Chapter 216: Geniuses Or Monsters?

["I understand completely what you are trying to achieve, but Kelly’s foundational base is still far too fragile—you shouldn’t attempt to rush her breakthrough. I truly hope you understand my perspective."]

?Asher read the handwritten words quietly in his mind, then lifted his golden gaze to meet Sara’s black eyes, offering her a slow, appreciative nod.

?The core logic of her warning matched the System’s exact caution word for word.

?"Very well then." Asher murmured. He snapped his fingers, and a massive pile containing twenty thousand glowing SSS-Rank evolution stones materialized out of his storage, cascading onto the emerald turf.

?"Kelly, you will take five thousand of these to push your personal cultivation up to the A-Rank threshold; once that foundation is established, I will personally escort you into active high-tier dungeons to completely stabilize and temper your core. Juliana, since you are already baseline A-Rank, you have five thousand allocated to bridge the gap directly into SSS-Rank..."

?The holographic menu of the Cultivation Tower flickered back to life before him, highlighting the seven-day temporal acceleration package:

?[Temporal Acceleration (+7 Days): 5,000 SSS-Rank Evolution Stones.]

?"Both of you will require two private cultivation chambers to ensure your breakthroughs remain isolated and stable... Do not worry about time constraints; seven full subjective days inside these chambers translates to a mere one hour in the physical world." He explained carefully, casting a sideways glance toward the System interface to confirm the operational parameters.

?Asher divided the stones, placing Kelly’s and Juliana’s respective shares neatly before them on the grass.

?"Now, I will initiate the activation sequence for the rooms--"

?"--Done."

?"....?!"

?Every head in the clearing snapped instantly toward Juliana. An empty space of pristine grass now occupied the exact spot where her massive pile of five thousand SSS-Rank evolution stones had rested barely a fraction of a second prior.

?"....??!!!!"

?Asher, Kelly, Sara, the System, and even the Cultivation Tower were left utterly paralyzed, their minds short-circuiting simultaneously.

?Asher stared blankly at Juliana, pivoted his head to stare at the glowing Cultivation Tower menu, and then whipped his gaze back to Juliana, entirely robbed of speech:

?’System, what in the absolute hell just happened?! Even with your guidance, it took me a grueling five minutes to process my early breakthroughs, yet she swallowed an entire mountain of SSS-Rank stones in less than two seconds flat.’ He demanded mentally, his eyes blinking rapidly in disbelief.

?{I am just as profoundly bewildered, Master... By all known laws of mortal physiology, no human constitution should possess the volumetric absorption bandwidth to process evolution stones at that velocity—let alone high-purity SSS-Rank ones.}

?{It must be an intrinsic property of her awakened time physique; which also deleted the time needed.}

?"....?!"

?Asher stood frozen like a statue:

?Back during his early days in the Starfire family, he couldn’t even safely absorb a single low-grade S-Rank core without risking organ failure, and here stood Juliana, devouring tens of thousands of peak rank stones in the blink of an eye.

?’Am I genuinely this woefully inadequate by comparison?’ He thought, a wave of profound existential vertigo washing over him.

?’This is deeply strange... I am well aware that Juliana is a genius, but this defies every recorded parameter of Awakened evolution. Why is her absorption efficiency so high?’ Sara thought, a deep frown furrowing her brow before she shifted her eyes back toward Asher:

?’Could this anomaly be directly linked to the cure he gave her?’

?"Um... I think I am..." Juliana announced innocently.

?BOOOOM!!

?A blinding, colossal pillar of verdant green energy erupted violently from Juliana’s frame, expanding outward in a massive shockwave that flattened the surrounding grass and left the trio standing frozen in place. Asher, Kelly, and Sara watched in breathless awe as Juliana’s power violently skyrocketed, tearing through the ranks without stopping until she slammed directly into the SSS-Rank ceiling.

?"....?!"

?"Wait... I’ve already reached SSS-Rank? Right?" Juliana asked, tilting her head with genuine, unfeigned confusion.

?{If she wasn’t bonded as your wife, I would have asked the Master to beat her for sheer absurdity.}

?’She is genuinely outperforming your built-in cheat engine, System...’ Asher added internally, remaining completely petrified.

?’This development is entirely abnormal... If my family wasn’t so rich, Juliana would officially hold the record as the youngest recorded SSS-Rank entity in history... Wait a moment.’ Sara blinked, staring at Juliana with narrowing eyes.

?"Wonderful! Congratulations on your successful ascent to SSS-Rank, Juliana." Kelly offered warmly, breaking the heavy silence with a bright, encouraging smile.

?"Huh? I still don’t particularly feel any different..." Juliana turned her bewildered gaze toward the frozen, speechless Asher:

?"Is breaking through into the SSS-Rank genuinely this remarkably effortless?" She inquired innocently.

?’Effortless?!’

?Asher felt his soul leave his body; he couldn’t even muster the breath to formulate a coherent reply. He had spent twenty agonizing years trapped in the dirt at baseline E-Rank, and here was Juliana, speedrunning evolution in less than a single night.

?{Well... To be entirely transparent, this is primarily possible because of the system, Master. The evolution stones generated through the System’s rewards are infinitely purer than natural evolution stones, and her temporal physique neatly edited out the required absorption time.}

?Asher let out a long, hollow exhale. If the System’s assessment was accurate, future enemies should consider themselves infinitely blessed that Juliana hadn’t awakened an offensive domain capable of draining life force or devouring spirit energy quite like Kelly’s tentacles manifestations.

?"Well... It certainly isn’t an effortless process for anyone else, Juliana; you are simply an extraordinary exception," Asher managed to reply evenly, before turning his attention back to the Cultivation Tower’s screen:

?’Regardless... She essentially saved me five thousand evolution stones with her ridiculous cheat-code absorption, meaning I only need to fund a single 7-day training room for Kelly now.’ He nodded briskly to himself, shifting his focus to Kelly:

?’At least one of my wives isn’t a terrifying, logic-breaking cultivation monster, or I would slip into a severe depression knowing I’m the only ordinary mortal in this household....’

?Asher’s internal thoughts instantly shattered as he froze.

?A single, sinewy dark tentacle smoothly moved from the tip of Kelly’s index finger, floating gracefully into the air above the five thousand SSS-Rank evolution stones he had just designated for her training. The next microsecond, the tip of the shadowy appendage split wide open like a voracious maw, lunging downward and swallowing the entire mineral pile whole in a single, clean motion.

?"...Huh?"

?He blinked rapidly, paralyzed for the fourth consecutive time, watching as the slender tentacle instantly contracted, thinned to a microscopic thread, and vanished completely back beneath Kelly’s skin.

?"I have also successfully completed my preparation," Kelly added calmly with a subtle nod.

?"....?!"

?Asher blinked, as she broke through to A-Rank. He quietly reached out with a trembling hand and pressed the manual shutdown switch on the Cultivation Tower’s control interface; he then simply sat down flat on the emerald turf, resting his chin in his hands as he stared blankly at the three women standing before him in absolute, numbed disbelief.

?If these three walking natural disasters could consume and digest evolution stones with this level of terrifying disregard for physical limits, what was even the operational point of acquiring this Cultivation Tower?

?Noticing his visibly crestfallen, defeated posture, all three women simultaneously shifted closer. Kelly and Juliana leaned forward gracefully, peering down directly into his wide, unblinking eyes with expressions of innocent concern, while Sara stood tall and composed just behind their shoulders.

?"What is the matter, Husband? You look remarkably pale and drained all of a sudden." They asked in unison, their voices perfectly synchronized.

?".....?!"

?{....}

?Both the master of the estate and his all-powerful System were left completely, deafeningly speechless.