Cultivating in Honkai!

Herrschers…

From the game's standpoint, their combat powers are limited. Most of them are shown to destroy cities. However, their true power lies within the higher-dimensions. Their limited destructive powers do not affect their abilities to affect higher-dimensions.

Kiana, using Herrscher of the Void's powers, was able to blast Otto away from reality, allowing him to reach the tree and create a brand new timeline.

The Imaginary Tree is something "unreachable" by all. Only Aeons and the Cocoon of Finality was shown to reach it.

These things point out one fact: Herrschers are limited by their honkai energy output.

Herrscher Cores supply unlimited honkai energy. However, the Herrscher Core by itself only handles 2,000 HW. Once exceeded, it all depends on the user's honkai adaptability.

If they forcefully exceed their limits, it results in honkai corruption. The same result happens if the said Herrscher 'rejects' their Core. Kiana suffered from that in-game.

This is where immortal cultivation comes to play.

It is capable of raising one's honkai adaptability by spiritual qi tempering. With a strong body capable of handling the honkai, Herrschers will surpass their in-game counterparts dozens of times.

Sirin's output with six cores is between 9,000 to 12,000 HW. My late Purple Mansion Realm body tempered by the honkai could unleash 20,000 HW at least. I can go even higher, but I felt it might thoroughly affect my surroundings. It is best to test it on isolated places.

The brief battle with the ELF Kevin woke me up.

Purple Mansion Realm takes centuries originally. Even with spiritual plants, it will still take a century at least.

Honkai energy's tempering shortens that to a decade. Coupled with other hacks that allow instantaneous increase of realm cultivation, it can be further reduced to a few years.

That is the limit.

It is extremely difficult to reach the Golden Core Realm in three years… unless there is an opportunity of sorts. I won't be surprised if I had that encounter in the future.

For now, focusing on my Herrscher Power is the best choice. I can vaguely feel some window paper when I use it at maximum output. Absolute zero belongs to the Golden Core Realm. Surpassing it is the quantum-zero point energy, which is the equivalent of freezing movements at a high-dimensional level.

That is the supernatural power of the Nascent Soul Realm.

I suspect it is the full awakening of my Herrscher Core.

"Hum…"

I looked around and saw Antarctica's atmosphere surrounded by spiritual qi. Its normal honkai emissions had returned.

I thought for a while and chose to disperse the [Two Phase Art]. Spiritual qi began to lose their bearing. It is unable to sustain its existence, thus it turns into other types of energies present on Earth—gravitational, solar, wind, and so on.

There is still a lot to explore with immortal cultivation. It is best to hand it over to professional researchers, though that comes for later.

Once the threat of honkai is resolved and all that's left is the vast starry sky…

I will teach immortal cultivation en masse.

*****

Anti-Entropy, Salt Lake Base.

The surface of the military base housed numerous cutting-edge honkai technology. To the outside, it appeared as a normal military base.

Its close proximity, no more than fifty kilometers away from Salt Lake City, made it look like a typical military base.

The true wealth within the base lies in its underground infrastructures. Honkai energy experiments are designated to be contained two thousand meters beneath the surface level.

It is a high-security facility only allowed to select personnel. Anti-Entropy's Executors are allowed inside… which was the reason why everything got leaked to World Serpent.

Shi Tian came and rectified this vulnerability. It was recording the experimental results with typewriters at first, then it evolved into computers and apparatuses made of spiritual materials.

It ended up having extraordinary capabilities such as blocking all forms of hacking with mental power. Add to that its raw capabilities comparable to the most advanced honkai-made computers, it is a metal beast.

In short, World Serpent got nothing from their attempted cyber attacks.

This forced them to invade it in person.

Tap.

Tap.

A metallic footstep echoed within the corridor. An inconspicuous researcher made way amongst everyone else. Not a lot of people are present now. Everyone is preoccupied with their designated research.

It did not take long for the researcher to arrive in front of an iron door. A virtual keypad locked it off.

He looked and found no labels nearby.

The moment his palm touched the keypad, a strange thing occurred.

Despite not entering any code, the door was forced open.

Swooosh-!

The researcher's appearance changed in an instant. It turned into Gray Serpent's looks.

He strode calmly inside the room… only to be met with another door. It happened three consecutive times.

Even so, Gray Serpent acted normally.

World Serpent did not just plan upon three places, but five.

Siberia for Cocolia's coop.

Far East for Siegfried Kaslana's Judgement of Shamash.

Antarctica for the Second Divine Key.

Schicksal's Atlantic Branch for Chiyou's corpse.

Finally…

Anti-Entropy's Salt Lake Base.

All of them occurred successively and simultaneously. It was a five-stacked Xanatos Gambit. Whether World Serpent succeeds or not, it would have completed its primary objective of Kevin scouting Shi Tian's power. The rest are dispensable.

For the networks Gray Serpent could not crack, he ought to visit the place personally. Their intel is still stuck on Welt Yang being injured from the Second Eruption. The commotion of him asserting authority as a Sovereign a week ago was dismissed as a bluff.

The rest of Anti-Entropy's squad are negligible…

Or so he thought.

Bam.

A soft thud resounded. The end of a cane struck the ground. Moments later, Gray Serpent was forced to kneel down.

Hum-!

A bright white light assaulted his consciousness. It made him more garbled, unable to organize his thoughts.

Click-!

A pair of handcuffs and a huge iron ring restrained him.

Looking above, he met Welt Yang's gaze. His eyes held a glint of light strong enough to intimidate most people.

'First Herrscher's complete recovery. Mission complete.'

Buzz-!

Bam-!

Despite the restrictions and mental attack, it only took one simple thought from Gray Serpent to self-destruct. His head exploded, revealing the mechanical parts of a cyborg. Electrical arcs danced around his half-ruined metallic head.

"I could not catch him."

Tesla walked to Gray Serpent's body. Her glasses enabled her to use spiritual consciousness. She scrutinized Gray Serpent's composition and confirmed it is a mechanical body.

"A cyborg… no, it is more apt to call it an artificial intelligence. We faced several network attacks during the past three months. If it wasn't for his heads-up…"

"The plans they made came true."

Welt Yang sighed.

Shi Tian revealed his affiliation with the Previous Era warrior, the so-called Flamechasers. The two of them drew up an extensive plan and revealed a lot of unknown things to Anti-Entropy.

For example, the existence of the World Serpent. They did not know about it until Shi Tian came. There is also the strength of the Kaslana Family's ancestor, Kevin Kaslana.

Anti-Entropy came across Project STIGMA due to the moon rocks and came up with their own plan to create an artificial Herrscher of Finality. But, it remains largely incomplete.

Knowing Kevin's drive to push humanity to the Project STIGMA gave them a sense of crisis. Nobody could stop him given the Previous Era's arrangements. Even if Welt attains the level that helped him reconstruct his body back then (i.e., Herrscher Awakening), he felt he wouldn't stand a match.

As such, their focus switched back to the artificial Herrscher of Finality. Both Shi Tian and Su supported this research direction, to boot.

The plan to divert Otto's attention to the Second Divine Key was supported by the trio. They became alert with World Serpent's intrusion, which paid off now.

While Tesla and Einstein busied themselves, Welt Yang's thoughts drifted away.

'I cannot enter that state again. The First Herrscher Core…'

He could only look blankly upwards. Try as he might, the First Herrscher Core could not "awaken". It remains in a state of semi-sealed power. It is not linked to the mental power he has; nor to his honkai energy output.

Welt Yang took Welt Joyce as a spiritual legacy. A part of him could not let go of the past. He used his traces to form an indomitable determination to fight for humanity. His current mentality would not allow him to completely "let go" of Welt Joyce's traces nor the 300,000 souls.

'Is it time to find a successor..?'