Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1251: Forging The Strongest...(6)

Limit breaking.

Mortal Binding.

Ember Tasting.

These requirements took different shapes depending on the world an aspiring combatant was born on, but the path usually looked similar.

There was no order to completing these requirements, but most experts completed Limit breaking first.

Limit breaking was simply the process of reaching the peak of the established power system in the world one was born in. But of course, this only applied to Rich Worlds. Only they could nurture a power system with enough value for Limit breaking. This was why worlds like the one Luserus built could never produce a Divine combatant and were subdued easily by the Immoral.

In Aigas, Limit breaking meant reaching the peak of the Beyond The Veil Stage: Level 100.

Fulgardt had accomplished this during his run of terror, but hadn\'t know what else he had to do to reach Divinity. This is where Sause had come in.

He told the Immoral about Mortal Binding and Ember Tasting. The two were closely related. Mortal Binding required an expert to infuse their precious essence - whatever form it took- into a large number of powerful beings, powerful, blessed beings. The purpose of this was to achieve a state of pseudo-permanence. If one shared their essence with a vast number of people at least the right way - they would ensure that even if their body was destroyed, a part of them would remain, however vague it was.

The meaning behind this?

Well, the first \'gift\' one earned when they reached Divinity, was the equalisation of body and soul. The body became as vital and rich as the soul, and the soul became as powerful and self- sustaining as the body. This quality wasn\'t gifted for free, unfortunately. Mortal Binding ensured that an expert familiarised themselves with the feeling of permanence by existing within others. Normally, hundreds days were needed for a common expert to get a feel for this, and the step would be considered complete.

Fulgardt had done this with all the people he had enslaved using [Evil Darkness] and [Just Light] in his hall, though he ultimately chose not to free them afterwards.

The third requirement, Ember Tasting, related to the blessed part of the beings that the aspiring expert had infused his essence into.

Blessings were a very important component to anything related to Deities. They weren\'t simply given powers. They were signatures of the Deities that intimately connected with mortals. They emphasised the difference between mortality and godhood through the bond a Deity shared with their creations. In Aigas, an individual would be given a Blessing containing the essence of the Deity they favoured most, after all.

The unique properties of Blessings explained why they had been essential in unlocking the Extreme Formula - the seal that kept the Under separate from Aigas.

Aspiring experts had to recognise these signatures (Blessings). Creating powers similar in likeness to Blessings would be an option they would have when they reached Divinity and beyond, and Ember Tasting allowed them to get a feel for it before that; they would get to understand the difference between mortality and Divinity.

With all this in mind, the phantoms had every reason to celebrate.

For Limit breaking, they had as good as conquered it. Skullius didn\'t have to strive for the Beyond The Veil Stage. His Warmoth body took after the traits of the beasts of Aigas; it did not need to power up the same way humans did - with Stages - and at present, Skullius had long surpassed the strength of any beast in this world.

For Mortal Binding and Ember Tasting, before even considering that his alter had used Masterpieces to try and fulfil this requirement already, Skullius had already bonded himself to hundreds of other individuals: the Stark Troops.

The Stark Constellation he branded on all of them created an intimate bond between him and his subordinates already, and his alter\'s efforts were simply the last piece to complete how Skullius was already tethered to many blessed beings.

Beyond that, Skullius was already halfway through Ember Tasting because of the Fallen Reincarnator\'s Shadow. He had experience creating many Blessings on his own, after all.

What truly made the phantoms joyous, however, was the fact that even though they were only inches away from completely fulfilling the conditions to Divinity, the unformed \'body\' they were crafting had already crossed the threshold for normal Divine power.

It could hardly be contained, and they had yet to finish the rest of the configurations they had in mind.

Skullius couldn\'t understand this, which was why he instead focused on how to repair the cracking seed.

"What can we do to fix it?" he asked.

Oddly, the phantoms were stumped on this.

[Static Limbo] suspended the seed\'s destruction, but it likely wouldn\'t hold for long. The skill had evolved after Skullius reached Tier Four, but he didn\'t want to place too much confidence

in it.

Serenity offered a suggestion.

"You could use [Unbound] on it?" she said.

The phantoms and Skullius were dumbfounded.

"[Unbound]?" they said.

"I understand that you fear that you may lose some of the more intricate mechanisms you instilled in the seed, but trust me, you won\'t. Using [Unbound] on the seed will affect the general product, not alter its intrinsic values. This is especially true with the current stage of [Unbound] you are able to access," Serenity explained.

Skullius and the phantoms felt some semblance of reassuring truths in this. Skullius was currently able to use [Unbound] at its best: Permanent Max Evolution.Nôv(el)B\\\\jnn

To increase the value of the Harmonic Ember back then, Skullius had used 50,000 units of Null Life Essence to enact Temporary Max Evolution, which birthed the External Fragment of Realised Choices for a few minutes.

The last stage of [Unbound], which cost 100,000 units of Null Life Essence for each use, allowed for Permanent Max Evolution. Essentially, if Skullius had had access to this, he would have been able to keep the Harmonic Ember in its realised state permanently.

Skullius had used this quality of [Unbound] on some of his Unlimited Stars\' stats.

The ashen seed cracked, instilling urgency back into Skullius and the phantoms.

"Let\'s do it!" Skullius said. "We really don\'t have anything to lose here."

"Right. I agree," a phantom said.

"Me too."

"Ditto! Wait, what does that mean?!"

Quickly, Skullius mobilised 100,000 units of Null Life Essence and used [Unbound] on the

seed.

[Permanent Max Evolution has been determined]

[Evolution process begins...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[Evolution process complete]

At once, the seed... turned black.

No radiance and no trace of anything even remotely close to divine leaked from it.

Skullius and his phantoms would have gulped nervously.

Permanent Max Evolution was terrifying. Skullius usually refrained from using it because he

feared conjuring something with a consciousness of its own, like the External Fragment of

Realised Choices.

But for things like this, he didn\'t think he needed to worry as much.

Permanent Max Evolution usually evoked the properties of some transcendent, similarly

profound entity from the Null Verse on his target.

That seemed to be the case now, but he was rather terrified to investigate. The same was true

for his phantoms.

"So... uh, shall we continue? Should we uh..." Skullius stuttered.

"Y-yes. Let\'s do that."

"Yah. I...uh, I don\'t see why not. Right?"