Ascension

Alice’s POV:

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After leaving Vertshadow and Lystrion behind we flew towards our little house on Cyder where we a month at the peak of the ninth stage before our ascensions came. We weren’t in a rush so we took it very easy and cultivated only when we were in the mood. When the time finally came, we contacted Ellery and Max and told them that we were going to ascend within the next two days. Since Ellery had a spaceship which was even faster than ours, they came back to Cyder and stayed with us for the remaining two days.

I was a bit surprised to find out that they were at the early sixth stage so soon. Their progression speed seemed to rise by a notch for some reason. After two days the dark black clouds started gathering above our house. Ellery and Max left the area and looked at us from far away. We could have easily taken the tribulation even in our human forms but we changed back into our monster forms to withstand the lightning. Although our human bodies were stronger than normal cultivators’, our monster bodies were even stronger.

You could say that the lightning was a fart in our eyes. We had six hundred golems of strength in our monster forms even at the early ninth stage but since we were at the peak of it, we had even more.

Six hundred golems of strength equalled one crypt. On each stage, we would gain one crypt of strength from the next level on. This meant that we were going to get twice as much strength after a single stage than what we had cultivated all this time, all these years. At the fourth level, we had to convert our space energy into world energy. After conversing twenty percent of your energy into world energy, you would step into the second stage!

This meant that every ten percent of energy conversion meant a stage and one crypt of strength which meant four thousand and five hundred tons. Our lifespan would also raise to two thousand years and we would gain an additional three hundred years at each stage, reaching four thousand and four hundred years at the ninth stage of the fourth level. So in reality, once we ascended our lifespans would rise to twice as much as currently.

The lightning arrived in the blink of an eye but we didn’t even bother to defend against it and let it strike our bodies. Since we were at the peak of the ninth stage if we were to fight Saramir again, we would be able to take on his attacks with just our bodies. Not even a cultivator at the first stage of the World Founding Realm could damage us since we had eighty-five more strength than them and we had yet to break through.

The lightning felt like a full-body massage which would have loosened up my stiff muscles and made me relax if not for the properties of a lightning. I wanted to enjoy it for a bit longer but the clouds soon ran out of fuel. With no more lightning to fire, I had to look after the dissipating dark clouds with a sad face.

I’ll miss you!

[Are you trying to cheat on me with the clouds?]

“Are you jealous?” I asked as some sort of shitty joke as I transformed into my human form. I knew that others would want to kill me if they heard me say something like that since many had to struggle to keep their lives yet here we were bathing in bolts of lightning and enjoying it. But it was their fault that they were weak.

“I hope that we can meet again. You have to work hard if you want to keep up with us and meet with us in the next realm, you hear me?” I asked as I stopped in front of Ellery and Max.

“Yes, yes. Stupid monsters. We are going to work hard and meet with you in the next realm, so wait for us,” Ellery waved her hand as if she was trying to send us away earlier than we wanted.

[You’ll probably meet us only to say goodbye again in the next realm, though. Advancing too quickly can make one lonely. I have you, so it’s alright, but when I imagine a life where not even you’d be there and I’d have to be all alone, I feel rather sad. Although I’m a Dragon God and I like solitude as well, but now that I’ve seen and tasted the joy of being together with others, I don’t think I could live a lonely life again. Well, it would never be lonely as long as you were with me, of course,] I told Hiro through our bond since it just came to me. [Of course, scaring humans would be a good way of entertainment as well,] I added.

[What an evil Dragon!] he laughed at me and tried to ignore my little confession. It was cute how he tried to hide his happiness from me, even though I felt and knew everything through our bond. Some things never change!

[Eh… yeah,] he murmured.

“Would you mind sharing your thoughts with us? I’ve seen your eyes shining again,” Ellery raised her brows, visibly curious of our hidden conversation.

“Hmm- I’d rather not tell you,” I showed her a sly smile.

After a bit of silence, she shook her head and said, “Well whatever. Go already and make sure to prepare a good armour for me. You’ve promised for Pat to give one to her yet you didn’t even think of me.”

“It’s not like you are so poor, Miss Ellery Gold,” I rolled my eyes and then added as Hiro took out two armours, “But we have a present for you guys!”

“One of them was made using my scales while the other one was made using Alice’s scales. Max will get mine while Ellery will get Alice’s. We made these when we reached the peak of the ninth stage so these armours could defend even against attacks of top-notch cultivators in this realm, so it’s unlikely that you’d die,” Hiro explained the details and handed them over. Since our bodies were so big we had to pick off the scales from the tip of our tails where it was small enough compared to our human bodies.

“What? Have you seriously made armours out of your scales? For us? Thank you very much in that case!” Realising that her ‘joke’ turned into reality, she accepted it happily. We gave them treasures, basically.

“Thank you!” Max bowed down in front of us. Looking at their happy expressions, I felt a bit happy inside. The painful truth was that I wasn’t blind and knew that although Ellery liked us, she also tagged along with us because of opportunities and gifts like these. In a way, she was just looking for the benefits, but I had a good time with her anyway, so I didn’t really care. Well, and Max - he was just Max. He was a good person, but I couldn’t say I’ve gotten too close to him either.

Sometimes I wondered if power and talent meant solitude as well. For example, intelligent people would be often lonely because they couldn’t find ‘matching’ people to have a chat with. Or they just had terrible personalities… Once we ascended, we’d keep growing stronger and I wasn’t sure if Ellery and Max would actually meet up with us or not, but seeing their progression lately, I was quite sure that we’d meet for at least a short bit of time.

“Alright, now it’s time for us to start our ‘climbing’ again or maybe we won’t have to struggle so much since domains aren’t going to decrease our powers!” I shouted and beat my chest, excited to have a fight against stronger cultivators.

[Giggle, giggle, bounce, bounce, what’s with your tits? Stop beating your chest,] Hiro laughed in his mind and took hold of my melons.

As if she didn’t even see it, Ellery grunted, “Urgh, how much did your strength raise this time?”

“That’s a secret~” I mused and grabbed Hiro’s wrist. “Dear?”

Clearing his throat, he pulled back his hand, “It was just health check.”

“Like anyone would believe that!”

Ellery shook her head seeing our quarrel, though I didn’t really mind it. “Vile dragon, vile tiger, vile hydra. I think that every divine beast is a vile monster! Yes! This is going to be my new mantra! I’m sure that it’s like this!” she started spouting nonsense out of nowhere.

“We aren’t vile!” You’re greedy, though, I refuted in my mind but kept silent since I didn’t want to separate after hurting her feelings.

“Okay, Now goodbye and I hope that we can meet again. We will be sure to come back if we are powerful enough,” Hiro said in a serious tone this time and shook hands with Max. As I looked at Ellery, she jumped at me and hugged me strongly.

“I’ll miss you, idiot couple,” she sighed.

There was a bit of sadness on their faces, real one this time. Max always laughed good ones while watching our bantering and Ellery had fun ridiculing and teasing us in a playful way.

I didn’t mind it either.

Saying goodbye was a terrible thing to do. Even they weren't particularly close to them, it was rather sad. We stopped hindering our ascension and a thought later, a divine light shone on us and we left the third realm.

Now that I think about it, maybe we should have ascended from Sypno. Who knows where the hell we’re going to appear! I screamed in my mind upon realisation.

Alas, it was too late.

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We appeared somewhere in a desert. There was sand, sand, sand and, oh, wait? Sand!

We flew up into the air only to see more sand, even though we were able to see thousands of kilometers far. Seeing that there was nothing in our surroundings, I murmured, “Ehm, yes, we should have gone to Sypno,” I murmured..”

“Well, my dear wife, it doesn’t matter anymore. At least, we can freely transform and make our new armours right where we are and you can also concoct pills later,” Hiro put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer.

Looking at the infinite sand dunes and feeling the warmth of his body, a smile formed on my face as I replied with an okay. We quickly landed on the ground and Hiro changed back into his monster form. He had six heads, six hearts and six minds now that he broke through to the next level. I, on the other hand, had gained another heart and another mind which made it possible for me to keep up even with Hiro’s processing speed. Every true divine beast had numerous minds, but hydras were definitely at the top in that aspect. Well, and regeneration as well… and they had tough defenses… and strong attack power, the most despicable race for sure.

I’d get another mind and heart at the fifth level since that would be the next big advancement in strength and then another one at the sixth level and the last one at the eighth level. From now on, I could use one of my minds to cultivate and another one to do anything else! The height of our monster bodies were a hundred and eight meters and grew to a length of four hundred and fifty-five meters! We were like two hills and our size would to keep increasing to thrice as more after reaching the fifth stage.

But naturally, that wasn’t a particularly good thing since big bodies moved slowly and were much bigger targets. Once we reached the next level, we’d be able to decrease our size at will which we really needed. Our mind powers could reach twenty million kilometers away which was enough to cover the whole planet.

It had a shocking circumference of 8 379 237 kilometers. Although our senses reached a bit further than your average cultivator, it still wasn’t a big deal at our current levels. Once we reached even higher levels, we’d be able to cover even a whole sector with our mind powers, not just planets.

Due to the amount of strength we had at the peak of the ninth stage, the lightning affected our bodies a bit stronger than expected and our strength raised to two crypts, even though common people had only one after ascending. Of course, this was only in our monster forms since we had only one point six crypts of strength in our human forms and one point seventy-six in our battle forms. This was a huge difference compared to normal cultivators because even geniuses would have one point two crypts of strength after ascension, at most.

Wilhelm was probably somewhere around that level while Pat should have around one point three as a divine beast, maybe one point four. Of course, these were just numbers and the power of our skills also affected battles, but no matter how agile or quick or clever you were if a single strike could break all your defense and crush your body. The pure power backing up your abilities was what mattered the most and we were almost twice as strong as a normal person at the same level. In a battle having twice the strength of someone wasn’t a trifling matter.

Hiro sat on his ass and moved the tip of his tail in front of me. I strongly grabbed it and pulled out a few scales. It was a rather tiring job considering the layout of our scales. There were thick scales stacked upon each other, sticking to our flesh. Those scales were very tough and had no opening. On top of those laid a jelly-layer which was condensed mana and it had the ability to absorb a part of magical attacks and disperse smashing attacks.

This layer was created by rope-like threads that connected the second layer of scales on top of the jelly-layer with the inner scales. I had to cut those rope-like threads, but they were as thick as my finger, even at the tip of his tail and were very durable. The ones that connected the scales on his back were probably as thick as my waist. Although the outer scales had a little space between them which was a ‘weak point’, especially against penetrative attacks, their purpose wasn’t to stop spears and such but to stop slashes and smashes.

The outer scales weren’t as tough as the inner scales, but I didn’t want to tear off those since it’d be painful and I wasn’t even sure if I could do it without actually attacking my husband which was again, something I’d never do unless I was out of my mind. Since we reached the next level, it took about ten minutes for a scale to regrow completely and once I got enough scales to make two armours, Hiro transformed into his human form and took out his workshop which he stored as it was.

“Why are you taking it out?” I raised my brows as I threw the hand-sized scales on the ground.

“To make armours, obviously,” he replied, sure of himself.

“And then what do you need to hammer, to smith?” I smiled at him.

“Our scales- okay, I get it. I only have to glue them together,” he slapped his forehead as he realised and stored it again.

“Yes~”

It’s not like he could melt them so it was obvious that he had to stick them together and I was about to ask ‘how’ when I found the answer in his mind. Before I could say anything, he used nature magic to grow a kind of plant which produced a very sticky substance. I was pretty sure that it was much stronger than the ones the humans used in factories on the Earth. Of course, this glue wouldn’t be enough to restrain cultivators, but it was more than enough to glue our scales to our clothes. We were actually able to make powerful armours out of simple clothes and our own bodies. However weird or strange that may sound, that was the cold hard truth.

Not minding my eyes and presence, he took off his clothes in the middle of the desert and finished the whole process in about forty minutes, stark naked.

“Give me your clothes, Alice!” he raised his hand and held it in front of me while sitting in the sand. If not for being together with him and sharing everything through our bond, I’d have surely felt awkward or even embarrassed to see him naked like that.

But still… “This feels so wrong somehow,” I couldn’t help but comment.

“Don’t cry. Only I’ll see you here and I’m sure that it doesn’t bother you, does it?” he smiled at me.

“I know, but it still feels wrong somehow! Well, I’d show you my body anytime~” I ignored my embarrassment and played along instead and slowly freed myself from my clothing. With my skirt, stockings, T-shirt, and boots in his possession, I was left only in my underwear.

What if somebody comes by or something?

After checking me out, he got to work and said, “I don’t think there’d be anyone here who’d be strong enough to avoid our senses and once we caught their presence, you could just get dressed. Also, you’re a pervert.”

“What? I’m not!”

Raising his head, he poked my ‘weak-spot’ and then got back to work as if nothing happened. I took out another set of clothes, but he grabbed my wrist, “No.”

“You bastard,” I grumbled as I sat down in front of him.

As I continued to look at his hands and what he was doing, I realised there was something wrong with the way he was sewing my T-shirt. I looked into his mind out of curiosity, only to see it in his imagination. He was making an armour for me, indeed, but its front had a deep V cut reaching down to my belly button.

I wore it for his sake but… “Seriously, what do you expect from me? To walk around in an armour like this? It doesn’t even cover my vitals and do you really want others to see my boobs or what?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t want that to happen!” he exclaimed. “But you can wear it right now and please me, hehe~ You’re a real feast to my eyes. Your huge tits are swelling inside your clothes and a small part of them are bulging out, you should see yourself,” he shouted out of excitement as if he was a kid.

I used our bonds to look through his eyes and it was indeed sexy, but it was no good to appear in a community. I ‘pleased’ him for quite a long time with my body and afterwards, he made a normal one for me. It was a vest so it didn’t protect my arms, but I didn’t mind that since it only made it easier for me to move around. The skirt also helped in that. Armours like these would be useless, normally, but seeing how effective the wraith and the ten minotaurs were in Vertshadow, we decided to switch weapons.

Once we found good enough metals, Hiro would make me a bow while he’d start using a spear. I could easily terrorise our opponents by supporting my mate from behind with powerful attacks. I just had to compress me flashy Dragon skills and turned them into arrows. Their power would surely turn even more destructive if I compressed them. I also really wanted to try out what it was like to use a bow and I really didn’t have to worry about being bad at aiming.

We were cultivators at the World Founding Realm! It was only natural that I’d aim better than any ‘champion’ on the Earth and I had no trouble accounting for the wind, trajectory, heat, vapour, and other stuff. I could become one with nature, after all. I could shoot even a speck of dust in the air with closed eyes if I used my mind powers, but even my eyes were sharp enough to shoot it.

We enchanted and inscribed our new armours with the same enchantments and runes as before. There was no need to change them since even restoration would be perfect if some scales were to fall off, though I would rather not see that since it’d mean that one us was hit.

Now the only thing left to do was to repeat this process another ten times because both of us could make five clones each which would mean twelve people. We were also stronger so making clones wasn’t a long and tiresome process anymore. We could make all five of them in at most a second. Just imagine a cultivator fighting against us at the same level, there was no way in hell they could ever beat us. Maybe a cultivator at the third stage could give us a harder time, but even if they had three crypts while we had only one point six, our team-work and skills should be enough to deal with them and protect ourselves.

Since I decided to help him out, the necessary time was reduced by half and we finished in seven hours, considering that we took some rest. After being done with our new armours, we changed back into our monster forms and tore a large stack of scales off of each other and once they regrew, we left the place. I needed them to make my arrows more powerful.

We flew towards the East where we found a city and knowing that there was an information house, we made our way to it. It was so much easier now that we could map the whole are surrounding us with our mind powers. We couldn’t do this in the third realm because our mind powers didn’t return a detailed enough picture of our surroundings. It was enough to sense the strength of others and form a general picture of a city but we had no idea which building what purpose served.

Now it was different since we could sense even the shape of the buildings, be it inside or outside and we were able to do it even from so far away. On the way to the house, I was stared at by quite a lot of men which made me think that maybe this skirt armour wasn’t such a good idea, but it was really easier for me to move around and it pleased my husband as well.

Fuck it! Why would we have to change something because of others? We aren’t going to change anything. I’m going to wear it as I please! I stomped on the ground.

After entering the information house we learned about many things. The fourth realm was different in that there were much fewer sectors compared to the lower realms, but their sizes were as large as starfields and galaxies. In fact, each sector was a starfield or a galaxy. Of course, these weren’t that large since they contained only about one thousand planets each. Although not every planet had humanoid residence since many of them were under the rule of monsters, there were still many planets with habitation.

Beastmen, humans, and elves were also more on the edge and wars and battles occurred usually over the territories with many resources. Of course, these territories and many other important things weren’t included in the information house to hide it from as many rivals as they could. These information houses provided nothing but common sense, after all.

The poor guild sure had a hard time maintaining peace. We didn’t care which race it was since we weren’t related to either of them and we could also change forms easily to fit in. At least, we were lucky enough to ascend to a planet which had inhabitants on it, even if not many because even though there was life on this planet, it was quite scarce and it didn’t have many cities. If we didn’t have the ability to scan a whole planet and arrived at an abandoned planet, we’d have had to travel aimlessly and try to find civilisation.

Unless we wanted to live in peace, together. But with civilisation came resources which we were in need of, so we contacted Pat and Wilhelm at the same time to ask for guidance. Since they arrived months ago, they surely found out which was the best place to stay at.

“Hello, dear friends. How are you doing? We also ascended so would you mind telling us your positions?” I started out.

“How the hell did you ascend so quickly?” Pat shouted back.

“Yeah, how?” Wilhelm also followed up.

“We just took it easy, though,” Hiro decided to show off and joined the conversation.

“Damned divine beasts,” Wilhelm grumbled which turned into a bicker with Pat.

Massaging my temples, I looked at Hiro with grudge since he was the one who caused this mess. “Why did you have to say that?”

“Why? Aren’t they fun to listen to?” he asked aloud.

“Certainly, but we won’t get anywhere like this, let’s stop them and get what we need,” I said as I stopped chatting with him and used my mind power to talk to these idiots again. “Could you please shut up and answer my question?”

“I’m not an idiot unlike this woman and we are both on a planet called Posnoth,” Wilhelm replied.

“Are you two still together?” Hiro asked.

“Yes…” Pat grunted.

“Hmm~ I feel something fishy here,” I laughed.

“Don’t become Cupido, Alice,” Hiro interrupted my thoughts.

Well, true, we should ship only halves and considering how much they argue, I’m sure they aren’t. Unless they enjoy this as much as we do our silent and lovely moments.

[Yes, that’s why I stopped you, but back on track,] Hiro replied to my thoughts.

“We are only attending different schools on the same planet,” Wilhelm clarified their meaning.

“How so? Isn’t this place full of wars and battles?” Hiro asked.

“Posnoth is a planet divided into two camps and schools. We are attending different schools, though we secretly get together sometimes,” Wilhelm said.

“Why are you telling them everything?” Pat grumbled.

“They would come to know about it sooner or later anyway. It’s best if we reveal stuff early on so that they won’t be able to make fun of us later. I’ve learned how to deal with their kind already,” Wilhelm replied as if we weren’t even there to hear it.

Ignoring his rudeness, I asked, “What stage you two are at?”

“The peak of the first stage,” they replied at the same time.

“What perfect sync~” I couldn’t help but muse.

“So what about those two schools?” Hiro got back on track.

“The race is quite intense and even we had a hard time here because only geniuses can attend this school, though I’m better off at this point. There are point systems in both of these schools which you can exchange for pills, weapons, armours, or even cultivation and combat skills. There are also some rare things which you can’t really get your hands on through other means. We can also get things from the higher realms since trespassing between the realms is quite usual here,” Wilhelm gave a detailed explanation, as expected of him.

“That’s interesting,” I remarked. “How do you get these points?”

“If you come here you will learn about it anyway,” Pat replied.

“Aww, how harsh,” I chuckled.

“So are you two actually ‘enemies’ looking at it from the perspective of the schools?” Hiro asked.

“Yes,” they again responded at the same time.

“Send us the coordinates of Posnoth,” I said in a serious tone this time.

“Okay, but join the beastmen,” Pat’s voice turned soft all of a sudden.

“No! Come to the humans!” Wilhelm shouted.

“Pat, you said that you are going to learn how to side with the humans too,” I remarked.

“Eh, erm- I still have time, right? And it’s not like I can’t. I mean, I do meet with Wilhelm from time to time,” Pat replied.

“But only to fight me and beat me,” Wilhelm murmured. If we were facing each other in reality, I’d have had a hard time to hear him for sure.

“To me, it seems like humans need more help right now. A three-star divine beast is among the beastmen so it’s unfair for the humans,” I used this moment to inquire about the Divine Blood and prove our theory about Pat’s choice.

“How do you find out about it? Oh wait, don’t answer. So you finished the dungeon,” as she realised, she didn’t even try to hide it.

“Yes. Wilhelm?” I pressed on.

Sighing, he replied, “So you know. Yes, things had happened. But we can’t talk about it with people who hadn’t been to Vertshadow so I didn’t say anything. I don’t really want to talk about it but let’s say that I was betrayed and after overcoming that burden in my life I was able to gain great benefits. Shortly, alright? I don’t want to talk about it,” he expressed his feelings clearly so I didn’t bug him about it and it was really none of my concern.

“Okay.”

“Hey, hey, enough of the drama, but what about me? How am I supposed to face you two? I bet that you are almost as strong as me even though you’ve come just now, right? Do you want to beat up your benefactor? Your saviour?” Pat tried to make us feel guilty, though it had no effect on us.

“No,” Hiro said.

“Then help me out! I know! One of you should go to the humans and the other one to the beastmen! Then everyone would be happy!” she offered something ridiculous.

“NO FUCKING WAY! We would never separate,” I burst out with a bit more emotion than intended, but I quickly calmed down.

“Eh, okay. It was just a joke. I know that you wouldn’t have the willpower to separate because of your damned bond and your crazy love. Stupid monsters. But I can’t use my ‘favour’ to such a thing either,” she tried to provoke us but would we separate just because of something silly like that? Seeing that we didn’t say anything, she continued, “Whatever. Then just go and help those damned humans’ side,” she grumbled, visibly unhappy with our decision.

“We will~” I mused, taking joy in her ‘suffering’. It wasn’t like we’d go and crush the beastmen. I had no idea what kind of imagination she had about us.

“Oh, by the way, is there some kind of entrance exam?” Hiro asked.

“Of course, but everything is going to be stated when you get here. I don’t know how much strength you have but be careful because the examiners are always second-year cultivators which means that they have converted at least twenty percent of their energies,” Wilhelm warned us kindly. Having a lunatic True Divine Beast couple like us would be something great for any person for sure. I knew we were just convenient ‘tools’ of some sort once again, but they also fed us information, so it was a worthy trade.

“Also, you can’t start attending the school as a student however powerful you are if you are older than four hundred years. It’s going to be examined by the elders who are at the peak of ninth stage,” Wilhelm mentioned another important piece.

“Okay, thanks for the information,” Hiro replied.

“No problem.”

After everyone said their goodbyes, we boarded our spaceship and went towards Posnoth which was quite close to the middle of the sun at the center of the galaxy. It was a huge planet with a circumference of twenty-five million kilometers! It was similar in looks to the Earth in that it had many deserts, snow-covered mountains, jungles, forests, and oceans! This was the first planet which wasn’t full of trees. Of course, the trees had a tremendous size on Posnoth as well, reaching a height of six thousand meters.

Posnoth had three continents and there was also a school for the elves which meant that each continent had a race on it. On this level, the early stage would be when you converted the first three percent of your energy, the middle when six percent and the peak when nine percent.

Your strength would also increase corresponding to the percentage of conversion which meant that eleven to thirteen percent of conversion was the early first stage, fourteen to sixty percent of conversion was the middle of the first stage while seventeen to nineteen percent of conversion was the peak of the first stage.

The second stage was from twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three percent and so on, corresponding with two point one, two point two, two point three crypt of strength and so on. It was a hard thing to convert your Space Energy into World Energy since converting even a single percent of it may take twenty years for normal cultivators.

The geniuses were different in that they had a little bit more strength than the average, meaning that, for example, they wouldn’t have two point one crypt of strength with twenty-one percent of conversion but two point two. That was a rather large difference since that meant at least sixty golems of strength.

Of course, at this level, no one counted the strength in golems. We had one point six crypts with only ten percent of conversion which meant that we would be hailed as prodigies if this piece of information was to get out. After travelling for a whole week, we reached Posnoth, but we didn’t go to the school immediately. We needed weapons first and this planet had a dungeon which was perfect for getting metals!