Endless Horde: Through the Eyes of a Godking

--

It's been a month since Cedric arrived at the Tower of Prodigies and began his trials. He had seen incredible improvement since then.

First, his progress with the 『Nine Suns Empyrean Codex』 increased steadily. The first Extreme Sun Aperture he had opened was almost fully condensed by now. It's still going to take some time before it's completed, and he understands that.

This urged him to return to the Trial of Mind, arriving at the Ancient Stone once more to comprehend another skill. During this time, he felt that the allure and temptation of the stone increased significantly. If it weren't for his recent increase in strength, he would've caved in. Fortunately, he didn't, which allowed him to learn his second skill from the Ancient Stone.

The skill he comprehended was called: [Myriad Sword Catalogue], which delighted him greatly because it's sword Sword Art.

The Myriad Sword Catalogue is divided into two chapters: the Sword Master Chapter and the Sword Immortal Chapter. Each chapter contained all the details necessary to train and master the sword. It even contained details about the further stages of Sword Mastery that Cedric had never encountered before.

The Sword Master Chapter is all about wielding the sword, while the Sword Immortal Chapter is about controlling swords. Each had their own charm and did not clash with each other.

This was just the thing that Cedric was lacking. He's vaguely aware that this might be a general technique for the swordsmen of the Divine Council, but he doesn't care. The fact that he got this for free was already a lot for him.

His comprehension didn't end here. After memorizing the contents of the Myriad Sword Catalogue, he received another skill from the Ancient Stone that's called [Runic Heaven Records].

Yes, this one was about inscriptions, runes, symbols, arrays, and formations. Again, Cedric guessed that this might just be the basics of the Path of Symbols, but he didn't care. It's exactly the fundamentals that he's lacking, so he's grateful for this.

And to his overwhelming surprise, he comprehended a fourth skill right after this, which is called the [Heaven Shrinking Steps].

It's a movement technique, something that Cedric never bothered to learn before. The concept of movement skills isn't new to Cedric; there are a lot of them on Prime Earth; he even had the fortune of witnessing some in person.

The reason he never bothered with it is because he was already absurdly fast. Even as a mere superhuman, he could already move at the speed of light. As he got stronger, he became even faster. Despite not learning any movement skills, Cedric never neglected his speed because it's one of his trump cards.

This [Heaven Shrinking Steps], however, is something that he had to learn. Like the rest so far, Cedric assumed that this was a fundamental skill of the Divine Council.

Because of how vast their civilization is, which literally spans hundreds of galaxies, not learning this technique would be a sin. He would be left behind, literally, if he didn't learn this skill.

And it just so happened that the [Heaven Shrinking Steps] contained insights about Spatial Manipulation, something that, again, Cedric desperately lacked, so how can he not learn it?

Cedric was no longer as surprised when he learned his fifth skill right away. Well, it can't be considered a skill, really. It's more like homework than anything else.

It's called the [Five Elements Concept Diagram]. And the contents of this thing subverted Cedric's worldview.

See, a concept diagram is, in truth, similar to an aspect sigil (which Cedric thought was wild because what a coincidence, right?) And it kind of works the same; they contain knowledge from masters who made it as a form of inheritance for their juniors or descendants.

It's just that the concept diagrams were more focused on concept laws. And to Cedric's absolute shock, it turns out that concept laws are divided into levels too!

Planetary Realm Life Evolvers comprehend Planetary Concept Laws. Simply put, they comprehend the forces of nature. The more they understand it, the more beneficial it is for their road in terms of life evolution.

Grand Solar Evolvers comprehend Grand Laws, and Cosmic Level Evolvers comprehend Cosmic Laws.

The gap between each level was immense. Reaching the perfected stage of planetary fire law only scratches the surface of the real immensity of grand fire laws. Similarly, the perfection of the grand fire law was just the surface of the cosmic fire law.

This was insane. It once again reminded Cedric of just how irrelevant he was compared to the grand scheme of things.

The [Five Elements Concept Diagram] contains knowledge about the laws of fire, water, earth, metal, and wood, which are considered the building blocks of the world.

It is said that before one reaches the Grand Solar Realm, one must attain mastery over the five fundamental laws, or else they'll face a bottleneck later on. It could be postponed, but that contains risks.

Having this concept diagram was akin to having headache-inducing homework because if he wanted to reach beginner mastery over the [Five Elements Concept Diagram], he had to comprehend the beginner level for all five elements. The same goes if he wants to raise it to intermediate mastery.

Unfortunately, his comprehension ended here for now.

In total, he had learned half of the skills he needed to pass the first stage of the trial of mind.

Cedric has the 『Nine Suns Empyrean Codex』, the Myriad Sword Catalogue, the Runic Heaven Records, the Heaven Shrinking Steps, and the Five Elements Concept Diagram.

Since the Ancient Stone no longer provided him with new skills to learn and analyze and was just tempting him to touch it, Cedric left the trial space and returned to his room.

He hasn't seen any of his fellow challengers, but he didn't mind. He didn't have much time or intent on socializing for now anyway.

After arriving at his personal space, Cedric arranged a schedule for himself with the help of the system.

Cultivating the Nine Suns Empyrean Codex was a given, of course. Other than that, he planned on dividing his time wisely into studying the new skills he learned.

He will practice the Myriad Sword Catalogue and the Heavenly Shrinking Steps until he drops from complete exhaustion. Then, as he's resting, he will comprehend the Five Elements Concept Diagram and the Runic Heaven Records.

Cedric has enough thought chambers to handle the constant wave of insights he will receive. Moreover, unlike Prime Earth, the Concept Laws in his 'room' are more stable and abundant.

He knows that he can't compare himself to the real prodigies of the Divine Council, but the fact that he qualified for the trials should mean that he's not that bad. Moreover, Cedric has never been afraid of challenges, so how does anybody expect him to cave in and give up?

A flame burned fiercely within Cedric's chest. It's his determination to achieve his goals and to prove something. This was something that he never felt towards his peers back on Prime Earth.

[Hello, Dawnbringer.] The system's voice sounded in his ears, surprising him briefly.

[We detected that you comprehended the Myriad Sword Catalogue and the Runic Heaven Records.]

[We will be providing you with training materials to assist with your practice.]

Swoosh!

A portal appeared near Cedric, and he spat out the training materials he needed. He saw a rustic sword case, a runic quill, a stack of papers, and several jars of ink.

He took the rustic sword case first and asked the system to appraise it.

[Trainee's Sword Case]

: Training equipment that summons an infinite number of training swords.

Hint: Refine it using your blood to gain ownership of this item.

Cedric's eyes widened upon reading this. He unhesitatingly nicked his finger and smeared his blood on the runic carvings of the sword case. It lit up briefly, and Cedric felt an intrinsic connection with it.

If he wanted to, he could store this in his soul for safekeeping and bring it out whenever he wanted to.

He then tried summoning a training sword, and it truly appeared. He held the training sword and couldn't help but smile wryly.

"Ah, of course. The 'training sword' of this civilization would be considered a legendary sword in my world. How fucking absurd."

The quality of the training sword in his hand was definitely higher than his own sword, the Solaris Edge. The only advantage Solaris Edge has over this training sword is the sealed energy that Cedric has been feeding it since he got it.

That said, if he were to unleash all of those energies at once, it would only barely manage to destroy this training sword. Which is so fucking absurd, it makes Cedric feel like crying.

The fact that this sword case could produce an unlimited number of training swords like this makes him feel weak in the knees.

The runic quill was no different. As for the stack of papers and jars of ink, he could also tell that they're of the standard quality of the alliance.

Cedric felt like he's going to have an annuerysm if he continues making comparisons, so he didn't dare to think about it anymore.

"Just accept everything, Cedric." He muttered to himself, "Don't drown in these riches and focus on your training."