Lord: Sequence Master

"This is a trap!"

Rosen concluded after careful thought.

The Black Shark Pirates certainly knew how many Shadow Cats inhabited this spiritual realm. Rosen himself had killed seven Sequence 8 Shadow Cats and five Sequence 9 ones, drastically reducing the available supply of extraordinary essences. There was no way the Black Shark Captain wouldn't notice such losses. The Sacred Statue of the Cat God, left in the ruins, was clearly bait.

If Rosen couldn't resist interacting with the statue, it would surely expose him, leading him into a deadly situation.

Rosen retreated into his Mysterious Study Room, keeping an eye on the statue from behind the window, waiting patiently.

Hunting requires patience, and Rosen wasn't about to lose his composure for an unknown benefit. Who knew what kind of trouble the flaming aura surrounding the statue might bring? If he recklessly involved himself in something beyond his control, there would be no turning back.

Rosen waited until the Realm began to close. At the last moment, a vortex appeared near the ruins. The hunter, who had been lying in wait all this time, hoping to catch Rosen, was finally forced out, visibly disappointed.

Rosen remained patient for two more days before finally digging the statue out of the ruins. Due to the realm's reset, the statue had been buried once again.

When Rosen attempted to store the statue in his Storage Backpack, it didn't work. However, when he tried bringing it into his Mysterious Study Room, it succeeded. As soon as the statue entered, the entire spiritual realm began to tremble.

Though aware of the disturbances outside, Rosen remained calm and decided to use his Main God Computer to analyze the statue.

"The Sacred Statue of the Cat God..."

The information on the screen clarified everything for Rosen.

The Sacred Statue of the Cat God was the most important idol worshiped by the Shadow Cat race, believed to be the source of their power. At its peak, the Cat God had attained a Sequence 2 extraordinary rank—not a true deity, but certainly a demigod.

Though the Cat God was limited to Sequence 2, it controlled the Shadow Cat Sequence, which was highly compatible with other sequences, particularly the Hunter Sequence and Assassin Sequence.

The Cat God likely met its end at the hands of the World Government, which had purged many demigods. After the fall of the Cat God, the Shadow Cat Sequence could no longer advance beyond Sequence 7.

The Forest of Death was once called the Shadow Cat Forest, the ancestral land where the Shadow Cats worshiped their god. However, this realm was only a reflection, a spiritual-world replica of the real Shadow Cat Forest, which existed somewhere in the real world. Similarly, the Sacred Statue in this realm was a mere copy, though it still maintained a connection to the true Sacred Statue.

Despite being a replica, this statue could link to the genuine Sacred Statue, allowing one to access the divine power embedded in the original. By offering sacrifices to the Sacred Statue, one could tap into this god-like power, benefiting especially from the compatibility between the Shadow Cat Sequence and others.

The Black Shark Captain had used the statue to repair his extraordinary essence, while the Sequence 7 hunter had gained other unknown benefits.

For Rosen, performing sacrifices posed little risk. By using the Main God Computer, he could exploit the connection to the Sacred Statue for even greater advantages. If he connected the computer to the statue via its ethernet cable and performed a sacrifice inside the spiritual realm, the Main God Computer could capture a portion of the divinity embedded in the Sacred Statue.

Confident in his plan, Rosen quickly unplugged one end of the cable and wrapped it around the Sacred Statue.

Since the cable wasn't long enough, Rosen moved the computer desk next to the window. Then, carrying the Sacred Statue, he leaped out of the window and placed a stone underneath the statue for support. Next, he retrieved the Shadow Cat essences he had collected, along with the three crystal plants he had intercepted.

He chopped down a few nearby trees to allow sunlight to strike the statue, which instantly ignited its ghostly flame.

Rosen tossed the extraordinary essences into the fire and gritted his teeth as he pierced the three crystal plants into his chest. The pain was excruciating, and he felt his life force draining away. With a trembling hand, he pressed his palm against the Sacred Statue, allowing the rising flames to engulf him.

At the same time, the temperature of the Main God Computer skyrocketed. The fans inside the case began whirring so fast that they made a sharp, tearing sound.

Rosen finally understood what the Sequence 7 hunter had gained. The flames surrounding the statue could enhance spiritual strength directly, improve mastery over learned skills, and increase their overall quality.

He could choose to spread the enhancement across multiple skills or focus it on just one.

Rosen opted to focus the enhancement on a single skill. But just as he was about to make his choice, the Main God Computer suddenly absorbed streams of multicolored divine light from the Sacred Statue via the cable. The divine light flowed into the computer but wasn't consumed. Instead, the mouse cable slithered over to the Glory Vault skill crystal stored inside the desk drawer.

The mouse cable wrapped around the skill crystal, and the divine energy merged with it. The crystal melted into a liquid form, and the rainbow-colored essence flowed into Rosen's brow, siphoning all the ghostly flames from the Sacred Statue into his body.

At that moment, Rosen felt as though he were experiencing a second spiritual awakening.

Deep within his soul, his spiritual shadow, which represented his extraordinary essence, detached and entered his pineal gland. There, the spiritual shadow ignited a gray mist, expanding into a hazy, colorful world. His spiritual energy surged, filling this new world.

At the same time, Rosen established a link with two golden trees and one silver tree within this spiritual space.

A sliver of power from the Sequence Trees merged with his spiritual shadow, transforming it into a seven-colored seedling that took root in the misty world of his pineal gland.

Moments later, the transformation of Rosen's spiritual essence was complete.

His spiritual essence was no longer a mere phantom-like flame but had transformed into a tangible substance, akin to extraordinary essence. It had become a seedling, with two sets of golden branches and one set of silver branches twisting together.

At the top of the seedling, a seven-colored flame burned brightly, and its roots extended deep into the newly formed world, stabilizing it.

Although the transformation of his spiritual essence had been unexpected, Rosen immediately grasped what had happened.

As Rosen understood it, ascending from Sequence 9 to Sequence 8 involved the separation of spiritual essence from the soul. This spiritual essence would carve out a sea of consciousness within the pineal gland, eventually manifesting as a Sequence Tree, stabilizing the newly formed consciousness. The soul would then reside within the spiritual essence, gaining protection from it.

However, most Sequence 8s had a merely illusory mental world.

Rosen's sea of consciousness, by contrast, had become a real-world prototype, thanks to the divine energy captured by the Main God Computer from the Sacred Statue and the Glory Vault skill crystal. This development had transformed his sea of consciousness into a Divine Domain, a precursor to a Noble Sequence's Divine Territory.

(End of Chapter)