Reality proved the saying true: "Chaos is often the ladder of progress."
As luck would have it, the day after Li Yun saw off his two guests, he received a curious piece of news.
The second and third people to truly reach the Fourth Tier had both emerged in the real world on the same day.
One was a bearer of Perfect Blood from England. After prolonged erosion and assimilation by [White Dragon Ether], they had supplemented their transformation with enhancement resources exchanged from other Autonomous Gods.
Only in a laboratory, with massive doses of sedatives and even an extracorporeal circulation system, had they finally risked breaking through their former state. They crossed some subtle threshold and reached the Fourth Tier.
Li Yun watched the figure on the screen. The moment their energy circulation broke through, it nearly ran wild. Scaly patterns surged up beneath their skin, and their whole body visibly began to turn white. Their energy system clearly had yet to stabilize.
The air chilled with every breath. Frost formed on the outer walls of some tubes in the extracorporeal circulation system, while the blood inside was rapidly drawn back into their body.
Li Yun shook his head.
Assimilation by elements originating from the Sixth Tier [White Dragon Core] was not necessarily the wrong path. Objectively, though, this was little different from advancing as a member of a "lesser species." Fourth Tier or not, the title felt somewhat undeserved.
Perfecting the body, developing a special energy system, and establishing the beginnings of an energy cycle were steps nearly every enhancement path had to take through its first three tiers.
On reaching the Fourth Tier, those faint supernatural "traits" that had begun to sprout ceased to be mere outward signs. They gradually became inscribed into flesh and spirit, turning