Persistence

Lucius woke up a few days later with a light headache.

Normally after going through such intense training and achieving a major breakthrough, he would've had to spend weeks stabilizing his foundation and mastering his newfound strength.

Thankfully his constitution immediately adapted to his new strength thus stabilizing it and since he was a master at runic control he didn't need to spend any time learning to control his newfound strength.

Now that he had gone through his first evolution he technically wasn't a mortal anymore so he could blaze through all the next steps if he wanted, not having to worry about stamina or fatigue. With his talents, now that he had passed the dual tempering he could probably reach the peak of the first step in a day and reach the peak of the 1st Great realm in 2 months.

That's how powerful his talents were.

—

Wearing a light white kimono embroiled in traditional golden dragon designs and a black undershirt, Lucius calmly walked around a massive forest on a small planet within a mortal galaxy.

He looked around and was amazed by what he saw. He had obviously been to mortal galaxies and planets before but now that he had his pupils it was completely different.

He could see how fragile the laws of the world were and how limiting the environment was. If he just summoned a strand of his innate essence he could most likely destroy this galaxy. He felt like if wanted he could quite literally grab at the laws of this place with his bare hands.

'It's strange…why is the concept of order so active here? Is this one of Deodar's Domains ?'

Even though the laws of the world were extremely fragile and weak, he could feel how unusually powerful the laws of Order were around here.

SHING!

"Oh?" calmly said Lucius as he dodged the incoming sword attack. He took a step back and then observed the young man that had been following him.

In front of him stood a young boy of about 16 years of age. With long green hair and porcelain-like pale white skin, his presence felt ethereal within these low lands. He didn't seem surprised as Lucius dodged his incoming strike even though it was powerful and fast enough to kill any first-step cultivators.

"You've been following me for quite some time."

"I have indeed." said Erys, the green-haired youth.

Without further words, he tried deploying his innate essences but before he could do anything he found all his aspects sealed.

His vision turned upside down and his head fell to the ground.

Lucius burnt the blood off his arm using his Origin Essence then crouched down.

"Pretty weak. Why're you following me?"

Erys's aura exploded, pushing Lucius a few meters back. His head reattached to his body and a second sword appeared in his hands.

'Dual wielding?'

"I underestimated y-"

A bolt of dark lighting shattered the space into two before completely erasing his existence.

The whole galaxy started collapsing on itself but Lucius quickly activated his bloodline to revert the damage done.

A strange runic sigil glowed and Erys's figure reappeared, this time he adorned a petrified expression.

"Wh- WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!" He screamed in terror.

The token that had just brought him back to life was something that was passed down from generation to generation within his family. It was a powerful artifact that could passively heal most of the holder's injuries and help them survive an attack of the 12th great realm.

His legs started wobbling and his eyes trembled in fear.

The fact that his token had activated meant the level of power of this lightning bolt matched the power of a 12th great realm expert. A mere beginner holding such power made no sense to him.

"Please! I'm sorry! I'm from the Aptior academy! One of our informants heard you were going into a mortal galaxy for whatever reason and they sent me here to probe you! I promise I'm telling the truth! Please let me live…please…"

Erys broke down as he begged Lucius for mercy.

'They sent this type of trash to test me? Boring.'

Lucius had asked Layla to purposefully leak his departure so that the academies would send some of their geniuses to him.

He wanted a fight, a challenge.

"I guess I'll have to wait until I get to the academy to see the real deal…" he lazily said as he walked past Erys's petrified figure.

'He let me live…?no way… Am I dreaming? HE LET ME LIVE! I'M ALIVE!'

'I have to report this to the Headmasters immediately! If the academy of light gets another monster like this we won't have any chance during the Grand festival.'

Erys stood up and started running for his life, in case Lucius changed his opinion and decided to kill him.

'Not worth getting unnecessary blood on my hands plus it'll probably make things more interesting when I get to the academy. It'd be boring to have to build my reputation from the ground up.'

He later found a beautiful large open plain within the forest and decided to spend the rest of his days relaxing there, not knowing his actions had set a massive wave into motion.

——

Lucius channeled his essence within his soul lands and two orbs of different colors appeared. One was pure white and emitted an aura of truth and undeniable force while the other was a massive obsidian planar structure that looked to be deeper than the trenches of the abyssal planes. These were his two innate foundations.

He prepared himself to fuse them with his soul lands but at this instant, a strange phenomenon occurred.

His primal land unsealed once again and a mighty suction force devoured both his foundations. After absorbing his innate foundations his primal land sealed itself again and returned to its dormant state.

Normally the foundation awakening segment was supposed to be a grand second awakening with tons of explosions accompanied by massive growth in strength but nothing like that happened here. He just felt his strength shoot up.

Lucius stayed calm and analyzed the situation. Even though this time there were no grand explosions or events, he had just gone through his second evolution. He could still feel his foundations, meaning his primal land hadn't destroyed or completely devoured them.

He tightened his fists and a small primordial black hole appeared within his palm. He released his grip and the blackhole vanished.

'My power definitely increased but I haven't awakened any special ability from my foundations. I guess I'll get them when I fully awaken primal land.'

Most people would start worrying if their primal lands started behaving in such a manner but Lucius knew things like this would start happening when he fed the origins of the cardinals and supreme gods to his primal lands.

"Alright let's get this step over with."