Chapter 228: A New Era, The Awakening Baichuan

Three hundred years later.

As the Light Point energy across the entire planet reached a threshold.

A seafloor volcano.

Amidst a stretch of glowing red magma, suddenly—

A pair of dragon eyes burning with raging flames slowly opened within the magma. In an instant, an invisible pressure suddenly spread throughout the volcano's interior, scaring countless small heat-loving creatures that lived in the scalding seawater and magma into fleeing in all directions.

"What is this…?"

Baichuan, who had just awoken from a great dream, paid it no heed. He gazed, still somewhat dazed, at the stretch of glowing red magma.

After a long while, he finally came to his senses and recalled all his plans from before his slumber.

Then, what appeared before him now should be a newborn world, right?

While pondering, Baichuan also began to slowly move his stiff body, which had not stirred for a very long time.

"Crack—crack—crack—"

At once, the Flood Dragon, whose body had grown to a full hundred meters in length, slowly began to move within the volcano. The layer of stone shell on its body, formed by countless cycles of melting and cooling, also began to crack apart continuously, emitting a great many teeth-grinding sounds of shattering.

The magma was slowly stirred, churning together with the scalding seawater into a stretch of turbidity.

Violent ripples began to echo ceaselessly within the volcano.

Seen from afar, at this moment the seafloor volcano seemed as though it were about to Burst.

Seeing this, Baichuan was also taken aback. With a single thought, boundless energy obediently followed his will and began absorbing the violent ripples caused by his enormous body, while simultaneously suppressing the aura that was starting to leak out from his movements.

In an instant, the volcano that had just seemed about to erupt once again ceased all activity.

Now was not the time for him to act recklessly.

The situation in this newborn world was unknown. Even though his Light Point energy now seemed inexhaustible across the entire planet, and he was already close to invincible—

That was still no reason for him to directly expose his aura. Baichuan had always believed in one thing: only those who remained eternally cautious could survive until the end.

The arrogant, the brash, the careless—who knew which day they'd simply cease to exist.

Even if he was now close to invincible, wasn't he still not quite invincible?

Who in this world dares claim invincibility? Who speaks of never being defeated? The Emperor's Fall Era… ahem, wrong channel.

The World Passage from before his slumber, and those unknown enemies from the depths of the cosmos—Baichuan had not forgotten any of it.

Lost in thought, he also completely swam out from within the volcano. The Flood Dragon's massive body began to silently depart the volcano.

Leaving behind only vast amounts of energy that, soundlessly, gathered up the stone shell he had shed, sealed away the great amount of his aura that had solidified, and coiled within the volcano mimicking the posture from before his slumber.

Everything seemed no different from before his slumber. Well, except for a hundred-meter-long Flood Dragon quietly slipping away—indeed, it looked exactly the same as before.

Having done all this, he then began to float up toward the sea surface.

His current actions were clearly meant to quietly understand this familiar yet unfamiliar future world without alerting anyone.

Although it might be more convenient to inquire of his Juanzhu, Baichuan trusted even more what he could see with his own eyes.

Moreover, in this currently unfamiliar world, he did not yet know how his Juanzhu were faring, nor whether any powerful beings not native to this planet had descended. Now the enemy was in the light while he was in the shadows; unless absolutely necessary, he did not wish to stir up the grass and startle the snake, exposing himself.

Once he had roughly understood the situation, he would decide what to do next.

As he rose, Baichuan also fully felt the benefits this world—successfully ascended by him—brought him. At this moment, he had only one feeling in his heart:

Exhilarating!

His abilities were exploding in growth!

Vast amounts of abilities—ordinary, powerful, or rare—poured ceaselessly into his body and his Star Bag through the dense energy between heaven and earth, causing his abilities and power to multiply and grow stronger at a rocket-like pace!

This was the first time Baichuan had experienced what those innately noble, incomparably powerful beings felt: growing stronger with every breath, every sip of water.

As for the principle, it was actually quite simple.

These abilities that madly surged toward him all belonged to the giant beasts in the surrounding seas—each one either powerful or weak.

Ultimately, the reason these giant beasts were so powerful was that they had absorbed the most primordial Light Point energy and, by chance, mutated and grown stronger.

For Baichuan, they could be said to be no different from the Strange Beasts of the old era; it was just that today's giant beasts were even more powerful due to the supply of vast amounts of energy.

But the essence remained unchanged. In such circumstances, even though the mutated Light Point energy belonged exclusively to the mutated giant beast itself, logically Baichuan would need to kill and devour its flesh and blood, or scan it, to obtain its abilities.

But don't forget—they were still living beings after all. As long as they were living beings, they had to exchange matter with the outside world, and that special Light Point energy would inevitably leak out.

To other beings, this leaked energy might be utterly useless.

But who was Baichuan?

He was the source of everything on this planet, this world—the origin of all that was supernatural!

The creator of the new era!

As long as this leaked energy remained within Baichuan's range of control, everything within that range could not escape his control.

Thus, this special energy containing a small amount of information naturally allowed Baichuan to absorb it, and then, inscribed within his body's Star Bag, it became his own ability.

Of course, although he could absorb the abilities of various giant beasts on a massive scale, because he was only absorbing a small portion of the residual special energy, the life information contained within was insufficient.

So the extra abilities Baichuan gained were basically all LV1 level. Of course, even at LV1, under the drive of Baichuan's vast energy, they could still utterly defeat their original owners!

However, according to Baichuan's understanding, this ability currently served more to let him know whether any giant beasts within his controlled area possessed particularly rare and powerful abilities.

Once he discovered the appearance of a being with a powerful ability, he could purposefully seek out that being to obtain its ability model, and then evolve the original, authentic, most powerful version of that ability.

After all, those vast numbers of LV1 Abilities were of little real use to him now that he had grown so powerful. At most, they could make his various abilities and methods more complex and bizarre, or allow several abilities to combine and produce a 1+1>2 effect. Could this perhaps be considered omnipotence in a narrow sense?

At this moment, Baichuan thought uncertainly.

……

Meanwhile, not long after Baichuan had left the seafloor volcano—

Accompanied by a long, ethereal, and distant cry, a giant dragon whose mane atop its massive dragon head was composed of numerous tentacles slowly swam over from afar. Its expression carried a hint of pleasant surprise and nervous unease.

"Woo—?"

However, as it approached the vicinity of the volcano, it could not help but let out a puzzled low cry. Gazing at the slender, massive, dark dragon-shaped stone within the magma inside the volcano, a trace of confusion flashed in its eyes, as if wondering whether its perception earlier had been mistaken.

Not long ago it had clearly sensed Him awakening, and then, unable to wait, it had abandoned the sea beasts it had been driving back and rushed back alone as a single dragon.

But why, after it returned, was He still sleeping as always, as if everything it had felt before had been an illusion?

At this moment, the giant dragon's eyes were full of doubt, but it could not figure out what was going on—only feeling that the dragon-shaped stone in the magma seemed to have changed somehow, as if something had left.

Yet sensing the rich, familiar aura inside the volcano, the giant dragon still shook its head, pressed down the doubt in its heart, gazed lingeringly a few times at the familiar figure in the magma, and once again went out to drive the sea beasts over.

It had previously given up the fruits of all that hard driving, wasting so much Time; now it needed to speed up.

This dull, monotonous act, it had already continued as always for a full three hundred-plus years, yet it did not feel the slightest bit of tedium.

……

(End of this chapter)