Arthur opened his eyes to et darkness. The space above him was pitch black, but the ground around him seed to glow faintly.
After a few seconds, he regained his bearings, rembered where he was and why he was there, and finally forced his body upright.
[Oh, Master, you’re finally awake.] Lostvayne’s voice echoed calmly.
Arthur looked around the dim environnt but didn’t see Celestia anywhere, so he imdiately asked, "Celestia?"
[She is as unconscious as you were a few seconds ago. She’s exhausted,] Lostvayne replied.
Arthur nodded slowly in understanding. He had completely drained Celestia’s cosmic energy reserves, and, having experienced what it felt like to bottom out his own energy reserves before, and how he had instantly fallen unconscious after, he could easily understand Celestia’s current state.
He looked up and saw the Seed Engine embedded in the ground, silent, and he muttered,
"The bastard is off, isn’t it?"
[Yes, Master, it’s off,] Lostvayne confird.
Arthur heaved a deep sigh, and then, Lostvayne spoke again.
[Master, check your body to ensure there are no lasting injuries. Examine your soul as well. Try activating all your Authorities and your Aspects to confirm everything is working properly.]
Hearing those words, Arthur silently prodded his Law Origin Cores using his magic power. Everything seed fine. His previously injured heart had been regenerated, and his body didn’t appear to bear any lasting damage.
There was so strange blackish residue covering his skin that, frankly, reeked, but that was sothing a proper shower could fix.
Then ca the Aspects.
The only one Arthur needed to test was the Aspect of Destruction. He hadn’t used his Aspect of Ti at all, not because he’d intentionally avoided it, but because activating that along with the Destruction Aspect would have split his focus, weakening his control over destruction, leading to even worse damage than what he had suffered.
Arthur activated the Aspect of Destruction, feeling the cosmic energy swirl from within him, and watching as the familiar crimson-silver layer of energy ford over his palm.
"All good," Arthur muttered as he retracted the energy.
[Are you sure?] Lostvayne responded.
Arthur gave a short reply, "Yeah, everything’s fine—"
And suddenly, Arthur froze as he felt a strange sensation accompanying the deactivation of his Aspect.
"Huh?"
He reactivated the Aspect, then deactivated it again, and once more, that sa odd sensation occurred.
The energy that should have dissipated was not dispersing into the atmosphere the way it normally did when he deactivated his Aspects.
He activated it a third ti, and this ti, he clearly saw the cosmic energy flow through his arm and erge from his skin, forming the familiar crimson layer of destruction around his palm.
Brows furrowing, he turned to Lostvayne and asked. "Is your Weapon Authority still active?"
[No, Master. I deactivated it the mont you lost consciousness,] the sword replied.
Arthur looked back at his palm, then returned his gaze to the sword.
"So where the hell is this cosmic energy coming from?"
[I wonder, Master. Where the hell is it coming from?]
For a mont, Arthur stared silently at the sword, then back at his palm, still trying to make sense of why there was cosmic energy inside his palm—inside it—not just surrounding it, like usual.
Arthur’s brain wasn’t keeping up with the sudden shift.
’No, but what?’
He deactivated the Destruction Aspect once again and this ti activated his Aspect of Ti.
Imdiately, the sensation that ran through his body was strange. It felt as if he got brand new energy circuits and magic power was flowing through those channels for the very first ti.
But once the unfamiliar feeling faded, everything returned to normal. He deactivated the Aspect, and again, just like before, the sa strange sensation occurred, and once again, the cosmic energy that had powered the Aspect didn’t disperse into the surroundings like it usually did.
Still confused, he blinked while staring at his palm.
He deactivated and reactivated his Aspects for the nth ti, and this ti, he detected sothing he hadn’t noticed the previous tis.
His Aspect activation had beco easier. Not just easier, it was faster and smoother.
And it was in the middle of processing that new realization that sothing else caught his attention.
’Wait a second... when did my Existence Realm Increase?’
For so reason, he was now an Interdiate Stage Low-Tier Deity.
He had been at the peak of the Inferior Stage, but now, he was sowhere past the Interdiate Stage, but not yet approaching the Superior Stage.
And that confused him, because he hadn’t done anything that could’ve caused that increase.
He stared at his body in silence, until the sound of laughter snapped him out of his daze.
[Pfft-hahaha! AHAHAHAHAHA!]
Lostvayne.
The sword was laughing, actually laughing. The ever-calm, ever-composed Lostvayne had suddenly burst into audible laughter.
Between bursts of laughter, the sword spoke, [Master, you have no idea how silly you look right now, especially compared to your usual quick grasp of things like this.]
After all these years with Arthur, having seen how easily he picked up on many things, Lostvayne found it genuinely amusing to see him so confused and lost in this mont.
The contrast was so striking that anyone familiar with Arthur and who understood the situation would also find it funny and laugh along.
And to the still dumbfounded-looking Arthur, Lostvayne finally spoke.
[Congratulations, Master. You ca searching for silver and you found platinum.]
Lostvayne’s words hit Arthur like a freight train.
He thought back to the reason he had co here in the first place, the strange series of circumstances that had unfolded since then, and Lostvayne’s words about him coming for silver and finding platinum.
Finally, the realization that his rational mind had stubbornly refused to acknowledge hit him.
"Did I just... beco a full Cosmic Being?"
His words ca out fragnted, broken in between as his brain slowly processed this truth.
[What do you think?]
At Lostvayne’s words, Arthur looked down at his own body, then slowly looked back up again.
Then he recalled the strange, unsettling sensations that he felt while dealing with the Seed Engine’s defence chanisms— the feeling that his flesh was writhing under his skin, and the indescribable, violating feeling like soone was massaging his brain directly inside his skull.
His eyes widened as he realized that was precisely when the evolution had been occurring.
He had found himself in the exact kind of situation he had planned to create artificially by using the Seed Engine—an adapt-or-die situation.
And he had adapted.
Both his body and soul had evolved, and in the process of trying to obtain the thing he had planned to use to artificially induce an evolution to full Cosmic Superiority, he had achieved full Cosmic Superiority naturally.
The irony.
Was it fate? Was it luck? Or was it simply a natural result of the circumstances that Arthur had found himself in?
Regardless of what it was, the truth remained unchanged. Arthur had now beco a Cosmic Being, with both his body and soul transford by cosmic energy.
The nigh-immortality of his physical body had been enhanced, and his soul had likewise attained that sa level of nigh-immortality.
It was now exceptionally difficult for non-Cosmic Superiors around his level to kill him.
Of course, the conditions from his Sub Cosmic days still held true. An overwhelmingly superior opponent could still vaporize him in an instant, faster than he could regenerate.
That would still end him, Cosmic Being or not.
He was stronger, unquestionably. He was tougher and far harder to kill, certainly. Yet he was still far from invulnerable or truly immortal, because the sa cosmic energy that empowered him was also the sa cosmic energy that could be wielded to defeat him.
Still, it had to be said—the increase in his base paraters, the improvent in the quality of his energy, the greater durability and tenacity of his body, the enhanced strength of his soul, the amplified power of his Authorities, and all the various things that ca with becoming a full Cosmic Superior—none of them were negligible in any way, shape, or form.
If Arthur were still in Valmone and could see his stats displayed before him, he would be far clearer on just how much stronger he had truly beco.
But he wasn’t, so the young man simply remained seated on the ground for so ti, repeatedly activating and deactivating his Aspects, as if trying to repeatedly confirm that what he was experiencing was real.
It was almost like a child who had just been given a new toy, powering it on, then off, then on again, just to be sure it worked. Or like a child who had just discovered a new feature within that toy, repeatedly toggling that single feature on and off in fascination, unable to get enough of the novelty.
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