Chapter 159 - The Aether Conversion Orb

In the anomaly realm, Hikari, in her full dragon form, had managed to create a thick cloud of Aetheric Energy. This was surprising to Draco, because Vitae had specifically said that the speed of conversion was extremely slow.

So he had assumed that to change the Worldly Energy of the Settlement into Aetheric Energy would take at least a few weeks. However, Hikari was able to create a huge cloud of Aetheric Energy in just about 24 hours.

Hikari noticed that Draco had arrived and her large blue eyes became docile as well as moist. When she was in her human form, she was mostly able to suppress her bloodline compulsions.

However, in her draconic form, this was not possible. White Dragons were naturally gentle and kind beings, while Black Dragons were tyrannical and oppressive.

After centuries of being pressed under Black Dragons, it had formed some sort of bloodline memory, or some unique code in their DNA that they were supposed to be submissive in front of a Black Dragon.

Naturally, the opposite held true. Even a Black Dragon who had sworn celibacy would transform into a l.u.s.t-filled beast in the presence of a White Dragon and wouldn't hesitate to lay his seeds in her fertile lands.

Draco was only able to resist this because he was a humanoid Dragon in a sense. Like how Hikari could suppress her submissiveness when in humanoid form, Draco was largely able to suppress his urge to ravage.

However, when she changed back into a Dragon, that task became much harder to pull off.

It would be exceedingly easy to take Hikari in such a manner, but Draco as a person wasn't interested. He wasn't starved for s.e.x in any way, and he wasn't in a rush to i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.e Hikari.

Aside from that, she wasn't ready, so he had no interest in having s.e.x with her at all.

Draco spoke through gritted teeth. "Please change into your humanoid form."

Hikari nodded and shape-shifted back into her human body, which was the everlasting beauty with a huge chest and wide h.i.p.s. Hikari was essentially what would happen if one were to take Eva's face and put it over Zaine's body.

It was certainly a deadly combo, one Draco would be very averse to showing around because she could instill l.u.s.t in others, while Eva would just make one feel awe.

However, he was no longer reticent after founding Vita Capital City.

Draco gazed at the transformed Hikari who was still struggling to quell her natural instincts.

"How did you gather so much Aetheric Energy in such a short period of time?"

Hikari answered slowly. "It's quite easy. If I were to describe it, the Conversion Orb is the vessel that allows the Worldly Energy to be funneled and our Aether Production skill is the method."

Draco was startled. Did it use the Aether Production passive to function?

The way Hikari described it sounded like the Conversion Orb was the hardware and the Aether Production skill of the Dragon handling the conversion was the software.

Interesting…

"I would like to try," Draco said with a smile.

"Yes, of course." Hikari assented while moving away. It would definitely take a while to regain her composure after transforming and seeing Draco.

Draco stepped up to the orb and gazed at it. He then placed his hand on it lightly, wondering what would happen.

The moment he did, he noticed system screens popping up before him.

｢System to Player Announcement

The Aether Conversion Orb is a unique entity that allows for the change of ambient Worldly Energy into impure Aether Energy that can only be used to expand the territory of your City.

Since this will be a new feature of the system, new menus are currently being generated. Please wait.｣

Draco was surprised by this. It seemed that this whole event had been something completely unplanned by the all-knowing AI despite its ability to make billions of calculations, predictions, and estimations per picosecond.

Yet, this particular scenario was completely unexpected because the chance of it happening was so low that it was discarded. Naturally, no probability stood at exactly 0%, but it was more like 0.000000001% with a lot more zeroes in between.

This was the kind of headache reincarnators could cause for those meticulous entities that preferred to make sure everything was following along a neat and orderly plan. Such people should remain in their timelines of origin, otherwise, the stability others worked hard to build would be ruined!

(Author's Note: I didn't write that line… it was the AI.)

After a few seconds, new screens popped up Draco.

｢ Name: Aether Conversion Orb

Tier: ?

Efficiency: 34%

Storage: 56%

Rate: 100 WE ~ 5 AE per hour｣

It was surprisingly short for how long it had taken to generate, but Draco wasn't bothered. He quite liked the concise system menus compared to the complex ones after Update 7.

It seemed that the Aether Conversion Orb wasn't fully optimized. Draco noticed that it was tier-less, so he would have to find a way to manually upgrade it.

The efficiency was really poor. Draco was curious as to what Efficiency really meant in this case, so he inquired from the system. Although most things were either left for players to explore or were covered in the tutorial, a new feature like this would definitely garner some form of help.

Draco was right.

｢System Help Tab

Efficiency: The quality of the general functions of the Aether Conversion Orb. The quality of the Aether Production skill of the User decides the Efficiency. This determines the purity of the Aetheric Energy produced.

Storage: The amount of Aetheric Energy stored after conversion. When it reaches 100%, it will automatically get infused into the territory to perform the expansion.

Rate: This is the amount of Worldly Energy transformed into Aetheric Energy after a period of time. This stat is affected by Efficiency and is usually measured in performance per hour.｣

Draco's face blanched. He thought those were the fixed stats of the Aetheric Conversion Orb, but the stats were variable depending on the user?

This scared him, because Hikari was quite literally the most skillful user of Worldly Energy left in the realm. If even she was only 34% efficient, then how much better could he possibly do?

Draco sucked in a deep breath and willed the conversion process to start. Immediately, he felt his consciousness spread out and leave the Aether Hall as a whole.

It was a crazy thing to become an almost intangible existence that floated in the air, gazing down upon the realm. Draco's pseudo-awareness spread out over the land and covered it all.

He saw many walks of life, many trees, many rivers, and many humanoids. He couldn't directly feel everything, but he could get a vague impression of it all.

All of this was through the medium that was Worldly Energy.

As his mind continued to stretch, Draco's body began to sweat. This was simply because he was still a human, and there was a limit to how much his awareness could expand.

The farther he went, the more pain he experienced. Draco knew that his pseudo-awareness hadn't even left the boundaries of the Vita Capital City, which was extremely depressing.

Of course, he was aware that Vita Capital City was prohibitively huge, almost the size of the former state of Texas. To even cover as much as he had so far was impressive.

But who was Draco?

He was someone who believed himself to be the protagonist of the world. After all, anyone hearing his story would definitely agree that his existence sounded like the protagonist of a novel.

Draco wasn't the kind of hypocrite to pretend that he was average when he was exemplary. He fully embraced his status as the greatest and everything he did should reflect that.

For God's sake, he should have died, but instead received a second chance by going back in time with all his memories intact. If that did not scream 'protagonist' nothing ever would.

If he was going to try and convert Aetheric Energy, then he would have to do the absolute best that was possible.

Draco gritted his teeth and immediately used Control to the fullest on his pseudo-awareness when he felt himself reaching his limits. His weakened awareness immediately regained vigor and began to expand at three times the speed it had before.

Before, he had barely covered 30% of the entire Vita Capital City, but he quickly reached more than 70% with his Control active.

Draco only did so as a last resort. He was surprised to learn that the Void of Perfection greatly assisted in the expansion of his awareness.

But then again… what exactly was the Void of Perfection? Wasn't it the rumored Domain-skill in Martial Arts Legends?

What was a domain-skill? Wasn't it the usage of one's brain and aura to expand their awareness outside of their bodies to perceive the world around them intimately?

As such, the function of the Aether Conversion Orb in gathering ambient Worldly Energy was perfectly compatible with the Void of Perfection.

Draco even started to hypothesize that if normal players could learn the Aether Production passive skill or find another way to use the orb, they could easily master the Void of Perfection in a few days.

Why?

Because this function was just a macro-version of the Void of Perfection!

Anyone who was stuck and unable to understand how to use the Void of Perfection would benefit from instant enlightenment when using this function. It would be perfect for grooming Control masters!

Even in the previous timeline where almost every single human had entered Boundless, an environment that allowed one to acc.u.mulate crazy physical and mental power, only 10,000 humans out of around 7 billion had managed to grasp Control.

Yet, Draco knew this item could mass-produce masters in the Void of Perfection like they were in a factory assembly line. Body of Godliness was a whole different ballgame, but it would be possible to grasp eventually.

Even though he was thrilled, he quickly cooled down when he realized it would be impossible to train an army of domain-skill users due to the limitations of the Aether Conversion Orb.

Even if Draco tried to mass-produce Dragon's Blessing potions, it was hopeless. First of all, the Dragon Soul didn't have an infinite amount of Source Origin energy to share.

Draco also wasn't going to share his precious Black Dragon Source Origin with anyone except his closest loved ones.

So, unless he could find a horde of Draconic Energy somewhere, he was stumped.

Even more was the fact that his rebuilt brain, which had maximized his mental stamina - as well as boost his Control by one rank - was reaching its limit around 90% of the Vita Capital City's land.

Draco's natural Control would never be able to go that far, but thanks to the effect of the Aether Production Orb, he was able to merge the two and achieve this spectacular result.

Draco's eyes became bloodshot and his breathing became rough when he clawed his way to the 95th percent of the territory's range.

His body began to shake and tremble when he got to the 96th percent of the territory's range.

Draco fell to his knees and blood began to leak from the corner of his lips as he reached the 97th percent of the territory's range.

His seven orifices of the two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, and the mouth began to leak blood in copious amounts when he reached the 98th percent of the territory's range.

Draco could only struggle to keep himself from blacking out once he made the final push to the 99th percent of the territory's range. He could practically feel the border of Vita Capital City starting to appear in the distance outside his reach, taunting him.

As for going beyond, Draco knew it was impossible.

While he wished to overcome all obstacles and reach the pinnacle, he understood that everyone had limits, and breaking through them required acc.u.mulation.

Even a protagonist had to endure a long journey before reaching the pinnacle.

Sometimes, breaking through a limit or a barrier would make one stronger and better afterward. Most of the time, however, doing so would just deal irreparable harm.

The difference was acc.u.mulation and foundation. In terms of his mind, Draco's acc.u.mulations and foundations were great. However, the current act he was performing was too far above his current level for him to walk further.

As such, Draco let go.

In that same instant, all the Worldly Energy that had been within the range of his expansion rushed into the Aether Hall with a fury. It was like a slingshot that had been pulled back to the max.

When the tautness reached the max, one would have to let go. Once one did, the rubber of the slingshot would rush back into position at a terribly fast speed.

Another example would be the waves of the ocean. When a wave reached the beach, it would immediately recede into the sea while the fresh incoming wave came from above.

Draco could only scream as he felt all that Worldly Energy converge into the Anomaly realm, heading right into the Aether Conversion Orb.

The reason he cried out was simple, all that Worldly Energy was still tied to his awareness.

What would it feel like to have someone drop a bathtub on you from three stories up?

Draco would now be able to give a world-shattering lecture on the matter that could win him a Noble Prize.

There was a limit to how much one could take. Just like when he had foolishly tried to use Aetheric Energy to imbue all the player set equipment, he was trapped in a process he could not terminate.

Draco died immediately and came back to life on the spot. The moment he came back to life, he died again before anyone could help him.

Hikari was shocked and terrified by the ordeal Draco was going through, so she tried to heal him. However, the problem was that Draco was experiencing damage so high it killed him in one shot, not over time.

Her healing did little to help in this situation, but Hikari refused to stop. Her body trembled as her tail, wings, and claws began to emerge.

She put every single bit of her energy into trying to heal Draco to no avail. After all, her White Light Healing only restored HP and removed the pain. It couldn't heal over time or save him when the damage was higher than his max HP.

As such, Draco began an even worse process of death and revival compared to before. He would spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die every second.

This sounded banal on paper, but it was a terribly different thing in reality. Boundless allowed one to experience 100% of all their senses, including touch.

This naturally meant that one experienced 100% pain and 100% pleasure.

So, Draco was feeling the pain of having his brain ruptured over and over again. Some people might wail and sob when they were pricked by a needle, much less having their brain turned to mush endlessly for over 10 minutes.

Hikari was sobbing as she grabbed onto Draco, whose eyes were blank and dazed from the horrific ordeal. No matter what kind of hell Draco had faced in his past life during his rise to the top, nothing ever reached this level.

Everyone always dreamed of immortality and what it would be like to never die. But the thing everyone forgot was that immortality and invincibility were two different things.

Immortality prevented one from dying permanently, but one could experience pain or even a temporary death. Invincibility meant that one had a typical life span, but they couldn't be harmed by anything.

Players had Pseudo-Immortality. They couldn't die permanently unless very special or hard to acquire means were used and every other death was tinged with a penalty.

So, while it sounded great, it was almost the same as having one life. At this stage, the playerbase didn't mind, but at the higher Ranks, players would guard their lives even stricter than NPCs.

Death was a release in some ways, so people who had lived long enough weren't so averse to it. To players, death was a punishment that they would reap when they revived.

The Seal of Camelot was a Legendary item with Divine benefits. Not only was Draco's sword damage increased by ten times, but he could also revive infinitely and without penalty!

No experience loss, no item loss, no stats suppression, no automatic durability loss of equipped items (different from durability loss due to wearing or battle) and no time loss (only in safe zones).

Every player would absolutely and without hesitation launch a war with Umbra as well as drop everything else in order to acquire this. Even if Draco couldn't be made to lose anything when he died, they could pressure him until he gave it up.

Whether he was the best player or not was inconsequential.

This boon had excited Draco greatly in the beginning, because the majority of the personal stakes concerning his rise to power had suddenly all been negated. There was less tension in his activities because now, on the off chance he died, he wouldn't even feel it.

But with every benefit came a detriment. The world was balanced after all.

If Draco could revive without penalty, he would have to continue whatever he was doing when he died as he came back to life. The time penalty would normally prevent this, but here it was gone.

So, it was like he disappeared and reappeared instantly, but no.

He felt the excruciating pain of death and came back to life.

When most players died - as has been explained before - the Virtua Helmets would dull the feeling of fear and shock in the brain by using signals to manipulate the chemicals in there.

As such, players quickly got over death or pain and were able to continue fighting or crafting as if it meant nothing to them.

However, it was too hard to do so for Draco when he died so rapidly over 10 minutes of time. The state his brain was in currently wasn't something simple at all.

Hikari grabbed Draco and pulled him away from the Aether Conversion Orb. She cradled his head in her chest as she lay him down on her lap.

Tears continually fell from her eyes as she lamented her inability to help her mate.