An Understated Dominance (Dustin Rhys)

The Full Moon Fortress, which floated above the sea, looked like a particularly large moon. It had been guarded by three Absolutes, but now Grid slashed it in half. He turned to look at the horizon, in the direction of his clone.

‘Should I leave now?’

He had created the clone using Judar’s body manufacturing recipe and Greed. The clone could never be destroyed, but it could somewhat break. If it took a lot of damage, its joints would twist, and its body would crush and fold bizarrely. The clone wasn’t exactly alive, so it could not recover by itself. Since it was made out of metal, it needed to be repaired.

Of course, Grid’s clone also had blacksmithing skills. His stats and level were the same as Grid’s. However, it had different titles. The clone had failed to inherit any of Grid’s titles. As a result, he had accumulated new titles by achieving different things than Grid.

He became a powerful magician. However, his skills as a blacksmith and swordsman fell behind. The clone could repair himself, but Grid wasn’t sure if the clone could do it properly, since the material was tricky to work with.

‘Why fight so recklessly?’ Grid complained.

Now that he learnt that the cultivators wanted his clone, he was very worried about it. However, he wasn’t really that upset about the clone taking so much damage. Grid believed that the clone had made the right choice by dragging the immortal and cultivator into the grave with him. Had he not done that, the clone would have lost. Dealing with an Absolute who was at the level of an old dragon and his clone at the same time wasn’t an easy feat. Good thing the clone had Poison Smog in his arsenal

‘...I should’ve learned Poison Smog as well.’

Braham spent most of his time in his residence studying magic. He was always researching something. He even had a laboratory in his mental world for this exact purpose!

Grid, who was close to Braham, had witnessed firsthand how massive the explosions caused by Poison Smog could be. He had, however, dismissed the spell, and made a lot of excuses for disregarding it. To create a powerful explosion using Poison Smog, the flames needed to be extremely powerful and the pressure had to be quite high. It was impossible to use Poison Smog consistently, so that was why he had dismissed it.

But… maybe he shouldn’t have. Grid should’ve been just as interested in Poison Smog as his clone. No, not just his spell, but magic altogether. Magic was something that became more valuable the more one studied it.

Watching Braham’s research process was a learning experience itself. There had been multiple opportunities for Grid to get better at magic. However, he found learning magic cumbersome, complicated, and impractical, so he had missed out.

Meanwhile, the clone tried to learn everything that Braham had to offer. This was probably why Braham showed an eagerness to teach the clone, something that he didn’t show to Grid.

‘Well, it’s too late for me to have any regrets now. If I was like my clone, I would’ve had a business card saying that I graduated from Seoul National University.’

After all, the clone was still Grid. The clone had a different mindset toward studying because of Grid. Grid wanted to leave anything he considered troublesome to his clone, so the clone abided by this and picked up magic.

However, the clone and Grid were two sides of the same coin. They couldn’t be separated. In other words, Grid was delusional for claiming that he would’ve graduated from Seoul National University had he been like his clone. He just wasn’t smart enough.

‘...This tells me that one's life changes along with their mindset.’

Grid realized his mistake. He was just making excuses for not putting in more effort into studying.

Meanwhile, Noe was busy feasting on the cultivators he had hunted. “Yum, yum!”

A nascent soul was the soul of a cultivator. It was different from ordinary people’s souls because it possessed an Innate Treasure and a spiritual root. Noe feasted on the cultivators. He used to only feed on human souls, but recently he’d learned to absorb the spiritual energy of cultivators. The higher the level of one’s cultivation, the greater the nutrients for Noe.

After a series of feasts, Noe’s cultivation level exceeded Grid’s. Before he knew it, Noe had reached the foundation building realm. He had three times more spiritual energy than that of Grid, who was still in the qi refining realm.

was just done with chewing and swallowing the nascent soul of a great ascension cultivator who had fought back by throwing his Innate Treasure even after losing his

“Nyang? Grid…”

Maybe it

“My stomach hurts...”

“Huh?”

stomach. He suddenly collapsed because he found it hard to breathe. As he lay on his back, his belly inflated even more. It kept inflating and deflating, just like a

is why you

Noe’s belly but suddenly stopped. He sensed a familiar yet

‘What’s going on?’

finally realized what those

“Ack!”

a short gasp. He spat out one of the energies that had been lingering in his stomach. It was a five-piece bell tied together. The bell glowed gold, silver, blue, white, and black. It was the weapon of the great ascension cultivator, whom Grid had killed over thirty minutes before. Noe

had been training and refining it in his spiritual root all his life. This was the

coming out of

“Ack! Ugh!”

from tiny needles to quite large treasures… There were well over two hundred of them. They were all Innate Treasures from the nascent souls

Noe’s stomach...? Of course, Noe could become quite big when he transformed into his main form, but right now,

had been stroking Noe’s belly in a daze, came to his senses and asked, “Can you

would I have spat them out...?” Noe asked with a puzzled look on

gathered and pointed in the same direction. It just so happened that Grid sensed

“Light?”

golden, bathing the horizon in sacred light. Was this Rebecca’s doing? Ever since the Refractive Dragon got resurrected, Rebecca had been stuck dealing with it. Since they were moving across the continent in real time, it wasn’t strange to suddenly encounter them at any time and

kept his eyes on

Flash!

moving. Grid finally

was Hanul, another God

Hanul, “I heard that you recently succeeded in embodying light.

He couldn’t show his true power unless he

absorbed Rebecca’s powers. Grid could never allow himself

Hanul, who had been staring at him, turned to look somewhere else. The

It’s safe to say

Grid realized Noe couldn’t control them

to

Grid detected an anomaly. Something was approaching, something far more powerful than Du Baeryong, who claimed to be an immortal. This presence seemed to vehemently proclaim that they

seems

that followed after true immortal. Realistically, golden immortals were the strongest immortals, since great immortals were unlikely to exist. Many immortals stayed in the true immortal realm while great immortals

looked a bit tired but there wasn’t a single scratch on him. This was proof that he hadn’t fought the

at Hanul. “Wait... Have you been on the run all

Hanul snorted.