The Martial Unity

The Divine Doctor gazed at the alien lifeform with excitement.

It had been two years since he started playing with it, and it had been fun the entire time. The alien lifeform was one of the most incredible living beings he had ever come across. The more he learned about it, the more amazed he grew.

A plunge into the unknown.

An avenue of life where he was entirely clueless.

When was the last time he had come across something else?

He couldn’t even remember the last time he had gotten this excited about exploring something new that he was entirely ignorant about.

Over the better part of a millennium, he had become an expert in pretty much all life, gaining the enlightenment of the Tree of Life through sheer intellect and experience. The most novel experience was discovering the Elder Tree species; however, even he had deciphered the place on the Tree of Life.

Perhaps only his ambition to heal Gaia was closest, but he was too small to study Gaia as a whole, thus he had not experienced the joy of scientific inquiry into the unknown with it.

The alien creature was different.

Not only was it truly alien to the world of Gaia, but it was also immediately available to his study, allowing him to make immensely satisfying progress with his understanding of it. Not only was it a single-celled organism, but it was also comprised of countless layers of chemicals isolated by a minutely porous substance that allowed for osmosis between each layer.

He had long concluded that the chemical dynamics across the layers were the metabolic processes that kept the creature alive. He suspected that the creature caused the metabolic processes in its body to accelerate or decelerate by causing pressure imbalances between layers, which resulted in osmosis, causing chemicals to be exchanged between layers. Furthermore he didn’t find any equivalent of genes. He wasn’t able to find evidence of any chemical compounds that essentially contained all genetic information of lifeform.

He suspected that the creature was a form of non-gene-centric life. A form of life that did not rely on genes entirely but merely used them as a production center for certain kinds of compounds.

“It’s an entirely different model of life!” He exclaimed.

“I don’t care.” Emperor Rael’s powerful voice grew cold. “I asked you whether you have truly unlocked the dungeon ability.”

The Divine Doctor heaved a sigh. “I have. I have identified the source of the dungeon within its body.”

He pulled out a picture from one of the documents lying on the table, handing it to the Emperor.

It was a blurry image of a shard of a crystal deep within a haze of shadows.

“Is this…?”

“It is the esoteric substance that caused it to dungeonify.” The Divine Doctor absentmindedly remarked. “It is responsible for the warping of space and time that you so desperately want to harness. From what I can tell, it seems to be a piece of an astronomically larger crystal. I suspect that if you were to dig deep in the Mellow, you would find it.”

Emperor Rael’s eyes lit up at those words. If they were true, then he could potentially strike gold when the time came.

He had to admit that it was a deeply attractive prospect that he couldn’t possibly ignore. He immediately put it on his list of agendas to explore.

For now, however, he had more immediate concerns.

“And you’re confident you can generate the dungeon once more?” Emperor Rael asked sharply. “That is all I care about at the moment.”

The Divine Doctor heaved another sigh. “Yes, I am able to generate the dungeon at will with my current understanding of the creature. All I needed to do was isolate the elements of the Mellow that was responsible for triggering the dungeon creation, through trial and error on micro samples as permitted by your son. Thus, I am able to cause the creature to produce the dungeon at any given moment.”

Emperor Rael smiled. “Good. I shall prepare the time and place. You shall trigger the creation of the dungeon when and where I order you to, as stipulated by your agreements with my son.”

The Divine Doctor sighed once more.

In the past, many a nation had tried to hold his interests and retain him. Yet, not a single one had ever succeeded in getting it done. No amount of gold, land, resources or power could ever move him.

Yet, the Kandrian Empire had effortlessly succeeded in ensnaring him in their shackles.

Not literally, of course.

He could leave any time he wanted. But he stayed of his own volition. He even decided to take orders from an emperor he didn’t answer to. The reason was rather simple: his appreciation for what he received far exceeded what he had to tolerate.

Not only did he get permanent access to the alien flora lifeform, but he also gained greater hope of diagnosing Gaia with the help of Rui serving as a Martial stethoscope. As the sole Martial Master who also had a deep understanding of the Tree of Life, he was a priceless asset to the Divine Doctor in his greatest ambition to heal Gaia from what ailed her.

“There will be complications.” The Divine Doctor told the Emperor of Harmony. “So long as you create the dungeon, the creature will undoubtedly be hostile to any and everything that enters it, including but not limited to hypnotizing it or outright killing it by ordering other hypnotized creatures.”

Emperor Rael frowned. “What do you recommend then?”

“You can either employ a lot of security across the entire dungeon at all times. Or, you can allow me to disable the creature’s control over the resulting dungeon, thus disabling all dangers. The price of this outcome is that the degree of the time acceleration is greatly reduced.”

Emperor Rael’s eyes narrowed. “How much?”

“By an order of magnitude or so, I would suspect.” The Divine Doctor replied nonchalantly. “So what is it going to be? Great risk for greater reward? Or lesser rewards for greater safety?”

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