Rosen took out a palm-sized stone sculpture of the World Tree. Within it was sealed the power of the Stone Realm belonging to the World Tree.
With the power of the Stone Realm, he could sense the treasure's location from a short distance.
But this wasn't an easy task. The universe was like an ever-expanding hollow balloon—the farther one ventured toward the outer layer, the larger the area became. The sensing range of the World Tree sculpture was limited, so Rosen had no choice but to constantly shift locations and conduct a sweeping, carpet-style search across a vast region.
He repeatedly activated the Gate of Space-Time, holding the sculpture to sense across the portal into the other side.
After more than two months of this, the World Tree sculpture finally picked up on the treasure's location.
Without delay, Rosen stepped through the portal and arrived at an extraordinarily beautiful blue supercluster.
This supercluster had many stars, but even more gaseous celestial bodies. Due to the presence of a certain substance in these gas giants that reflected blue light, the entire cluster seemed to be immersed in a vast sea of blue stars—an unusually breathtaking sight.
Such a unique supercluster was exceedingly rare throughout the entire universe.
It was nearly impossible for it to have formed naturally. To confirm his suspicion, Rosen unleashed his Creator Domain and captured one of the gaseous stars. As he examined it, he became certain: the blue-light-reflecting material wasn't ordinary—it was a highly unusual form of spiritual matter.
Even more astonishingly, the quality of this spiritual matter reached the Immortal level.
Even the Thirteenth Star Ring, associated with immortality, or the Fourteenth Star Ring, tied to eternity, wouldn't naturally give rise to such vast quantities of Immortal-grade spiritual matter. Clearly, these materials were connected to the World Tree's treasure.
Rosen didn't immediately harvest the spiritual matter. This kind of substance wouldn't crush the fabric of the universe.
That's because physical matter and energy exerted far more pressure on the cosmic starfield than spiritual matter.
Spiritual mass was far lighter than both physical and energetic mass.
With the World Tree sculpture providing accurate close-range guidance, Rosen quickly arrived at one of the core star systems within the supercluster.
This particular system had a massive star, which no longer emitted white sunlight.
In fact, its internal fusion processes had been replaced by a special kind of spiritual fusion. The star continuously released a blue glow, and it was from this spiritual radiance that the supercluster's abundant spiritual matter originated.
If even a single demigod had ventured this deep, they would've easily sensed the anomaly of this supercluster.
But with the universe constantly expanding, and space growing outward at speeds exceeding that of light, other star rings couldn't even detect this supercluster through light transmission—let alone allow any demigod to reach the Third Star Ring.
As for Sequence 7 Beyonders who might detect the supercluster—they lacked the strength to voyage deep through the universe.
So for at least tens of millions of years, Rosen was the first visitor to this supercluster.
He expanded his Creator Domain to encompass the entire star. With the power of his Space-Time Origin Seed, he reinforced the domain to isolate it entirely from the outside.
Once he confirmed that unleashing his full power wouldn't leak beyond the law-reinforced field, he summoned his Sea of Miracles and began suppressing the unique blue star.
Though it hadn't birthed any life, this blue star was already of Immortal grade.
Rosen summoned the longsword formed from the Heavenfrost Sacred Serpent, then began layering enhancement abilities one after another.
Finally, he ended with a charged slash, compressing all his power into the blade. With accelerated time, he launched forward and pierced the depths of the star—his Heavenfrost Sacred Sword stabbing a single point in the void. At that moment, the treasure space hidden within began to be torn open, its extremely compressed spatial laws splitting bit by bit.
Although only a narrow crack appeared, the Heavenfrost Sacred Serpent had already slipped inside.
Relying on the internal Heavenfrost World, it combined with the Gate of Space-Time to construct a stable passageway.
But just as Rosen was about to pass through the gate, a tree branch lashed out at him.
It appeared utterly ordinary, but the force compressed within it surpassed even the efficiency of his charged slash. Especially the moment it struck the gate—everything across space and time instantly petrified.
Rosen was absolutely certain: inside the treasure space lurked an Immortal god-demon who had mastered the power of the Stone Realm.
To control the same primal power… if this wasn't the World Tree, then he might as well change his surname to World Tree.
The World Tree had no reason to trap him—so only one explanation remained:
Back then, the World Tree had left a fragment of eternal will inside the treasure space. After its true body perished over countless years, that eternal will gradually revived. Then, by drawing upon the treasure space's resources, it strengthened the will until it eventually resurrected.
But if it didn't even have a compatible Origin Seed, how could this accidental incarnation of the World Tree wield Primal Power?
With doubts swirling, Rosen released Starsea Ladybugs to forcibly resist the damage from the primal power and charged into the treasure space.
He quickly used the Sea of Miracles to suppress what looked like a massive stone-carved tree in the void.
It was far weaker than expected, and seemingly not very intelligent.
Clearly, the World Tree had never considered that an incarnation might appear here. It must have left behind only a sliver of eternal will back then.
With so little will, the memory it carried was also minimal.
Trapped inside the treasure space with no one to interact with, it was like being born directly into prison—how could such a being ever develop real intelligence?
On top of that, without even an Origin Seed, even if it somehow wielded Primal Power, its actual combat strength was much lower than expected.
Rosen glanced into the treasure space, and his expression immediately darkened—it was completely empty.
Obviously, everything had either been consumed or taken away.
He had the impulse to kill this accidental avatar of the World Tree, but after a moment's thought, he changed his mind.
For the World Tree, accidentally obtaining this avatar was undoubtedly a stroke of good fortune.
If he destroyed it, the World Tree would definitely be filled with anger and hatred.
It would be better to hand the avatar over to the World Tree—this way, he could justifiably ask for more benefits in return.
Even though this would make the World Tree stronger, his greatest threat at the moment wasn't the World Tree, but the Ancient Gods.
Besides, if the World Tree grew stronger, did that mean he would stop advancing?
The Sea of Miracle Stars quickly used the Monument of Immortality to completely suppress the World Tree's avatar. Rosen immediately used his strengthened Psychologist Sequence abilities, enhanced by the Memory Source Seed, to read the avatar's memories. Then, inside and out, he scoured it completely clean.
The gains were few—he only obtained two items.
One was a stone, the other a glowing blue crystal core covered in perforations.
After examination, the stone was confirmed to be a primeval-grade origin stone, surpassing the eternal level. It contained primeval power and a unique world. The World Tree had relied on this Stone Realm Origin Stone to gain mastery over the power of the Stone Realm.
However, the power of the Stone Realm inside the origin stone was nearly depleted.
If it had been in peak condition, the World Tree would never have allowed it to fall into someone else's hands.
Because once benefits reached a certain level, even allies could betray and sell each other out at any time.
Rosen sent the Stone Realm Origin Stone into the Mysterious Study Room. After confirming it posed no danger, the stone would be absorbed into the study as well.
Only then did he pick up the glowing blue crystal core and examine it closely.
The World Tree hadn't explained what was inside the treasure, but one thing was certain: it hadn't understood the nature of this blue crystal core.
That was because the blue glow it emitted had been able to completely bypass the seals left by the World Tree in its prime, leaking out to blanket half the supercluster—and even contaminated stars, turning them into special celestial bodies emitting blue light.
Had the World Tree known this core would behave this way, it never would have placed it in the treasure space.
It drew too much attention. The only reason this anomaly hadn't attracted Eternal Beings was that it occurred when the treasure space had already reached the third planetary ring. If it had happened anywhere from the sixth ring upward, the World Tree's treasure would have long been discovered.
Rosen carefully sensed the crystal core in his hand and found that it resonated with his Eternal Soulbinding Horn.
A horn immediately sprouted from his forehead, and he cautiously made contact with the crystal core.
The blue crystal core instantly flowed along the Eternal Soulbinding Horn into his Sea of Consciousness, completely ignoring the defenses of the Mysterious Study Room, locking directly onto the Eternal Divinity inside—and fused with it, fully absorbing it.
Rosen, still shaken, used his Eternal Will to carefully sense the changes. Gradually, he came to understand the crystal core's function.
Through this blue crystal core, he could fuse the origin of life and the origin of divinity into spiritual force.
Spiritual force and spiritual power were entirely different things.
In a strict sense, spirituality could be seen as a sublimation of spiritual power.
Spiritual power referred to the mental energy generated by ordinary people through thought and consciousness, without awakened spirituality.
But this type of spiritual power wasn't even as refined as spirituality, let alone comparable to the spiritual force born from primeval power.
The kind of spiritual power accessible to ordinary people barely deserved the term spiritual.
Technically speaking, the "spirit" in "spiritual" refers to vitality and energy—the origin of life—while "ual" refers to consciousness. The spiritual power derived from the brain was clearly focused on consciousness, with only a faint trace of life's origin.
Whereas spiritual force, derived from primeval power, was the perfect fusion of the origin of life and the origin of divinity.
Only this fusion truly lived up to the term spiritual force.
Once fused, spiritual force retained the properties of both life and divinity origins—while also amplifying both—and could even transform all things into spiritual matter.
Rosen had once thought the Eternal Soulbinding Horn was just the relic of a very weak primeval lifeform.
Otherwise, how could it be merely an eternal organ?
Now it seemed he had misunderstood. The Eternal Soulbinding Horn probably wasn't the core organ of that primeval being at all. The blue crystal core he had just obtained might be the true core, and the Soulbinding Horn was merely a subordinate part—no more valuable to a primeval being than a tooth or fingernail.
Rosen gradually familiarized himself with spiritual force, slowly experiencing the terrifying nature of primeval power.
Everything in the universe possessed the property of mutual transformation.
Different materials could transform into one another. World origins could be converted into eternal origins through Source Seeds. Whether forward or reverse, as long as the power was sufficient, transformation was always possible—and that meant nothing was truly eternal.
Yet primeval power was different—without exception, it possessed the trait of true immortality.
Take the spiritual force he had just mastered: once he fused the origin of life and divinity into spiritual force, those original sources were permanently erased. The resulting spiritual force could no longer be converted back.
And this transformed spiritual force could not be erased by any known means.
Rosen used his spiritual force to control the Canvas of the Mind, and then used spiritual force to paint a rabbit on the canvas. In the next instant, the Canvas of the Mind projected the rabbit into reality and manifested it physically—yet not a single shred of spiritual force had been consumed in the process.
If any other kind of power had been used to manifest that rabbit, some amount of energy would inevitably have been spent. No matter how small, there would be consumption—because a rabbit cannot appear out of nowhere.
Yet spiritual force truly allowed for something to be created from nothing.
God is omniscient and omnipotent, so if you ask whether He can create a stone so heavy that He Himself cannot lift it,the answer is, of course, no—because even God must expend His own power to create a stone.
Unless one's power is infinite, creating an infinitely heavy stone would eventually exhaust all of it.
However, the power of the Primordial comes from nothing and suffers no loss. Once mastered, it allows one to create a stone even they themselves cannot lift. Primordial power only increases and never diminishes. It cannot be worn down or erased—no matter how it's used, it is never consumed.This is precisely why Primordial Life stands above Eternal Life.
Rosen even suspected that the Source Seed might itself be a creation of the Primordial Power.
He desperately wanted to obtain a large amount of spiritual power, but at this stage, that was clearly impossible.
This was because generating spiritual power required the permanent depletion of both his Life Source and Divinity Source. If he used too little, the spiritual power generated would be useless; if he used too much, both sources would be depleted. How would he ever ascend to Eternal Life then?
That said, he did have another way to obtain spiritual power that could make him stronger.
The blue crystal core encasing the Eternal Divinity was, in essence, the materialization of spiritual power.
Although this spiritual power didn't belong to him, it also no longer had a master.
Even though his spiritual power was composed of Life Source and Divinity Source, controlling it still required the aid of Eternal Will. Only spiritual power infused with Eternal Will could be wielded freely. But there wasn't the slightest trace of Eternal Will inside the blue crystal core.
All Rosen needed to do was polish it with Eternal Will, over and over, until he could claim this unowned spiritual power for himself.
After confirming that there were no leftovers in the treasure vault, he began dismantling the vault and sending it into the Miracle Star Sea for decomposition.
Once he reestablished contact with his Bronze Dragon avatar via the Spatial World Gate, his avatar in the Primordial God World immediately reached out to the World Tree.
Mere moments later, the World Tree arrived at the Suspended Empire. Clearly, it was in urgent need of what the treasure vault had contained.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"
Rosen sighed and asked.
"The bad," replied the World Tree, suppressing its inner anxiety.
Although it could awaken the Primordial God and perish together with Rosen, if Rosen chose money over life, it would be difficult for it to commit to dying with him. The best outcome would be for Rosen to take his profits and walk away—otherwise, both dying would only benefit the Primordial God.
"The bad news is, the only thing left in the treasure vault is a nearly empty shell of Stone Realm Origin Ore…"
Rosen hadn't finished speaking before the World Tree was already glaring at him in fury.
"Don't get so worked up. I haven't told you the good news yet…"
Rosen smiled and said, "I captured an immortal god-demon who controls the power of Origin Stone. Everything in your treasure vault was devoured by that immortal god-demon. So, how do you plan to compensate me for my losses?"
"Compensate you for your losses?"
The World Tree was furious at first, but then its expression shifted to one of delight as a possibility occurred to it.
An immortal god-demon couldn't possibly wield Primordial Power. Primordial Power required one to develop the Source Seed's power to its absolute limit and also rely on external aids. If such a god-demon, one captured alive by Rosen, did possess Primordial Power, the only possibility was that it was its own avatar.
If it could acquire this avatar, the World Tree would gain three major benefits.
First, it would obtain greater control over the power of the Stone Realm. Second, it would gain a peak-level immortal god-demon avatar.And finally, this avatar would significantly lower the difficulty for it to regain Eternal Life.
The World Tree pondered for a long time before offering what it considered a fair condition for compensation.
There was no second treasure vault, but it knew of a ruin left behind by a Primordial Lifeform somewhere in the universe.
Even though it was just information, Rosen was satisfied and handed over the World Tree's avatar.
That was because this ruin of a Primordial Lifeform was the very place where the blue crystal core had originated.
Although the World Tree hadn't exposed him for secretly keeping the blue crystal core—and didn't know its true value—it was certain that the object was of Primordial level. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been stored in the treasure vault as a prized item.
Once Rosen's true body received the location of the ruin, he immediately opened a Spatial World Gate to head to the Origin Dark Sea.
Although the Origin Dark Sea was filled with endless world origins, aside from Origin Beasts, there were indeed some special places occupied by other forces. Even Forbidden Zones of the universe could sink half an Eternal World into the Origin Dark Sea—let alone a ruin left by a Primordial Lifeform.
After a difficult search, Rosen finally found the location of the ruin, which on the surface appeared to be a massive skeletal skull.
This skull was shrouded in eternal-grade spiritual matter, and none of the nearby Origin Beasts dared approach it. The only way to enter the ruin within the skull was by using Primordial Power to protect oneself. Otherwise, even Eternal Lifeforms wouldn't be able to force their way in.
With the Stone Realm Origin Ore in hand, he could, in the World Tree's view, use it to find a way inside.
But even with the aid of the Origin Ore, entering wouldn't be a simple matter.
What the World Tree didn't expect, however, was that Rosen had already mastered spiritual power using the blue crystal core.
Rosen didn't immediately enter the ruin, because numerous reckless Origin Beasts were roaming nearby.
Based on his observation, every one of these Origin Beasts was an avatar of an Eternal Lifeform—without exception.
Clearly, this ruin had long since been discovered by the Holy Temple. The question was—why were they only watching and not moving in to exploit it?
According to the World Tree's judgment, some Eternal Lifeforms in the Holy Temple had already mastered Primordial Power.
So entering and exiting the ruin shouldn't be difficult—unless something had changed within it that even the World Tree didn't know about. In that case, even mastering Primordial Power would be useless for getting in, which was why the Eternal Lifeforms from the Holy Temple were lying in wait outside.
If anyone was discovered entering the ruin, they'd likely rush in to reap the rewards themselves.
(End of Chapter)