A few days of work meant laying hundreds of bricks for the floor of this second building, transforming another few percent of his heart to crystal, and finally figuring out how exactly to differentiate his mana and space control!

But he only trained so far as to half cover himself in the heavy sheet of space, it would take a while longer before he achieved just hiding with space itself. And then came the mana cost of whatever the world did afterwards…

Either way, today marked the fifth day since making a deal with those two beasts, and both grew more desperate by the day. He didn’t know how they did it, but both ate dubiously large quantities of mana-rich plants as well, so much so that he sensed the noticeably higher density within them. It probably wouldn’t affect his goal of evolving them, but if they died…

Well, he wouldn’t be able to get any evolutions then!

Besides all this, he visited the wyvern daily as per usual. He found out that besides freezing a mountain, the crab did surprisingly little and left the other beasts concerned. After so many years there was no doubt that up to hundreds of steel tiers resided within the interconnected tunnels of that place…

And who knew how many gold tiers had been born from its bloodline?

To end it once and for all, the various outsider lords met for several discussions and came to a few ideas regarding that crabby king.

The first one was obvious. Team up and stall their soldiers while all their strongest beasts charged the peak to kill it. A cold and brutal method that sacrificed thousands of their own, but many dismissed it because it could incur their deaths as well! This method benefitted the wyvern and roc most, being the strongest of the bunch, and most likely to survive an ambush from several gold tier crabs.

That idea lost its weight rapidly, and the two who benefited most from it found their opinions severely devalued in further discussions.

Today marked their third discussion, and the wyvern held no hopes to reach a conclusion in the next week at a minimum. In fact, what truly annoyed him was having to treat the other lords as equals, none of them could survive more than a single hit from him!

At least that roc gave him a tough time, and its regeneration actually allowed it to keep up, but all the steel tier lords? They were just powerful for their level. Until they evolved, he didn’t bother taking notes on them.

Though, they made interesting enough conversationalists.

Aggravated enough of the matters, it was no wonder he released the troubles onto the dragon calmly drinking his daily portion of blood.

[Consumed Blue storm wyvern bloodline! Assimilation progress 65%]

He changed the topic once seeing the bowl empty though, and said, “The nightmare stalk may appear soon. Will you be able to track it yourself?”

The two spoke in Draconic as always, and he replied, “If it contains mana, I should be able to. I don’t know where it may be though, so it will take some time.”

“So long as it is found before a portal is opened.” The two’s discussion closed just like that, and he immediately set off to find that nightmare stalk. There was a reason he said that locating such a thing required time.

Most notably, its mana blended in with its surrounding seeping veil fungi, this made it impossible to locate through mana sense. However, if within his sight’s range, then finding it was a breeze, but then came the next issue. He had to traverse the long roots between mana gatherer trees and the node tree to have a chance of finding it, although it was very likely that any beasts who tied themselves to that terror realm lord already planned ahead for this!

It might be dozens of metres below ground, and on his pass through the area he saw seeping veil veins already descended beyond that! If they attached it to the end of such a vein he stood no chance of locating it in the next few days…

And lastly, perhaps an ironic loss, had he picked the Dimension hopper bloodline it would’ve been several fold easier to find this thing! The nightmare stalk produced very obvious effects to the surrounding space, but he only possessed the ability to manipulate it, not sense its structure.

A minor loss in the end as the fungus takes at least two weeks to fully grow. With every sweep he knew what remained and did his best to remember the deeper growths of the troublesome infection.

An interesting fact is why the fungus specifically grows onto mana gatherer trees and did not focus on the node tree. After all, if all it needed was mana then choosing the one which received the most made sense… But this thing only required a bare minimum to survive.

He knew that it best mutated by inflicting nightmares on those who slept nearby, however, it lacked range on its own. Thus, it became common to use these trees as relays, speeding up the slow several month-long mutation process into this ridiculously easy time frame!

Along his first root, he occasionally saw small pod-like structures connected to the bulged purple veins. These small pods violently vibrated and pulsed as did the veins growing along the root, besides transferring some sort of energy, it very easily dissuaded him from checking on the item.

Nonetheless, he went down and dragged one out with Pronounced telekinesis, watching the bulging sack continue to pulsate even after removal. But now above ground, better saw its colour, that being a similar flowing purple sheath used to contain millions of tiny spores.

The sack itself appeared similar to a human’s purse, a long container with a sealed lip to store the many spores. However, as its sides bulged out, it had clearly been overfilled to a frightening state, he imagined it bursting any moment and showering him in the substance. Unlike the desirable nightmare stalk, he knew this to be a dreamfold pod. He might obtain a bloodline from it… But that came with the risk of opening his mind up to that terror realm lord.

Until the wyvern killed or suppressed the lord, he’d rather not do something so idiotic. A Great flame bolt easily incinerated the sack and all its spores, and he repeated the process for all the others. Giving that lord more subordinates only hurt him.

At one point in the day, a surge of mana entered the range of his mana sense, as well the clear tips of tree branches with golden leaves… Another node tree.

Rather than aggravate the owner, potentially a lord at that, he backed off and moved over to the next tree root.

Each in-depth search lasted around an hour, so he expected to have all the roots done by the next day’s evening. If no nightmare stalk appeared by then, he’d begin by looking through the deepest seeping veil stalks.

Also, given that time frame it almost perfectly lined up with the two tests he set up.

About three hours later, he checked a total of four roots with no luck for a nightmare stalk. This was still less than half the possible locations though, so the odds not being in his favour only made sense. Anyway, any somewhat intelligent follower would have moved the stalk to a root on the opposite side as his cave at the very least!

When mid-day passed, and he began to head home from the hours of failed searching, the sounds of explosions began to ring out. All couldn’t have been fainter, and a quick jump up the nearest mountain revealed some sort of battlefield way off in the distance. Some of the other lords appeared to have started a fight, and given position it couldn’t have been either of the strong ones…

Just what even happened in those discussions for them to fight like that?

Several ideas of the two badmouthing one another came up, but he simply had no clue what two beasts the forces belonged to, in the end his imagination ran dry and the thoughts of training came about.

He probably sounded like the dullest youngling in a generation, even after acquiring divinity at his age.

After a short trip to grab another set of five solar-death shrooms, he spent the rest of the evening building up the second platform for his first real house. He placed a brick roughly every 30 seconds, but even then he only felt the second flooring half done. It exceeded his original in both length and width already, built to be far more rectangular than his first square floor.

To do this, he placed down six bricks in a row, and began producing rings around that centre. After he shovelled some snow about to make space as well, he believed that this could be a sizable two-floor home. And the improvement to his mind should make building complex furniture and decorations for the palace a breeze!

The next day continued the search for the nightmare stalk.

Along one root, back along the next. He very quickly began the journey along the 8th root but came to a stop about a third of the way to the node tree.

In truth, he occasionally stopped when finding an object of interest, although more often than not, these turned out to be plants full of mana but utterly lacking bloodlines. This time, it differed slightly.

He dug down, ignoring the vibrant green root covered in those disgusting, throbbing veins. The purple sludge running through them seemed even more active over here, and after digging just a bit further down, his mana sight proved correct.

Just out here, in the open… He found the nightmare stalk. And its appearance matched the oddity about its very existence.

The nightmare stalk was a similarly purple fungus to the seeping veil veins, but came with the obvious difference that it merely grew as straight as possible. In this case, the slim, purple body descended a metre or so, and a small cap grew at the end, as was the case for mushrooms as a whole. On its matte body, he saw hundreds of small bumps, like warts even, as well as some large cavities with a sticky transparent ooze contained by delicate cloudy films. He pierced one of these pockets and saw the ooze seep out, the mana within the stalk grew agitated and the surroundings became… strange.

Something suddenly struck his Mind palace, he didn’t even have time to react, but noted that it failed to penetrate through.

In fairness, he already read that agitating the stalk was a bad idea. It completely fell on idiocy that he continued to do so. Although, he questioned if a fully grown one might have pierced through.

“About three days old, quite small and weak. I’ll report this for now.” He didn’t waste time with this discovery, but spent a few seconds trying to think up ways to stop anything moving it in the meantime.

Unfortunately, his barrier spells didn’t excel in sealing something, and arose an issue he never thought he’d have. But what were the odds that something moved it so casually in the next half hour?

Next to none, so he merged with the spirit and leaped back to the cave, no doubt the wyvern would be pleased.