Chapter 439: Add One More To The List
I held the form for a few breaths, memorizing every shift. Each change wasn’t just cosmetic; it was a command at the fundamental level of my physiology. This wasn’t an illusion. This was an actual change.
"I need to see whether Dante’s disguises are sharper than mine." I chuckled as I reversed the changes.
Then I shifted focus inward, testing the deeper level of control this new ability had unlocked.
I started with something controlled, damage and recovery.
With a deliberate thought, I cleanly cut all my fingers off . The sting barely registered, my focus entirely on the process that followed.
I willed the body to accelerate regeneration, forcing cell division and repair to proceed at a rate far beyond baseline. The cut knitted together visibly, threads of flesh weaving into place within seconds and all my fingers grew back as if never damaged.
Satisfied, I moved to the second experiment.
I summoned fire into the area, saturating the space with radiant heat until the air shimmered.
The temperature climbed past tolerable levels, sweat rising instantly. Then I waited, observing.
Morph Adaptation responded automatically, shifting without my conscious command: veins expanded, skin pores widened, and my entire circulatory system redistributed flow to regulate heat. Even my perspiration rate increased precisely to cool me.
Curious, I pushed it further, letting flames lick close. My skin subtly darkened, thickened, even the layer beneath rearranged itself to resist searing. The body adapted as if evolving on fast-forward, using Law-induced stress as a blueprint.
The result was both thrilling. My physiology wasn’t just changing—it was learning. Every exposure, every stressor, carved adjustments into a template my body could reapply later, almost like storing new biological subroutines.
Finally deciding this was enough testing for now I moved to the next notification.
[Talent Upgraded]
[Generator Nexus -> Generator Prime]
[Talent Panel]
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Talent Name: Generator Prime
Level: 1
Activation Command: Power Up!
Recharge Sources: Any form of energy
Upgrade Requirement : Level 5
Function 1 : Essence Generation
– Generates Essence from absorbed energy
– Essence : 200 / 400 units
– Level-Up Requirement: 8000 Essence units generated
– Progress: 0/8000
Function 2 : Null Heart
– Generates Soul Threads from generated Essence
– Combines Soul Threads into a Soul Shackle
– Null Heart Charge: 0 / 800 Essence (1 Soul Shackle = 800 units of Essence)
– Soul Shackle : 4
– Anchored Soul : 4
– Soul Shackle Limit: 6
Function 3 : Fallen Dawn Core
– Core quality : Low
– Generates Energy from law conflicts
– Laws : 8
– Energy : Blue
Abilities:
– Essence Transfer : Can transfer stored Essence to an attribute. After use, 75% of the transferred Essence unit remains as a permanent boost
– Sovereign’s Mark : Generated Essence bears your unique signature, bending only to your will.
– Soul Shackle: Anchors a corrupted Bonded Soul into the Null Heart, allowing control and shared evolution.
– Sovereign Absorption: Generates a violet vortex that devours energy and channels it directly into the generator core, bypassing the engraved channels. Scales with Talent Level and Psynapse strength.
– Verdant Extraction: Extract life force and distribute it throughout the body. Cannot be stored.
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"Whoa."
I traced through the changes, unable to stop my lips from parting in awe.
The talent had shifted, its name evolving from Generator Nexus into something far more ominous—Generator Prime.
The Soul Shackle limit had risen from four to six, and the cost had dropped as well. What once demanded a thousand Essence units per shackle now only needed eight hundred, making the chain far easier to generate.
The Essence storage had doubled, swelling from two hundred to a staggering four hundred units.
[New Talent Function Unlocked]
Function 3: Fallen Dawn Core
– Core Activation: Established within the user’s Essence Nexus.
– Operational Principle: Generates Energy through friction between User Laws and External World Laws.
– Output Resource: [Blue Energy] – accumulates passively as conflicts are registered.
– Efficiency: Energy generation scales with number and tier of conflicting laws.
It took me barely an instant to understand the value of this new function. I wasn’t just absorbing energy anymore, I was producing it.
I was a self-sustaining generator.
Until now, my greatest weakness had always been dependency. I needed external energy, raw fuel to absorb, before I could refine it into Essence and feed my soul shackles. Every battle, every plan, always carried that limitation at its core. But now? That chain had been cut.
With the Fallen Dawn Core and the volcanoes inside me spitting out that strange blue energy, I no longer depended on the world’s supply. No desperate hunt for fuel. My own body, my own laws, had become enough. The thought left me silent for a long moment.
My eyes lingered on the name etched into the panel—Fallen Dawn Core.
The image of the cracked orange core that had crawled out of the tear flickered in my mind.
Broken, fragile... fallen. Was that why it bore the name? Or was it tied to something deeper?
The "Fallen" tied to my Executor class, the man chained in shadows who twitched against his bonds.
Then another realization struck me, laws were always part of the world, harmonized with it by nature.
Yet this core had twisted them, made them grind against reality itself, feeding on the friction. That wasn’t supposed to happen. And yet, here it was.
I closed my eyes, watching within. The core trembled faintly, as if something unseen pressed against it, something that wanted to break through.
"Another mystery."
While I observed, the volcanoes suddenly burst, releasing their stored blue energy. The streams funneled straight into the Generator Core, and I watched the counter of stored Essence tick upward, one unit at a time.
"Beautiful," I whispered, unable to stop myself.
In that moment, I could see the path ahead with startling clarity.
My talent and my class weren’t pulling me in different directions, they were shaping me toward one inevitable destination.
Independence from the world itself.
My Essence already clashed with it. Now, even my laws and my core were at odds with it.
"Interesting," I murmured, lips curling faintly. "So, System... where do you stand in all of this? Friend, or foe?"
I waited, half-hoping for a reply. None came.
I nodded slowly, exhaling. Silence was an answer in its own way.
"Well, I was already set on going against one universe—might as well add another to the list."