Prime Originator

Within the dreamscape, Leon sat cross-legged on the floor with his arms crossed, his brows furrowed and his gaze piercing. In front of him were the Ravenous Black he had placed on the ground and the object of his gaze. 

'To create a fake replica to such degree of fine details, it must serve a purpose. Obviously, this purpose is to create a new runic mechanism that will allow me to escape back to my real body, but…'

Leon frown deepened. He didn't know where to begin. If the dreamscape was his, he would be able to create anything with the power of his imagination. He would just need to simply will a portal to the real world to return.

After all, a dreamscape is like the world of one's dream and anyone can be the god of their own dream, dictating what can and what can't happen. 

Nothing needed to make sense behind the power to create anything, nor did the logic and reasoning needed to be understood for it to happen. If they will it with their imagination, it will happen. 

Alas, this wasn't his dreamscape, but someone else's dreamscape. His will had no power over it. 

Given time though, he might be able to come up with his own unique method of leaving the dreamscape, but time was the one thing he didn't have right now.

Instead of coming up with a new method, it would be much quicker if he could just replicate an existing method, Arden's method. 

At this point, Leon paused for a moment.

"That's right, I can just replicate Arden's method. All the pieces of the puzzle had been given to me. I just have to put them together, while the picture can be found in my memory." 

Leon smacked himself in understanding. He just needed to recall all the details of how he got himself inside in the first place, reverse-engineer it and he will be able to get himself out quickly. 

'I might not have understood what was happening before, but now that I have inherited Arden's knowledge and skill, it should be a piece of cake for me.'

Having thought that, Leon closed his eyes and recalled his memories of the moment. However, the memory had become a bit blurry and indistinct after he had spent decades in the dreamscape. 

This might not have been a problem for other stuff, but he was trying to recall great details from the moment the runes activated, the purple pulsated and transformed his own body into a body of light, and the instantaneous moment of his transference into the dreamscape. 

He needed details of everything.

His eyes snapped open and frowned. 

"I can't miss anything. I probably only have one chance to get out. If I accidentally fail but tear a hole through the temporal rune barrier protecting the dreamscape, the void will swallow my soul."

"What should I do?"

"If my memory is blurry, I just have to reinforce it."

Leon didn't even take a moment before he answered his own question. He had a plethora of herbs in his Worldspace. 

'Fortunately, I took the time to build a small biome and planted the yin-element related herbs. These are all herbs with nourishing aspects for the soul.'

'Also, I should still have some Soul Enhancing Pills from the last batch I refined. Previously, I had only ingested one to strengthen my divine sense…' 

'Although these Soul Enhancing Pills are mainly used to strengthen the soul, it does have some memory reinforcement effects. After all, strengthening the soul covers many aspects including but not limited to information processing, reaction speed, visualization, etc.'

Leon could have ingested all 9 Soul Enhancing Pills he had previously refined, but he was perhaps too cautious for his own good when it came to the topic of souls. 

The soul was the most mysterious part of the human body that even left Divine Kings pondering for millenniums without fully comprehending, yet all Divine Kings seem to place great emphasis on the aspect of their souls once their cultivation reached the Divine King realm. 

If Leon had to make a wild guess why this was the case, it is because the key to advancing beyond the Divine King realm was related to the soul. 

Leon does not know what kind of soul requirement was needed to break through the Divine King realm, but if he did not want to cut his own path short, he had to treat his soul cultivation carefully. 

Improving his soul too quickly might leave lifelong adverse effects that impede his future cultivation. 

Like stretching a dry rubber band, there was a limit to how much it can stretch. Stretch it too far and it will snap. Even if it does not, cracks will appear, and it will never be the same again.

Until he gets his hand on a soul cultivation technique, he will use Soul Enhancing Pills to improve his own soul at a very controlled pace.

'Wait a minute.'

Leon's mind froze for a moment.

'I should still be able to access the [Divine Book of Life], right?'

With a single thought, he disappeared from dreamscape room and reappeared in the Worldspace. 

Glancing around at the familiar surroundings and freshly grown herbs, Leon heaved a sigh of relief.

'Figures. The [Divine Book of Life] is bound to my soul after all... but then again, nothing is absolute so one can never be too sure. Overconfidence can be one's downfall.'

Leon did not linger in the Worldspace for long before hopping into the Whitespace and searched the Archive for related books. 

After doing a double check on his available herbs, he settled on a single pill recipe, the Never Forget Pill that met herb requirements. His previous efforts were now paying off.

He didn't know who came up with such a name, but he wasn't going to be picky about trivial matters. In fact, he felt the name was quite simple and straightforward, free of bullshit and not overexaggerating. 

The reason he chose the Never Forget Pill over a Soul Enhancing Pill was due to it being the most suitable pill for his cause. 

The Soul Enhancing Pill provides minor memory reinforcement, but the Never Forget Pill will allow him to search through his subconscious memory and pick a section to be photographically reinforced.

Although all memory declines over time, the efficacy of the pill will allow the user to retain the memory for longer periods of time. 

Since he was using Tier-3 Spirit Herbs, a Tier-3 Never Forget Pill will allow him to retain 1 days' worth of memory photographically for up to 6 months before it starts to decline. 

Although Leon was refining the Never Forget Pill for the first time, the process was smooth without any mishap. 

Never Forget Pill was a tier-1 spirit pill, but it has risen to tier-3 due to the tier-3 spirit herbs used. 

If he could not even refine a tier-1 spirit pill, he would be an incompetent alchemist no matter how high he had already achieved in alchemy.

Nine sparkling white pills were revealed, the moment Leon lifted the substitute pill cauldron lid as the medicinal fragrance washed over him. 

With a simple whiff, he had easily gauged each of their quality. 

'7 mid-ranks and 2 high-rank pills, huh?'

Leon nodded impassively, neither satisfied nor disappointed. It was all within his expectations. Alternatively, if there had been any low-rank pills or even medicinal dregs, he would have been ashamed.

Glancing at the 9 Tier-3 Never Forget Pills, Leon had mixed feelings.

"If I had such pills in my previous life, I wouldn't have spent countless hours and headaches each day memorizing the plethora of herbs, their properties, and usage."

"Heck, I just had to read everything once and ingest a single pill to memorize everything. I would have been able to ace every written exam during the alchemy tier advancement exam with something like this."

"Haiz, my father been keeping all the good stuff to himself."

Leon secretly complained before he lowered his head dejectedly. His father was no longer with him. As for the king, his current father who shares the spitting image of his late father, they were not the same person.

They had yet to talk, but he had secretly observed his king father for a short period of time. The mannerisms, speech, and behavior were all different.

Same appearance, but completely different. Even his own appearance was the same as his previous life's one. Such coincidence baffled him. 

He never really understood what kind of world he had landed in, but it matters not. He will eventually find out in due time.

"Father…"

Leon was only downcast for a short while before his dejected eyes were replaced with strong decisiveness.

"I will make them all pay eventually…"

Revenge was best served cold, not because it granted the greatest satisfaction but because it was more likely to succeed. 

If satisfaction were felt after successfully enacting vengeance, that is when a person know they had not been avenging others but themselves, because avenging others would not make them any happier. It would not bring the dead back to life.

Without further thoughts, Leon popped the pill in his mouth, selected his memory, and return to the dreamscape. 

Seated at the center in silence with his eyes closed, he replayed the memory repeatedly. 

Once became tens, and tens became hundreds of times. After replaying the short 30-second memory 327 times, he had picked up a total of 300 different runes that had activated during that short moment from the point he touched the runic plate to entering the dreamscape. 

'This should be all of them…'

Leon soon returned to the Whitespace and borrowed the computational power of the Archive to visually project the 300 runes instead of using his own mental simulation. 

Under the guidance of his will, he watched as the 300 runes fell into place and connected to each other, forming multiple runic circles, both big and small in sizes, and each with their own set function. 

Some of these functions had nothing to do with the spatial teleportation and soul transference but were part of the runic plate puzzle of the inheritance building.

Leon removed the irrelevant runic circles from the equation and what was left was 1 big spatial runic circle and 2 smaller runic circles related to the aspect of the soul.

After slight modification on his part for the return trip, a single but more intricately designed runic circle laid before him. 

Leon firmly memorized the image in his mind, before he returned to the dreamscape for the last time to pick up Ravenous Black and draw his runic circle on the white floor. 

The sharp gib easily carved away the tough yet illusory marbled floor as lines quickly formed with Leon's steady hand as he drew. Starting from the outer layer, he worked his way inwards towards the center. 

The lines slowly weaved together to form an exact replica of the runic circle imprinted in his mind. At the heart of the runic circle where four runic lines met, Leon finished off with a half-spherical socket carving.

The progress seemed smooth and quick, but actually, it took longer than Leon anticipated. Nevertheless, after checking his work thrice, he didn't find any problem with it and nodded.

"Time to go back."

Standing inside the runic circle, the Ravenous Black in his hand was flipped on its jade end before it was jammed into the empty socket at the heart of the big runic circle, lighting it up before his own body transformed into light particles and disappeared from the spot.