Then he thought complacently, ’And don’t flatter yourself. If I knew that we could speed up the growth of the outpost core with world essence, I would have come up with the plan myself. After all, I have a lot of world essence just lying about doing nothing.’
He had about 230,000 years’ worth of life essence in his possession. About 200,000 of that came from the three small worlds that he bought from the auction.
The remaining are leftovers from what he had before he bought the three small worlds. He had a lot of world essence before he bought the three small worlds, but he had spent most of it in the auction.
With this much world essence on hand, he didn’t hesitate at all about feeding the outpost core. Before Money Body could react, he had fed the outpost core 2,600 years of lifespan.
In comparison, Money Body had only donated 400 years of lifespan. This was despite the fact that he had three times as much world essence as Loki.
The problem was that he had been too slow. He had paused for a brief moment, and Loki had taken that opportunity to saturate the outpost core with as much lifespan as it needed.
So Nether Flame and Blood Sword didn’t manage to donate anything. In total, the outpost core took 3,000 years’ worth of lifespan. In return, it sped up its growth by 90 days.
Apparently, this was a great accomplishment for the mission. Loki was sure about it because the sect sent a notification to all of them saying so.
The sect also said that he was responsible for 86.7% of this accomplishment. After that, the sect said that he was responsible for 97.3% of the defense of the outpost core through its growth stage.
The messages brought a smile to his face. He was happy because he would be earning a lot more contribution points after the mission was completed.
Of course, the fact that they didn’t have to defend the outpost core for 90 days meant that they wouldn’t earn a lot of merit points for killing enemies. This is just one of the repercussions of Money Body’s plan.
The second repercussion, which is also the main one, is on the way. But in the meantime, Loki was so happy that he didn’t bother to hide this fact from Money Body and the other two.
Nether Flame and Blood Sword were also in a good mood because the growth of the outpost core was undoubtedly a good thing. The first three months of growth are the critical time for resource collection for the outpost core. Now that the bees didn’t have to collect resources anymore, the second stage of growth of the outpost core could start.
Not even the fact that they didn’t get to contribute to this accomplishment could put them in a bad mood. Even Money Body chuckled with mirth.
Unlike what Loki expected, Money Body wasn’t angry. In fact, Money Body was amused by his actions.
Of course, he still found Loki irritating. But since the first part of his plan had succeeded and since the second part was about to begin, he decided to ignore Loki for now.
By this time, the white gem had turned into a giant white boulder that was bigger than the four of them combined. The metal bees also stopped working and instead flew over to the white crystal boulder to fuse with it.
The metal bees melted like wax after they touched the white crystal boulder. The liquid metal that they turned into was a special black liquid that caused the white crystal boulder to turn black.
By the time all the metal bees had fused with the white crystal, the whole crystal boulder had turned into a black rocky material that looked like igneous rock.
In order to kick off the second stage of growth, Nether Flame and Blood Sword took out some homunculi from their capsules and tossed them at the black crystal boulder. The homunculi melted into red sludge as soon as they came into contact with the black crystal boulder.
The red sludge was made from all of their organs and bones melting. When this red sludge fused with the black crystal boulder, it caused the black crystal to grow veins across its surface.
The veins looked like blood vessels. But they were not red like those of humans. Instead, they possessed various colors, and they spread chaotically across the surface of the black crystal boulder.
As more homunculi were thrown at the black crystal boulder, more veins grew on its surface. The veins also grew into the depths of the black crystal.
By the time the tenth homunculi had fused with the black crystal boulder, veins had spread across its entire surface and into the depths of the black crystal. The multicolored veins had also formed a network through which energy was flowing.
The cycling of energy through the veins caused the black crystal to glow. It was actually the veins that were glowing, and they glowed brightly with a multicolored light.
However, this bright glow didn’t last long. After a few seconds, the veins dimmed slightly.
But more red sludge fused with the black rock. This caused its multicolored veins to glow brightly again. However, this time, the veins were brighter than before.
The multicolored veins began to alternate between circles of glowing and dimming. But as the cycle repeated itself, the veins were getting brighter and brighter.
Loki thought that the glow of the veins was no ordinary glowing. It was already weird to him that a rock would have veins and that the veins would start glowing. But he knew that this step signified something much worse for Oceania, so he looked on with growing expectation.
As he watched, he sensed the black rock had begun drawing on the energy of the world around it. The red sludge had finished, but the black rock was not satisfied. Now the outpost core was wrestling energy from around it to grow with.
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