Divine Avatar and Historian Sullay

Inside the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen poured his consciousness into the Main God Computer to inspect its changes.

The computer had completely refined the Ancient Dragon God's soul, divinity, divine fire, and divine core. All that remained was the dragon crystal. By devouring the most valuable parts of a deity, the Main God Computer had restored itself from Sequence 4 to Sequence 2.

At first, Rosen thought his eyes were deceiving him or that the Main God Computer had withheld some of the gains.

Upon deeper inspection, he realized the Ancient Dragon God had essentially been a fraud.

A normal deity at the true god level would possess a divine kingdom, countless believers, divine artifacts, and, most importantly, sole control over at least one law authority.

But the Ancient Dragon God had none of these. Its revival through the Spiritual Realm was nothing more than a hollow shell.

Even the law authority the Ancient Dragon God once wielded had been taken by another deity. This was also why it sought to possess Rosen—to not only exploit the Ancient God Physique but also avoid being hunted down by the god who now controlled the same authority.

When the Ancient Dragon God was resurrected, its law authority was split between it and the new god, leaving the Ancient Dragon God barely a half-step true god.

During the war when the Spiritual Realm overlapped with reality, the Ancient Dragon God burned through a significant amount of its power and relied heavily on the Spiritual Realm for support.

When the Spiritual Realm retreated, its supply was cut off, leaving the Ancient Dragon God to face two fully armed true gods on its own. It only survived thanks to the Spiritual Realm's final sanctuary, and even then, it was left severely wounded.

Its divine core was shattered, its dragon soul incomplete, and its existence was hanging by a thread.

Of course, even a half-dead deity still held terrifying power. However, the real reason the Main God Computer only restored itself to Sequence 2 was that it had already absorbed the Seven Deadly Sins Demonic God's divine core earlier.

When factoring in this prior consumption, the Main God Computer had technically been restored to Sequence 0.

But with Rosen's Sequence 4 level, even with the amplification of the Ancient God Relic, he could only perfectly control the Main God Computer at Sequence 2 strength.

Thus, the computer sealed part of its power to match its operator.

Despite being limited to Sequence 2, the Main God Computer now connected to five major networks: the Main God Network, Divine Network, Spiritual Realm Deep Web, Arcane Web, and Machine Network. This meant Rosen could begin peeling back the layers of secrecy surrounding the deities, arcane alliance, and mechanical race.

Additionally, during its repair, the Main God Computer regained full control of the Main God Temple.

From now on, Rosen would no longer need to pay transaction fees for trades conducted through the Main God Temple. Furthermore, he could intercept a portion of the resources from any transaction made by other users. However, the temple itself was still partially damaged, so resource interception had to remain discreet.

The most significant upgrade was the Main God Computer's newfound ability to invade and control real Spiritual Realms.

Previously, the computer could only generate virtual Spiritual Realms, with minimal influence over real ones.

Now, as long as its network cables reached a Spiritual Realm, the Main God Computer could infiltrate and dominate it. It could even upload the Spiritual Realm into its hard drive, creating a hybrid of virtual and real Spiritual Realms.

Rosen suspected this might have been the Main God Computer's original purpose.

If it could now upload and control Spiritual Realms, could it one day upload divine kingdoms, the Abyss, or even the Prime World itself?

Rosen strongly suspected that the greater deity who created the Main God Computer designed it as a tool to wrest control of the Prime World from the Ancient Gods.

He clicked on the icons for the five major networks and began exploring their contents.

The Main God Network was the most powerful, followed by the Spiritual Realm Deep Web, then the Divine Network, with the Arcane Web and Machine Network being the weakest.

Though the latter three were relatively small compared to the Spiritual Realm Deep Web, their limited size meant they were almost exclusively accessed by gods, making their information incredibly valuable.

While browsing, Rosen stumbled upon a major secret.

The Divine Network was ostensibly used by non-human gods, yet some true gods and minor deities had access to both the Divine Network and the Spiritual Realm Deep Web.

These individuals could either be World Government spies, or they might have betrayed the World Government to gain access to the Divine Network.

To delve deeper, Rosen activated several spare Magic Eye AI constructs, increasing his total Magic Eye count to twenty.

By combining the Main God Computer with the God-Hunting Magic Eye, Rosen was confident he could uncover high-value intelligence.

Shutting down the browser, Rosen turned his attention to the Ancient Dragon God's memory files, extracted by the Main God Computer during its refinement of the dragon's soul and divinity.

Though incomplete, comprising only 60-70% of the dragon's total memories, they were still unimaginably valuable.

The Ancient Dragon God had fallen thirty thousand years ago but had lived for twenty thousand years before that. It had even participated in the war that destroyed the Emberlight Divine Kingdom, making it privy to countless secrets from five to thirty thousand years ago.

Even skimming the memories, Rosen spent half a year reviewing the highlights.

Given the sheer vastness of two millennia of memories, even a partial glimpse was overwhelming. Furthermore, half of the dragon's life had been spent in hibernation, making full digestion of the memories a monumental task.

Using specialized skills from other sequences, Rosen could theoretically assimilate the memories faster, but doing so would risk fundamentally altering his sense of self. For now, he selectively browsed topics of interest, such as the Dragon God's Tomb.

Dragon tombs fell into two categories: public and private.

Public tombs housed mostly demigod-level dragons, with the majority burying themselves at the end of their lifespans. These tombs existed primarily to prevent dragon corpses from being looted.

Private tombs, on the other hand, were almost exclusively for deities and true gods.

These served as treasure vaults and, in some cases, as resurrection sites.

However, resurrection wasn't guaranteed. The Ancient Dragon God's defeat had been so thorough that its tomb's revival mechanisms had completely failed. After its Spiritual Realm resurrection, its primary goal had been to locate its tomb and restart from there.

Unfortunately, while the general location was recorded in the memories, the surrounding environment had changed drastically over thirty millennia.

In the supernaturally dynamic world of transcendence, geography could shift within a single era. Battles between deities and civilizations could completely rewrite the land.

Even spatial coordinates were unreliable, as divine battles could displace the tombs tied to those coordinates.

For now, Rosen shelved the dragon tomb matter and instead focused on the Dragon Blood Chalice.

Thanks to his "dieting," the Bronze Dragon bloodline within the chalice had evolved to Sequence 2. However, this also increased the difficulty of crafting his Self-Portrait Avatar.

Transferring the majority of his spirituality into his Self-Portrait Avatar, Rosen used his Mannequin Artistry skill to manipulate his main body, stripping off all clothing before beginning the meticulous process of painting.

In the extraordinary world, truly identical objects—or perfectly lifelike paintings—were possible. As his brush moved across the canvas made from his own skin, the second Self-Portrait began taking shape.

Rosen started with the skin, then moved on to the flesh, blood, tendons, bones, and soul.

To achieve perfection, he peeled away his own flesh layer by layer, a process that was horrifying to witness but painless thanks to his separated soul.

To maximize precision, he slowed his perception of time using Simplified Temporal Painting, turning what should have been a three-year project into a painstaking five-year endeavor.

When the final stroke was complete, he activated Finishing Touch, imbuing the portrait with reality itself.

He poured the remaining Creation Divine Power he had accumulated over the years into the portrait, along with a portion of the Ancient Dragon God's blood and marrow, converting them into life energy and spiritual energy to fuel the painting.

Finally, Rosen infused the painting with a trace of his Immortal Will, including a sliver of his spiritual origin.

The loss of spiritual energy was manageable, as it could regenerate over time. However, sacrificing spiritual origin permanently lowered his maximum spirituality by one point.

For the finishing touch, Rosen retrieved a Sequence 1 Historian Extraordinary Essence.

Acquiring this essence had been a costly endeavor.

Of the few Sequence 1 Historians to exist, only two had ever fallen—one slain by an alien deity and the other by an alien god. The items that had tempted these beings were undoubtedly priceless.

To obtain the essence, Rosen had traded five pieces of Mormila Stone, each a treasure unto itself.

Although divine avatars could fuse with extraordinary essences, World Government law strictly forbade the fusion of human divine avatars with the nine human sequences' essences. Violating this law, even as a true god, came with dire consequences.

Rosen dared to break the law, even one of the highest regulations of the World Government.

The reason lay in the fact that his Divine Territory had the Corruption and Circumvention trait, and the Mysterious Study Room could bypass the World Government's oversight. Breaking the law only mattered if you got caught—if not, the matter would naturally fade away.

However, a Sequence 3 Divine Avatar combined with a Self-Portrait Avatar would struggle to integrate a Sequence 1 Extraordinary Essence.

Thus, Rosen brought out the Ancient Dragon God's Dragon Crystal. Inside this crystal was a pocket world, protected by seals personally laid down by the Ancient Dragon God. Even the Sequence 1 Historian Extraordinary Essence was powerless against its sealing capabilities.

With this setup, integrating the Extraordinary Essence would become significantly easier.

After preparing everything, Rosen began merging the dragon crystal into the portrait.

He guided the spiritual origin already embedded in the portrait to gradually refine the crystal using Bronze Dragon bloodline essence, absorbing the crystal into his new Bronze Dragon bloodline. Simultaneously, he fused the Extraordinary Essence bit by bit.

At this stage, 99 out of 100 steps were complete.

For the final step, Rosen transferred his entire spiritual origin into the portrait, bolstering the embedded spiritual origin to accelerate the refinement process. With the Simplified Temporal Painting skill accelerating time 74-fold, even though years passed in the real world, the fusion was finally complete.

The moment the integration succeeded, the spiritual cap of the self-portrait, originally at 65, increased by 1 to 66.

On his Sequence 4 journey, Rosen had essentially cheated his way halfway through.

[Self-Portrait Avatar No. 2: Divine Avatar]

[Level]: Sequence 3

[Professions]: Sequence 3 Bronze Dragon, Sequence 3 Historian

[Bloodline]: Primordial Human, Sequence 3 Bronze Dragon

[Divinity]: 66 points

[Bronze Dragon Skills]: Time Affinity, Temporal Manipulation, Time Dragon Breath, Time Prison, Temporal Anchor…

[Historian Skills]: Time Affinity, Historical Analysis, Historical Reading, Eternal Chronicle, Historical Anchoring, Historical Revision…

[Mastered Authorities]: Time Authority, Revision Authority, Alteration Authority

The overlapping Time Affinity significantly amplified Rosen's mastery over the Time Authority.

Rosen was confident this Divine Avatar, fully equipped, wouldn't lose out to his main body.

Everything was now ready except for a suitable identity.

Over the years, Rosen had found a perfect cover through the Arcane Web.

For a Historian, the ideal bloodline was undoubtedly one related to time.

Sullay Watson, a Sequence 4 Archaeologist.

A century ago, Sullay, unable to see any hope of advancing to demigod due to his limited talent, had ventured into the dragon realm controlled by the Dragon Race in search of Bronze Dragon blood. Predictably, he was captured alive and imprisoned, where he was forced to chronicle the Dragon Race's history.

This identity had several advantages.

First, Sullay's background was clean—he hadn't appeared out of thin air as a Sequence 3 Historian.

Second, the identity explained why Rosen now possessed Bronze Dragon bloodline.

Finally, the identity had substantial value. Since Sullay had been writing the history of the Dragon Race, he had accumulated extensive knowledge of their secrets. This made him an ideal candidate for the Historian Guild, ensuring Rosen would be welcomed and valued.

The only thing Rosen needed to do now was make Sullay disappear completely.

Although Sullay had been imprisoned for a century, he had advanced to Sequence 3 by revising dragon history. Over time, Sullay had even grown fond of life among the dragons.

The surrounding dragons were friendly, and the dragoness assigned to care for him was gentle and attentive. Sullay had gradually come to see the dragon realm as his second home. The dragons, in turn, had become increasingly trusting of him, even granting him access to the Arcane Web, which only a select few dragons could log into.

Using the Arcane Web, Rosen pinpointed Sullay's location and accessed the Data Transfer network to quietly approach him.

With the God-Hunting Magic Eye monitoring everything, Rosen soon identified a perfect opportunity.

At the time, Sullay was alone in his study, writing about the Dragon Race's history. When revising historical records, Sullay preferred absolute silence, and not even his beloved dragoness would disturb him. Taking advantage of this, Rosen activated the Wolf Totem's stealth enhancement and appeared soundlessly in the study.

Watching Sullay furiously writing with his back turned, Rosen held a Dragon Crystal in his hand.

This crystal had been formed when the Bronze Dragon bloodline refined the Ancient Dragon God's dragon crystal. It was a part of the Divine Avatar and had also been created as part of the self-portrait, meaning it could seamlessly integrate into the painting.

Moreover, the crystal had been painted with Dimensional Artistry.

One crystal alone couldn't possibly absorb the Ancient Dragon God's true god-level dragon crystal. Rosen had used Dimensional Artistry to create 75 crystal fragments, representing dots and lines. These fragments combined to form the single crystal in his hand, capable of tapping into a portion of the Ancient Dragon God's power.

As Rosen's spiritual limit continued to grow, the dots and lines making up this crystal would also increase in complexity, making it the most potent weapon of the Divine Avatar.

The crystal floated above Sullay's head and transformed into a dot and a line.

The line penetrated Sullay's consciousness sea like a barbed hook, while the dot generated terrifying temporal suction. Together, they bound Sullay in place, suppressing his time-based abilities, rendering him powerless as he was swallowed into the Dimensional Point.

With Sullay captured, Rosen meticulously cleaned the study and withdrew.

Thanks to Data Transfer and the Wolf Totem, few assassins in the human world could compare to him.

Sullay's disappearance didn't stir much commotion. While the dragons needed historians to chronicle their history, Sullay wasn't their only captive historian. Many historians actively defected to study and document the histories of non-human races.

The World Government might issue bounties for these defectors, but it rarely enforced strict measures against them. In fact, the government seemed to tolerate, or even encourage, such defections.

After fusing with the Sequence 1 Historian Extraordinary Essence, Rosen finally understood why.

All Historian Extraordinary Essences were intrinsically tied to the Scientist Sequence Tree. When human historians documented non-human histories, the Scientist Sequence Tree allowed the World Government to access parts of those records.

This provided the World Government with critical intelligence on non-human factions.

Thus, when historians returned to human territories, the government almost always pardoned them—unless they had committed outright betrayal in other ways.

Sullay was a classic example of a historian swayed by the better treatment offered by non-human races.

But now, his fate had been entirely rewritten.

Using Mind Domination and Mental Canvas, Rosen extracted all of Sullay's memories.

Then, he fused with his Divine Avatar and, through the Ancient God Physique, transformed into Sullay.

The final touch—altering his spiritual signature and spiritual origin—was achieved using the Historian Sequence 6 skill, Eternal Chronicle.

Much like a Void Codex, this skill recorded history in both text and illustrations. By writing and drawing Sullay into the Eternal Chronicle, Rosen could merge with his spiritual origin, ensuring the disguise was flawless.

(End of Chapter)