Staring at the three racial specialties before him, Nolan fell into deep thought.
The options offered by racial specialties were all extremely powerful. There was no clear "better" or "worse"—only whether they suited him or not.
The first option allowed Nolan to replenish himself by eating anything at all, while simultaneously strengthening his physique and soul.
In other words, simply eating would make him stronger—an undeniably excellent ability.
There was also an additional effect: when absorbing energy whose quality exceeded that of his own harmonized energy, it could function as cultivation.
This meant that high-quality energy could, to some extent, replace Adventure EXP. After all, the Adventure EXP he obtained were essentially converted into cultivation progress anyway.
However, finding energy with a quality higher than his own harmonized energy was no easy task.
After all, Kokomi's affection skill allowed him to improve the quality of his internal energy while soaking in hot water.
Nolan often cultivated together with the girls in hot springs, and the quality of his harmonized energy had already reached an extremely high level.
Even Lumine's pure Abyssal power in her Abyss Princess state—setting aside the incomparable differences in their respective properties—was still inferior to his own in terms of sheer quality.
Adeptus energy, demonic energy, divine power, and the like went without saying; his harmonized energy had already surpassed them by a significant margin.
Because of this, making use of that effect wouldn't actually be easy.
Aside from converting high-quality energy into cultivation progress, the latter effect—100% energy utilization—was also extremely appealing.
Normally, whenever energy conversion was involved, achieving a full 100% efficiency was nearly impossible. Some loss during the conversion process was unavoidable.
This effect, however, meant that when Nolan absorbed energy, none of it would be wasted.
He felt that this racial specialization suited him quite well, and he already had a slight inclination toward it.
Still, he needed to look at the other two options—there was always the possibility that something even better might appear.
Nolan shifted his gaze to the second option and examined it carefully. He realized that "Golden Kingdom" was an ability meant to fortify his soul.
Moreover, its strength depended entirely on his own construction—which meant it had no upper limit!
However, his soul was already extremely powerful, equipped with all kinds of absurd life-saving abilities, and his soul space was guarded by the "Spirit of True Love."
That level of defense was already sufficient. Compared to "Devour All Things," "Golden Kingdom" felt more like icing on the cake rather than a necessity.
The final option was an ability that could avoid all non–time-based attacks originating from the "present," which was equally outrageous.
There was no such thing as having too many life-saving abilities.
But given that he already possessed numerous survival tools, this one also fell into the category of icing on the cake.
For Nolan, "Devour All Things" was simply more impactful.
Previously, he had gained the ability to obtain "Imaginary Internal Energy" from the "Imaginary Space," and he could draw from it without limitation.
The only issue was that he had no way to actually make use of that "Imaginary Internal Energy."
The situation was much like in a wuxia novel, where the protagonist accidentally gains decades—or even centuries—of inner power, yet cannot properly use it due to lacking martial techniques.
With the "Devour All Things" ability, however, Nolan could now even eat Imaginary Energy—absorbing it perfectly with 100% efficiency!
For him, Imaginary Energy was infinite. That meant he could absorb endlessly, replenishing his harmonized energy without limit.
In effect, this meant that Nolan truly possessed infinite energy.
He could freely transfer energy with the girls, so if he had infinite energy, that effectively meant they did as well.
After weighing everything, "Devour All Things" was clearly the most beneficial choice for him.
Without hesitation, he directly selected the first option on the character panel.
As the racial specialty "Devour All Things" merged into his body, Nolan immediately felt that he had gained the ability to consume everything.
He tried connecting to the Imaginary Space, guiding some Imaginary Energy into his body, and found that it could indeed be absorbed perfectly.
Nolan was secretly delighted. From now on, he could truly treat his ultimate moves as normal attacks—naturally standing in an unbeatable position during battles of attrition.
Speaking of ultimate moves, his strongest technique was still his world-level sword art.
With his current state, a full-power strike could probably cleave a planet as large as Teyvat—space and all—cleanly in half.
When Ruan Mei previously helped Focalors separate her Authority, she only needed to temporarily raise her soul to the world's upper limit, which stopped at level 142.
From this, it could be inferred that the intrinsic strength of the Teyvat world itself was equivalent to level 142. Although Nolan's level was only at level 130,
his combat power was already comparable to that of an Emanator above level 150. As such, annihilating a planet with a single strike was entirely within reason.
With just a few minutes of effort, he could erase an entire star system comparable to the Sun—fully possessing galaxy-level combat power.
He was now an existence capable of casually erasing star systems.
If he later used Nahida's affection skill to further enhance this world-level sword art, it could become even stronger.
A few days ago, he had used the "Wisdom Tree Diagram" to cultivate his innate talent "Entangling Affection." However, he had recently been busy testing the Simulated Universe and finding opportunities to raise the girls' affection levels.
As a result, he hadn't learned much new knowledge lately. Lacking the nourishment of knowledge, the seed's growth had slowed slightly.
Even so, the first branch was already close to sprouting. Hopefully, it would grant an additional attribute bonus that increased charm and made it easier to gain affection.
Finally, Nolan took a brief look at his character panel:
---
Name: Nolan Walker
Level: Lv.130 (523,611 / 40,000,000)
Race: Human
Titles: Honorary Knight, Distinguished Citizen of Liyue, Legendary Adventurer, Honorary General of Watatsumi Island, Sumeru Sage, Prince of Fontaine, Deputy to the Raiden Shogun
Innate Talent: Entangling Affection
Skills:
- Lumine's Musou · World Lv.10 ( Void Starsea Manifestation)
- Flowing Sky Shot: Arcane Level Lv.10 (Frostglow Arrow)
Specialties:
- Beloved by Maidens (Exclusive)
- Unmoving Gospel of the World Tree (Exclusive)
- Threads of the Northern Wind (Exclusive)
- Spiritual Core (Exclusive)
- Imaginary Energy
- Drifter of the Imaginary Sea
- Devour All Things
Adventure EXP: 8,658,070
---
There were still over five hundred thousand EXP toward the next level—earned from a full day of intimate cultivation with Yae Miko and the others.
In other words, under normal circumstances, Nolan could gain over five hundred thousand EXP per day simply by cultivating with the girls.
As for the remaining eight million-plus Adventure EXP, those were leftovers from the recent level-ups. With continued testing, it wouldn't take long before he could level up again.
After all, even at level one hundred and thirty, further advancement only required forty million EXP.
Nolan walked out of Herta's office while lowering his head slightly to look at his phone.
In his messages were the bonds Herta had sent him, as well as the list of curios she possessed. Feeling a bit curious, he opened it and took a look.
He discovered that Herta's collection of curios was truly diverse—there was all kinds of strange stuff.
There was a "Judgment Gun" of unclear standards, a "Baseball Bat" with tremendous power, and even the cancer of all worlds—the "Stellaron." Nolan was rather surprised.
Wasn't Herta worried that something might go wrong on the space station, collecting something like a Stellaron?
But then Nolan thought about how he himself, already comparable to an Emanator, could easily destroy a planet with a single strike and erase even an entire star system in a short time.
Meanwhile, Stellarons usually only caused disasters on a planetary scale. From what had been observed so far, those disasters were still confined to the planet itself.
Clearly, judging from its performance, a Stellaron's power seemed inferior to that of an Emanator.
Since Herta was likewise at the Emanator level, she naturally must have similar methods—capable of destroying planets in a single blow and wiping out star systems.
If the Stellaron didn't possess some hidden power beyond the Emanator level, then Herta could indeed deal with it calmly.
And given her identity as a scholar, it was only natural for her to collect a Stellaron for research.
From what Nolan had learned on the Interastral Peace Network, Herta had saved her home planet—the Azure Star beneath the space station—several times.
Perhaps this Stellaron had been taken from the Azure Star.
To even allow him to exchange for a Stellaron—Herta was quite generous. Or perhaps it was because her affection toward him was relatively high.
Nolan also saw several Light Cones on the list.
"Requiem of a Fallen Aeon," "Cruising in the Stellar Sea," "Texture of Memories"… Seeing these Light Cones, Nolan could be certain that it really was because Herta's affection toward him was high that she allowed him to exchange them freely.
After all, the creation of Light Cones was an exclusive technique of the Garden of Recollection. It was said that it was only authorized to the IPC, and even then, acquiring Light Cones was extremely difficult.
Yet Herta's list contained a large number of Light Cones. Without a doubt, she must have cracked the method of creating them.
If those two factions found out that Herta had mastered the technology to produce Light Cones, even for a genius like her, it would be quite troublesome.
Although Light Cones could indeed significantly enhance an individual's strength, and Nolan wanted to exchange one to see for himself, he only had four Herta Bonds.
Exchanging for a Light Cone required at least eight, so for now, it wasn't enough.
Nolan continued browsing the curio list. Everything on it was something he hadn't encountered before, and to him, it was all new knowledge.
As a result, the seed within the "Wisdom Tree Diagram," which had already been on the verge of sprouting a branch, successfully completed its final step.
Immediately afterward, Nolan received feedback.
The innate talent "Entangling Affection" successfully gained its first attribute bonus. As expected, it revolved around "Affection."
However, it didn't make it easier for him to gain affection directly. Instead, when a girl's affection toward him reached max level and unlocked a affection skill,
the self-buff effects of those affection skills would all be increased by a percentage equal to "the combined levels of Nolan and Nahida."
Nolan was level one hundred and thirty, and Nahida was also over one hundred. Added together, that was nearly a 2.5× boost—an absolutely terrifying increase.
In other words, abilities like Kokomi's affection skill—where soaking in different kinds of water granted him buffs—would now, based on the original effect, gain an additional boost of more than double.
The same applied to Nilou and Xianyun's skills. The former allowed him to increase cultivation speed and recover mental energy by watching her dance, while the latter could temporarily enhance the effectiveness of various buffs.
If calculated based on intimate cultivation—
With Kokomi, Nilou, and Xianyun's buff abilities active, plus Raiden Ei's affection skill that could further increase cultivation speed through "Wish Power,"
and Xiangling's Luminous Cuisine on top of that—
Under all these effects combined, not counting time spent during the day farming Adventure EXP or going out to win over girls,
a normal full day of cultivation with the girls in the Wonderland Space would grant him around five hundred thousand EXP.
If luck was on his side and Yelan's affection skill rolled a strengthened effect value, it could even double to around one million.
But now that the innate talent "Entangling Affection" had gained the additional effect of boosting affection skill buffs by about two times,
Nolan, under normal conditions, could gain at least over one million EXP per day, with the potential to double it again if luck favored him.
Relying solely on intimate cultivation with the girls, leveling up would take just a little over a month. Such a growth speed was already unrivaled across the galaxy.
Even Pathstriders, who could gain strength simply by walking their Path, couldn't level up as fast as he did.
And this was at a level of one hundred and thirty.
If it only took a month to gain a level at this stage, then the galaxy would already be crawling with Emanators, and Aeons would be worth less than dogs.
Nolan put away the curio list, having no immediate plans to exchange anything.
Four Herta Bonds weren't enough to trade for the Light Cones he was interested in, so he decided to save them for now.
While walking back toward his room on the space station, Nolan happened to overhear two staff members chatting as they walked.
They mentioned that in one week, the Astral Express—which had a resource supply agreement with the space station—would arrive. Since they were in charge of materials management, they needed to prepare the supplies in advance.
Two months ago, Asta had mentioned that if he wanted to go to a Stellaron-contaminated zone, she could introduce him to the Astral Express, and even help him hitch a ride.
Although Nolan could now farm Adventure EXP through the Simulated Universe, he certainly wouldn't complain about having more places where he could gain them.
So that Stellaron-contaminated zone was still worth checking out, which meant he couldn't miss the Astral Express—he needed to keep an eye on the timing.
If he got too absorbed in the Simulated Universe and missed the Astral Express, that would be troublesome.
Thinking this way, Nolan returned to his room on the space station, and then went back to the Wonderland Space.
On Teyvat's side, it was still only around three or four in the morning. Nolan climbed back into the girls' bed and went back to sleep.
The next morning, Nolan prepared to go to Fontaine to look for Arlecchino.
The last time she left the Palais Mermonia, she had specifically mentioned that he was welcome to visit her if he had time—clearly, she had something to discuss with him.
Most likely, it was related to the Gnosis.
After all, as a Fatui Harbinger, aside from the prophecy crisis in Fontaine, Arlecchino's only remaining task there was probably collecting the Gnosis.
(End of Chapter)
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