Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo

Why did I think there was nothing wrong with such a thing at the time?

I remember now, it was because back then, I believed that for something like the Divine Seal Fragment, its material presence wasn't important. What really mattered were certain metaphysical aspects, so I thought it didn't matter if I could carry it through Flame Transmission.

Of course, I no longer share the same opinion as my former self during the Great Success stage. Even the material Divine Seal Fragment has a transcendent nature that unworthy people cannot touch or move. This is a manifestation of the Power of Divine Seal Fragments, which is also a reflection of True Spirit Power. Since it is closely related to True Spirit Power, I cannot allow my own power to alter it at will.

Moreover, Ying Lingyun's technique of embedding the Divine Seal Fragment into experimental subjects as a power core always prioritizes physical layer integration. The logic of "material existence doesn't matter" is indeed too far-fetched. Furthermore, my past self repeatedly transformed it into my flame, turning it into a form of mana capable of touching the metaphysical realm. If the truly important aspect of the Divine Seal Fragment also lay in this realm, there should have been anomalies.

"...How do you know that?" I couldn't help but ask Little Bowl.

Little Bowl shouldn't have known the minor detail of my past self carrying the Divine Seal Fragment through Flame Transmission.

"This was a clue brought to me by Weichi's encounter," Little Bowl said. "After he was killed by Shan Liangyi, the Divine Seal Fragment remained at the scene of his death. It was later found and taken by Shan Liangyi. After resurrection, Weichi was no longer a Void Envoy... Brother Zhuang Cheng, do you think this is normal?"

"According to you, shouldn't Weichi continue to be a Void Envoy after his resurrection?"

I first countered, then realized the issue, "No... Yes, why isn't Weichi still one after his resurrection?"

"Water Navy Xuanwu also died once, yet after resurrecting, he remained a Liangyi Inheritor. The Xuanwu Seed didn't return to Shan Liangyi's hand but appeared on Water Navy Xuanwu again," Little Bowl said. "According to the information Brother Zhuang Cheng gathered, this is because the Power Seed of a Liangyi Inheritor possesses a property that transcends time and space.

From a very high-level perspective, all time is the same time. Therefore, if a dead Liangyi Inheritor will resurrect in the future, the Power Seed will deem them never to have died and automatically transfer to their future host."

I followed her train of thought: "And the reason the Power Seed has this transcendent quality is because Shan Liangyi realized the Legendary Domain 'Reincarnation.' The transcendence of the 'Reincarnation' realm, or rather the transcendence of all Legendary Domains, is closely related to the 'True Spirit.' This high-dimensional layer is also where True Spirit Power resides... If the Divine Seal Fragments, which also possess True Spirit Power, do not share this property, it would be very strange."

"This is because 'Binding' isn't an inherent property of the Divine Seal Fragments but the result of Tai Sui's own research," Little Bowl said with confidence. "To be precise, it was his research result during his time at the Evangelical Institute, when he couldn't even use his own power well as Impermanence Tai Sui. At that time, he wasn't the Master of Divine Seal, so naturally, he couldn't access the realm where True Spirit resides.

Therefore, the binding between the Divine Seal Fragments and the Void Envoy didn't bind to the True Spirit Layer. It's bound to our souls, so after Weichi's soul was completely annihilated, his Divine Seal Fragment was directly exposed to the real world.

And Brother Zhuang Cheng, your body and soul often decompose into flames and are transmitted afar. During this process, the Divine Seal Fragment is repeatedly decomposed and reassembled... If it were hidden on your True Spirit Layer, it wouldn't be affected like this, but being hidden in the soul makes it inevitable."

Looking at the Divine Seal Fragment in my hand, I said, "But even if I can decompose and reassemble the Divine Seal Fragment, I still can't understand its nature."

"The reason Brother Zhuang Cheng can decompose and reassemble it is not because your abilities have reached the level to accomplish this challenge, but because you've been granted the authority to do so. This is given to you by the Seal Authority," Little Bowl said. "But in any case, the fact you can decompose and reassemble the Divine Seal Fragment is undeniable. And all Divine Seal Fragments should have the same nature, even the so-called 'Doomsday Divine Seal' and 'Current World Divine Seal' are just larger 'fragments' compared to a complete divine seal."

I felt my thought process opening up, "At the same time, as long as I have the power of the Third Door, I can also forcibly intervene with the Current World Divine Seal to a certain extent. Even if I can't obtain the authority of the Current World Divine Seal, if it's just using the Power of Manifestation to reassemble the Doomsday Divine Seal and Current World Divine Seal from their damaged parts..."

"There's no need for 'forcible intervention.' Once the Current World Divine Seal loses Liu Shuying as its master, it will become an unowned object, and Brother Zhuang Cheng can then freely decompose and reassemble it," Little Bowl said. "One of the Divine Seal Fragments currently bound to me is precisely an ownerless Divine Seal Fragment that Brother Zhuang Cheng took out from his flames, isn't it?"

"That's because at the time, I used the wooden box given by the Divine Light to store it in my flames, right?" I said.

"The wooden box had the function of isolating external consciousness from contacting internal objects. But if that were all, at most, it could prevent your consciousness from binding to that ownerless Divine Seal Fragment. It couldn't assist you in decomposing both the box and the ownerless Divine Seal Fragment into your flames," Little Bowl said. "If anything, the fact that the wooden box didn't decompose into flames while the ownerless Divine Seal Fragment fell outside is more perplexing; that's not reasonable.

"Back then, maybe you already exerted a portion of your ability to integrate your power and penetrate things, so the wooden box couldn't fully prevent you. Meanwhile, the 'binding' technology designed by Tai Sui couldn't recognize the manifestation nature you unconsciously exerted, so the automatic binding phenomenon didn't occur... there can only be this explanation."

Hearing this, I immediately took out an ownerless Divine Seal Fragment from the small nascent Void Realm and tried to decompose it into my flames without achieving binding — I succeeded.

Everything was as Little Bowl said.

Every detail was perfectly aligned, revealing clues even I hadn't noticed before.

To further test whether I can repair the Divine Seal, I took out another ownerless Divine Seal Fragment and tried to merge it with the previous one.

I saw two ownerless divine seal fragments transform into flames simultaneously, converging together, then solidifying into a piece of black jade like molten iron cooling down.

This divine seal fragment was noticeably larger in size.

Seeing my reasoning confirmed, Little Bowl let out a sigh of relief, "It really can be done..."

"But... it's a bit strenuous." I judged, based on the feel in my hand.

The existence of this divine seal fragment wasn't stable; although it appeared as one, it felt like forcefully piecing together two objects with strong magnetic forces.

Not long after, this large divine seal fragment suddenly cracked in the middle, splitting into two. The shape was identical to the two previous divine seal fragments.

"Let's try again." I raised my hand once more.

And after conducting multiple tests, I reached a rough conclusion.

If two ownerless divine seal fragments are not used, but rather two divine seal fragments bound to oneself, the recombined large divine seal fragment would become very stable. The key might lie in whether seal authority is present; the latter is more receptive to my recombination, showing no signs of automatic rejection and splitting.

The power output from it also increases. However, possibly due to not forming a complete internal structure and even conflicting with each other, the power of the large divine seal fragment is only 1.2 times that of the original.

It's like a complex puzzle; combining unrelated fragments won't yield good results. If a large number of divine seal fragments are haphazardly recombined, it could cause very undesirable consequences, so the shattered Doomsday Divine Seal is best repaired by the power of the Master of the Doomsday Divine Seal. The repair of the Doomsday Divine Seal and the Current World Divine Seal should be much simpler; if the puzzle only has two pieces in total, there is no need to be so cautious; just piece them together directly.

I also tested the mode of recombining a bound divine seal fragment with an ownerless divine seal fragment. Through this simple simulation, I could somewhat predict the recombination scenario of the Doomsday Divine Seal and the Current World Divine Seal. The result is that the formed large divine seal fragment can be maintained, but it requires my Power of Manifestation to provide binding force.

Relying on my own intuition, I was able to discern the truth of this situation—not because the two divine seal fragments were inherently unrelated parts; ultimately, it was still a forceful repair completed using the Power of Manifestation. When applied to objects closely related to True Spirit Power, there would be irrational elements.

If I could fully understand the operating principles of this ultimate creation known as the divine seal, this situation probably wouldn't occur anymore. However, as it stands, it doesn't matter much.

In the condition of combining with a bound divine seal fragment, the power of the ownerless divine seal fragment can also be used by me normally. If anything still seems off, it's that I can sense that I haven't automatically obtained the authority of the ownerless divine seal fragment.

If I wish, I can use the seal authority of the Void Envoy to acquire the authority of this ownerless divine seal fragment. But if Little Bowl becomes the Master of the Doomsday Divine Seal, at most, it can only provide me with the authority related to the Doomsday Divine Seal. Since the Current World Divine Seal doesn't belong to the Doomsday Divine Seal, there's likely no concept of automatically acquiring authority; otherwise, Liu Shuying wouldn't point out that Tai Sui is unable to gain all divine seal authorities and restore a complete divine seal like herself, and Tai Sui wouldn't tacitly accept it.

In other words, while I am capable of obtaining the power of the complete divine seal, I may not be able to maintain its completeness once it leaves me.

Even wishing upon a complete divine seal might be of no use.

Based on my current stage of testing, I have no issues releasing the power of the large divine seal fragment externally, but if it's directed inward, the repulsive force quickly surpasses the binding force. This seems unrelated to the form and usage of power, yet this phenomenon occurs. To truly repair the divine seal, one likely must possess all divine seal authorities like Liu Shuying.

After completing the tests, I restored all the divine seal fragments to their original state.

"Then, our plan for the future is roughly as follows," Little Bowl declared seriously, "First, I will replace Tai Sui as the Master of the Doomsday Divine Seal, then authorize Brother Zhuang Cheng to use the Power of Manifestation to merge the Current World Divine Seal."

"Afterward, I will probably become the soul of the divine seal, while Brother Zhuang Cheng becomes the Master of the Divine Seal, using the enhanced Power of Return from the complete divine seal to save the world."

"To achieve this, we first need to defeat Shan Liangyi and the Old Fist God, who holds the Current World Divine Seal."

"The reason for defeating Shan Liangyi first is simple: we currently lack divine seal fragments. Although there are a total of eighteen, in order for Brother Zhuang Cheng to support the conflict between me and Tai Sui, Brother Zhuang Cheng must bind at least one divine seal fragment himself. This leaves me with insufficient fragments bound, likely failing to meet the minimum requirement for summoning the remaining divine seal fragments."

"Shan Liangyi has at least three divine seal fragments; if we can seize them all, we will have at least twenty-one divine seal fragments, which is more than enough."

"Lastly—Brother Zhuang Cheng, do you trust me?"