Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 1281: Benefits [2]

However, the matter of a gift could wait. Right now, Michael wanted nothing more than to find out exactly what he could do with what Lily had brought him.

Lily seemed to notice at once.

She smiled knowingly.

"I’m going to take a bath first. After that, I’m sleeping."

Michael finally looked back at her and nodded.

"Alright."

He paused, then added more sincerely,

"Thank you."

Lily’s smile grew a little wider.

Michael continued with a smile as well. His gaze moved briefly over her exhausted appearance.

"Rest properly. We’ll talk when you wake up. Don’t disappear back into the Origin Battlefield immediately after recovering."

Lily nodded.

"Okay."

She turned around and started heading deeper into the house.

After a few steps, however, she suddenly slowed as something seemed to occur to her.

Should I tell him that I could not find Timi this time or not? Lily wondered, and turned back. But the living room was already empty.

Michael was gone.

Lily stared at the spot Michael had occupied for several seconds. Then her lips twitched.

Whatever she had remembered would apparently have to wait.

* * *

Michael reappeared in the Origin Battlefield.

This time, however, he did not settle on the outer section of his territory.

Space distorted above one of the enormous walls separating the outer region from the core of the Eternal Crown.

Michael stepped out of the void and landed lightly on the broad stone surface.

Compared to the outer region where the Subsidiary Territorial Anchor was located, this place was much quieter.

Michael walked toward the edge of the wall before sitting cross-legged.

Only then did he bring out the four fragments again.

The dark pieces hovered above his palm.

Golden lines ran across their surfaces while tiny runes appeared and disappeared intermittently.

Michael cast Detect once more.

[Universal Cornerstone Fragment]

[Fragment Completion: 4/4]

[Description: A separated portion of a Universal Cornerstone. Four matching fragments may be combined to reconstruct a complete Universal Cornerstone.]

Michael had already suspected that Universal Cornerstones were not exclusive to the Fourth Layer.

If the Origin Battlefield truly contained several layers meant for Awakeners at different stages, then something as fundamental as a Universal Cornerstone appearing in more than one layer was reasonable.

Still, suspicion was one thing. Confirmation was another.

Lily had obtained four fragments from the Zeroth Layer, proving that Universal Cornerstones existed there as well. And if they existed somewhere as low as the Zeroth Layer, then they likely existed all the way up to the Fourth Layer.

As for whether they existed in the Fifth Layer, meant for Demigod Awakeners, Michael did not want to think too much about something he couldn’t even reach yet.

"I wonder if Lily got these pieces in a similar manner to how I got mine."

However, even if they were different, the four pieces proved that cornerstones in different layers could have similarities. This much was expected, but at least now it was close to a fact.

Michael narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Perhaps every layer has its own method of obtaining a Cornerstone, with the difficulty adjusted according to the strength of the Awakeners inside it?"

In any case, there was only one thing left for Michael to do now.

Fuse the four pieces together, then see what came after.

Michael rose from the wall.

A moment later, his figure disappeared. He reappeared deep within the inner region of the Eternal Crown.

The surrounding landscape was almost entirely green forest.

Michael did not know what kind of phenomenon fusing these four pieces might cause, so he chose a large clearing.

Michael extended one hand, and the four fragments floated upward.

Each piece rotated slowly in the air until their curved edges aligned.

The four pieces trembled. Then they began pulling toward one another.

One fragment connected with another.

A soft metallic sound echoed through the empty region.

The instant the final piece touched the others, the completed circle released a brilliant golden light.

The seams between the fragments started disappearing.

The shifting runes moved rapidly across the surface, no longer remaining confined to individual pieces as they crossed freely from one section to another.

Within seconds, what had previously been four separate fragments looked increasingly like a single object.

The process looked almost exactly the same as what Michael had experienced when he fused the four pieces he obtained after slaying the four Epic Grade Level 100 monsters.

After gathering all four and combining them, he had obtained something that functioned more like a key.

A key that allowed him to proceed further and eventually claim the Universal Cornerstone.

So when Lily’s four fragments fused together, Michael had naturally expected something similar.

Instead, the object that formed in his hand was a bit different.

Maybe a little too different.

The completed circle was about the size of his palm. Its surface was dark, but countless golden lines flowed across it like veins of light. The runes around its edge no longer flickered randomly either.

They had stabilized into a complete sequence that rotated slowly around the circumference.

[Universal Cornerstone Deployment Core]

[Grade: Legendary]

[Effect: May be used to establish an unclaimed Universal Cornerstone anywhere within the Origin Battlefield. It is not restricted to any layer.]

[Note: The deployed Universal Cornerstone will appear as an unclaimed Cornerstone and can be successfully claimed by anyone outside who deployed it.]

Michael stared at the panel in shock.

"Anywhere within the Origin Battlefield and no restriction by Layer?"

That was completely different from what he had expected.

He had thought that fusing the fragments would cause another cornerstone to appear in his territory. This, in turn, would give him more substation slots he could deploy anywhere in the universe, and at the same time potentially increase the grade of his domain.

Thanks to claiming the Universal Cornerstone, the Level 3 region he inhabited had turned into a Level 1 domain. Not only was it bigger in size than the Level 3 region, and denser in mana, it was his territory here in this mysterious space meant for Awakeners.

It was special.

It had only been close to two weeks since Michael entered the Origin Battlefield, yet the more he learned about this place, the more important it became in his eyes.

The Origin Will had called it a cultivation ground for Awakeners.

That description was not exaggerated.

If anything, Michael felt it might even be underselling the place, as the advantages were not limited to Awakeners alone.

Any supernatural capable of taking advantage of the environment could benefit from staying here.

The most obvious advantage was time.

Three days inside the Origin Battlefield equaled roughly one day outside.

That alone was already ridiculous.

If two people possessed similar talents, resources, and cultivation methods, but only one had access to the Origin Battlefield, the difference between them would become increasingly absurd as the years passed.

A cultivator with one hundred years available outside would only have one hundred years to improve.

But someone spending that same external period within the Origin Battlefield would experience three hundred years.

And those extra two hundred years were not being spent in some inferior environment.

The Origin Battlefield itself was already a superior cultivation ground.

The density and quality of ambient energy and several other opportunities surpassed many places Michael had seen outside.

A century outside could become three centuries here. A thousand years could effectively become three thousand.

However, this time dilation was only one advantage.

There was another discovery Michael had made after experimenting with the land inside his territory.

The soil.

At first, he had not paid much attention to it.

With mana this dense, there was no way the earth itself could remain ordinary. That much was obvious.

What surprised Michael was how extraordinary it actually was.

Compared to ordinary farmland or even many mana-rich cultivation grounds outside, the soil within the Origin Battlefield accelerated plant development tremendously.

Michael had tested it with something simple.

Radishes.

Under normal conditions, a radish could take around a month to mature.

Inside the Origin Battlefield, however, the same radishes reached maturity in roughly one-third of that time.

Around ten days.

That alone would have been impressive.

But once the Battlefield’s own time difference was included, the result became more than impressive.

Ten days inside equaled only a little over three days outside.

In other words, from the perspective of someone in the outside world, crops that normally required around thirty days to mature could be harvested after barely three to four days.

The soil itself seemed to possess some form of growth-accelerating property, roughly another threefold advantage on top of the Battlefield’s temporal difference.

The two effects stacked. One through actual growth conditions. The other through the difference in time flow.

This meant that ordinary crops could effectively mature close to nine times faster when judged by outside-world time.

And if this worked on radishes, then what about supernatural plants? Spirit herbs? Rare fruits? Mana crops? Soul-nourishing plants?

Resources that normally required decades, centuries, or even longer to mature could potentially have their growth cycles shortened dramatically.