Duality of Shadows-Chapter 949: Resources And Opportunities
After Meru finished her tribulation, Alm and Bruno thoroughly analyzed her body internally, as meticulously as possible. Since her birth, this was a process they repeated often, but the mirror had never appeared or shown any signs within her.
’Maybe she connected with the mirror at a higher level before. Since the mirror isn’t exactly a physical thing and is also tied to the Heaven’s Will, it might’ve helped seal it perfectly within her soul,’ Bruno reflected mentally.
Alm nodded in agreement. One day, Meru would find that mirror within herself and learn to use it perfectly. They were sure of it, especially after absorbing the reward from the latest optional mission: the Complete Knowledge of the Universal Heavenly Laws.
This knowledge opened up countless possibilities regarding their new powers and gave them a much broader understanding of the heavenly laws.
"Daddy, you promised, remember?" The little girl’s cheerful voice echoed as she looked at them expectantly.
Alm and Bruno looked at her sweet face and nodded without much thought... then their eyes widened as they remembered the promise. "Wait, that was just to motivate you," they quickly said.
"What? No! You promised if I reached the divine realms!" she countered, her face scrunching up as tears threatened to fall.
The two panicked. They couldn’t bear the sight of her crying. With a sigh, they spoke softly, "I can’t just say I’ll take you with us when we leave. We don’t even know exactly what’s going to happen—it could be dangerous."
She replied bitterly, "But Mommy said you used to take her everywhere, even when you were in danger. She was practically my age and way weaker!"
They both sighed in unison. "I promise to consider it. Even if it’s not this time, I’ll take you with me eventually. You have to understand that and focus on growing strong and healthy. In your mom’s case, we didn’t have a safe place to stay, so we could only support each other," the whale said calmly.
Meru, however, kept arguing stubbornly, leaving them at a loss. Meanwhile, Ruri approached quietly, listening to everything and trying not to laugh. But as soon as Meru noticed her arrival, Ruri gave her a piercing look.
Meru gulped and stopped crying. "Daddy can’t break his promise..." she murmured.
"Sohum was looking for you earlier. Seems like he managed to create something interesting," Ruri said casually.
Meru stepped back, gave a sarcastic smile, and darted off excitedly, clearly eager to show off and watch the despair in that young man’s eyes when faced with her overwhelming power. The two of them were undeniably close.
With that, the couple was left alone, and the whale let out a deep sigh. Thankfully, Ruri served as a counterbalance when it came to handling Meru. Alm and Bruno didn’t know how to say no to her—Meru had even made them promise something they thought was nearly impossible for her to achieve.
"Master spoils her too much... but, in the past, he treated me like that too," Ruri murmured with a wide smile. Watching those two interact as father and daughter was too adorable for her.
Then, with a heavy sigh, she added, "Anizu said there’s only one month left... these years have been wonderful... I’ll remember every single day forever. Thank you so much, master... but now, we have to face reality and leave this dream behind."
The whale nodded in agreement. "It’s been a fruitful time. The people of the universe are already returning to cultivation, and all the souls we had reincarnated within the first few years. Soon, we’ll have a much larger and more powerful army. We’re ready to leave this universe, but first, we need to land the final blow. The last item of primordial chaos is here, and we must find it."
"Kaiyka and Venjio... could Caipora’s theory actually be true?" Ruri asked thoughtfully.
"Maybe. We’ll have to wait for Coltia and her three Celestial Dragons to locate the calamity again to confirm," they replied softly.
Over these years, Caipora and Tarrasque had already formed new bodies. However, both had to restart their cultivation, which would take some time before they could return to their previous realm.
When Caipora awoke, they informed her about Kaiyka and the events that had transpired. She was presumed dead but explained that the law the heroes had bestowed upon her and that she had mastered was similar to the calamity related to the Void Lance. (Chapters 843/844)
Caipora was very familiar with that Primordial Chaos item, as well as the powers of the Void Goddess, which had a close connection to it. According to Caipora, the Goddess had left her mark on the lance, which reflected in the calamity, granting it a subtle influence. Her goal was to delay the heroes from mastering their power.
This proved effective, as it was the last item the heroes attempted to master. Even so, they managed to create the Law of Dreams, which they discovered on that occasion alongside the four space-time beast races.
The knowledge of this Law of Dreams was left with Coltia to study, and during this time, she mastered it. However, even with this law, it still wasn’t enough to control the lance. According to Coltia, it seemed she only had half the power, with another important part missing.
Combining Coltia’s findings with the events involving Kaiyka, they formed a theory: the other part might be that law Kaiyka and Venjio mastered during the event.
Caipora also suggested a possibility: perhaps the law Kaiyka and Venjio mastered was more closely aligned with the Void Goddess’s side. Since the Goddess’s mark was on the lance, which remained in this universe, when Kaiyka connected perfectly to the law, the Goddess might’ve contacted her, warning her of the danger.
Alm and Bruno reached a conclusion. Kaiyka, as a missionary, had access to a celestial miracle she could use freely. Perhaps she chose to completely sacrifice herself along with Venjio, leaving behind only small fragments of their souls. With the help of that miracle and her connection to the Goddess of the Void, she might have fled in secret, unnoticed by anyone. This hypothesis seemed plausible because Caipora had given them the Dao of the Goddess of the Void, which allowed things to move as if piercing through the void. In this way, Kaiyka and Venjio, after sacrificing themselves and becoming fragmented, could have used this power to move to the Goddess’s domain. If true, the two were now in the underworld, within the Goddess’s world.
But the answer would come soon. Coltia had gained these three Celestial Dragons as support after they had grown significantly. Their power proved useful to assist her, and Coltia left the planet a few months ago to search for the calamity.
The whale and Ruri calmly returned to the building. On the way, they spotted Purimu, Calirer, and Rivine training a group of young people.
Purimu focused on his brother, Mistie had a boy, naturally from the Dire Fey race. Calirer, on the other hand, gave birth to twins — a pair. Both were born with multicolored hair, but they had a single white horn, a characteristic of the Soul Eater race.
Meanwhile, Maelik had no rest. Rivine had given birth to six harpies over the years. Her last daughter was born less than a year ago, which made her finally satisfied and able to focus again on cultivation. All the daughters were pure harpies, as this race has the natural ability to completely erase the father’s bloodline.
Going back in time, when Meru turned two, Alm and Bruno began dedicating every night to studying the vast knowledge they had received, while spending their days with their daughter, observing her growth.
The knowledge they had gained was incredibly complex, and realizing it would take a lot of time, they decided not to acquire new knowledge for now. Instead, they opted to spend all the system points they had accumulated to strengthen their allies.
In the end, they had 1,960 upgrade points and 360 celestial points left. When they accessed the menu for levels and techniques, they were surprised by notifications:
[With the receipt of the decree from Heaven’s Will, the system has been upgraded.]
[It is now possible to buy multiple levels at once in the system.]
[It is now possible to use the power: Eyes of the Past.] [200 Upgrade Points]
[It is now possible to use the power: Future Prediction.] [200 Upgrade Points]
Alm and Bruno were satisfied because they had always faced limitations when buying techniques and Daos. Normally, they could only acquire the next level after advancing in realms and when the store updated. Now, that was over.
These two new powers could be useful or not, depending on the circumstances and luck, and would require a lot of previously acquired information to ensure effectiveness. However, considering they had absorbed the oracle, it wasn’t a surprise to receive these abilities.
However, the cost in points was too high to reserve without using, just to keep them available in case of need. They believed that investing in guaranteed power was a better choice.
Thus, excluding the Devouring God Spatial Technique, which was no longer worth acquiring, they used all remaining points to max out the level of their current techniques and Daos.
Level five was the maximum. Almin received the Dao of the Alchemist God, Ruri received the Dao of the Formation God, all the Gaias acquired the Dao of the Gaia God, Liumi and the other weapons received the Dao of the Immortal Armament God, and everyone with human or hybrid blood received the Dao of the Human God and the Blood Refining Technique.
Finally, Kisala acquired the Vital Poison Technique, and Yue received the Dao of Creation of the Collector God. Obviously, all of this also became available to the Yinblood sect and the people of the inner universe.
Everything was acquired at the maximum level, consuming 1,500 upgrade points. The system even offered a bulk purchase discount, which surprised Alm and Bruno.
Although they no longer needed to acquire levels gradually, they still needed upgrade points to buy additional knowledge or seek new techniques and Daos they deemed necessary.
With 460 upgrade points remaining, they decided that after Sohum turned seven, they would pass on the knowledge of the new Dao of the Forging God to him. During their time in the queen’s castle, they had extensively discussed this with him. They had learned the basics of the new Dao perfectly and now transmitted it to its creator.
Upon receiving the knowledge, Sohum was visibly excited and fully dedicated himself to relearning the Dao, advancing in a new type of understanding. Now, with Phoenix Fire blood running through his veins, his new flames created new opportunities for the forging process.
When Sohum turned ten, Alm and Bruno bought five rune seals created by the Forging God’s disciples and gave them to him. These seals, previously analyzed, would be useful for Sohum’s new Dao.
All upgrade points were consumed this way. Then, while they watched Meru’s growth, Alm and Bruno continued studying the vast knowledge they had acquired. All their allies also took advantage of this time to improve to the fullest.
During this time, the universe inside the inventory also had to be reorganized and prepared. Alm and Bruno spent days by the Nine Star Tree, evaluating all the sealed immortals.
Of the Primordial Beasts that had been guarding the continents, the Djinn was killed immediately, without mercy. The other three were very similar to Caipora, while the Tarrasque was a special case.
These Beasts had been forcefully recruited by the queen due to the type of power they had. She used them for various purposes — some small, others large — and when they became useless or irrelevant, they were sent to the continents.
There were also a dozen immortals who were deities. Their case was similar. The queen, needing deities, captured all those she found. Three of them joined her voluntarily; the other nine did not. So, they were forgiven.
As for the other immortals, they came from other universes and were born with mental control. Over millions of years, extremely talented figures were born and reached very close to the immortal realms, so the heroes of those universes recruited them, and eventually, some truly advanced on that planet.
In theory, their mental control made them blameless. But for the heroes to bring them there without feeling envy or the desire to use them... these figures had certainly had to buy their favor, and a hero’s favor meant doing things they considered interesting; in short, not good things.
A brief analysis of the karma of these figures showed that almost 90% of them didn’t deserve forgiveness, so they were eliminated. Alm and Bruno were not judges of anything; they just didn’t want people around who could betray them. Thus, the heavenly laws would deal with them, and their fate was theirs alone. Their souls were destroyed, and the laws would combine them with others to create something new.
In the end, about 100 immortals, nine deities, and five primordial beasts remained, who would now restart their cultivation inside the inner universe.
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Alm and Bruno also moved Ziz and Leviathan there, removing their cultivation limitations, just like they had done with Behemoth. Now, they all headed to the Primordial Sun to create new bodies and restart their journeys.
As for Huying and Huyang, the two primordial phoenix sisters, they didn’t need such help. They could create new bodies anytime with their powers. However, they chose not to do so for now. A fierce competition began between them: Lieson or Lyra, who of the two, using their bloodline and clues, would reach the immortal realms first?
Alm and Bruno didn’t interfere, believing it would help both evolve quickly. Moreover, keeping the two sisters competing against each other was more productive than watching them fight for nothing.
In the end, almost everyone restarted. The Primordial Beasts, the immortals, and the souls that were the specters enslaved by the heroes reincarnated with new bodies.
Now, back to the present day, everyone in the inner universe resumed cultivation thanks to the power of the Gaias. Moreover, infinite resources and opportunities were available to them. The sixty planets had become sacred places, accompanied by countless small worlds brought by Ruri.
The month passed with Meru and Ruri always by the whale’s side. Now, the three formed a family, living peaceful moments. But finally, the time of peace came to an end.