Lord: Sequence Master

In the central volcanic region of the Divine Weapon Kingdom, Rosen used the void phase teleportation ability of the Fairy Dragon Orb's Miracle Trait to arrive.

The moment he was surrounded by ash, streams of it surged into his body.

Before long, Ashen Brands formed one after another in his sea of consciousness, eventually condensing 78 in total.

After activating the Old God Artifact, the number temporarily increased to 87, but when the artifact's amplification was lifted, the additional nine brands immediately collapsed.

However, this caused no harm to his sea of consciousness. The collapsed brands were absorbed by the remaining Ashen Brands, beginning to generate Ashen Power.

Even with the Miracle Ember, Rosen still couldn't fully understand the nature of Ashen Power.

He had already learned that the ash blanketing the human world was the remnants of civilizations, but how these remnants came to shroud the human world remained a mystery.

Even Daisy didn't know, and the Spiritual Realm Deep Web contained no relevant information. Even the divine intelligence lifeforms of the Magic Eye Network, after intercepting conversations between two True Gods about ash, were curious but utterly clueless.

Rosen quickly accumulated enough Ashen Power, though its total capacity was limited by the Ashen Runes.

He casually released a Sequence 4 dragon beast from the Void God Prison, suppressing his Dragon God Authority.

Ashen Power required a medium to attach to. Rosen infused the power into manifested spiritual thought, forming a Thought Bullet.

The bullet shot out, perfectly penetrating the dragon beast's defenses.

The Ashen Power, like a tenacious parasite, flowed toward the dragon beast's sea of consciousness. The dragon beast instinctively resisted with its spirituality and dragon blood, but it was completely ineffective.

The Ashen Power invaded its sea of consciousness and wrapped around its soul.

Beginning with soul pollution, it quickly contaminated the dragon beast's entire spiritual core.

Through the Ashen Brands that generated the Ashen Power, Rosen could now perceive the dragon beast's state and control it.

It seemed that creating Ashen Lifeforms had limitations. The number of lifeforms he could create at one time was restricted by the number of Ashen Brands he possessed. Only after the brands replenished their Ashen Power could more lifeforms be converted.

Rosen frowned slightly. This ability was undeniably powerful, but controlling Ashen Lifeforms wasn't particularly useful to him.

He already had countless troops in his territories and didn't need Ashen Brands to create foot soldiers.

Moreover, this ability was somewhat unsavory.

Rosen activated the Ashen Brands, experimenting with the ability to control ash itself.

He quickly discovered that this was the true core value of the Ashen Brands.

As long as ash was present, he could achieve a concealment ability even more potent than the combined effects of Wolf Totem and Void Shadow Realm, and even his released spirituality would gain the same concealment.

Although he already had Wolf Totem and Void Shadow Realm for concealment, making him less reliant on ash, their utility diminished in places without ash coverage.

However, the ability to conceal spirituality deeply appealed to Rosen.

The reason was simple: released spirituality was too easily detected by others.

Unless one's spiritual strength far surpassed the opponent's, spreading one's spirituality around an enemy would typically alert them immediately.

This was why, despite its potential for comprehensive, omnidirectional perception, spirituality was rarely used directly in combat for detection.

Now, as long as he stood within ash, his spirituality could weave around enemies undetected.

The result was that enemies would know nothing about him, while he could observe them with absolute clarity.

Back at the hotel, Rosen entered the Book of Miracles Chamber and retreated to his Divine Domain Territory.

For nobles, the Divine Domain was the best environment for advancing to Sequence 3.

During the promotion process, they needed to completely integrate the authority they wielded into the Divine Domain.

They also had to infuse it with a constant stream of belief using their ascended divinity.

Only from Sequence 3 onward did the Divine Domain transform from a fragile porcelain doll into something indestructible.

For Divine Domain Lords, Sequence 3 marked the true beginning.

Everything prior had been about accumulating foundations—Sequence 3 was when they began to reap the rewards.

With everything prepared, all human transcendent beings prioritized advancing through the noble sequence.

Rosen used his spirituality to connect with the Noble Sequence Ancient Tree in the Spiritual Realm, guiding his Divine Domain Territory to descend beneath the Golden Ancient Tree.

Silently, three golden leaves drifted down from the tree.

The first leaf merged with the noble transcendent source energy, causing the source energy scattered throughout his bloodline to separate from his body.

The second leaf fused with the Sequence Ancient Tree in the Ashen Castle, which was formed from spiritual origin, integrating the Sequence Ancient Tree with the noble transcendent source energy.

The final leaf transformed into a golden flame, enveloping his entire Divine Domain Territory.

The three golden leaves then fused into one, and the Sequence Ancient Tree, noble transcendent source energy, and Divine Domain Territory were completely unified.

Because of this fusion, the rule authorities Rosen wielded began integrating thoroughly into his Divine Domain Territory.

For most transcendent beings, advancing from Sequence 4 to Sequence 3 meant mastering a single rule authority at best.

However, the rule authorities Rosen controlled were far beyond the norm.

By conservative estimates, he wielded over fifty divine authorities.

Why only an estimate? Because some new divine authorities were still emerging.

With the help of the golden leaves, his spiritual origin ascended, permanently transforming from spirituality to divinity, enabling him to absorb faith that had previously been inaccessible.

During this process, he directly mastered the Authority of Faith.

The first authority to merge into his Divine Domain came from the territory trait birthed by the miracle treasure fused through the Old God Rite of Sacrifice.

The earliest to form was the Authority of Lordship, followed by Glory, Imitation, Life, Destiny, Evolution, Law, Order, and finally Eternity, Blood, and Time.

The territory traits alone had already integrated eleven rule authorities into the Divine Domain.

Next, Rosen began merging the authorities wielded by his main body, avatars, and pets.

Rosen's main body controlled World Authority, as well as Sealing, Guarding, Mind, Reality, Creation, Assimilation, Parasitism, Hunting, Traps, Beast King's Wrath, Nightmare, Light and Shadow, Ash, Seven Deadly Sins, History, Painting, and Flesh—a total of 18 rule authorities.

Some of these rule authorities had long been mastered, while others emerged and merged into his Divine Domain as they were born.

The rule authorities Rosen had long desired—History and Painting—had finally manifested. Even Ash and Flesh emerged due to the Ashen Brand and Flesh Avatar skills.

Because special skills inherently contained rule authorities, he had previously been unable to fully master them.

Now that his spiritual origin had fully ascended, the potential of these special skills was unleashed, giving rise to corresponding rule authorities.

After integrating the authorities of his main body, Rosen moved on to merging the authorities controlled by his avatars and pets.

These included Creation Authority, followed by Genesis, Dragon God, Correction, Alteration, Element, Void, Primordial Dream, Mechanics, Fantasy, Life, Morning Star, Harvest, Culture, Sacred, and Thunder, totaling 16 rule authorities.

Rosen thought the process would end there, but unexpectedly, more rule authorities merged.

These came from the Grail King and Queen, including the Crown of the Grail, Royal Sword of the Grail, and Primordial Grail—three unique authorities, as well as Focus, Charm, Loyalty, Intuition, and Dream, totaling 8 rule authorities.

By this stage, Rosen's Divine Domain had integrated 53 rule authorities in total.

Were it not for the World Authority acting as a stabilizer and the Divine Domain having been tempered through multiple near-catastrophic trials, such a massive number of rule authorities would have exploded the Divine Domain.

Now bloated to its limit, the Divine Domain began undergoing its final growth and transformation.

As the domain expanded, Rosen continuously infused it with Spiritual Crystals.

For all Divine Domain Lords, advancing from Sequence 4 to Sequence 3 typically increased the domain's diameter by a hundredfold.

However, most Divine Domain Lords avoided this.

The reason was simple: a large but fragile Divine Domain was far inferior to a small but resilient one.

Thus, smaller Divine Domains were generally preferred. Of course, there were limits—while concentration was key, compression had its limits. The ideal expansion was a tenfold increase, which also boosted the domain's base strength tenfold.

Rosen opted for this approach, but instead of a tenfold compression, he compressed his domain a hundredfold.

Due to the unique nature of the Old God Source Realm, a special skill of the noble sequence, Rosen's Divine Domain already had a radius a hundred times larger than that of others at the same level.

Even after compressing it a hundredfold, it remained a hundred times larger than the Divine Domains of his peers.

Moreover, its strength was ten times higher than that of domains at the same level.

The tenfold increase in strength was just the baseline. With the integration of 53 rule authorities, even the weakest among them doubled the Divine Domain's base strength. Stronger authorities, such as World Authority, could easily multiply its strength several times over.

Rosen estimated that his Divine Domain was now 100 times larger than those of others at the same level and roughly 120 times stronger.

For other Sequence 4 transcendent beings advancing to Sequence 3, their Divine Domains transformed from fragile balloons into sturdy rubber balls.

Rosen's Divine Domain, however, was more akin to a solid iron sphere.

He was certain that even a Sequence 1 incomplete Divine Kingdom would shatter upon colliding with his Divine Domain. Only a fully formed Divine Kingdom could suppress it.

The complete metamorphosis of his Divine Domain required time, as it needed to draw spirituality from the Spiritual Realm.

After some hesitation, Rosen chose to power it independently.

He didn't hesitate to empty the entire inheritance of a Sequence 1 Bronze Dragon, decomposing the mountain of Divinity Crystals and infusing them into his Divine Domain as nourishment. He refused to accept the Spiritual Realm's free gift for his promotion.

The more he learned, the more Rosen understood that nothing came without a cost.

The higher the promise of something "free," the greater the hidden price.

Rosen vaguely realized that the calamities faced by civilizations weren't just tests and suppression imposed by the main world.

At their core, these calamities were debt collection mechanisms.

Civilizations extracted too much from the main world, and the main world needed to reclaim its depleted origin through the destruction of civilizations. Otherwise, if unchecked, civilization after civilization would drain the main world dry, leading to its collapse.

Thus, the more a civilization extracted from the main world, the greater the danger of its eventual calamity.

Rosen knew it was impossible to completely avoid extracting resources from the main world—cultivation itself was a defiance of natural order.

But minimizing this extraction when unnecessary was certainly wise. The less debt accrued now, the less repayment required later.

In just three days, Rosen's Divine Domain had fully metamorphosed.

Normally, it would have taken much longer, but thanks to his rule authorities such as World, Creation, Genesis, and Evolution, the growth and perfection of his Divine Domain were accelerated.

Finally, the professional authority of Sequence 3 that Rosen had anticipated was born.

[Supremacy of Sovereignty: Noble Sequence 3 Professional Authority]

[Trait: You are the king of your domain, and you now have the right to found a nation.]

At first glance, Rosen was somewhat confused. It seemed similar to the Lord of Time, a previously unseen professional authority.

However, upon closer examination, his breath and heartbeat became uncontrollable.

As a Sequence 3 Noble, he now had the right to establish a duchy.

Traditionally, all founders of duchies were hereditary dukes, and they had to meet three conditions:

They must be at least Sequence 3.They must be capable of territorial expansion.

The last requirement, territorial expansion, was the most crucial, which was why most duchies had been established over 20,000 years ago.

That era was truly a golden age, with powerful individuals emerging like an explosion.

Statistics showed that during the thousand-year period of the World Government's establishment and expansion, the combined number of gods and True Gods born exceeded the total of the following 20,000 years by tenfold.

The vast majority of these gods ascended because they founded kingdoms.

Every duchy, kingdom, and empire had the right to ignite their own independent Civilization's Ember.

The World Government's Civilization's Ember was essentially a collection of countless other Civilization's Embers.

The right to found a nation at Sequence 3 was a privilege granted by the World Government.

But now, Rosen had bypassed the World Government and obtained the right to found a nation independently.

As a Sequence 3 being, he could establish a duchy and ignite a duchy-level Civilization's Ember.

Upon reaching Sequence 2, he could found a kingdom. At Sequence 1, he could establish an empire.

Moreover, the duchy he founded within his Divine Domain would produce an independent Civilization's Ember that was not subordinate to the World Government's Ember.

This meant that he possessed a right that other Divine Domain Lords did not—the right to confer land grants.

The World Government had granted nobles many rights, but never the right to confer land grants.

Legally, all land in the human world belonged to the World Government.

The government allocated real-world land to nobles for nation-building, while those unqualified for real-world grants were assigned Divine Domain Territories.

All land grants ultimately belonged to the World Government.

The tenfold increase in strength was just the baseline. With the integration of 53 rule authorities, even the weakest among them doubled the Divine Domain's base strength. Stronger authorities, such as World Authority, could easily multiply its strength several times over.

Rosen estimated that his Divine Domain was now 100 times larger than those of others at the same level and roughly 120 times stronger.

For other Sequence 4 transcendent beings advancing to Sequence 3, their Divine Domains transformed from fragile balloons into sturdy rubber balls.

Rosen's Divine Domain, however, was more akin to a solid iron sphere.

He was certain that even a Sequence 1 incomplete Divine Kingdom would shatter upon colliding with his Divine Domain. Only a fully formed Divine Kingdom could suppress it.

The complete metamorphosis of his Divine Domain required time, as it needed to draw spirituality from the Spiritual Realm.

After some hesitation, Rosen chose to power it independently.

He didn't hesitate to empty the entire inheritance of a Sequence 1 Bronze Dragon, decomposing the mountain of Divinity Crystals and infusing them into his Divine Domain as nourishment. He refused to accept the Spiritual Realm's free gift for his promotion.

The more he learned, the more Rosen understood that nothing came without a cost.

The higher the promise of something "free," the greater the hidden price.

Rosen vaguely realized that the calamities faced by civilizations weren't just tests and suppression imposed by the main world.

At their core, these calamities were debt collection mechanisms.

Civilizations extracted too much from the main world, and the main world needed to reclaim its depleted origin through the destruction of civilizations. Otherwise, if unchecked, civilization after civilization would drain the main world dry, leading to its collapse.

Thus, the more a civilization extracted from the main world, the greater the danger of its eventual calamity.

Rosen knew it was impossible to completely avoid extracting resources from the main world—cultivation itself was a defiance of natural order.

But minimizing this extraction when unnecessary was certainly wise. The less debt accrued now, the less repayment required later.

In just three days, Rosen's Divine Domain had fully metamorphosed.

Normally, it would have taken much longer, but thanks to his rule authorities such as World, Creation, Genesis, and Evolution, the growth and perfection of his Divine Domain were accelerated.

Finally, the professional authority of Sequence 3 that Rosen had anticipated was born.

[Supremacy of Sovereignty: Noble Sequence 3 Professional Authority]

[Trait: You are the king of your domain, and you now have the right to found a nation.]

At first glance, Rosen was somewhat confused. It seemed similar to the Lord of Time, a previously unseen professional authority.

However, upon closer examination, his breath and heartbeat became uncontrollable.

As a Sequence 3 Noble, he now had the right to establish a duchy.

Traditionally, all founders of duchies were hereditary dukes, and they had to meet three conditions:

They must be at least Sequence 3.They must be capable of territorial expansion.

The last requirement, territorial expansion, was the most crucial, which was why most duchies had been established over 20,000 years ago.

That era was truly a golden age, with powerful individuals emerging like an explosion.

Statistics showed that during the thousand-year period of the World Government's establishment and expansion, the combined number of gods and True Gods born exceeded the total of the following 20,000 years by tenfold.

The vast majority of these gods ascended because they founded kingdoms.

Every duchy, kingdom, and empire had the right to ignite their own independent Civilization's Ember.

The World Government's Civilization's Ember was essentially a collection of countless other Civilization's Embers.

The right to found a nation at Sequence 3 was a privilege granted by the World Government.

But now, Rosen had bypassed the World Government and obtained the right to found a nation independently.

As a Sequence 3 being, he could establish a duchy and ignite a duchy-level Civilization's Ember.

Upon reaching Sequence 2, he could found a kingdom. At Sequence 1, he could establish an empire.

Moreover, the duchy he founded within his Divine Domain would produce an independent Civilization's Ember that was not subordinate to the World Government's Ember.

This meant that he possessed a right that other Divine Domain Lords did not—the right to confer land grants.

The World Government had granted nobles many rights, but never the right to confer land grants.

Legally, all land in the human world belonged to the World Government.

The government allocated real-world land to nobles for nation-building, while those unqualified for real-world grants were assigned Divine Domain Territories.

All land grants ultimately belonged to the World Government.

Rosen's Divine Domain had completely severed its ties to the World Government.

The most immediate change was that Rosen no longer required the assistance of the Noble Sequence Ancient Tree from the Spiritual Realm to advance within the noble sequence.

He now relied on his exclusive Sequence Ancient Tree, rooted within the Ashen Castle, which had inexplicably developed a Noble Authority of its own.

If the World Government's Noble Sequence Ancient Tree ever collapsed, Rosen's exclusive tree might even take its place.

Without hesitation, Rosen took out his only Sequence 3 Soul Gem and upgraded the Ashen Castle to Sequence 3.

[Ashen Castle: Divine Building]

[Level: Sequence 3]

[Substructures: Castle Hall, Tower, Spiritual Realm Watchtower, Steam Power Tower, Elemental Barrier Tower, Dungeon]

[Divine Traits:]

- Mechanical Life: Integrated with the Sequence Ancient Tree, granting advanced mechanical intelligence.

- Ember Ashes: Capable of destroying civilizations to collect Ember Ashes, strengthening the Ashen Castle.

[Divine Authority Trait:] Civilization Building: The core structure of a civilization.

With the upgrade to Sequence 3, the Ashen Castle underwent comprehensive enhancements.

Even under fierce attack from a Sequence 2 being, the Elemental Barrier Tower could hold out for several hours.

However, such defenses alone wouldn't justify the use of a Sequence 3 Soul Gem.

The greatest change lay in the Civilization Building Trait.

Rosen immediately instructed the Magic Eye AI to search for information on civilization buildings, recalling that he had encountered the term before.

The results came quickly: Civilization Buildings were vessels for Civilization's Ember.

As long as the Civilization's Ember endured, the Civilization Building would remain indestructible.

If the building remained intact, even True Gods would struggle to breach the Ashen Castle and destroy the Civilization's Ember.

To conquer such a castle, one would need to first annihilate the civilization that fueled its ember and extinguish the ember itself.

This meant that as long as Rosen's duchy persisted, the Ashen Castle would be an impenetrable sanctuary, even for True Gods.

Of course, that was easier said than done. Destroying a duchy was trivial for a True God.

Still, Rosen was only Sequence 3, and while gods or True Gods could easily destroy a duchy, it would be far more challenging for a Sequence 1 being to obliterate his Divine Domain and duchy.

Especially since he intended to establish his duchy within the True Realm of the Old Gods.

Nation-building was no overnight task, so Rosen retrieved two treasures to begin assimilating.

The first was a Sequence 3 Broodmother Egg, and the second was a Sequence 3 Crystal: Psychic Network.

Both originated from a Sequence 3 Psychic Broodmother. The former could transform into a breeding nest, while the latter was one of the Zerg's signature abilities.

These two treasures were well-suited for his two remaining skill slots, particularly since he planned to modify the Broodmother Egg.

Rosen first refined the Psychic Network and quickly mastered this unique skill.

[Psychic Network: Gain the ability to construct a psychic network based on the Authority of Mind.]

Only after mastering it did Rosen realize its immense potential.

Had the Zerg not been wiped out, their Psychic Network would undoubtedly have become the sixth great network of the main world.

Due to his integration with the noble sequence, Rosen's psychic network was somewhat different from that of the Zerg Broodmother.

Through this network, he could merge the spiritual consciousness of himself and all his subordinates, establishing a vast psychic web.

All subordinates would become nodes within the network, enabling seamless communication.

Rosen could even receive psychic power from his subordinates through the network and transfer any mental damage he sustained to them.

If he was willing to consume faith, he could share a portion of his abilities with his subordinates.

Lastly, the network greatly enhanced his ability to harvest faith.

The transmission of faith typically incurred loss—the farther the distance, the greater the loss.

This was why gods established countless temples within their territories to harvest faith locally.

However, with the Psychic Network, the transmission loss was reduced to the absolute minimum.

Eager to begin, Rosen immediately started building the network.

He condensed his own divinity into a Psychic Network Node, dispersing it into the seas of consciousness of all his subordinates and followers.

He even used his Left Eye of the Virtual Realm as the consciousness-level carrier for the network.

The Virtual Realm had already served as the infrastructure for the virtual network within the True Realm of the Old Gods. Now, that network had been upgraded to the Psychic Network.

Rosen quickly tested the Ability Sharing feature.

By consuming faith, all true believers gained sharing privileges.

While noble sequence skills couldn't be shared, skills from the Painter Sequence and Hunter Sequence could.

Of course, not all skills could be shared at once—each sequence level allowed for only one shared skill.

The shared skills were weaker versions, but Rosen could also use his divine authority to embed Painter and Hunter Sequence Skill Crystals into the network, allowing true believers to gain the skills contained within.

Fanatics could share up to two skills, and Saints could share up to three skills.

In a sense, Rosen's Psychic Network effectively gave him the ability to bestow divine spells upon devout believers, a power typically reserved for gods.

(End of Chapter)