Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

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More time passed, and Cedric's clone continued exploring the nearby ruins outside the prison.

He found more information randomly scattered around, fought some strange creatures, and discovered many things he has yet to understand, all while he keeps enriching his understanding about the fundamental laws of the Primitive Universe, starting with the ones he's most familiar with, Fire and Sword.

Cedric felt weak here. The omniscience and all-powerful state he usually felt when he was inside the Primeval Scarlet Dust Realm couldn't follow him here. This was an entirely different place, after all.

He felt humbled. His mortality was casually tossed back to him. In this place, he wasn't special, he's not powerful, and he sure as hell isn't famous. He was a nobody, an ignorant man who's way out of his league. His knowledge about this place wasn't necessarily any better than some teenagers who grew up here.

But Cedric wasn't too affected by this realization. He gets it; he really does. It sucks, but there's no use crying over it. If anything, he's more eager to learn more about this world and explore it.

Alas, he couldn't do that right away. He doesn't even know if he could leave this death zone alive, much less manage to arrive at the nearest human civilization.

For now, Cedric threw himself into improving himself and his abilities. He focused most of his time and effort on training, using the debris and ruins as his target, and sometimes the strange creatures around him too.

This takes him back to the good old days where he used to chase after power to achieve his goals. He remembered how much blood, sweat, and tears he shed in the process, and every single moment of it was worth it because it took him to the peak.

He feels nostalgic doing it all over again, this time, with a broader mind and active imagination. His apparent weakness and ignorance about this new world didn't deter him at all. If anything, it spurred him on.

Cedric was discovering concept laws like never before. He thought he knew fire as much as the back of his hand, but here, it couldn't be any stranger.

It's not like absolutely everything he knew about fire laws turned out to be a lie; not all of it. It just worked differently than he expected, for the most part. And rediscovering it was a joy in itself.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to conjure fire like he could here back in the realm, but if he could, it would surely be a spectacle. All he'd need was a small plume of fire to completely annihilate the Void Prince, and he wouldn't even know how he died. And if he allowed that fire to spread, the whole void would melt in minutes, and that's even with the Void Slave trying to resist.

Mind you, this was just a small fire. Something that any young expert with initial understanding of the fire laws of the primitive universe at the fundamental level could conjure with a snap of their fingers.

That's the kind of disparity he's dealing with. And it's as humbling as one could imagine.

If concept laws at the fundamental level could already do that, just how much more devastating the power of Great Laws could be? What about the Heavenly Laws and the pinnacle, which is the Primal Chaos Laws?

Cedric couldn't even begin to imagine.

But seeing the gap and realizing just how far the road still stretched ahead of him, Cedric didn't feel any despair or hopelessness. Instead, he was excited. There's so much for him to explore and understand that he felt like a lifetime wouldn't be enough to know it all.

He spent the last few months going from only being able to summon fire at his fingertips to throwing fireballs at tricky angles, all completely on his own.

His training partners were the creatures that he provoked during his training. Some he killed; others he escaped from because they were too tough or too scary.

Although he always stayed near the range of the prison where the void slave could pull him back anytime he wanted, Cedric still remained careful. He never turned complacent about his safety. Every move he made was done with careful consideration and certainty.

If he could solve the problem, then he will. If he couldn't, then he'd run away. And he always made sure that he could run away; he never went into a place he couldn't retreat from at any given moment.

And this was his clone doing everything. If he were here in person, he'd be even more careful than this.

**

While comprehending Fire and Sword Laws, Cedric continued learning all he could about the human civilizations from the scattered records and sources of information he found along the way.

The funny thing is that he actually found the ruins of what should be an academy nearby.

Most of the things he found were broken, but there were items and gadgets containing information among the things he found.

He even found a damaged but still mostly intact holographic pad filled with all sorts of academic courses and activities.

This made him excited because this was exactly what he was looking for. It might not be all, but it's more than enough to build a knowledge base for him.

Here, he found information about the mundane world, cultures, politics, history, geography, star maps, and, more importantly, more concrete information about life evolution, albeit only up to the grand solar level.

The site he found should be the ruins of a school called 'Silver Cloud Evolver Institute.'

According to its history, it was founded by Heavenly Venerate and had many branches all over the Heavenly Star Chaos Realm.

Its headquarters was said to be in a secret realm, a place that even the teachers don't know.

This was a virtual academy, for the most part at least. They throw out badges all over the chaos realm. Whoever gets the badge and has the potential could become a student. That's how this school worked.

They value freedom and willingness. They never forced anybody to learn from them; they don't even require attendance or exorbitant tuition fees. The students themselves could complete their entire school years all without even showing their true faces to their teachers.

From what he saw, this physical site must've suffered from the spatial turbulence, the same one that occurred around these parts lately. It should also be the reason why it's here.

This shows just how dangerous that spatial turbulence truly was...

As for this physical site, Cedric had no idea why they built it or what the real story behind it was. He couldn't find any information related to that here, and he's not that pressed to know either.

To him, receiving this knowledge box was more than enough.

From this information pad, he learned the general trend of a Life Evolver's life in the majority of the civilizations.

Their journey could start as early as their birth or, as most common to all, at the ripe age of 13.

At 13 years old, they would start learning about life evolution. Their main focus was building a stable foundation for their future so they wouldn't focus on heavy training yet, just some exercises so that their bodies would start adapting to it.

Then, when they're ready, which is around 16 years old normally, the sprint starts.

Life Evolution to them starts at physical training, then energy training, and spirit training. Once they opened up the potential of these 'Three Heavenly Human Treasures,' as they call it, they could begin working towards the Planetary Realm.

It's during the Planetary Realm that they begin comprehending the forces of nature. Depending on their luck and perseverance, some of them could gain understanding of concepts and laws at the fundamental level, which will certainly upgrade their qualifications to pursue the more advanced realms of life evolution.

After the Planetary Realm, it's followed by the Grand Solar Realm, Cosmic Realm, Immortal Realm, Universe Master Realm, Heavenly Venerate Realm, Empyrean Realm, and finally the Origin Lifeform Realm. In that order.

Each step was harder than the last. To those who had poor qualifications, going from the Planetary Realm to the Grand Solar Realm could take them decades, if not their entire lifetime, and some would still fail to break through; this is how challenging Life Evolution was.

Yet even with the apparent difficulty, almost everybody still chases after this fickle path. After all, it's only when they walk this road that they'd see just how vast and prosperous the Primitive Universe was.

Life Evolution doesn't make them stronger; it brings them status, wealth...everything they could possibly dream of. That's why everybody chases after it even though they know their future is bleak. It's their only hope of changing their fate after all.

Despite this data pad only having limited information, Cedric still felt lucky to have it. Because at the very least, it provided him with information he needed for the future, even though it wasn't sufficient.

He feels inspired. Technically, life here wasn't all that different after all. The road was the same; they just had a different starting point.

'I can work with this...but first, I should start figuring out how to get out of this Death Zone.'