Chapter 63: The Golden Woman In The Palace

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: The Golden Woman In The Palace

A moment later, another series of notifications appeared.

[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully invested a Grade 5 Star God Pill!]

[A 25x return has been triggered!]

[Reward: One Grade 6 Divine Descent Pill, one Grade 6 Saint Healing Pill, three Grade 5 Lesser Enlightenment Pills, two Grade 5 Saint Essence Pills, two Grade 5 Creation Pills, and one Grade 5 Marrow Cleansing Pill!]

Xavier’s expression instantly brightened.

It worked!

He had only been testing his theory, and he certainly had not expected the investment to succeed on the first attempt.

The Star God Pill was useful to Snow, but what excited him even more was where that pill had originally come from. It was one of the rewards he had previously obtained from investing in Mira, and now he had successfully invested that reward in another target.

Xavier suddenly saw an entirely new possibility.

That means I can invest in Mira and Snow simultaneously. Anything I receive from investing in Mira can be invested in Snow, and anything I receive from Snow can potentially be invested back into Mira.

His eyes gleamed. He had finally discovered a loophole. It was precisely because the system refused to allow him to reinvest the rewards he received from a target back into that same person that Xavier had previously gone through so much trouble.

He had made deals with Evelyn. He had attended auctions. He had spent considerable effort obtaining resources from other sources.

Now, none of that seemed necessary. As long as he had multiple eligible investment targets, he could simply transfer the rewards between them. It was practically a cycle of endless growth.

"Left foot on the right foot," Xavier murmured, unable to help laughing. "Then I’ll just keep climbing."

He was beginning to love this ridiculous system.

"Come here," he said, his enthusiasm surging.

"Spirit Gathering Pills. Prosperity Pills. Breakthrough Pills. Explosive Mana Pills."

He emptied almost everything in his spatial ring onto the ground.

The only exceptions were the two Grade 6 pills he was keeping for himself.

Everything else went to Snow. In total, there were nearly two hundred pills, and before long they had formed a small mountain on the grass.

Snow stared at the pile. The little tiger had no idea what these strange objects were.

They certainly did not smell as good as the chaotic energy, but after swallowing the first few, a warm sensation spread through its stomach.

Some instinct buried deep within its bloodline immediately told it that these things were beneficial.

So Snow stopped thinking. It opened its mouth and began eating.

One pill. Two. Five. Ten. The little tiger swallowed them at an astonishing speed. Meanwhile, notifications continuously exploded inside Xavier’s mind.

[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully invested a Grade 4 Spirit Gathering Pill!]

[A 10x return has been triggered!]

[Reward: One Grade 5 Lesser Enlightenment Pill!]

[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully invested a Grade 4 Awakening Pill!]

[An 8x return has been triggered!]

[Reward: Three Grade 4 Purification Pills, three Grade 4 Spirit Gathering Pills, and two Grade 4 Prosperity Pills!]

The notifications continued without pause. Then another one appeared.

[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully invested a Grade 5 Saint Essence Pill!]

[A 200x return has been triggered!]

[Reward: One Grade 7 Saint Purification Pill and one Grade 7 Great Enlightenment Pill!]

Xavier’s breathing stopped for a moment.

Grade Seven!

He stared at the notification with barely concealed excitement.

In less than a minute, more than thirty investment notifications had appeared.

The return multipliers varied wildly. Some investments only produced two or three times their original value.

Others reached dozens of times. And one had even reached two hundred times.

By the time the barrage of notifications finally slowed, Xavier had accumulated an absurd number of resources.

There were countless Grade 4 pills. Dozens of Grade 5 pills. More than ten Grade 6 pills. And, most astonishingly, two Grade 7 pills. The rewards were so generous that Xavier could hardly keep the smile off his face.

But then he noticed something strange.

"Wait," he said, frowning. "Why did it stop?"

The system had been responding continuously just moments ago, and now there had been no new notification for several seconds.

Xavier finally pulled his attention away from the system and looked toward Snow.

The tiny white tiger was no longer eating. Instead, it was sprawled comfortably on the ground, its little belly noticeably round.

And the moment Xavier looked closer, he realized the reason for the silence.

Snow was fast asleep.

What the hell?

Xavier couldn’t believe his eyes.

Meanwhile inside the palace, the moment Lydia emerged from Mira’s body, the overwhelming voices demanding that they kneel and submit abruptly vanished. The crushing pressure disappeared with them.

Mira slowly raised her head and looked around. The enormous hall that had been filled with countless imposing voices was now completely silent. Apart from herself and Lydia, there was no one else standing.

Her heart skipped a beat. So everything they had experienced before was an illusion.

Before she could fully process it, another deep bell toll echoed through the palace.

Mira turned sharply. Both Evelyn and Grant collapsed without warning, their bodies hitting the floor almost simultaneously, leaving Mira startled.

"Don’t panic. They’re only unconscious," Lydia said calmly. "They can’t be allowed to witness what happens next."

Mira’s expression changed. She immediately understood what Lydia meant. There was something about to happen that the others could not be allowed to see.

Her gaze slowly shifted toward the center of the hall.

Suspended high above them was an enormous ancient bell, easily more than thirty feet tall. Its surface was covered with countless intricate golden runes that seemed to move faintly whenever the bell vibrated.

And beneath it, a figure was gradually taking shape. Golden light gathered together until it formed the outline of a woman.

Mira’s eyes widened. The woman wore a magnificent dark gold imperial robe, a crown rested upon her head, and a long golden whip was held loosely in one hand.

Her entire body radiated an almost blinding golden brilliance.

Yet what shocked Mira most was her face. She looked exactly like Lydia. It was another version of the woman currently residing within Mira.

"This is..." Mira could barely find her voice.

Lydia’s expression remained calm.

The golden woman slowly opened her eyes and extended one hand toward her counterpart.

"Come with me," she said. "Let us become one again."

She was the consciousness born from the ancient bell, the imperial incarnation of Lydia.

Originally, the two had been a single soul, but for reasons neither of them fully remembered, that soul had been divided into two separate consciousnesses.

Now that they had finally encountered each other again, the natural conclusion seemed obvious. They should reunite. ℴ

But Lydia shook her head.

"No," she said. "You should merge into me."

The golden woman’s expression hardened.

"That distinction is meaningless," she said.

"It isn’t," Lydia replied, her eyes narrowing slightly. "The one who chooses to merge determines which consciousness survives afterward."

Mira listened in confusion. She could not understand what difference there could possibly be between two fragments of the same soul merging. But Lydia continued explaining.

"If I willingly enter you, the resulting consciousness will have to rely on the Soul Bell to continue existing," she said.

"But if you enter me instead, I can continue existing independently after the fusion."

Only then did Mira begin to understand. The two halves were not merely deciding whether to merge.

They were deciding which consciousness would remain in control after the merger.

The golden Lydia’s eyes gradually became cold.

"So we disagree," she said, raising the golden whip. "Then we’ll settle it the old fashioned way."

The whip cracked through the air, and there was almost no warning before it descended toward Lydia with terrifying speed.

The golden incarnation clearly had tremendous confidence in her own strength.

Although she had only awakened recently, she had inherited fragments of memories from her previous existence, and more importantly, the weapon in her hand was an ancient treasure specifically designed to attack souls.

Against an ordinary spiritual entity, one strike would be enough to cause devastating damage.

But Lydia did not even retreat. Just before the whip could reach her, she casually lifted one hand, and a strange black and white energy immediately surged outward.

The golden woman’s body abruptly froze, her eyes widening in disbelief.

"Chaotic energy?" she breathed, her voice trembling. "How do you have chaotic energy?"

The golden light surrounding her began to flicker as the strange energy wrapped around her soul. She could not move. She could not resist.

From the memories she had inherited, she knew exactly how terrifying chaotic energy was. It was an existence at the very pinnacle of energy itself.

Even during her previous life, she had never possessed the ability to control it, and a soul without a physical body was even more vulnerable to it.

Yet Lydia offered no explanation. She simply opened her mouth, and a powerful suction force erupted.