Void Realm, Distant Sky Realm, Gospel dream bubble.
“After creating a god, they actually managed to seize the Thousand Wishes Inheritance and inherit the Thousand Wishes Heaven?”
Inside the café, the Spectre Prophet sat on a high stool, watching the barista slowly grind and brew a fragrant cup of coffee emanating a purple mist.
Beside him stood a group of varied individuals—some young and beautiful, some sunny and handsome, some cold and somber—yet at this moment, without exception, they all respectfully gazed at the Spectre Prophet’s shoes.
“Customer, here is your hazel mushroom coffee.”
The Spectre Prophet lifted the cup and took a gentle sip. Far from tasting sour or astringent, the coffee even held a sweet, lingering finish of hazelnut and orange. But compared to this, he paid far more attention to the changes within his soul.
He could discern that after drinking this cup of coffee, a streak of matte silver was brushed into his soul body. Because the change was so exceedingly minuscule, mortals could not tell at all; only someone like the Spectre Prophet, who retained the demigod realm of the Soul Faction, could perceive such a subtle difference.
The vast majority of sorcerers treated dream bubbles merely as adventure stages, single-mindedly feeling out affixes. Even if someone took an interest in the dreams inside the bubbles, they stopped at casual sampling; very few could ever unearth the true value of dream bubbles.
Only someone like the Spectre Prophet, who had lived across two lifetimes—or even three, counting his resurrection—could realize through various secret lore what he had once missed out on.
Though a person’s “innate talent” was granted at birth, “aptitude” could be shaped by postnatal environments. This influence was not the prompting of entertainment media, the words and deeds of elders, the pressures of survival, or anything of the sort, but something exceedingly simple—eating!
Back in the Spectre Prophet’s era, sorcery spirits were not sweet little angels that could be kept alive simply by feeding them gold and silver coins. On the contrary, each sorcery spirit was an extraordinarily picky, rapacious devourer. Sorcerers could hardly survive independently apart from organizations and factions, having to rely on the backing of a platform just to feed different sorcery spirits.
The Spectre Prophet’s choice to murder, set fires, and plunder was, on one hand, to eliminate prodigies, but on the other hand, because he refused to join any organization.
Yet he had to feed his sorcery spirits, and so he had no choice but to kill, kill, kill, and kill.
There was also an art to this feeding: ordinary ingredients could only fill their bellies, while high-grade ingredients could nourish sorcery spirits to the point of spontaneous evolution, yielding the same effect as the essence materials of the Time Continent. Although modern sorcerers only needed to feed their sorcery spirits gold and silver coins, they had also lost the inheritance regarding how to feed them.
Even if sorcery spirits no longer ate them, however, the ingredients would not vanish. Consequently, sorcerers naturally began to consume food meant for sorcery spirits, eventually even regarding them as traditional delicacies.
The vast majority of sorcerers did not believe eating sorcery spirit ingredients had any impact, because the process took years or even decades to permeate through the physical body into the soul, making it impossible to observe intuitively.
What were sorcery spirits? They were lives of knowledge.
If you ate sorcery spirit ingredients in large amounts over a long time, you would discover that you became extraordinarily perceptive in specific sorceries, frequently able to infer many things from a single instance.
One could say the sorcerer’s aptitude had improved, but the Spectre Prophet believed it was because consuming large amounts of relevant ingredients made the sorcerer’s soul “smell fragrant,” so much so that knowledge favoring that flavor would proactively chase after him.
However, the sorcery spirit ingredients of each region were influenced by its sorcerers. Put simply, if a region had more sword sorcerers, that region would more readily produce swordsmanship ingredients (which were originally meant to feed sorcery spirits). Thus, every region possessed different sorcery spirit ingredients, which in turn influenced the aptitudes of the local sorcerers...
What made dream bubbles special was that they allowed sorcerers to conveniently taste the sorcery spirit ingredients from every region. Furthermore, because the soul tasted them directly without the physical body acting as a middleman skimming a margin, the absorption efficiency was hundreds or thousands of times higher. If a sorcerer diligently ate their way through every dream bubble, it would take only a few years to illuminate aptitudes across every sorcery faction—of course, merely aptitudes, nowhere near the level of innate talent.
Just like the streak of matte silver brushed into the Spectre Prophet’s soul by this cup of hazel mushroom coffee, it unlocked his gunplay aptitude.
Right now, however, the Spectre Prophet was not looking to unlock aptitudes, but to scout the sorcery standards of the various regions through these ingredients.
“The quality of sorcery spirit ingredients in every region is far superior to my era... Naturally so. After so many years, the development of sorcery is like sawing wood: though it moves back and forth, overall it still progresses in depth.”
“The explosive growth of Silver Sorcerers across all nations also proves that the threshold for becoming a sorcerer is getting lower and lower.”
“Yet the population ratio of Sanctuary, Gold, and Silver is very strange. Based on the ratios from my time, the total number of Sanctuary sorcerers should have surpassed ten thousand long ago. Aside from the Abyss and Senluo being somewhat normal, the Sanctuary and Gold sorcerers of the other nations do not match the base population of Silver Sorcerers. Is it due to a lack of war?”
“The Six Nations...”
Having finished analyzing the collected intel with surplus thoughts to spare, the Spectre Prophet could not help but think of the four black-robed sorcerers who had forged a new god right before his eyes.
After the black-robed sorcerers commanded the god and abruptly vanished before everyone’s eyes, another war had broken out in the Dream Heaven.
Although the dream-entry concept was gone, the Nightmare Inheritance remained an extraordinarily precious treasure—not to mention that the Dream Demon still possessed a virtual godhead sorcery procedure with a resonance rate exceeding fifty percent!
Yet just as the Golden Palace was on the verge of falling, the Dream Demon detonated the virtual godhead, generating an Illegal Wind!
Although all the sorcerers managed to withdraw from the Dream Heaven in time, the Illegal Wind was capable of destroying all law-formed entities. It ripped the collapsing Dream Heaven into tatters, leaving not even a fragment behind as it dispersed completely into the Distant Sky Realm.
The Dream Heaven, the Nightmare Inheritance, the Spectre Inheritance... all of it was gone.
This suited the Nightmare Angel’s personality completely: since he couldn't have it, nobody else would get it either!
In the long run, however, this was actually beneficial to the Void Realm.
Because the dream-entry concept was gone and the Dream Heaven had assimilated with the Void Realm, after hundreds or thousands of years of evolution, once a new dream-entry concept was born, a new Dream Heaven would take shape alongside it—or perhaps some other form.
As long as the Dream Heaven was not stolen away into someone’s personal Heaven, the Void Realm was bound to let it be “reborn.”
Centuries or millennia later, sorcerers would grow accustomed to the existence of a Dream Heaven in the Distant Sky Realm—just as the Spectre Prophet back in his day had never imagined the Dream Heaven could shatter.
This intermediate period where the Dream Heaven was destroyed and hidden away was in fact an anomaly of history; it was just that this period was so long that people had nearly come to accept it as normal.
In this battle of inheritances, the black-robed sorcerers were unquestionably the sole winners. The Spectre Prophet had thought that forging a new god, embarking on the Path of Origin, and reaching Ruby Mountain was the entirety of their harvest, never imagining that was merely the trivial first half—the Thousand Wishes Inheritance they seized in the second half was vastly more important than a god!
Even the Spectre Prophet, a former demigod, felt a wrenching pang of jealousy over their fortunes—even living life anew, he had never experienced such a tempestuous cascade of fortuitous encounters!
It was practically the Void Realm spoon-feeding them directly!
Were those black-robed sorcerers truly human for the first time?! How could they be so utterly inhuman?!
Having settled his jealous feelings, his surplus thoughts were also exhausted. The Spectre Prophet exhaled a breath of turbid air and turned to look at the Sanctuary sorcerers behind him.
He drew a strange symbol in the air and asked, “Have you seen this symbol before?”
The crowd shook their heads.
“Good. Draw this symbol on your clothes, and spend the next ten days going about in public, letting as many people see this symbol as possible, until someone contacts you. Then return to the Void Realm and notify me.”
Right now, the Spectre Prophet’s primary goal was to obtain a body. This was easy for him; any of the Sanctuary sorcerers before him could serve as his vessel. But once soul and body fused into one, switching bodies again would come at an enormous cost—at least, one he could not afford right now.
To control these Sanctuary sorcerers and grasp the current situation, he had expended a few more source crystals... His remaining time was ticking down.
Thus, he had to select an appropriate nation to lie low.
Blood Moon, Gospel, Stars, Abyss, Paradise, Senluo.
Though the environments differed across the nations, none of them suited the Spectre Prophet’s desires. What he needed was an environment of extreme chaos; a historical epoch like a world war between the Six Nations was when he could best thrive. Yet now, the six nations had actually sealed themselves off from one another...
Yet he had no need to agonize over it, because his true self had made abundant preparations in life to orchestrate his grand plan of resurrection; what he needed to do first was claim those inheritances.
And his first trump card was a secret transaction made with one of the Four Pillar Gods. This mark was the trading signal he was sending out.
Indeed, the transaction order between his true self and the Pillar God would only be settled thousands of years later upon his resurrection! This was why the Spectre Prophet had no fear of the Pillar God reneging: relationships of interest were firmer than any promise!
The Spectre Prophet drained the hazel mushroom coffee and walked out of the café, slightly narrowing his eyes against the blazing sunlight within the bubble.
He suddenly realized he had forgotten something. Expending soul energy to generate a few thoughts, the Spectre Prophet quickly recalled it—the blank concept!
Because he was the sole holder of the Spectre Inheritance, the blank concept naturally fell to him, inscribed with his heart's desire. Though it was only three-tenths of the blank concept, it still held a certain influence over the ultimate new law.
The Spectre Prophet’s ultimate desire was obviously resurrection, but knowing the path was long, he had an interim goal as well. If the blank concept truly heard his interim goal, the new law it formed would be able to accelerate his resurrection.
And transform into a wave sweeping across the entire world.
“Mmh...”
Sonia let out a soft, drowsy whimper. Feeling her arm pressed against the icy floor tiles while her head rested on a pillow, she slowly opened her eyes, preparing to let out a huge yawn—
Mmph!
She snapped her mouth shut, stifling the yawn right back.
Yaxiu’s sleeping face barged abruptly into her line of sight. They were so close that Sonia felt if she put just a little more effort into her yawn, their noses would brush against each other.
Her head was resting on Yaxiu’s arm, making it look as though she were lying in his embrace. Even though they had shared plenty of intimate moments before, this classic scene of waking from a dream to see him still sent the Claw-Extending Sword Saint’s heart fluttering like a frightened deer.
The Country Girl rolled her eyes around, unable for the moment to recall how things had ended up like this, but what she needed to do was glaringly obvious—keep pretending to be asleep!
Pretending to sleep didn’t feel satisfying enough, so she adjusted her posture, scooting in a bit closer to get more comfortable before closing her eyes. Soon, however, her heart felt an itch; the corners of her mouth couldn’t stop curling up in a secret smile, and she cracked her eyes open slightly to steal a glance—
Huh?
Wondering if it was just an illusion, Sonia felt as if she had caught sight of something...
She stared at Yaxiu for a good while. After several seconds had passed, she saw Yaxiu’s eyelashes flutter.
Chapter 684