"I am the Aether Spirit of this palace, Vitae, and this is my counterpart, Mortem. We humbly welcome the Tomegamon King Anubesetesh into the Aether Palace of Vita Kingdom on behalf of King Draco, Queen Eva and Queen Shuangtian."
Vitae paid extreme attention to etiquette as the spirit of the Aether palace, which made Anubesetesh nod. At least in terms of customs, the Evil Trio had managed to barely pass in this regard. He would have given them an even higher mark have if Mortem wasn't glaring at Anubesetesh the entire time as if she was just waiting for him to give her an excuse to act to her desire.
However, he did not hold it against the hostile Aether apparition because he could easily tell this was its default nature, not anything specifically targeted at him. Mortem was formed from Riveting Night, so it was natural that her behavior was this way.
With the two as his entourage he was led through the Aether Palace into the Anomaly Realm, and then towards the static portal that led to the Morningstar Universe. Anubesetesh entered into it with his arms folded behind his back, a look of slight interest on his face.
Vitae and Mortem watched him go through, unable to follow. Vitae then glanced at Mortem with an almost helpless look on his featureless face.
"Can you not be so aggressive all the time?"
Mortem snorted coldly. "It's the way I am! If you don't like it, I don't care!"
Mortem floated away, almost seeming like she was stomping her feet in anger as she left. Meanwhile, Vitae rubbed his translucent forehead with a sigh. His counterpart was angry again, and it would take some time to coax her.
At this moment, a new Aether apparition came over. When Vitae and Mortem sensed the connection with her, they were stunned. However, when they saw that figure that was basically Shuangtian's outline, there was no need to ask.
Vitae's eyes lit up as he flew over. "Hello, my second counterpart. How are you and by what name should I address you?"
Shuangtian's apparition stopped and seemed to smile. "My name is Nihil. I feel very good, and when I am close to you, emotions of joy spark within me."
Vitae laughed. "That is normal and I feel the same way. Come, let me show you around the palace and tell you about our duties."
Nihil nodded and was prepared to leave with Vitae, but Mortem suddenly appeared between them. When she had seen Vitae and Nihil getting along so well, a sense of crisis entered Mortem's heart and she rushed over.
Now that she was here, she quickly placed herself between the two and tagged along. Nihil only seemed amused by this, whereas Vitae felt unhappy.
'After having temper tantrums and causing problem, now you are jealous?'
Sigh!
Meanwhile, within the Morningstar World, Anubesetesh was checking it out with wonderment. His three sets of eyes blinked in surprise as he looked into the starry void from the floating plane in the center.
He then glanced at the Eternal Tree with an unprecedentedly serious expression. "This... I don't even know where to begin. It is one thing for such a digital universe to be able to host a sub universe within its boundary, no matter how small."
"However, to be able to manifest a true Eternal lifeform like this… I can only call this amazing. What's more, this lifeform is self-sustainable and yet it not only fully provides for itself but also for others without causing any conflict. Just who was it that designed all of this?" Anubesetesh seemed to be talking to himself, but the Evil Trio appeared near him with smiles on their faces.
"Lord Anubesetesh is right, this tree is something we don't even fully understand yet." Draco agreed as he greeted his guest.
"Hmm. You invited me to this world, but I sense the energy here is abundant thanks to this tree. With your control over the Space and Time element here, the things I planned to teach you will be easy to grasp." Anubesetesh pointed out bluntly.
"Yes, but having a mentor to point out the mistakes is more valuable than gold. That is why we would like to learn from you." Eva stated calmly while folding her arms across her chest.
Anubesetesh seemed to agree with this. "Well then, how would you like to achieve this? From what I've seen you should be quite busy with other things, so how will you allocate your time?"
The Tomegamon elder had basically pointed out the biggest issue the Evil Trio were facing right now. According to the agreement with Shuangtian, they were to prioritize family first and foremost, but they also needed to go hunt down True God monsters in order to level up their Laws.
They also needed to receive systematic training from Anubesetesh on how their Eternal power worked and how to train their Eternal Control faster. All of this required time and presence, something that the Evil Trio did not have enough of right now.
One option was to split into three, with each of them taking on one task. One would stay with the family and oversee things in the Inner Universe and with Vita Kingdom, another would receive guidance from Anubesetesh while the last would go out to explore and defeat the True God monsters.
Alternatively, they could utilize clones. They had many methods to achieve this, but none of them were orthodox. In other words, the game system would not recognize these clones in the way the Evil Trio wanted them to be.
So the only option was to split up for the first time in a long time.
The Evil Trio shared a look and communicated with their minds. They almost immediately made a decision and split the tasks.
Eva sighed and nodded to Anubesetesh before floating downwards to her Heavenly Palace at the center of the plane, her aura spreading over the entire universe. The other mothers and the various children felt the calling and trekked to her palace to hear what she had to say.
Draco rubbed his forehead with a smile and then bowed to Anubesetesh slightly before disappearing, leaving the Morningstar Universe altogether. Shuangtian smiled and gestured to the void of the universe.
"Lord Anubesetesh, let's move to a more suitable location for the training." Shuangtian prompted.
Anubesetesh glanced at where Eva and Draco were with a slight smile on his face. "Alright. But if at any time you experience difficulty keeping up, let me know."
Shuangtian's nodded and moved to a place near the Demonic Dao Source that still floating in the void, providing a perfect domain for the Demon Gods Draco subdued from the Tower's cultivation floors.
They had already gathered a few nearby planets around the Demonic Dao Source like planets orbiting a star, and the constant radiation of its unique energy caused this planet to warp into the perfect habitable zones for demonkind.
Their existence was also why Draco unhesitatingly destroyed the Demon Realm without trying to recruit any of the Demons. After all, the Main Plane demons were considered defective compared to these cultivator demons and their upper limit was far lower.
Anubesetesh took note of this and his eyes flashed. He was truly shocked this time because these demons displayed even greater power than those in the Gerdo Galaxy!
If those arrogant and war-like Gerdo Galaxy Demons met this race, they would definitely try to interbred to steal their qualifications for themselves.
Even more than that, Anubesetesh was incredibly apprehensive. If this AI used its special power as the creator of this universe to engineer more races, that was one thing, but with Draco having opened a link, these beings could easily come to the main universe!
The only reason Draco hadn't let Zaine, Hikari and Roma come to the real world was because, just like how the core members sucked away energy to condense themselves and be linked to the digital universe, his babes would need to suck energy from the main world to materialize from digital bodies and obtain true lives.
With Earth currently barren, he would basically be strangling them alive if he did that. Just a short time would be enough to damage their origin. Not to mention the quantity of energy they needed could not be easily provided by any planet, so what he needed to do was create something akin to Vita Kingdom, the Ancestral City of Dragons or The Morningstar Universe with endless high quality energy.
There were only two ways to achieve this. The first was to complete all their goals in the Western Fantasy and head to the sci-fi section and learn the various advanced technologies from there in order to generate suitable energy in reality, or they could use the Eternal Tree to manifest in reality.
Whether it was the former or the latter, they were not achievable any time soon unfortunately.
Shuangtian chose a clear location near the edge and turned to face Anubesetesh. The older Tomegamon looked around and was satisfied before glancing at the empress with a look of appreciation.
"You three have such power and potential that even I can't help but look forward to what you can do once you reach your full potential." He commented with a hint of excitement before he became calm once more.
"First things first, what do you know about Eternals?" Anubesetesh had to start from somewhere, so why not start from the basics?
Shuangtian pondered all the information she, Draco and Eva had collected before answering: "An Eternal is a being that has achieved a level of power that is qualitatively superior to Origin, and can only be killed by someone of the same level of power."
Shuangtian had greatly simplified it, but this was the core of what she had understood. Anubesetesh also nodded with satisfaction. "If I were to given that answer a rating, it would be 7 out of 10 points. It hits the core of the matter but misses out some other factors."
He then waved a hand and Shuangtian was surprised to feel the world shake at that movement.
"An Eternal is a being of a higher level of life. On paper, as long as you have a sufficient Eternal talent, you can eventually climb from even the lowest mortal towards being an Eternal." Anubesetesh began explaining while folding his rams behind his back.
"However, don't you feel that this statement already contradicts itself? If you possess an Eternal talent, why the heck are you a mortal? Why must you work your way upwards?"
"And what about those without Eternal talents? How do they become Eternals? Because there are many Eternals who were not born with Eternal talent but acquired them through various means."
"All of this leads back into what an Eternal is. It's not necessarily a power level, but a life level. Every being has the potential to become an Eternal but they have to excavate that potential and turn it into ability."
"What exactly is this ability? It comes in different forms called the Eternal talent, but then what is that? What constitutes an Eternal talent? What qualifies one talent to be ranked as 'Eternal' and another to not?"
Anubesetesh smirked with disdain. "One thing I can tell you now is that it has nothing to do with birth, luck or such mortal things. Eternal talent simply comes about when a person possesses the ability to condense a Seed of Law within themselves."
"This is the gap between those at the Origin Rank and those at the Eternal Rank. A Seed of Law is the consolidation of your understanding of Law, merging it with your soul and existence to become your Eternal Talent."
Anubesetesh gave Shuangtian a pointed look. "I know what you're going to ask, and no, while it does relate to the nature of Origin beings, it is a step above."
"Origin beings condense a Law into their own power and can split it into smaller sub-Rules to have others cultivate it for them. They control the main Law and their bestowed beings control the sub-Laws."
"Eventually when that Law is perfect, the Origin being can try to condense it into a Seed of Law at the first step, which is subject to failure based on varying conditions. Should they succeed, they can then merge it with their essence as the second step, though it too is subject to many conditions which could render failure to the person trying to ascend."
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