water, Time, Life, Holy
[ Magic Spells ]
﹂ Necrotic Touch, Ocean’s Embrace, Essence Breath, Rewind Enchantment, Black Dawn of Despair, Shadow Jump, Shadow Space
[ Incantations ]
﹂ O Death, Be My Hands, Crush My Enemies
﹂ O Death, Become My Blade
﹂ O Shadows, By my will, appear and spy, A fleeting shade beneath the sky.
﹂ O Shadows, From the abyss where terrors dwell, Emerge, Claws of night, fangs of dread, By my hand, thy leash is led.
﹂ O Shadows, Beast of twilight, bound by shade, Guardian of the dark cascade. With fangs of night and eyes that gleam, Arise, Shadowfang, from my dream.
﹂ O Darkness, Mark this soul with night’s despair, Break their courage, leave them bare.
﹂ O Darkness, Steal their breath, make their strength decay.
[ Trait ]
﹂Monarch of Death
﹂Mind Invasion
[ Quest ]
﹂ Complete Barbatos’ Training (Part 2), Completed 0/1
[Sacred Treasures: Skyfall, ???, Obitus (Incomplete)]
His stats were in upper brackets among Paragon-rank Demigods.
“Half-step ascension. Seems like this is the name of my ascender rank.”
Neo looked at the screen carefully.
“But what is this ‘The World’ and why is its name a question mark?”
World Energy rank and World core rank were present within the ‘The World’ section.
His World Core was written as ‘N/A’.
In other words, he did not have a World Core.
“Seems like I was right. Ascenders need to create a World Core for themselves”
How though?
Neo could ask Primogenitor.
But the skill had 6 of its slots locked due to his questions.
Only one slot remained free.
If Neo messed up again by asking a weird question, his last seventh slot would be locked forever.
Then, until he could complete a modification, he wouldn’t be able to level up his Primogenitor skill.
“I want to punch my past self for choosing this damned skill.
“Sure it gives the answers. But those answers are always fucking weird.”
An example was this:
[Q. What would be the best way to create the 9th form of the Divine Swordsmanship?]
[Ans. Have a Sword Intent strong enough to split a Stage-0 world.]
The Old Earth was a Stage-0 planet.
Neo, if he tried hard, could destroy a planet of that level with a single attack.
Unfortunately, for this question, he had to use Sword Intent.
However…
What the fuck was Sword Intent?
Neo had tried to create this ‘Sword Intent’ for centuries.
Spoilers, he had been unsuccessful so far.
“I will ask about this Ascender thing from Velkaria.”
Neo could not let Velkaria out of his Shadow Space.
Her presence would alert everyone in the vicinity.
In the academy, the principal sealed the room when Neo let out Velkaria.
He could not do it here.
“Guess I need to go meet Velkaria.”
Neo used his Shadow Affinity.
His shadows started to burn.
Wisps of black and dark blue smoke wrapped around him.
They pulled him into his Shadow Space.
Neo appeared in an endlessly large space.
A destroyed planet floated in the center.
It was the ‘Earth’ Neo brought from the Shadow Trial.
His feet gently landed on the ground.
He looked at the thousand-eyed pillar in front of him.
‘What brings you here?’
“I wanted to ask about the Ascenders.”
‘Sure go ahead.’ Velkaria answered, half yawning. ‘Between can you bring something for recreation here? I’m bored here all the time.’
Neo looked at the Angel of Outer God with a complicated gaze.
Why was it talking as if they were friends?
Velkaria spoke as if it had read Neo’s mind.
‘Your friends are alive in the past.’
‘Besides, you already saw them die thousands of times. Your anger against me should have been soothed over after those countless loops.’
Neo anger should have been soothed over due to the passage of time?
He neither refused nor agreed to Angel’s thoughts.
He was working with Velkaria as it was beneficial for him.
Otherwise, he would have killed the Angel as painfully as possible.
Neo clicked his tongue.
“You don’t have a humanoid body. Half of the recreational games won’t work for you.”
‘That’s right.’
Velkaria spoke thoughtfully.
‘What about something that will help me sing? That way I can learn this planet’s language and pass the time too.’
“You like singing?”
‘Back where I come from, everyone used to love my voice.’
“You have a killer voice for sure.”
Until now, Velkaria was projecting its thoughts inside Neo’s head.
It was similar to telepathic communication.
This mental telepathy ability allowed Velkaria to talk to others, understand what they were saying, and bombard their mind with mental attacks.
“Tell me about Ascenders now.”
‘What about them?’
“How do I form a World core for myself and what is ‘The World’?”
‘uh-huh.’
The hundreds of eyes on the pillar blinked.
They looked around as if Velkaria was wondering how to put her thoughts into words.
‘I will explain about ‘The World’ first.’
‘Ascenders are similar to Worlds as in they can create their own energy.’
Velkaria continued.
‘Awakeners connect with the World. As they reach higher elemental mastery, they need to connect with their World’s Core to manifest and deploy their element’s [True Domain] and [Sanctuary].’
‘Ascenders can do the same, but they do it differently.’
Velkaria paused.
She thought about her next words before adding.
‘Ascenders are a World themselves.’
‘They connect with the World that exists within them and use it to manifest their element’s [True Domain] and [Sanctuary].’
“You mean….”
‘Yes, [The World] is the name of your World.’
‘However, since you haven’t created a World core yet, your World hasn’t been completely formed yet, so it has no name.’
Neo brows furrowed.
It seemed Heavenbreakers were far more unique than he had given them credit for.
“How do I create a World Core?”
‘I don’t know.’
“What?”
Velkaria became ticked off when it heard Neo’s tone.
‘Do I look like a Heavenbreaker to you?’
“Don’t change the topic-“
‘Does it look like my mom is a Heavenbreaker? Or do you think my uncle is one?’
Neo gave Velkaria a deadpan stare.
He decided to remain silent and let it speak.
‘I don’t know any Heavenbreaker! They are legendary beings you hear from stories!’
‘Why the fuck do you think I would know how they form rank up?’
The information about Heavenbreakers Velkaria knew came from the legends and from what she heard from her seniors.
Her knowledge was superficial at best.
“I see.” Neo nodded. “So you are fucking useless.”
Neo decided to ignore Velkaria and focused on his status screen.
A thought came up to him.
If Ascenders were similar to a World, maybe they had a similar way to rank up.
“How does a world rank up?” he asked Velkaria.
‘By using a Sacred Treasure.’
Velkaria explained.
A world needed to consume a Sacred Treasure to evolve and rank up.
Sacred Treasures were born naturally within a world.
“What do you mean ‘born naturally’?”
‘It’s exactly like what I said. A World can’t create a Sacred Treasure just because it wants to. The Sacred Treasure is born over countless years.’
‘It’s like a tree creating a fruit.’
‘In this case, when the fruit (Sacred Treasure) reaches maturity, the tree (world) eats the fruit and ranks up.’
Neo nodded.
He would try asking more people about it.
Maybe his dad would know more.
Neo’s gaze went back to his status.
He opened the section of elemental masteries.