Lucas worked for hours, his chamber thick with the scent of alchemical fus and burning reagents. The table before him was cluttered with emptied flasks, lted beakers, and scraps of tal scorched black. His hands moved with frightening confidence...steady, precise, and almost too efficient for a human.
One by one, deadly creations began to take form.
A vial of swirling erald vapor...alive, shifting, hissing softly inside the glass.
A single breath of it could dissolve lungs.
He nad it "Verdant Reaper."
Next, a black crystalline sphere, cold to the touch, storing compressed destructive force. When activated, the explosion it would unleash could rival an Ascendant’s full-power strike.
He nad this one "Death Core."
Then ca a thin tal canister, sealed with a triple-layered lock. Inside was a pale mist that shimred like moonlight...a paralytic gas that froze every nerve in the body while keeping the victim alive and fully conscious.
He called it "Silent Choir."
More items followed, each more terrifying than the last:
Ashblight Powder, which ignited into a white-hot fla that couldn’t be put out with water.
Phantom Shock, a liquid that exploded on contact with Qi itself.
Graveburst, a concussive grenade forged from a mix of spiritual ore and modern chemistry.
By the ti he was done, the floor was littered with ash and cracked glass... yet the box in front of him was perfectly organized, each weapon nestled carefully within padded compartnts.
Lucas closed the lid slowly, his expression calm but eyes sharp with cold determination.
These were not tools of a cultivator.
They were weapons of another era...another world.
Weapons that could change the tide of war.
He lifted the box and placed it into a concealed compartnt within his storage ring. The faint hum of the sealed space echoed, confirming the items were secure.
Then Lucas exhaled, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, and whispered to himself:
"Let them bring their armies. I’ll give them a war they’ve never imagined."
Lucas set the box of deadly weapons aside and turned toward the far corner of his chamber...toward the Core of Dominion.
The artifact was inside a reinforced containnt fra, radiating a deep, pulsing brilliance like a heartbeat of condensed power. Its surface shimred with shifting runes, unstable, hungry, and half-alive. Even unfinished, it exuded a pressure strong enough to make lower-ranked cultivators collapse.
Sage Raph’s request echoed in Lucas’s mind....to stabilize it.
Lucas cracked his knuckles.
"Let’s finish what you started, old man."
He approached the artifact and began laying out his tools...arrays engraved onto thin tal sheets, silver needles for Qi guidance, crystalline clamps that resonated with spiritual frequencies, and a stack of notes scribbled in his past life’s handwriting.
The Core of Dominion was a monster.
A device that, once activated, would drain every particle of Qi in its surroundings.
Air, land, cultivators, beasts...anything within its radius would be stripped bare.
Leaving only the wielder empowered with the stolen energy.
If completed, it wouldn’t just turn battles.
Lucas positioned his hands over the artifact and began channeling his Qi...slowly at first, then with increasing intensity. The Core reacted instantly, trying to latch onto his energy and devour it.
He gritted his teeth.
"Still too greedy... Calm down."
With a sharp flick of his finger, he activated the first stabilizing array. Golden runes flared to life, containing the artifact’s hunger like a cage.
Next ca the crystalline clamps, which clicked into place and began resonating with the Core, syncing to its chaotic pulse.
Lightning-like arcs of Qi snapped around the chamber.
A shockwave blasted outward, rattling shelves and sending loose papers flying.
Lucas stood firm.
Piece by piece, he forced the artifact to obey.
He adjusted the internal channels with silver needles, sealing cracks in its spiritual matrix, refining its siphoning pathways.
Minutes passed.
Hours slipped by.
Sweat dripped down his jawline, but he didn’t stop.
Finally...after a long, trembling surge of energy...the Core suddenly stilled, quiet, controlled, balanced.
A perfect, terrible stillness.
Lucas exhaled slowly.
The Core now glowed with a steady, ominous light...no longer raging, no longer unstable. It sat in his hands like a beating heart of condensed power.
For the next few days, Lucas barely slept.
Every waking mont was spent perfecting the Core of Dominion...engraving microscopic runes, harmonizing the inner formations, and testing its Qi-drain field against controlled energy sources. Each adjustnt made it smoother, deadlier, and more obedient to his intent.
On the morning of the fourth day, the chamber trembled as Lucas activated it once more.
A silent implosion of energy followed.
Every flicker of Qi within a dozen ters vanished—pulled into the Core like water into a void.
Then it released it...a sharp pulse of pure power, stable and perfectly responsive.
Lucas allowed himself a rare smile.
"Finally... full power."
The artifact was complete.
A calamity forged by human hands.
But he wasn’t done.
Now ca the next phase...strengthening himself.
He walked to the open balcony of his chamber, the cold wind brushing his hair as he gazed across the palace grounds. War clouds gathered in the distance; armies were mobilizing; cultivators marched in disciplined formations.
He whispered to himself, voice quiet but resolute:
"I need to ascend. Without crossing into the Ascendant Realm, I won’t make much impact in the coming wars."
His mastery of space elent had grown significantly, but it was still crude...raw potential awaiting refinent. That kind of power needed stability. It needed a strong foundation.
And above all, it needed a surge of Yin energy to catalyze his breakthrough.
The kind only his bonds...Lira, Selene, Henrietta and Nyx...could provide.
He turned away from the view and headed deeper into the palace.
"To reach Ascendant Realm... I’ll need to dual cultivate intensely. Their Yin will stabilize my space elent and push my ridians past the final barrier."
It wasn’t lust...it was survival.
And it was for Valerion.
He sent a ssage through his spiritual link, a subtle pulse felt only by those bound to him.
Henrietta. Selene. Lira. Nyx. Co to .
Tonight, we fuck.
War was coming, and Lucas would not face it unprepared.
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