Initially Bian planned to head over to the castle. Not only was the Duke's spirit stone there, but he could finally strengthen the Solum Mirror and advance it.
After weighing the pros and cons though, he decided against heading to the castle and instead settled down in an intact building.
It wasn't a shabby house, but most importantly it had some distance from both the castle and the battlefield.
Bian opted to increase his strength and rest before facing the duke rather than heading over to the castle.
He was more than certain that the Duke had protection there, or a means to teleport back instantly even if it was by death.
Holding the two mutant pills, Bian activated the Emperical Decree and felt a large flood of energy leave his system.
He suddenly got light-headed while the two pills in his hands turned to motes of indigo light and fused together.
The Emperical Aura which had been active all this while turned off automatically. Bian couldn't withstand the consumption after this major power drain.
'I thought I would have enough energy to maintain the Emperical Aura. I must have been more tired than I felt.'
Leaving the Emperical Aura on was a full-time radar plus they had no way of tracking him in the uniform indigo light.
Without it, Bian would have to be more vigilant which wasn't going to be easy since he needed some shut-eye.
With much excitement, he slipped the pinkish pill into his mouth and swallowed it in one gulp.
[Sacred Geno Points +1]
[Sacred Geno Points +1]
[...]
One hundred mutant geno points could increase a person's fitness by about eight thousand, but a hundred Sacred Geno Points could increase a person's fitness by sixteen thousand!
Just this one pill increased his fitness by 1600.
Bian felt his muscles swell, as if he could jump to the skies with a light skip.
"I need to consolidate my strength!"
The massive increase in fitness made him feel less like a sleepy cat and more like a sleepy tiger.
He was still sleepy!
He reluctantly had to rest on the bed, but not before firing up the spirit pillar.
This way even if something sneaked past his defenses, his heightened instincts would alert him instantly.
"Don't worry, I'll stand guard and watch."
Bao'er said with sparkling determination.
"Yeah, thank you. Papa's little brave girl."
Bian shot her a smile and cleared his head, drifting off to sleep a moment later.
...
"Finally."
A tall and muscular figure encased in shining blue heavy armor let out a groan.
The other spirit by his side, a pale white figure wearing a long silk gown did not reply.
She merely toyed with her scythe, very engrossed in it as if she had never seen it before.
"It really did work." She muttered softly.
"Of course it did!" The muscular spirit kicked her away, annoyed by her doubt.
"I told you before, souls can be used to advance geno cores. After so long I finally figured out how to do it, and now I'm sure it's safe for self geno cores."
He said while appreciating the glint of her gemstone scythe.
The only caveat was the amount of souls it took to upgrade a gold geno core.
Close to ten thousand ghosts had to be restrained by the female spirit before she could advance her geno core.
A benefit of the ghosts though, were different individuals gave different boons.
And then again, there were hundreds of thousands of ghosts. Or at least there should be, but lately finding them had been taxing.
It's like a cat came to a den of mice, killing some and scaring the others.
Looking at the giant ghost with multiple tentacles in the distance, the Duke's eyes glistened.
He would have avoided this particular ghost normally, but now that Earl Ankou had her Soul Reaping scythe as a Gemstone, she could probably restrain it.
"Get me more soul cores!"
He barked, looking forward to when his own self geno core would become Gemstone.
"The Soul Cores have all been exhausted."
Earl Ankou replied without any particular emotion.
She had to forcefully suppress her anger, for one simple reason.
The Edge of Ruin resting on the Duke's shoulder.
A sword blacker than the darkest night with a red gem embedded in between the hilt and blade.
There was no hearsay, Earl Ankou had seen with her own two eyes. She had seen the duke behead the prince in a single strike.
Now this madman actually wanted to advance his geno core to Gemstone.
She could only curse her luck.
"Soul Cores have been exhausted? That's good too."
The duke turned around heading back to his shelter.
"Let's deal with the bastard who's been killing my Sentries while we fetch some other soul cores."
Earl Ankou hid the pebble-sized crystal stone in her clothes. If one paid close attention, they would notice that this Soul Core looked exactly like the special stones from the Bluestone Coast.
"You know, sometimes I wonder why I keep you guys around!"
"All I asked was that you protect some vital areas, yet that incompetent buffoon let this creature loose and now two of the Sentries are dead!"
"Starshine better be dead also, for her sake, because if I get my hands on her I'll make her wish she was never born!"
The trip back was anything but quiet for Earl Ankou. The introverted spirit wanted nothing more than to finally rest in peace, after all the years of abuse.
She was too much of a coward to attempt suicide though. She could only keep on moving, her eyes getting more and more tired.
...
After several hours of resting, Bian woke up to a fresh start.
The sun was already high in the sky, yet the central capital remained desolate, like a wasteland.
"Well if I was an ordinary person I wouldn't come back here either."
Bian mused, picking up Bao'er who was asleep by his side and heading to the castle.
The Duke wasn't back yet, maybe he could upgrade his geno core and snag his spirit stone, killing two birds with one stone.
There was no need for navigation when approaching the castle; it was the biggest structure in the capital after all.
He just moved in that direction until he eventually reached the back of the castle.
Bian was about to go around the castle, looking for the entrance when he paused.
Bao'er was finally waking up.
"Oh thank the sanctuaries, you're awake."
He had to walk here because he was holding her and for that same reason he was about to go around the castle.
Since she was awake though, Bian simply brought back his fist and punched the wall.
"Uhm... I didn't mean to sleep, nothing happened for so long so I..."
"It's fine~ bang! ~ as long as ~bang! ~ you're alright ~ bang!"
After three more punches the sturdy wall finally collapsed. Bian walked through and began navigating through the castle.
There was a lot of living chambers, a dungeon underneath, a kitchen, stable, basic castle stuff.
Then, he saw the main keep where a gorgeous crystal statue was. A dark spirit Stone was embedded in the forehead of the statue.
Creak!
Several vines were slithering around the statue and the hall itself. Some were as thin as a baby's arm while others were thick like barrels.
"Oh so that's where he gets his confidence from? Even I dare not to carelessly approach plants."
Bian had done well to avoid dangerous flora in the sanctuaries as most times, these plants were more lethal than the creatures.
He doubted the plant here would be too treacherous, but he still cautiously avoided the hall. It wasn't what he was there for, yet.
Eventually Bian got to the hall he was looking for. He had learnt that every shelter initially needs a thousand gene points to be opened. Thankfully, the geno core storage area here was already open.
The Geno Core Storage access point looked very similar to a teleportation device. However, it wasn't mechanical or electrical, and neither were there any fancy tools or strange screens that offered technical readings that meant pretty much nothing.
There were a number of neon patterns and designs adorning it, though.
In the center was a stone plate. There was a word etched on its center, but Bian did not know what it meant.
He stepped on it, bringing out the geno core that was ready to advance. After summoning the Solum Mirror, the strange world came to life like a hologram around him.
A second later, Bian found himself standing before a big tablet, on which a lengthy message was scrawled.
Bian was unable to read what was written, but he felt as if he understood it, regardless.
It was a leaderboard, and it told him the names of the top one hundred bronze geno cores he could expect to find.
Number five was called Heart Wheel. He noticed there was also something else written beside it, as an addendum. It said "Sacred Shelter."
There were millions of names on the leaderboard, and Bian even saw some very peculiar ones.
"It's time to usurp the leaderboards!" He said with a smile.