Soul Golden Beads!
Sean's eyes lit up. His two bodies merged into one, and he looked at the two golden beads in his hand. Deep in his soul, some instinct seemed to urge him to absorb them.
However, Sean held back. He couldn't materialize many of these things at the moment, and might urgently need them in a future battle.
Under normal circumstances, if he had enough Soul Golden Beads, he could absorb them to strengthen his soul. But that was a rich man's approach. When there weren't enough, it was best to save them for quickly restoring his soul when it was weakened.
He put the two Soul Golden Beads into his Spatial Ring, then once again focused his consciousness on the Coiling Dragon book deep within his soul. Sure enough, after reaching the Lowgod level, he could read the chapters about Linley as a Lowgod, up to Book Fourteen, Chapter Sixteen, in which Linley entered the Midgod realm.
Compared with the treasures he'd obtained on the Yulan Material Plane, Linley found far more after entering Hell. In particular, in Book Fourteen, Chapter Ten, Linley and the others entered Fiend Castle. Anything they saw there could be materialized, as long as it appeared in the original book.
There were High Godheads and Highgod Artifacts aplenty, but Sean only skimmed through them. He materialized some Inkstone, a Highgod Defensive Artifact, ten Amethysts Linley had bought, and a Soul Golden Bead.
He didn't materialize anything else. None of it was useful to him right now. He could wait until he needed it.
However, Lowgod Sparks were quite significant to him.
Sean shifted his thoughts and immediately turned back to an earlier chapter, Book Eleven, Chapter Thirty-Seven: Godheads.
These were the three Lowgod Sparks Linley had obtained in the Necropolis of the Gods while he was still Saint-level. They had Destruction, Wind, and Earth attributes. Sean could have materialized them when he was still Saint-level, but he wouldn't have been able to use them.
Now, though, things were different. He was already a Lowgod.
As the three Godheads appeared in the space before him, a gray film deep in Sean's soul suddenly released a strange impulse that affected both his soul and body. It was like a starving man who hadn't eaten for three days suddenly seeing a bowl of chicken and rice in front of him.
Eat them. It seemed to be an instinctive call.
Sean didn't hesitate. He knew that God-Eater Rats strengthened their bodies by devouring Godheads, eventually reaching the level of a Sovereign Artifact. Of course, that was only possible for Highgods.
But even as a Lowgod, devouring Lowgod Sparks could strengthen his body, and by a considerable amount. After all, even Lowgod Sparks were condensed from the laws of the universe, and their hardness far surpassed that of Highgod Artifacts.
There was no denying that God-Eater Rats had an absurdly powerful talent. A body as tough as a Sovereign Artifact, soul attacks on a level comparable to a Paragon, and a Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifact for defense—if he also fused three or four Mysteries, then aside from Paragons, he'd be invincible.
Sean picked a Wind-attribute Lowgod Spark at random and swallowed it. At once, he felt a mysterious power inside him envelop the Godhead. This power slowly began to erode its surface.
The process was incredibly slow. Sean estimated that digesting this first Godhead would take about a month.
He wasn't in a hurry. He needed to continue cultivating in seclusion after reaching godhood anyway. First, he had to get used to the power of a god and, ideally, develop a signature move of his own.
Second, his two Mysteries hadn't fused very much. There was no helping it: his understanding of the Shadow Clone Profound Mystery came from the God-Eater Rat bloodline, and he couldn't control it. Fusing Mysteries was already difficult, and even the simplest Darkness Element Profound Mystery couldn't be mastered in just a few years.
But he had mastered the Shadow Clone Profound Mystery in this dimensional space in only a few years.
Now that he'd become a god, he could keep working on fusing Mysteries and master the Darkness Element Profound Mystery. In theory, that would let him advance straight to Midgod.
Third, devouring Godheads could harden his body, strengthening his physical defense and attack power. That would be his most reliable means of survival in the future.
After swallowing the Godhead, Sean once again focused on the Coiling Dragon book deep within his soul. He started from Book Ten and read onward, finding dozens of Lowgod Sparks scattered throughout the chapters before Linley became a Midgod. He materialized them all.
As for the Midgod and higher Godheads, Sean left them in the book. He also materialized many Spatial Rings belonging to powerful gods who had died. They might contain all sorts of good things.
There weren't many treasures in the Coiling Dragon World, after all. Once he had found just about everything, Sean ended his connection with the Coiling Dragon book and turned his attention to the Coiling Dragon Ring in his hand.
Now that he'd reached the Lowgod level, he could formally bind this Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifact to himself. Even damaged, it would be immensely valuable in the future.
And even now, he needed to rely on this Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifact to refine Soul Golden Beads or Amethysts. Without it, he wouldn't be able to use either treasure, even if he had them right in front of him.
Divine power was useless against Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifacts; Linley had tried it in the original story. Sean directly sent his divine sense into the Coiling Dragon Ring.
Suddenly.
An overwhelmingly powerful soul aura touched Sean's divine sense. It was so mighty that, before it, Sean felt like an ordinary man standing before an exalted Saint-level magical beast.
"Lucky little fellow." A deep, resonant voice rang out in Sean's mind. "This was a ring I cherished during my life. It's a Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifact.
"But it's damaged now. It failed to protect me, and was naturally damaged in the process. The only way to repair it is to slowly nurture it with spiritual power until it gradually recovers...
"As for how long that will take, I can't say. I've always wanted to know who would end up with this ring of mine, but sadly, I'll never have the chance. Never again..."
While Sean was still stunned, the power vanished.
"What the hell? The Azure Dragon Sovereign's final message from before his death was materialized along with it?" Sean was taken aback.
When he'd first obtained the Materialization Ability, he'd learned that living beings couldn't be materialized. That was why Doehring Cowart inside the Coiling Dragon Ring hadn't been materialized.
"Could it be because this was just a message the Azure Dragon Sovereign left before his death? He used a special method to place it inside the Soul-Protecting Sovereign Artifact while he was dying, so it doesn't count as a living being? Doehring, on the other hand, has no body, but he's still conscious, so he counts as alive?" Sean thought it over and decided it made some sense. He didn't dwell on it any further.
He began checking the pile of Spatial Rings he'd just materialized. Some belonged to powerful figures from Hell, and Sean found quite a bit of Inkstone, Godheads, and Soul Golden Beads, along with several things he didn't recognize.
Higher Planes, Hell, within Youlan Prefecture on Blood Peak Continent, in the Tianji Mountain Range:
This was the headquarters of the strongest clan in the Higher Planes, the Four Divine Beasts Clan. It was also where the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns had been born at the dawn of the universe. Thus, even though the four Sovereigns were each associated with one of the four elemental laws—Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind—the heart of the Four Divine Beasts Clan remained in Hell.
Only the finest experts of the Four Divine Beasts Clan were permitted to live in the Tianji Mountain Range.
At the heart of the Tianji Mountain Range lay a lake thousands of miles across. In its center stood a palace complex covering more than ten miles. Inside, a man in green robes suddenly opened his eyes, a trace of surprise seeming to flicker in them.
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