A hundred years ago, Huosi had begun thinking about what he should do in the future.
In his previous life, he had also learned about what other transmigrators did.
Generally speaking, transmigrators like him would go develop in the Divine Planes at this stage, starting as Midgods and slaughtering their way to the top.
They would surge forward all the way, with becoming a Seven-Star Fiend, an Asura, or even a Paragon well within reach.
Then, through their own unique methods, they would ultimately become Controllers.
But Huosi himself couldn't take that path—or rather, he had no way to take it, because he was a god who had refined a Divine Spark.
For one thing, he was only a Lowgod. Although his Battle Armor's enhancement made him no weaker than an average Midgod, that was the extent of it.
Midgods in the Divine Planes weren't exactly cannon fodder, but they were still in constant danger.
Linley had managed to fight his way through, but that didn't mean Huosi could. Linley had a soul-defense Sovereign Artifact, Azure Dragon Essence Blood, and Sovereign's Might. He also had Beirut's abilities, which Beibei carried with him, and even Bluefire following him in the background.
In the Divine Planes, any random bandit group would usually have more than one Midgod in charge.
As for tribes, any tribe with even a little strength would have a Highgod in charge. Midgods could barely claim any status within a tribe, and conflicts between tribes still made the risk of death considerable.
Besides, the tribes' pay and benefits were enough to bring one to tears. The Black Dragon Tribe only "rewarded" its Midgods with wealth once every ten thousand years. At that rate, it would take billions of years to establish oneself in a city.
He was different from Linley. Linley had a Highgod Artifact and a High Godhead; either one could be sold for a fortune.
If Huosi went, he could only work for someone else. He estimated it would take tens of millions of years of earnings just to afford decades of rent in a city.
But if he didn't go to the Divine Planes, there was another problem: the resources in a Material Plane were limited, and so was its energy.
Even though he could absorb divine power from the Elemental Ocean, that method was far too slow.
Over the years, Huosi had put a lot of effort into developing technology. In the end, he had discovered that the Coiling Dragon Universe still obeyed the basic laws of the conservation of mass and energy.
But that raised a problem. Logically, if the natural elements in a Material Plane were fixed, they should be constantly absorbed by cultivators as time went on. Once cultivators broke through to the Saint Realm, some of them would leave for other planes.
The same went for physical materials. Cultivators needed materials to forge weapons, so as time passed and more and more people went to the Divine Planes, the Material Planes should have been stripped bare.
Yet in reality, even after countless yanyuan, the Material Planes were still doing just fine.
It was as if Material Planes could replenish their own natural elements, and their source was naturally the Elemental Ocean—and perhaps even Hongmeng Space.
After making his observations, Huosi concluded that Material Planes could repair themselves, drawing energy from the Elemental Ocean to replenish their natural elements and materials.
The energy in the Elemental Ocean ultimately came from Hongmeng Space. Of course, the rate of this restoration was limited, maintaining a balance with the cultivators.
In a Material Plane, natural elements and materials fluctuated within a certain range.
If all the materials and natural elements were excavated at once, it would take an age to recover. So their use had to be kept at a steady pace, allowing the resources to last.
Although his Interstellar Battle Armor was built on top-tier science on par with that of the Mechanical Civilization Universe, it couldn't upgrade itself out of thin air.
The essence of the Interstellar Battle Armor was that it gradually increased in level by absorbing and converting resources and energy.
Upgrading required vast amounts of resources and energy.
Technological upgrades, in particular, required breakthroughs in many separate branches of technology. Thinking about it that way, relying on the resources of a single Material Plane might mean his strength would never make any major breakthroughs.
Energy, of course, could be drawn from the Elemental Ocean as divine power and converted for use. But Lowgods could only venture a few dozen meters into the Elemental Ocean, and even then, the process was very slow. Even billions of years wouldn't be enough to upgrade his armor.
That left him trapped in a vicious cycle: without going to the Divine Planes, he couldn't gather resources; without gathering resources, he couldn't grow stronger; and without growing stronger, he couldn't go to the Divine Planes.
But then Huosi suddenly remembered a branch of technology: spatial teleportation.
Huosi clearly remembered that at the end of Coiling Dragon, Hongmeng had said that it was impossible to cultivate the laws of time and space in Subordinate Universes. Only certain divine beasts could manifest the laws of time through their Innate Divine Abilities. As for the laws of space, it seemed they only existed in teleportation arrays and spatial rings.
So Huosi planned to devote his remaining resources and efforts primarily to spatial teleportation technology, opening a gateway between Material Planes.
That way, he could use spatial teleportation arrays to harvest resources from one Material Plane after another. The resources on any one plane were limited, but there was no shortage of planes.
It was like the Sovereigns spreading their faith: an astronomical number of followers could pool their strength.
As for whether he would drain Hongmeng Space dry, Huosi thought of how someone in his previous life had raised the possibility that the sun might go out in five billion years and asked what humanity should do.
His response was that they were worrying too much. Huosi even felt that not even the Controller of Hongmeng could drain Hongmeng Space dry.
"What exactly is the principle behind space?"
Huosi casually tore open a spatial rift and couldn't help murmuring to himself.
From the perspective of his previous life, there had also been many theories about spatial teleportation, such as connecting two locations by warping spacetime through wormholes.
Some people thought it involved quantum entanglement, with two particles remaining connected even when separated by vast distances. Some even thought this wasn't something three-dimensional life could understand, but rather a theory involving higher dimensions.
In the Mechanical Civilization Universe's Main Universe, things like teleportation and changing the flow of time existed.
But Huosi knew only a little about all of this.
Although the system had given him a detailed set of materials, they weren't compatible with this universe itself.
He had to find a point of convergence between the two by studying the spatial teleportation arrays of this Magic Universe. Only then might he be able to create teleportation arrays for the Magic Universe.
In the Coiling Dragon Universe, spatial teleportation arrays were real, and it was possible to cultivate the laws of space in the Main Universe.
Guided by these ideas, and by what he had seen at the teleportation array, Huosi began experimenting over and over.
But it all remained frustratingly vague. He felt as though he understood it, yet at the same time he didn't, and in the end, every attempt failed.
This left Huosi feeling defeated, unsure what to do next.
Twenty years later, as the Laws descended, Adkins finally broke through and became a Lowgod with the light attribute.
On that day, Huosi sensed the fluctuations of someone becoming a god and temporarily stopped his research to attend a banquet.
Whatever else, Adkins had followed him for so long and rendered him great service. He still had to show him some respect.
"My lord, you look exhausted. Have you hit a bottleneck in your research?"
At the banquet, Adkins held a glass of red wine and asked Huosi, whose face looked weary. The joy of becoming a god faded somewhat.
He wasn't unhappy about it. He was mostly worried.
He had followed Lord Huosi for so long that he understood him to some extent. He knew his lord wouldn't deliberately embarrass him.
So the only reason Lord Huosi looked like that at his godhood banquet was that his research had run into a serious problem.
The problem was so bad that Lord Huosi didn't even realize how frighteningly grim he looked.
"More or less. But don't worry. Just focus on your own work."
Hearing Adkins's words, Huosi rubbed his temples and replied.
He didn't tell Adkins the details. Whatever else, it was Adkins's banquet to celebrate becoming a god, and it was better not to talk about work.
Besides, the problem was too complicated. Huosi didn't think Adkins could solve it easily.
So, although he felt anxious, he didn't want to put too much pressure on Adkins and said nothing more.
Besides, though Huosi was agitated, he hadn't reached the end of his rope.
If he was pushed too far, he could just wait—wait until Adkins broke through to Highgod, then have him take Huosi to Hell. At least he would be safe there.
Adkins wasn't some invincible powerhouse who could dominate all of Hell, but he could at least avoid being bullied by bandits and weaker tribes.
However, if he had to wait for Adkins to become a Highgod, it would probably take billions of years. Huosi still wanted to find a way to speed things up.
"My lord, whatever the case, if you need anything from me, just ask. Having one more person to help might give you a new idea."
Adkins didn't insist. Instead, he raised his glass in a toast.
"Don't worry, I know... Wait, what did you just say?"
Huosi suddenly froze, then seemed to catch hold of something.
Just then, one of Adkins's words had sparked a flash of inspiration in him, hitting him like a clap of thunder.
"Huh? I—I said, my lord, if you need anything from me—"
"Not that. The part after!"
Huosi immediately interrupted Adkins and pressed him for an answer.
"I said, having one more person..."
"Exactly! That's it! Thank you, Adkins!"
Huosi instantly realized what had caused his bottleneck. He patted Adkins hard on the shoulder, turned, and rushed straight to the laboratory.
"W-what did I say? Did my lord have some kind of breakthrough?"
Adkins looked completely baffled. He didn't think he'd said anything special. How had things suddenly turned out like this?
He could only shake his head. His lord having a breakthrough was a good thing. There was no point in worrying about what he didn't understand.
"It was wrong. It wasn't a single array!"
As he worked, Huosi cursed himself for being so foolish.
The spatial teleportation arrays created by the Overgods couldn't operate on their own. They needed to work in pairs to activate.
For example, the array in a Material Plane and the array in a Divine Plane had to be activated at the same time, one to receive and the other to send, for teleportation to work.
But the one he had observed in the Extreme Northern Ice Plains was only the Material Plane's half. He had only understood half of the system.
Even a battery needed both a positive and negative terminal to generate an electric current through an electrolyte. How could a spatial teleportation array with only a positive terminal possibly work?
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