Lord: Sequence Master

"Why repair the bones?" Rosen stared through the wormhole in the Mysterious Study Room, watching the scene unfold, puzzled.

From the sheer number of demigod remains, it was clear that these inferior Ancient God bloodlines were mass-produced, disposable products. Yet, the half-dead Great True God in the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region was willing to expend power to maintain the freshness and integrity of the bones.

This behavior didn't make sense unless these demigod remains had a unique value to the Great True God.

Unable to figure it out, Rosen set the matter aside. There were too many secrets hidden in the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region.

As the years passed, Rosen dedicated himself to painting spiritual works. His paints were made by grinding the bone marrow of the remains, while the canvases were fashioned from bone plates.

Originally, he had intended for Paradise Pharmaceuticals to refine the bones into superhuman potions containing the diluted Ancient God bloodline. However, extracting even these diluted bloodlines exceeded the company's capabilities.

Realizing this, Rosen decided to repurpose the remains into spiritual paintings instead. Over the next century, he aimed to create Sequence 3 spiritual portraits. Enhanced by the Glory Seal, his paintings would be as potent as living demigods.

At a pace of one painting every ten days, he calculated that he would have plenty of time to finish while still leaving himself enough free time to spend with Li Shiqing and the others.

Rosen had assumed that this near-century of seclusion in the Mysterious Study Room would pass uneventfully.

However, just one year before the hundred-year cycle, when the Cognitive Hurricanes were due to vanish, the calm was broken.

The seawater swept into the skies by the hurricanes began to pour down in torrents.

Simultaneously, faint murmurs echoed across the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region.

Even with the windows of the Mysterious Study Room shut, Rosen found he could still faintly hear the murmurs.

The moment he heard them, Rosen recognized the tone—it was Ancient God Speech.

He immediately activated the Ancient God Bell's miracle feature, Ancient God Resonance, and the previously unintelligible murmurs became clear.

The murmurs repeated one name after another.

Each name was extraordinarily long; the shortest consisted of over a dozen word clusters, while the longest spanned hundreds. Initially, the voice frequently faltered, mispronouncing or forgetting parts of the names. But as time passed, it began pronouncing them with increasing accuracy.

For an entire year, Rosen carefully recorded the murmurs with the Ancient God Bell.

Finally, when the murmurs ceased, the Cognitive Hurricanes vanished without a trace.

The last words Rosen heard weren't another name but a single, complete sentence filled with hatred and madness:

"You will not escape."

Rosen pondered. The "you" must refer to the owners of those names.

He imagined that the entity behind the murmurs must have a deep, irreconcilable grudge against those individuals.

Initially, Rosen had thought the murmurs and the Cognitive Hurricanes originated from the same Great True God.

But as time passed, he dismissed this idea.

The entity behind the murmurs was clearly regaining its clarity of mind. Otherwise, its voice wouldn't have grown clearer, nor would it have delivered a coherent final sentence.

It seemed the Cognitive Hurricanes and the murmurs belonged to two different Great True Gods.

Long ago, this place might have been the site of a war between them.

Rosen even speculated that the Cognitive Hurricanes were suppressing the murmurs.

The hurricanes' disappearance every hundred years might represent a period during which they concentrated all their power on restraining the murmurs.

This would explain why the murmurs always ceased when the hurricanes disappeared.

Leaving the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen confirmed that the Cognitive Hurricanes no longer pursued him.

It seemed the temporarily vanished hurricanes were preoccupied, giving him an opportunity to explore the floating mountains.

Rosen waited another day before releasing the hundreds of demigods from the Time Domain.

Standing before the now-calm sea, the demigods expressed their gratitude to Rosen before dispersing to explore the floating mountains. This time, they had several extra days to explore compared to past entries.

Rosen didn't want to waste this opportunity either and immediately began climbing to higher floating mountains.

Days passed, and after more than ten days of exploration, Rosen reached a height he hadn't managed to attain during his previous visit.

However, the gains this time were far less impressive than a hundred years ago. After all, he no longer had the enhanced true-god-level treasure-seeking effect from equivalent exchange.

Since he could leave at any time using Data Transmission, Rosen decided not to worry about returning. Although he lacked high-level equivalent exchange, Sequence 1-level equivalent exchange was still manageable.

Still, Rosen decided not to use it just yet. The higher the floating mountains he reached, the less likely they had been explored, increasing the chances of finding treasures of even greater value. Thus, he resolved to save equivalent exchange for the highest point he could reach.

As he climbed higher, the gravitational force grew ever more oppressive. Yet, after another half month, Rosen finally reached a height of 120,000 miles above sea level.

This height far exceeded the limits that other demigods had reached so far. However, the intense gravity at this altitude rendered flight impossible for Rosen, and he couldn't even disturb the stable spatial environment around him.

He thought he had reached a dead end, but then he made a surprising discovery: At this height, some floating mountains began to grow a unique type of vine. These mysterious vines extended with incredible resilience, connecting floating mountains at various altitudes.

However, if the vines were cut, they would instantly disintegrate into ash.

Rosen decided to rely on these mysterious vines, climbing them to reach floating mountains at even higher altitudes.

Finally, with only two days left, Rosen arrived at a floating mountain 125,000 miles above sea level.

With time running out, he gave up on climbing higher.

Activating equivalent exchange, Rosen used an enormous amount of divine essence crystals to temporarily enhance his treasure-seeking ability.

When the enhancement was complete, Rosen felt an unusual pull toward a floating mountain several hundred miles away.

Following the guidance, he quickly made his way to the mountain using the mysterious vines. He located a cave and ventured into its depths, where he found unmistakable signs of artificial excavation.

At the very deepest point, he discovered a fossilized corpse.

Rosen carefully collected the fossilized remains and, following his treasure-seeking ability's guidance, continued to search for treasures.

In the final two days, he found three Sequence 1 superhuman resources:

A heart core of a mountain giant, an unknown extraordinary plant, and a metal imbued with the rules of life.

The extraordinary plant was handed over to Sherron, and the life-rule metal was given to Amy.

Finally, the mountain giant's heart core was buried in his Divine Domain. Mountain giants were a unique form of life born from mountains that had absorbed immense amounts of spiritual energy. Despite their name, they had nothing to do with the giant race. Integrating the heart core into the Ashes Castle would significantly enhance its defensive capabilities.

However, Rosen's instincts told him that the fossilized corpse was the most valuable discovery of all.

As the countdown for the calm period neared its final hour, Rosen stopped climbing and immediately used Data Transmission to leave the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region.

Although he had been busy scaling the mountains, the intelligent life of his Magic Eye had not slacked off in collecting information from the Spiritual Realm's Deep Web.

The demigods he had saved in the Time Domain had already departed the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region aboard various ships. Their survival had drawn the attention of the World Government, and these demigods had undergone investigations. As a result, the World Government now knew about Rosen's Time Domain.

Rosen's Star Insignia received many private messages via the Spiritual Realm's Deep Web.

Some were messages of gratitude from the surviving demigods, while others were notifications from the World Government awarding him merit points.

There were even messages inquiring about how to obtain a Time Domain, with various enticing conditions attached that made Rosen seriously consider the offers.

Delegating the task of responding to these messages to his self-portrait clone, Rosen returned to his Divine Domain to examine the fossilized corpse.

In the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain Sea Region, he had seen true-god-level bones reduced to decay, yet this Sequence 1 corpse had managed to fossilize.

After careful study, Rosen discovered the secret of the fossilization.

Clutched tightly in the corpse's palm was an object resembling an eyeball.

Rosen used the Void Shadow Realm to extract the object directly and quickly let the Miracle Pouch identify it.

[Petrification Eye: Miracle Artifact]

[Level: Sequence 1]

[Miracle Attribute: Can be fused into the eye to gain the miracle skill "Petrification Eye," but the body will gradually turn to stone.]

[Miracle Trait: Eternal Petrification]

Without the traits "Unique Under Heaven" or "Eternal and Indestructible," the Petrification Eye was not a complete extraordinary artifact.

Its sole miracle trait, Eternal Petrification, allowed the user to petrify themselves while granting a slight characteristic of eternal indestructibility. The petrified form could self-repair from damage, which explained why this Sequence 1 entity had not decayed but instead turned into a fossil.

Rosen attempted to undo the eternal petrification, and the fossilized body transformed into flesh and blood.

The body was still alive, but its spiritual essence was entirely gone.

The endless years of petrification had preserved the body due to the eternal petrification trait, but the spiritual essence could not withstand the wear of infinite time. Once the spiritual essence had run out of life, only a living body remained.

Since only the body was petrified, everything the entity had been carrying had decayed into nothingness.

From its appearance, it seemed to be a pure-blooded human.

There were no traces of the Ancient God bloodline within its body, so it was unlikely this individual had lived during the era of the Ancient God civilization.

Rosen grabbed the ancient human's hand, bit its finger, and began to drink its blood.

He shared Fara's abilities and had even enhanced the Blood Queen's powers with the Holy Grail King.

Through blood drinking, bloodline creatures could obtain memories from the blood.

Rosen quickly captured fragmented memories from the blood. He then employed other methods to search the ancient human's brain for additional memories and pieced together everything he could find. Although incomplete, the discoveries were monumental.

This ancient human was from the Yuanshen Civilization, a nine-catastrophe civilization that left no trace of its existence.

"Yuanshen Civilization…" Rosen murmured to himself, feeling a surge of excitement.

The term "Yuanshen" originated from the mythological system of an Eastern nation, roughly translating to the ascension of consciousness and soul.

In the present-day human world, people with black hair and black eyes, clearly inheriting bloodlines from the Eastern civilization, were not uncommon.

Even some of their cultural remnants persisted, such as skills like "Dotting the Dragon's Eyes," which carried distinctly Eastern characteristics.

However, while the main world had dragons and phoenixes, there were no true divine dragons or immortal phoenixes. The gods and true gods followed a godhood system, but there were no celestial beings or immortals tied to a divine position system.

Not only did the current era lack immortals, but even historical records bore no trace of their existence.

Yet through this corpse, Rosen discovered that the Yuanshen Civilization had immortals.

The core of the Yuanshen Civilization revolved around the Five Immortal Systems of Taoism. Corresponding to the current main world: Ghost Immortals were equivalent to demigods, Human Immortals to Sequence 1 peak demigods, Earth Immortals to Sequence 0, Divine Immortals to true gods, and Celestial Immortals to great true gods.

This ancient human had been a Human Immortal, one of the rare few who achieved physical immortality.

Physical immortality was akin to the Forbidden Sequences of the current world, where both the physical and spiritual aspects broke through limits as early as Sequence 4.

In essence, this human, despite being just a Human Immortal, had the potential to grow into a Divine Immortal and even a Celestial Immortal.

In terms of raw combat ability, most Sequence 0 entities would likely be no match for this Sequence 1 ancient Human Immortal.

Yet this powerful existence ultimately chose self-petrification and perished here.

Continuing to organize the fragmented memories, Rosen unearthed even more astonishing information.

This ancient Human Immortal had died while attempting to climb Buzhou Mountain?

Could the Ten Thousand Gods Mountain actually be Buzhou Mountain from the Yuanshen Civilization era, merely renamed in different times?

As Rosen delved deeper, he uncovered a terrifying secret.

The fragmented memories of this ancient Human Immortal included records related to the Ancient Gods. However, they referenced not the Second Generation Ancient Gods but the First Generation Ancient Gods. There were only mentions of the First Generation, with no trace of the Second Generation.

This revelation implied one thing: The Yuanshen Civilization, this cultivation-based civilization, had existed during the era of the First Generation Ancient Gods.

The Ancient God Civilization and Main God Civilization that Rosen knew of had both emerged during the era of the Second Generation Ancient Gods.

No wonder the history of the Yuanshen Civilization had left no trace.

It was highly likely that this ancient Human Immortal was the only surviving remnant of the Yuanshen Civilization in existence.

Rosen continued to study the ancient Human Immortal's body. After several hours, he made two major discoveries.

First, this being carried a bloodline of the Primal Humans. Despite appearing to be a mere human, it shared the same Primal Human bloodline as Rosen himself. However, this bloodline had merged with an unknown extraordinary substance, making it initially deceptive in appearance.

Rosen obtained an artifact from the Yuanshen Immortal Dao, and it turned out to be a Yuanshen Immortal Treasure that had transformed into a miracle artifact.

Yuanshen Civilization's Immortal Treasures were essentially artifacts formed from the Sea of Consciousness.

By relying on the Sea of Consciousness to establish a Blessed Land or Cave Heaven, the Yuanshen—formed from one's soul and spiritual consciousness—would reside within it. Normally, when the Yuanshen was exhausted, the Yuanshen Immortal Treasure would also be destroyed. However, for unknown reasons, this particular treasure met the conditions to become a miracle artifact and survived.

[Yunmeng Cave Heaven: Miracle Artifact]

[Level: Sequence 0]

[Miracle Attribute: Yunmeng Cave Heaven is composed of the Yuanshen Immortal Dao and Yunmeng Law.]

[Miracle Traits: Auspicious Cloud Sea, Yunmeng Lord, Unique Under Heaven, Eternal and Indestructible]

This artifact was undoubtedly a rare treasure, but without reaching Sequence 1, it was impossible for Rosen to refine it.

Currently, he couldn't even enter the Yunmeng Cave Heaven. As for why this artifact had reached Sequence 0, it was either because the ancient Human Immortal had upgraded the Yuanshen Immortal Treasure to Sequence 0 before their death, or their Yuanshen's dissolution within the treasure had caused the Yunmeng Cave Heaven to ascend to this level.

Rosen was about to store the Yunmeng Cave Heaven away, as the sight of such an unattainable artifact was starting to feel torturous.

But just then, the Yunmeng Cave Heaven unexpectedly recognized him as its master.

The Yunmeng Cave Heaven fused into his Sea of Consciousness, gradually merging with it.

During this process, Rosen came to understand why the fusion was happening.

The Yunmeng Cave Heaven originally belonged to the Human Immortal Yunmengzi, and Yunmengzi's dying wish was to prevent the Yuanshen Immortal Dao from being lost to the ages. When the Yunmeng Cave Heaven came into contact with the identical Primal Human bloodline in Rosen's body, Yunmengzi's final obsession caused it to recognize him as its master.

With a single thought, Rosen vanished from the Mysterious Study Room and appeared within the Yunmeng Cave Heaven.

The entire Yunmeng Cave Heaven spanned about thirty thousand miles.

Though the space wasn't vast, the strength of its world was extraordinarily impressive.

The Yunmeng Cave Heaven had no landmass. Above was a sea of clouds formed by colorful clouds, and below was an endless haze of Yunmeng mist. Using the Yunmeng Law, this mist could be shaped into mountains, rivers, and even lifelike creatures indistinguishable from reality.

The Yunmeng Law itself was essentially a combination of "Cloud" and "Dream."

While individually weaker than the standalone laws of "Cloud" or "Dream," the combined Yunmeng Law was superior to either.

However, this law only functioned within the Yunmeng Cave Heaven. Outside of it, the Yunmeng Law had no effect because it wasn't acknowledged by the current main world; it belonged to the laws of the ancient First Generation Ancient God era.

After carefully examining the Yunmeng Cave Heaven, Rosen willed a cloud to appear beneath his feet.

This cloud was a flying artifact of Sequence 1, produced within the Cave Heaven's Auspicious Cloud Sea.

The Auspicious Cloud Sea was a resource-generating miracle trait. It could produce clouds as high as Sequence 1, with the lowest being Sequence 3. Furthermore, these clouds could fuse with treasures containing various laws to create Auspicious Clouds imbued with unique properties.

Since these Auspicious Clouds could evolve through the fusion of law-based treasures, the Yunmeng Cave Heaven could generate practical benefits even when brought outside.

Rosen delved deeper into the Yunmeng Lord miracle trait. This trait allowed him to fully control all the powers within the Yunmeng Cave Heaven, including the Yunmeng Law itself. Within the Yunmeng Cave Heaven, Rosen effectively held the authority of a Sequence 0 god.

It was precisely because of this ability to perfectly control the Cave Heaven that the artifact had been able to recognize him as its master so easily.

Normally, low-sequence individuals would struggle to refine high-sequence artifacts. Even if a high-sequence artifact autonomously chose a master, a low-sequence individual would still find it nearly impossible to refine, as their spiritual strength at Sequence 4 would be insufficient to sustain a connection with a Sequence 0 miracle artifact.

Rosen took inventory and found that the Yunmeng Cave Heaven currently held only one Sequence 1 Auspicious Cloud.

If enough spiritual crystals were invested, it would take approximately a thousand years to produce another Sequence 1 Auspicious Cloud.

As for Sequence 2 Auspicious Clouds, it would take a hundred years to produce one, and currently, there were nine within the Auspicious Cloud Sea.

Reluctantly, Rosen left the Yunmeng Cave Heaven.

He then found a serene, picturesque location within the Ancient God True Realm, constructed a tomb, and laid Yunmengzi's remains to rest. After burning some incense as a final gesture, Rosen departed from the Ancient God True Realm.

(End of chapter)