abnabooks Chapter 654: Expensive Understanding.
Chapter 654: Expensive Understanding.
Then he shrugged and said, "Not that it matters. After all, they are extinct. Ancient cultivation can’t be that great if its cultivators were eliminated in the competition for resources. But if there is anyone who knows if ancient cultivators needed to burn lifespan for power, it would be a Dao Lord."
Since he was talking about Dao Lords, his mind couldn’t help but wander to Slav. As he thought of Slav, he remembered the Supreme Metac in Slav’s possession. He also remembered his plan to take that Supreme Metac for himself.
Now that he knew a little more about Supreme Metacs, his plan to take the Supreme Metac for himself seems naive. The thought of what could happen to him in the attempt to take the Supreme Metac made him chuckle to himself.
As he chuckled, he said inwardly, ’With the ability to convert other law fragments into the law fragments of their pathway, that Supreme Metac will be able to break down my existence and convert it into harmless law fragments.’
’Without a Supreme Metac of my own to resist, the best that I would be able to do is delay the conversion process. The bigger I am and the more law fragments I possess, the longer I can survive under that kind of power.’
’However, I have Fenrir, and Fenrir seems to be three-dimensional too. So Fenrir shouldn’t be at too much of a disadvantage to a Supreme Metac.’
’The main disadvantage that Fenrir might have is that its power is too weak compared to a Supreme Metac. After all, a Supreme Metac is at least rank 9 while Fenrir is currently at rank 6. So there is still the risk that the Fenrir Metac can be broken down and converted by a Supreme Metac.’
’But if I improve Fenrir’s power to rank 8, the gap between them should be narrowed. That way, the risk of being overpowered by a Supreme Metac will be reduced. Then Fenrir will be able to safely devour the Supreme Metac.’
After reviewing this plan, he said, ’According to all the information I have right now, it should work. Who knows, I might be wrong. So I should continue to try to gain more understanding of Supreme Metacs.’
’But even if I’m wrong and the plan to get Slav’s Supreme Metac is faulty, there is nothing wrong with trying to get stronger. So, in the meantime, I should go on with the plan. I still need to increase the size of my Cave Heaven, get more law fragments, and increase my cultivation.’
As he said this, he checked to see the amount of lifespan that he had spent on the understanding that he had just gained. When he checked, he saw that he had lost a little more than forty thousand years of life.
His eyes twitched when he saw this. This was because he had only connected to the Supreme Metac with his Insight Stat for 40 seconds.
This meant that he had lost 1,000 years of his lifespan for every second that he observed the operation of the Supreme Metac. The exorbitant cost of gaining understanding made him understand why most divine beings allow others to upgrade their Divine Metacs, not upgrade them themselves by gaining mastery of the pathway.
He snorted and said, "Forget hitting someone to kill them or investigating them to force them to give up. What I should do is find a way to force people to connect to the Supreme Metac and gain understanding from it."
He grumbled some more about how the sect was already stealing their lifespan through life-leech, but his grumbling didn’t continue for more than a few seconds. After grumbling, he continued his journey to the second heaven.
He thought more about the pathway, but he didn’t stand around doing so anymore. Instead, he did along the way to the second heaven and during the process of eating spirit creatures or hunting divine beings.
Most of his time was spent eating spirit creatures. After all, spirit creatures were available everywhere, and it didn’t take any effort or lifespan on his part to eat them. But once in a while, he stumbled onto a divine being or two and killed them for their Divine Metacs and their Cave Heaven.
With the manifestations of Fenrir scattered across the second heaven, it became easy for him to encounter divine beings. Once the manifestation caught sight of a divine being, it would mark that divine being.
Once a divine being has been marked, it becomes nearly impossible for them to escape from him. As long as the divine being stays in the second heaven and doesn’t leave it, killing them was easy.
It was easy for him to kill other divine beings in the second heaven because they wouldn’t be able to use their Cave Heaven. They would be restricted to using their Divine Metacs. Since he has more Divine Metacs than they do, he can always overpower them.
The only complications happened when the divine beings escaped from the second heaven down to the second dimension or into the third dimension. But even then, this only meant that he had to do more work pursuing them and spend more time on the hunt than he needed to.
After each hunt, he gained a Divine Metac and a Cave Heaven to assimilate. So each hunt made him become stronger and more efficient in his next hunt.
He hunted and killed four divine beings and gained three Divine Metacs. Unfortunately for him, one of them destroyed their Divine Metac before dying.
Even though he didn’t use the Siphon Ability on them, they still chose to destroy their Divine Metac. This caused his tracking mark to lose the target, so he couldn’t find their Cave Heaven after their death.
So out of the Four Divine Metacs that he hunted, he only gained some loot from three of them. The three of them belonged to the Pill Refinement Pathway, the Killing Pathway, and the Deceiver Pathway.