While it was common knowledge that Dragons gain strength by consuming minerals and especially rich ones, the Devourers obtain their strength by consuming natural treasures in the universe!

Those natural treasures could be found either in auctions, ancient ruins, deserted planets, separated dimensions, peculiar areas, and more places in the universe!

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Most explorers from all races actually aim for those natural treasures since they required thousands of years to billions of years to be created.

Only in unexplored and untouched areas would those treasures be found.

That's why the Devourers were known for not remaining in one place or in populated galaxies.

They were always roaming as an entire race, seeking new deserted Galaxies to turn it into their temporary home until they sap it from most of its natural treasures.

The way they consume those natural treasures was by simply eating the ones which they had elemental affinity as them.

For example, if a fire-based newborn Devourer had eaten a water-based natural treasure, he wouldn't be able to devour the elemental energy of that treasure and digest it to increase his own physical strength.

But the moment he devoured one that belonged to his affinity, his strength would be increased by 300 BF!

This increase was from the worst natural treasure for a newborn Devourer. If newborns consumed higher quality ones, the enhancement could reach up to 1k BF!

Thankfully, the universe was balanced in the way it does things.

Hence, there were multiple limitations that were stopping this race from dominating everyone by simply devouring natural treasures infinitely.

Lady Sphinx referred to it as The Mark!

She mentioned that the mark was the decider of how much strength the devourer could digest from all of the natural treasure he ate in his lifetime.

This implied that the mark wasn't fixed for every Devourer but each one had his own mark that would define his destiny since birth.

The way to find the mark was actually quite simple. Just feed the newborn Devourer natural treasures until his body couldn't take it.

When he reached that limit, the digestion would begin, forcing the newborn to enter a deep slumber until he wakes up with a new empowered body.

Next, they calculate his strength gained from all of that and 'Mark it' as his limited increase per stage.

For example, if he had gotten a 1000 BF increase, this implied that his mark was going to be always 1000 BF per stage.

Since the Devourer Race Cultivation System was known for having only 30 stages, this signified that the Devourer would utmost gain 30k BF increase throughout his entire lifespan.

The moment he reaches the 30th stage, his cultivation would come to an end and he could never gain elemental energy from natural treasures.

On the other hand, if a gifted newborn was born with a mark, reaching up to 8000 BF per stage, this meant that this devourer would emerge as a frightening behemoth being with a strength capped at 240K BF!

Though, the journey to reaching it wouldn't be that easy since the moment the Devourer reaches the 1st stage, the elemental energy required to provide the same amount of strength would double!

This implied that if the Devourer required only 5 billion SC worth of natural treasures to reach the next stage, he would be forced to fork out double that amount in that stage!

Then, in the 3rd stage, the amount would double again and it would be going like this until the last 30th stage!

Basic maths would lead that for that Devourer to reach his peak cultivation, he would need at a minimum a 5 quintillion SC worth of natural treasures!

And this was if he even could find this many of them and buy them. In reality, they were called treasures for a reason.

The cheapest natural treasure currently in the market was worth 100 million SC.

They weren't like cabbages on the sidewalk. Hence, the difficulty would increase by tenfold.

However, if he managed to pull it off, he would be deserving of that kind of strength!

Unfortunately for Felix, this calculation was based on Devourers.

Since he wasn't purebred, Lady Sphinx explicitly stated that he would be absorbing only 50% of each natural treasure while the other 50% would end up as waste!

Thus, the reason why she told him that his capital was peanut if he was going to utilize this system.

Upon being reminded of the amounts he would be spending, a sudden chest tightness assaulted Felix out of nowhere, breaking him out of his memory line.

Immediately after, an unbearable hunger wave flooded him like a tide, making him bellow loudly in his mind, 'I can't take it anymore!! I need to eat!!'

'Yes! Scream louder! Louder!' Asna laughed sadistically while shoving popcorn in her mouth.

'It's only for few days.' The Jörmungandr cheered him on, 'Pull through this and a new dawn would open up to you.'

Upon being reminded that he would be in this situation for two more days, Felix's heartbeats ended up accelerating instead of declining as Jörmungandr expected!

'Good job.' Lady Sphinx gave him an annoyed look and encouraged Felix by saying, 'I have been told by my source that your Devourer's heart has a good mark due to his incredible genetics.'

'I don't know how much exactly, but it would take you quite far in your cultivation.'

When he heard so, Felix's mind focused on it, doing his utmost best to ignore his rumbling stomach.

'It's just three days and I will have a path to gain enough strength to protect myself from those vultures. Even if I got the shittest mark, it is still enough to go above and beyond any human. I just need to pull through this! I just need to pull through this, I just...' Felix's expression hardened as he kept breathing deeply, making himself forcefully drown in his own thoughts.

Upon seeing that he started to get absent-minded, Lady Sphinx and the rest didn't speak lest they break him out of his daze and ruin his effort.

They didn't know such a feeling of hunger since it was almost impossible for them to starve for a single day due to their ability to consume their own elemental energy turning it into food.

But, they knew that what Felix was going through was too hard for most hardcore individuals.

The notion of starving for an entire week yet having not the ability to even express it was too dreadful!

....

A day later...

Felix had yet to break out of his absent-mindedness as he was now reading out loud in his mind an entire book about the theory of potion-making.

Asna and the Jörmungandr had already bailed out by muting him as they couldn't listen to him talking for 24 hours straight.

Meanwhile, Lady Sphinx didn't care as she simply kept reading a book while monitoring his vitals and checking if there were any irregular heartbeat.

This was the reason she didn't put Felix to sleep as she wanted to see how his hearts would work under stressful situations like those.

So far so good.

Another day went by and Felix had already jumped to another book, making sure that his thought process never gets interrupted.

It was the only thing separating him from going mad at the hunger he was feeling.

Before long, the 3rd day arrived and his strategy was finally showing signs of cracking as his thought process was constantly breaking from sudden hunger waves assaulting him like a truck.

The only thing Felix could do was grit his teeth and fight through them by reminding himself that only a few hours were left.

Just survive through those few hours and he would never feel this shit again.

That's the only thing that was keeping him sane for hours and hours until Lady Sphinx stood up from her seat and said the holy words, "I deem that your hearts are perfectly aligned and it's time to test consuming, digesting, and see how far your Mark is going to get you."

Not wanting to torture Felix any further, Lady Sphinx unshackled Felix from the table and beamed four different unique-looking plants in front of him.

One was as thin as a stick and had lightning charges coursing through it while another was a flower with two stems; one green, and the other purple.

The other two were exactly alike as both of them appeared like a dry brown slice of bacon.

The moment they finished materializing, Felix threw himself on them and shove them in his mouth all at once like a deranged animal who didn't eat for months.

His bloodshot eyes and growl as he chewed on them made it obvious that he had already lost all of his reasoning and was simply operating on basic survival instinct.

'Is this the Devourer's heart doing?' Asna wondered, 'I doubt Felix would ever behave this way even if he was that hungry.'