The eighteenth floor of the Necropolis of the Gods. It seemed to have turned into a sea of earthen yellow elemental essences. As for Linley, he hovered there, eyes closed, an awesome presence emanating from his body. Beirut, Bluefire, and Bebe all watched unblinkingly from nearby.
Within Linley’s sea of consciousness.
His original body, wind clone, fire clone, and water clone were seated in the meditative position on the surface of his sea of consciousness. The four bodies just so happened to form a square, and right above them hovered a swiveling, glass-like gemstone. A surge of invisible, untouchable ‘Will’ was circulating towards Linley’s five souls.
The souls of his original body and his four clones were, in reality, one and the same.
At this moment, the soul of his divine earth clone was rapidly improving, while the souls of his original body and his other three divine clones were improving somewhat slower.
“Indeed, it is as Lord Beirut had said. The Will of a Sovereign is virtually inexhaustible, but completely focused within the Sovereign spark. Their actual souls contain very little Will.” Linley could sense that although the amount of Will within his five souls had increased somewhat, there was a limit to it.
The soul of his divine earth clone, after having transformed into a Sovereign, had only gained an increase in Will that was comparable to the Will which a Highgod Paragon possessed.
As for his original body and his three other clones, they only gained roughly 80% of the Will which a Highgod Paragon was in possession of.
“No wonder. So this is why even if a Sovereign were to send his clone to enter a material plane, he still wouldn’t be able to kill a Highgod Paragon.” Linley sighed to himself, then mused, “However, even before becoming a Sovereign, my Will had already surpassed that of a Paragon! Now, I’ve only grown stronger!” Right at this moment…
An awe-inspiring flood of gold suddenly entered his mind. This formless golden flood merged into his sea of consciousness and sank into his soul.
“This…”
Linley felt as though he suddenly became tens of times more clear-minded, and that his soul’s analytical abilities were increasing dramatically.
“This is…the energy of faith!” Linley was completely stunned.
Actually, Linley had always been absorbing faith energy, but that bit of faith energy which he received from the Yulan Plane, to the current Linley, was nothing at all. Still, even that bit of faith energy had allowed Linley’s training speed to increase by quite a bit.
Currently, however, it was as though a flood of faith energy had entered his sea of consciousness. The amount he received every instant was comparable to all the faith energy he had built up over the past few thousand years.
The eighteenth floor of the Necropolis of the Gods. The flood of earthen yellow elemental essences had disappeared. The world once again returned to an azure color.
Linley opened his eyes, staring at Beirut and Bluefire in shock. “Lord Beirut, this faith energy…”
“You are a Sovereign, now. You are no longer weaker than me. There is no need to address me as Lord Beirut. You can just address me as Beirut!” Beirut just laughed.
Linley felt gratitude towards Beirut. It was Beirut who had given him the Sovereign spark; in fact, had given him two! In addition, for thousands of years, he had constantly been taking care of Linley. Linley couldn’t forget any of this. “Lord Beirut, if we didn’t know each other, naturally we would use our comparative power to determine our comparative status. But Lord Beirut, even I myself have no idea as to how I should repay the kindness you have shown me…”
After his soul mutation, Linley had become as powerful as a Highgod Paragon.
If they were to determine status through comparing power levels, given that Linley didn’t know that Beirut was a Sovereign, logically speaking, Linley should’ve already started to address him as ‘Beirut’. Linley, however, had not.
In Linley’s heart…
Beirut was like a patient, helpful elder relative who had always taken care of him.
“Haha, since you say that, then I’ll thicken my face for once and ask both you and Bebe to address me as Grandpa Beirut. What say you?” Beirut chortled. When he had discovered Bebe’s existence, Beirut had begun to pay attention to Linley as well. Beirut had always been watching Linley, ever since he was a youth.
Unconsciously, the care he felt towards Bebe had naturally been partially transferred to Linley as well.
“Grandpa Beirut.” Linley said hurriedly.
“Haha…” Hearing this, Beirut was absolutely delighted. Right now, Beirut’s mindset had somewhat changed. Previously, Bebe’s existence made it so that between Linley and Beirut, there existed a relationship that was akin to that of an elder and a junior. This relationship was a bit of a vague one, however, and had never been formalized.
Although one of the reasons why Beirut had chosen Linley was because Linley’s power had qualitatively risen greatly, it was also because he wanted to borrow Linley’s strength to fight back against the Chief Sovereign of Light.
But in this instant…
When Linley also began to address Beirut as ‘Grandpa’, Beirut naturally began to feel differently. He understood…that Linley’s power was going to vastly outstrip his. For him to have helped raise such a supreme expert, and one who was a junior in his own family…naturally, Beirut felt very gratified.
“Excellent, excellent.” Beirut laughed. “Just now, you were speaking of faith energy…”
“Right. As soon as I became a Sovereign, I could sense a terrifyingly dense stream of faith energy flood into my sea of consciousness. What is this all about?” Linley was stunned.
The nearby Bluefire laughed. “Linley, prior to this, weren’t you asking about why all Sovereigns have fused at least five types of profound mysteries?”
“It’s true that not all Sovereigns are innately gifted. For them to all have fused five profound mysteries or more is indeed inconceivable.” Linley suddenly came to his senses. “Are you saying…that this is because of faith energy?” Linley recollected the purpose of faith energy; it allows experts to be able to gain insights faster and train faster.
But of course, there was a limit to how much faith energy could help.
If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so few Sovereign Paragons.
“How could there be so much faith energy? Terrifyingly much…” Linley said hurriedly.