Rivers of the Night

Chapter 785: Theron’s Hiatus (5)

Theron honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had actively cultivated. It just felt like... he didn’t need to at all. Eating, sleeping, breathing, reading...

Everything he did seemed to follow the natural flow of the world, and this very same world rewarded him for exactly that.

He had expected his cultivation to slow at some point. Even with the last of the bottlenecks, every step forward should have been harder than the last. But ironically enough, the slow in Theron’s progression came not from his cultivation, nor his bodily strength, but instead in the progression of his comprehension of the treasures on his person.

At first, it felt like he was learning something new about them every other week. From the Ebonstone Mine’s ability to absorb Dark Resonances, to the Mandate Core’s link with Profound Truths, and then the Karmic Needle and Thread’s ability to act as a universal encyclopedia for everything he came across. Even his father’s necklace, something he thought he had understood well enough, showed another side of itself, evolving to accommodate his Dark Mana in a completely unexpected way.

But then he seemed to run into a wall.

The Luminescent Tower. The Bloodline Marble. The Dagger Call Platform.

No matter how he observed them, he couldn’t seem to learn enough to pick out anything new.

The Bloodline Marble and the Luminescent Tower were especially annoying to Theron, and in this time of relative peace for him, it could be said that they were the one and only true frustration of any sort. Sure, he had almost lost his life more times than he could count in the first seven months, and would certainly only continue to do so, but those were minor matters to Theron.

The Dagger Call Platform was less frustrating because as far as he knew, maybe he already knew of all its uses. Just target an enemy and suppress their soul directly. Against powerful opponents, it was especially great.

Theron could have used it in his battle at the Umbra main city, but he hadn’t because of what a certain someone had told him about the similarities between his Dagger Call Platform and a treasure of General Ameridia’s.

Because of that, Theron had chosen to be more cautious, and he didn’t know yet just how well that decision had benefited him.

Had General Ameridia heard of his Dagger Call Platform, she might not have let matters go so easily. And such a high-level Space Mancer was incredibly rare... there was no guarantee that the methods of the Demon Corps could hide completely from her.

Regardless, it was because of this that Theron thought the Dagger Call Platform might still have some secrets he didn’t quite understand. Otherwise, why would such a treasure formed in the dantian of the incarnation of a super powerhouse appear in this outside world as well?

Unless General Ameridia was related to Goddess Sacharro as well? Maybe General Ameridia was even yet another incarnation of Goddess Sacharro. Who was to say that the latter had only had Sadie?

For all Theron knew, Goddess Sacharro had thousands of versions of herself out and about in this world as well.

Still, the Dagger Call Platform was something Theron was willing to mostly set aside. So long as he eventually confronted General Ameridia in the future, he would inevitably find out whether it was a coincidence or not. In fact, Ilzan might have even been outright wrong about it.

His Bloodline Marble and the Luminescent Tower, though... he had hoped for more.

After the changes to his father’s necklace, he had hoped that the Bloodline Marble would change in the same way, accommodating his new Dark Mana. But instead, the opposite happened. It closed itself off as though it no longer recognized Theron as one of its own.

As for the Luminescent Tower, it had always been the most useless of Theron’s treasures. Back in the Sect it originated from, one had to enter the Luminescent Tower in order to earn a special technique that used Bloomstone to activate.

But, in this world, there was a very good reason why Theron hadn’t used any of his Bloomstone despite the fact he had collected a mind-numbing number of them...

He had none left.

Everything of that world had collapsed and been destroyed other than Theron, Alpha, and these nine treasures.

And even if they had survived, Theron was certain of one thing... Bloomstone wouldn’t work in this world. There was something different about the makeup and chemistry that made it incompatible.

That seemed to make the Luminescent Tower doubly worthless. But Theron still thought that maybe if he could enter it, he could trigger the same challenge he had before. Maybe it would upgrade based on his cultivation level and give him a good training partner.

But he didn’t even get that opportunity.

You could only enter the Luminescent Tower a single time. You got one chance, and Theron had obviously already used his own.

So, he had a useless tower, a useless Luminescent Technique, useless Bloomstone that weren’t even present in this world, and nothing to show for any of it.

By the eighth month, Theron thought that maybe that was just the natural state of the tower and there was nothing to be expected from it.

These treasures were oddities in themselves. He didn’t know what Goddess Sacharro was trying to accomplish with them, but he had already guessed that maybe they had long deviated from her original plan. As such, there was no guarantee that they were supposed to work properly in the first place.

At least, that was until the ninth month rolled around and Alpha successfully formed his third clone.

Theron could feel waves of pressure coming from his companion now that he couldn’t quite wrap his brain around. There were still five other techniques in the Entanglement Inheritance they hadn’t touched, but Alpha was radiating an aura that made even Theron feel pressured despite only being an Arcane Resonance creature...

That was when an accident caused the Luminescent Tower to react.