Inside a newly opened cave, Declan beamed. "When I was carrying you to safety earlier, I sensed a relatively weak presence nearby. I didn't expect it to be a fat sheep! This Ice Snow Lion must have only just been thrown in."
Barn gazed at the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon before him. Its fierce face was lit with simple, honest delight. For the two of them in the Gobada Plane, today's haul had been exceptionally bountiful.
As a magical beast advanced, both its size and the energy within it gradually increased. Even the flesh of an eighth-level magical beast, after breaking through to Sanctuary, would be enough to feed one person and one dragon for three years. What was more, they had found a space pendant in the Ice Snow Lion's stomach, containing the corpses of thousands of humans!
"He killed so many people and only got sent to Gobada? By comparison, we only killed a Pope of Light. Isn't it perfectly normal for people to die during sparring between Sanctuary experts?" Declan said indignantly as he looked at the human corpses in the space pendant.
Barn knew the reason, of course. The Plane Overseer was none other than Hodan, who had appeared in the original story—the man who was hostile to the Four Divine Beasts Clan. Clearly, he feared Beirut's deterrence and didn't dare kill Barn outright, so he'd made up an excuse to throw him into Gobada.
Declan stared at the corpses in the space pendant, drooling. But remembering that Barn was human too, he said, "I'll go next door. You can have this Ice Snow Lion."
Watching the Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon walk off in a little bouncing trot, Barn gave a wry smile.
Back then, Declan had been a proud Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon and a genius of his clan, having comprehended the Laws of Darkness while still at level nine. After meeting Barn, who was still a level-nine human at the time, the man and dragon had fought for years, spurring each other on and making rapid progress in their comprehension of the Laws.
After they both broke through to Sanctuary, they had recognized each other's worth and signed an Equal Contract.
But the world of Gobada was simply too cruel. Decades of hunger had made the proud Spine-backed Iron-armored Dragon wear his emotions openly, and had forced the once-arrogant genius Tiger-pattern Warrior to struggle for food.
Barn casually ate a piece of raw meat, then put the Ice Snow Lion's corpse into his spatial ring.
With the immediate crisis dealt with, it was time to consider what to do next.
In truth, the two of them weren't at the very bottom of Gobada's pecking order. Barn's overall strength was definitely at the Sanctuary Limit level, while Declan excelled at burrowing, concealment, tracking, and scouting. Combined with his racial talents, he was only a step below the Sanctuary Limit.
And there were even some Sanctuary experts in Gobada who had only just grasped the basics of the Laws.
The elemental concentration in the Gobada Plane was extremely thin, making it a hundred times harder to comprehend the Laws than in a material plane. Sanctuary experts had to struggle with all their might just to survive, let alone devote energy to cultivation. Only those at Godlevel or above could use Divine Power to free themselves from the need for food and find the leisure to improve their comprehension of the Laws.
As a result, after being exiled to Gobada, most Sanctuary experts spent all their energy struggling to survive. Unless they experienced an obvious epiphany, they wouldn't waste their precious mental energy on comprehending the Laws.
It was perfectly normal to make no progress for hundreds or even thousands of years.
As for the Sanctuary experts in the original story who escaped Gobada and seemed so powerful, that was because the weak point in space was itself subject to a powerful binding force. Even after the sealing array was destroyed, only those with the strength of a Sanctuary Limit expert could escape. Those who made it out were either at the Sanctuary Limit or Godlevel.
But Barn wouldn't settle for that. He needed to break through to Godlevel. Only then would he be able to travel freely throughout Gobada and have a chance of finding the "door of escape" that would appear in the future.
Barn began testing his talents.
The Fate talent had belonged to the former Barn. After his remaining soul had been completely fused with the soul of the current Barn, he had indeed gained the Fate talent as well. But it ultimately wasn't his own innate talent. As a soul that had crossed over from another world, Barn ought to have a talent of his own.
A golden leaf appeared in his hand. It was a leaf from the Tree of Life, an item the former Barn had collected in the Yulan Empire to test for talent in Life Magic.
A drop of blood fell onto the leaf. Nothing happened—he had no talent for Life Magic.
Next came a crystal ball wreathed in gray smoke. With talent for Necromantic Magic, the purity of one's soul was only an outward sign; an especially crafted tool was needed to test one's actual aptitude.
He placed a hand on the crystal ball. It remained dim—he had no talent for Necromantic Magic.
Nervously, Barn took out a transparent crystal ball. This was the tool used to test for talent in the seven elemental schools of magic.
After taking several deep breaths, Barn placed his hand on the crystal ball. A dazzling blue light filled the cave—Water Element affinity, extraordinary!
Barn put the tools away one by one. "Phew. Good thing. I thought I was a talentless nobody!"
Next, he would develop his Water Element talent. Thanks to the former Barn, who had already gathered every magic cultivation manual he could find, he now had a complete set of Water Element magic books ready at hand. And now he also had the Magic Crystal Core he'd just obtained from the Ice Snow Lion, which was more than enough to cultivate his Water Element magic to a considerable level.
Holding the Ice Snow Lion's Magic Crystal Core, Barn entered a meditative state. Icy-blue Water Element mana surged out of the core and gathered in Barn's chest. (In the original story, battle qi and mana are both stored in the dantian, which feels a bit contradictory. I'll change it so that mages store their mana in their chests.)
In fact, Barn's mental energy was quite strong. Before entering the Gobada Plane, he had already been an eighth-level mage. After over a hundred years of tempering, combined with the changes brought by the soul that had crossed over, he had long since reached the level of a ninth-level mage.
With the support of his powerful mental energy, Barn needed only a year to completely refine the Ice Snow Lion's Magic Crystal Core. Despite the considerable energy lost in the process, his Water Element mana still reached the level of a Level 9 Great Mage.
But he didn't stop there. He continued meditating for long hours every day, eating some of the Ice Snow Lion's flesh whenever he grew hungry. The flesh of a Water Element magical beast contained vast amounts of Water Element mana too. Barn continually digested it, then used his powerful mental energy to absorb it into his heart.
Before long, his heart was filled with mana, and the liquid mana had been compressed to its limit.
Four years later.
Barn opened his eyes. A tremendous change was taking place deep within his soul. In his mind, the sea of mental energy roared, and the seven-colored soul crystal trembled.
"I'm finally about to break through to Holy Magus." Barn was filled with delight.
"Rumble—" His mental energy continued to transform, and the area covered by its sea began to shrink. Yet the mental energy itself was growing stronger. Most importantly, the soul crystal's shape had begun to change slowly.
Its quantity had shrunk to about one-tenth of what it had been. But the mental energy had become far more refined and much easier to control.
Cultivation was also a process of elevating one's level of life, and the soul was the very foundation of life! As one's level of life rose, the soul itself naturally continued to transform. The Holy Magus realm cultivated mental energy; upon reaching it, one's soul would transform to a whole new level.
The transformation was slow.
While he waited, Barn began studying the various Water Element spells in his magic books. A month later—
"I did it!" Barn examined his soul closely. Above the sea of mental energy in his mind, now dozens of times more refined, floated a spear radiating seven-colored light.
"My soul has taken the shape of a spear?" Barn was astonished. "Could I have a talent for Destruction?"
Having read the original story, Barn knew what this meant. A talent for Destruction couldn't be tested with external tools, but it could be identified by the shape of one's soul. He wasn't sure whether the talent had belonged to the former Barn or had come from his own soul.
But having a talent didn't guarantee he could comprehend the Laws of Destruction. That would depend on fate.
What puzzled Barn was the gray aura floating around his soul.
"What is this?" Barn had never read of any such detail in the original story. He tried touching the gray aura with his mental energy, only to discover in alarm that his mental energy had strangely merged into it, making the gray aura grow slightly larger.
There had been no warning and he hadn't felt anything at all. It was as if his mental energy had always belonged to that gray mist.
"Gray? What powers in the original story are gray?" Barn racked his brains. "Death Divine Power? That doesn't look anything like it. Some kind of talent? The White Tiger Bloodline doesn't have a talent like this. Or is it an Overgod Token? But this mist has no physical form."
Suddenly, he thought of one possibility—Primordial Chaos Qi!
Before you continue