"Not bad," Seth said calmly, channeling his newly acquired Haki into his clenched fist with ease. The energy increased his total power output not by 2 times like a simple multiplier, not even by 10 times, but exponentially to the power of 2, making him devastatingly more powerful.
"So, I was able to naturally awaken Conqueror Haki and Armament Haki just from that brief exposure. Mind showing me Observation Haki next?" Seth asked with an easy smile, looking down towards Levi, who was now on one knee, nearly knocked unconscious by the sheer overwhelming amount of Haki that had flooded the area moments ago.
Levi opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, struggling to form words. Sweat covered his forehead and dripped down his face as his body trembled from the aftershock. Finally, after a long moment, he shook his head in defeat, submitting completely before the absolute monster known as Seth.
And that's how Seth conquered Japan in a single encounter, before he moved on to his next target in India. From India, he stepped into North Korea, and in no time at all, all 14 SSS tier talent holders had their territories conquered by Seth, who immediately sent them off to conquer the rest of the planet under his command. The entire process happened in less than 2 days from start to finish.
[Congratulations on evolving your Empire into a grade one civilization. Time: 245 Days Reward: [Overlord store updated]
[Note that the world record was 2 months. If you wish to create the world record for reaching grade 2, you have 5 days to conquer the whole solar system.]
Due to the limited time given by the system, Seth had no choice but to go into outer space himself and conquer every planet in the solar system personally. This happened quickly enough, since the regions on the other planets were ruled mainly by one dominant group of monsters that had already conquered the other territories on their respective planets.
But still, even with that advantage, it took 4 full days for him to conquer every single planet in the system. It was 4 days of no sleep or rest whatsoever, with him running around nonstop without pause. He didn't even slow down long enough to talk to a monster before he killed it and immediately ran off to another region to repeat the process. And yes, the planets in the solar system were absolutely massive in scale, making the task even more demanding.
[Congratulations on evolving your empire into a grade 2 civilization. Congratulations on being the first person ever to go from a grade 1 civilization to a grade 2 civilization in such a short time of 4 days.
Time: 249 days
Reward: [x5 Skill Level Up orb], [x5 SSS tier Skill evolution Orb], [Updating Overlord Store] Note: You have 1 year to break the world record of fastest time reaching grade 3]
"I guess it's worth it in the end. Now I can finally sleep," Seth said with exhaustion in his voice, teleporting back home to rest. In a few more months from now, the 1 year mark would officially start, meaning other galaxies could begin bothering them and interfering with their territory. But that was a problem for later. He would cross that bridge when he got to it.
***
So, well, time passed without a major incident. Seth didn't do anything like trying to expand his land and conquer new territories for the following few days after his conquest. Instead, he sat back and focused his efforts on strengthening his foundation with the land he already had under his control.
Although a new problem soon came to his attention that needed addressing. Without monsters spawning naturally anymore, and with the remaining monsters now in an alliance with their Nexus Empire, how were they going to improve their strength and continue leveling up?
This was, of course, easily fixed by buying a tower from the overlord store. When his empire had reached grade 1, he had gained the ability to buy towers, which were special structures where monsters could spawn and be cleared by people looking to level up. However, the towers had a cooldown period after being cleared, preventing constant farming.
Although there was a real risk involved in buying them that couldn't be ignored. There was a chance a tower could evolve beyond its normal state, leaving the control of the overlord entirely. This would lead to the Tower spilling out endless waves of monsters into the world, creating a disaster.
Seth, being arrogant and confident in his own abilities, of course, wasn't scared of such possibilities or concerned about the danger. He went on to buy countless towers without hesitation and placed them all about 10,000 miles apart from each other for even distribution. This meant that each planet under his control could have a few million towers spread across its surface.
Well, with this time of peace that came afterward, things began to settle into a new normal. Although the humans had a hard time adapting and living peacefully with the new races that now shared their world, things were pretty calm overall.
This allowed Seth to turn his attention to dungeons once more, and this time, Chu Yin wanted to join him on his expedition. She wanted to come mainly because she had warned him not to do this, as it could end badly for them, but he was too confident in his own abilities to listen to her, thinking she was overreacting, which forced her to join him
It took a few tries of searching through different galaxies, but after Seth finally found a galaxy under the rule of a Grade 5 empire, he and Chu Yin decided to enter it together. The reason was simple—Seth wanted to gather information on what a Grade 5 empire was actually like and how they operated at that level.
Seth instantly realized this empire was ruled by the Dwarf race, seeing as everyone walking around was of the Dwarf race without exception. It was a highly advanced galaxy in terms of technology, completely unlike the elven empire they had encountered before.
The elves had lived in trees and nature, staying light-years away from reaching modern-day levels of tech. But the Dwarves were different—they were living in what felt like the future compared to Earth. They had flying carriages moving through the air, what appeared to be laser guns being carried openly, and even TV screens displaying information on the streets.
"Not bad at all, but we still have the edge over them, right?" Seth asked with a confident smile, looking at a weapon shop's display. He was examining something that almost looked like a gun in design. It had a hole where one could insert monster cores as fuel, and a button to push that would convert the energy from the monster core into condensed energy before launching it forward as an attack.
"Don't get cocky... You do know you have an arrogance problem, right?" Chu Yin asked, her attention focused on studying a sword displayed nearby rather than looking at him.
"Me? I'm as humble as they come," Seth said with a genuinely speechless look on his face, completely ignoring the male dwarf shopkeeper who was trying to show him the weapons. Chu Yin gave him a weird, disbelieving look in response.
"Oh, really? Before you kill something, you like to monologue far too much and waste time talking. I swear that's going to bite you in the butt one day," she said seriously, but Seth just shook his head in disagreement.
"Where is the fun in just killing someone and walking away without saying anything?" Seth said with a light snort of dismissal. Just imagine it—killing someone and walking away immediately, compared to having some fun with words before you killed someone. Which option sounded more entertaining?
"I'm serious, Seth," Chu Yin said, turning to give him a stern glare. As Seth was her property and belonged to her, she had all the right in the world to limit his actions and behavior. People could call her controlling if they wanted—she didn't care one bit about their opinions. She only looked away when Seth finally nodded helplessly in acceptance of her point.
The Dwarf's craftsmanship was something that humans could only rival by using their advanced machines and mass production. Seth was honestly amazed by the incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail put into even a simple spoon or a basic knife.
The quality was exceptional. Seth took the opportunity to look for gear so he could upgrade his current gear while he was here, since he didn't want to put on the generic gear the universe had given him, as he didn't want to become more human even if it would improve his overall strength.
Sadly, they didn't get much time to continue buying gear as they received an unexpected guest. Well, by unexpected, what he really meant was that Seth and Chu Yin had been waiting and expecting this confrontation to happen.
"What are you doing in my empire without permission?" A dwarf who stood about the same height as the average-sized human, which was considered unusually tall for dwarves, entered the store that Seth and Chu Yin were currently shopping in. Using his authority as an overlord, he had frozen time completely around them, trapping them in a bubble.
"Nothing, our world has just awakened, and we came here to learn more about the universe. We mean no harm." Seth said, forcing his tone to sound respectful. Chu Yin was glaring at him from the side, making sure he watched his words carefully.
Having to constantly watch the way he spoke to other powerful figures was a pain and annoying to maintain. This whole respectful empire diplomacy approach was exhausting. But Chu Yin did have a valid point—some emperors would interpret his usual relaxed attitude when speaking to them as direct disrespect and an insult.
"Awakened? How arrogant for your galaxy's only Ur tier talent holder to step into my land without announcing yourself. Do you have any idea what I could do with you right now?" The dwarf emperor asked with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
"Yeah, I understand the position I'm in. That's why I would like it if we could have a peaceful talk instead," Seth said calmly, his eyes already examining the dwarf's stats to assess the threat level.