Chines Material Plane, Azure Sea.
Lincoln toyed with the Life Sovereign Spark in his hand, a prize countless Deity-level powerhouses would risk their lives to seize, while pondering how best to use it. Over the past hundred years, he had found time to speak with veteran Sovereigns like Zijing, Blood Peak, and Refining Fire, as well as Chief Sovereigns like Hela and Valeria, about the whereabouts of unclaimed Sovereign Sparks. He had actually managed to learn a few things.
Over countless years, many Sovereigns had fallen. Before he refined the Dark Mid-level Sovereign Spark, everyone knew that four new Sovereigns might still emerge in the world. They said this because three Sovereigns had been killed, and their Sovereign Sparks were either missing or in the possession of powerful beings. There was also one Sovereign who had been missing for countless years. He had not been born in a Material Plane, so he could not enter one. Yet no one had seen him in a Supreme Plane or Divine Plane, either. Surely he had not spent all those years hiding deep in the Spatial Turbulence. He had most likely been killed.
Then Lincoln had appeared out of nowhere, and the Sovereign Spark Augusta had kept was no longer unclaimed.
Of the three remaining Sparks, two were connected: the Life Lesser Sovereign Spark and the Lesser Fate Sovereign Spark.
This had happened countless years ago, just after the first Ten Consecutive Wins in a Plane Battlefield. All the Sovereigns of the Fate System had received a Willpower reward. One Fate Low-Sovereign had been tempted by the thought that he also had a Life Divine Clone. If he refined another Sovereign Spark, he would be on par with an ordinary Intermediate Sovereign. He had once lacked the strength to do it, but after receiving the Willpower reward, he was strong enough to kill an ordinary Life Lesser Sovereign.
The Fate Low-Sovereign was named Zhudingyaosi. The greedy thought sank its claws deep into his mind, overwhelming his fear of being judged by the Sovereign Conference. He could no longer pull himself away from it. After making careful plans, he secretly observed and recorded the habits of Daomei, the Life Sovereign. At last, when Daomei entered the Spatial Turbulence alone, he made his move. Daomei was no match for him and was soon killed. The Sovereign Spark fell into Zhudingyaosi's hands.
Unfortunately, to be safe, Zhudingyaosi had not brought his Life Divine Clone when he hunted Daomei. He had only just put the Sovereign Spark into his interspatial ring when Vivian, the Life Sovereign, discovered him. Furious, she ignored Zhudingyaosi's pleas and killed him outright. Before he died, Zhudingyaosi crushed the interspatial ring, and the Life Sovereign Spark vanished without a trace. As for his Life Divine Clone, Vivian enlisted two Paragons to banish it into a Material Plane, then personally killed it in the Spatial Turbulence.
With eighty percent of a Paragon's Willpower, a single Paragon truly could not kill Zhudingyaosi's Life Divine Clone—and would have had great difficulty banishing him, too.
Several Sovereigns had witnessed the incident. Daomei had entered the Spatial Turbulence because she had arranged to meet them there before they all went to a Material Plane to see an immovable Heaven and Earth Wonder.
After that, the Lesser Fate Sovereign Spark fell into Vivian's hands and remained unclaimed.
The missing Sovereign had been a Thunder Element Low-Sovereign.
Unlike Zijing and the others, who could only guess and make deductions, Lincoln had an absolutely reliable source of information. The Thunder Element Low-Sovereign really was dead.
But there were many powerful beings capable of killing a Low-Sovereign, and it was difficult to determine which of them had a motive. The Sovereign Spark had to be in the hands of some Sovereign—and that Sovereign could not have a Thunder Divine Clone.
Lincoln sighed. Too many Sovereigns lacked a Thunder Divine Clone; narrowing it down that way would be extremely difficult.
"Looks like I can only do what Beirut did and seal the Sovereign Spark away in a Material Plane."
Time passed easily in the mountains, while a thousand years of splendor went by in the world below.
Teluzake had poor talent, with only an aptitude for the Destruction Element. Even with a Sovereign showering him with limitless resources, after several million years he had only reached the level of a Six-Star Fiend. He was an ordinary human, lacking a powerful body, a strong soul, or any unusual talents. He was far from meeting the standards of a Sovereign Envoy.
Moreover, with talent in only the Destruction Element, he had no hope of becoming a Sovereign, even if he had never met Aofen or Lincoln.
Teluzake himself did not know it, but his position as Lincoln's disciple had indeed been bought with a Sovereign Spark. So when Lincoln realized that Teluzake's strength had stopped advancing, he generously opened up his supply of Sovereign's Might to him and used some special materials to help forge more powerful Divine Artifacts.
With those Divine Artifacts and Sovereign's Might, Teluzake had made a name for himself in the Divine Planes. Rumors even claimed he was a Sovereign's child; otherwise, how could he use so much Sovereign's Might?
Life went on peacefully like that. Then one day, after one of her usual "excursions" through the Material Planes, Aier's aura suddenly changed. She couldn't help touching her belly and said joyfully, "Lincoln, I think I can feel a new life growing inside me. You're going to be a father!"
Lincoln was a little flustered, too. After trying for millions of years, they had suddenly conceived a child, and he had no idea what to do.
"Looks like we'll have to stay on this plane until our child becomes a Deity!" Lincoln said, sensing the child's still-faint presence.
The laws of the world required a soul to be fully formed on the plane where it was conceived. Otherwise, they could have conceived the child in a Material Plane and given birth in a Divine Plane, and the child would be born at the Saint-level.
And once a soul had fully formed, changing planes could not strengthen its foundation. If the child turned out to be a mere mortal, being born in a Divine Plane could even prove fatal; unable to adapt to the environment, the child would die young.
Ten months passed quickly, and the child was born, a perfectly ordinary human boy. But Lincoln could sense the power hidden in his bloodline. If it could be awakened, the boy would be able to avoid many detours.
He would have to step up his research into the Ancestral Hall Baptism.
Lincoln didn't dare let his son try an imperfect method of awakening.
"Wah!" Daniel was taking his first wobbly steps when he suddenly lost his balance and fell to the ground, bursting into tears.
Lincoln pointed a finger, and Daniel suddenly floated into the air. After a brief moment of bewilderment, he broke into a happy giggle.
Before Daniel was born, Lincoln had never been so careful with a tiny life. The feeling was completely new to him, but after playing with the boy for a while, a trace of worry appeared in his eyes.
Aier understood at once. "You're worried about his elemental affinity again?"
Lincoln nodded and sighed. "It wouldn't matter if he had no elemental affinity. He could still reach the Saint-level by cultivating battle-qi. What I'm really worried about is that he might have no talent for any of the laws, either."
In the Coiling Dragon World, talent and achievement were closely linked. Even with cultivation and a huge investment of precious resources, a person could become a Saint-level and gain eternal life. But if he truly had no potential at all, he was destined to be unable to become a Deity on his own. At best, he could become a Highgod by refining a Divine Spark—a weak four-star existence, forever unable to advance.
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