Chapter 624 - (1/2) Bastard Draco, Stop Right There! 3
Draco chose to begin with Universe Growth first. He wasn't sure how it would affect Area Expansion, but it certainly wouldn't be bad if the void out there stopped looking bleak and infinite, rather having some semblance of life to it.
It was fine since barely a month had passed since he had introduced his family to this place, but it might lead to psychological problems if they had to stare at this for long periods of time.
Draco coughed up the resources, the sheer volume of which was enough to form a small mountain. Even though that might sound like a lot, when considering the effect of what it would do, it was too little.
However, when Draco saw what occurred next, he understood why. The resources did not enter the void right away, but were instead absorbed by the Eternal Tree.
It shook for a bit before sending out a bright wave of four-colored light into the universe above the area of the island in the void. This light washed over everything, losing its shine the farther it went until Draco sensed that it collided with what should be the edges of his Inner Universe.
After 'coating' the void with this four-colored light, the Eternal Tree began to release huge amounts of energy outward, all at the Origin Grade. This energy surged into the void and was greedily absorbed by each particle that formed the four colored light.
Draco didn't need his Eyes of Caelo to see what was happening. His connection to the Eternal Tree and the Universe Seedling was enough for him to understand the mechanics of what was happening and what should have happened.
Essentially, one would need to start from the beginning.
The Etz Chaim Seedling, given to him by Flora as a reward for the Hidden Quest back during the Flora and Fauna Unique Quest, was supposed to allow a player to open up an organic super mini small world in their body.
It was limited in the sense that it was within the rules and confines of the Western Fantasy section. It could at most grow into another main plane, assuming that the player would choose to feed it enough resources... but how could that be easy?
Taking a super mini small world to a mini small world, then to a small world, and to a world was quite manageable for True Gods and above. Draco guessed that they had enough resources and power to achieve this and that each true God should have at least one of these.
After all, the Etz Chaim Seedling's original Rank had been Epic, not Legendary or Divine. It was not that powerful due to many constraints.
Taking a world to the Side Realm level was as difficult as making a Legendary Item for someone at the Master Rank without all the crazy bonuses Draco enjoyed, left to just themselves and their base chances.
Such a task was not quite herculean, but far from impossible. Semi-Origin Gods had created some of the more notable ones such as the Devil World, Hell as well as the Abyss.
They were the ones who had invested in them until they had reached their current level.
However, going from a Side Realm to Main World/Plane level, was something only possible for Origin Gods. It could almost never happen naturally with the limited energy of the Western Fantasy section.
Now though, the Etz Chaim Seedling had been merged with a pure Origin Energy crystal, greatly modifying it to the point of increasing its Rank to Origin. A single Origin Energy crystal, according to Norma's standards, was worth the constant infusion of energy from an Origin God for 10 years nonstop.
In other words, one of Norma's refined Origin Crystals could have allowed one Origin God to take a break for 10 years!
The number of things an Origin God could do on the Main Plane in that time was truly horrifying!
They could have long fixed their current predicament, repaired the divine pantheon as well as compacted the Main Plane, and concentrated the energy.
After all, part of the reason they were forced to work all the time was because the Western Fantasy universe kept expanding, demanding more and more energy lest it consumed itself to make up for the deficit.
When two Origin Gods of Blacksmithing and Alchemy had taken the time to bless Draco due to his absurd talent during the Refinement God Treasury Unique Quest, his Seal of Camelot had gone from Legendary to Divine and his Epic Heart of the Woods had become evolvable without limit.
At the time, they had only used a wisp of impure Origin Energy, something they had produced in those few seconds that wasn't even carefully refined, yet it alone had such a great effect on the two items.
What happened if they had such pure concentrated energy with such high quantity?
Well, it had taken the Epic Etz Chaim Seedling right away to the Origin Rank Universe Seedling. This had only taken the littlest energy, leaving the rest to expand on its original effect, which was housing a super mini small world.
It had crazily upgraded it to the super mini small universe level, which was something that could form a whole section of Boundless on its own.
The leftover energy then purifies it. Which was why when Draco had first activated the seed, he had unlimited Worldly Energy, Aetheric Energy, Divine Energy, and 10% Origin Energy.
That 10% was the remainder from the crystal that had stayed unused.
The Universe Seedling was fine on its own, but it, just like the Etz Chaim Seedling, required two things. One was a hefty infusion of specific resources and the second was a level of ambient energy able to sustain growth.
Both things were more than 10,000 times harder to procure for the Origin Item compared to its Epic counterpart. Although the Tower had almost all the required resources, the number of score points needed for the quantities would have been impossible to gain.
Even with the idea to redeem just ONE of everything, Draco actually lacked the necessary score points, and that wouldn't change unless he beat all 99 floors with more than respectable scores.
Without Refinement, he wouldn't be able to sleep well at night, knowing that there was a path forward but unable to tread upon it.
He would become like the various factions on the Main Plane, rabid for even the smallest resources, hoarding everything like a rat.
Now, the Universe Seedling had been intruded by another Origin Item that had been powered much in the same way it had, another of Norma's Origin Crystals.
This was the Epic Seed of Yggdrasil!
This seed gave any small world the ability to connect itself with up to 9 others on the tree to form a connected hub.
The seed was also special, in that its other side effect was to produce energy for these 9 worlds and stabilize them. Yes, the Eternal Tree's ability to generate energy originated from the Seed of Yggdrasil.
This should not come as a surprise, as Nidhogg, the Devouring Dragon, was said to have drained only 1% of the Yggdrasil's energy yet had grown to become a horrifying behemoth.
When infused with Origin Energy, the same thing had occurred. Its Rank had shot up to Origin and the energy greatly enhanced the effect.
It was never directly shown, but the upgraded Seed of Yggdrasil - the Cosmic Tree - should have had three passives and three actives.
One was the energy generation, another was the space traversal ability, the space locking, and some other misc functions.
Now, when the Cosmic Tree had met the Universe Tree (the Universe Seedling) they had clashed and then merged, two Origin Items with different characteristics fusing and covering each other's weakness had formed something exponentially stronger.
The Universe Tree, a Creation/Life element existence, and the Cosmic Tree, a Space/Energy element existence had combined into the Eternal Rank, Eternal Tree.
As stated before, a realm, whether a universe or a world, needed two things to grow. The relevant resources and foundation, as well as the relevant energy produced naturally or provided externally.
How things worked traditionally was that one would provide the resources and infuse them into the world. Then, they could let the world sort of 'ratify' the infused resources and turn them into its own rules/laws with the utilization of energy.
This process could be sped up using external energy like throwing in Aether Crystals and the like. So you could now understand why the various powers were hoarding such things crazily, and even wanted more now that Draco had introduced them to the Advanced Spatial Creation Device.
So what was going on here with the Morningstar World?
Before comparing what was different, let's talk about what was happening here specifically.
The Eternal Tree was the center of the island in the void and the entire Universe. It had taken the resources itself and broken them down with ease, before evenly distributing them throughout every corner of the world.
Right after that, it began infusing the universe with the highest grade energy it could offer, allowing it to perfectly 'ratify' the resources it received.
To give an analogy, the four colored lights were a set of rules and laws detailing the four basic elements and how they functioned, how they were produced, and how they could be used.
It was raw code that was to be added to the 'DNA' of the Inner Universe. However, as it were, it would take too long and too much energy over time to achieve this, so the Eternal Tree gave it Origin Energy to merge itself with each and every 'molecule' of the Inner Universe.
Why this was so groundbreaking and deserving of a heavenly tribulation of the highest grade would be made clear soon enough.