THE GOD EATER

In response to the decree, the unicorn bowed where it was and said, ”Your grace is boundless, my god. No one can match your excellence and generosity.”

After the conversation ended, the Apex God returned to what he was doing before the message arrived. He continued scavenging through the ruins he had found earlier.

This is essentially what every Dao Lord is doing to get resources in the upper realm. They go through the ruins of ancient cultivators, looking for useful materials.

After so many thousands of years without Natural Energy, most of the materials in the upper realm have decayed. Anything living has surely died by now.

Even the buildings have become as fragile as a layer of dust. They fall apart with a touch and shatter into dust.

On the plus side, the ruins’ fragility makes them easy to explore. He can go stomping through them without worrying about traps, arrays, formations, etc. But this also means that it is very difficult to find anything valuable.

If there were Natural Energy in the upper realm, most of the ruins would be intact, and various things like plants and animals would be everywhere in the upper realm. In that state, the upper realm would not be a true paradise, but it would be close.

Fortunately, he can still find some valuable things in the ruins of the ancient past. These things are mainly Divine Crystals and Celestial Gold.

Divine Crystals will decay on their own unless frozen in time. The higher the quality of the Divine Crystal, the faster it will decay. So any Divine Crystal he finds now will have to be the lowest quality.

On the other hand, Celestial Gold can last forever. As a material produced from dark matter, it doesn’t decay.

It is because of this special inviolable nature of Celestial Gold that it is so useful for stabilizing the stars within celestials when they advance and for propping Divine Mountains to help them withstand the existence of more Dao Lords.

Even when a Dao Lord uses Celestial Gold, the Celestial Gold can still be retrieved by killing the Dao Lord. This makes every Dao Lord in the upper realm a walking, talking treasure trove. Unfortunately, he can’t fight other Dao Lords for the time being, so he can only resort to archaeology to get more resources.

”The only good thing about this Domain is that Celestial Gold is readily available. But I won’t trade this for Natural Energy,” he said, grumbling and stomping into a decrepit mansion.

Of course, he was exaggerating about this. The availability of Celestial Gold isn’t the only good thing about this Domain. There was still the unoccupied white sphere floating above his head and within reach.

If he were in a normal Domain, it wouldn’t be his place to covet the position of Domain King. If he dared to think so much about becoming a Domain King, someone might just smash him to death for his insolence.

In fact, it won’t be his place to covet a Divine Spark and the position of a Mountain Lord. Older Dao Lords would have long occupied those beneficial positions.

Being in a Domain where these positions are available is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that many Dao Lords fail to receive. If he missed the opportunity, he was unlikely to ever get it back in a billion years. And even if he did get the opportunity, it might be too late to use it.

To be fair, he would be happy about his situation if he didn’t have his constantly dwindling lifespan to worry about. Just thinking about how he could become a Mountain Lord and a Domain King should be enough to put a smile on his face.

But when he checked his lifespan and saw he now had 99,999 years left to live, the smile fell from his face, and his mood dropped. No matter how cheerful a person he was, he couldn’t remain happy and continue to smile when he had so little time left to live.

A few days ago, it was 1,000,000 years. It became 99,999 years two days ago. He had to steal lifespan from the Rank 1 recruits to pay for the Rank 2 recruits who had just advanced.

So he was already stealing lifespan from his believers, but none of it went to replenishing his losses. And now that he had increased the boost to 350% of their base lifespan, the rate at which he was stealing the lifespan wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rate at which the Rank 2 cultivators were advancing.

”At this rate, someone will notice soon that I am stealing lifespan. If they do, my reputation will be ruined,” he muttered, disgruntled.

Then he snorted and said, ”The good news is that if I am already having a hard time, that faker should be near his limit. I just need to hold on for a bit longer.”

As it turned out, Loki was indeed having a hard time. He was having a hard time containing his grin.

The exchange system he set up with Olympic Medals proved successful. He gained three new Supreme Metacs: the Strength Supreme Metac, the Defense Supreme Metac, and the Vitality Supreme Metac.

The three of them are Major Daos, and they have provided enough 3-Dimensional commonality to reinforce the 22nd cube of the 4-D prototype, thereby increasing the available divinity from 693 units to 759 units.

If a six-star Dao Lord were to use Grand Supreme Metacs for all of the six activated godheads, they would have 21 * 6 * 6, which is 756 divinity from their six godheads. This was why he was happy.

Fortunately or unfortunately, something happened to help him rein in his smile. When he heard the Apex Sect had increased the benefits of their pathway from 250% to 350%, the smile on his face disappeared, and he sobered up.

”What is his problem?” he asked in frustration. ”Does he have so much lifespan to burn?”