Celestial Heights Residence #47 - Moving Day Complete
The sun had set hours ago, painting the upper district mansion in the warm glow of exterior lighting. Inside, the Draeth family had finally settled after a chaotic but exciting day of moving.
Aunt Mira and Uncle Torven had spent the afternoon exploring their new home with the wide-eyed wonder of children in a palace. Twelve bedrooms, a professional kitchen three times the size of their old one, a library with built-in shelves waiting to be filled, an indoor training hall—every room revealed new luxuries they'd never dreamed of possessing.
Lyanna had claimed the bedroom with the best morning sunlight and a view of the city skyline, already planning how to arrange her things to maximize the space. Her excited chatter about decorating and furniture had filled the house until exhaustion finally claimed her around 9 PM.
Thorne had been quieter than the others, his warrior's instincts assessing the mansion's security formations, testing the structural integrity, examining every detail with professional thoroughness. But even he couldn't hide the satisfaction in his eyes when he'd explored the underground garage and seen the luxury vehicles waiting there—four of them, as Vaelor had promised.
The family had eaten dinner together in their new dining room—a space large enough to host twenty guests comfortably—sharing stories and plans while slowly accepting that this transformation was real and permanent.
Now, past midnight, the mansion had settled into peaceful quiet. Everyone had retired to their respective bedrooms, exhausted from the emotional and physical demands of the day.
Everyone except Vaelor.
He sat cross-legged in his new bedroom—a spacious chamber on the third floor with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. The room was still mostly empty, containing only the basic furniture that had been delivered. He hadn't bothered personalizing it yet.
Because the main body won't be here much longer, he thought, his consciousness split between planning and anticipation. The shadow clone will maintain this space. The original needs to leave for the sun.
But before that departure—before embarking on the intensive cultivation that would consume weeks or months—there was something critical he needed to do.
The 100,000x upgrade.
His reward for advancing to Tier 2. A single opportunity to amplify something by ten thousand times its current capability.
Vaelor had spent considerable mental energy deciding what to upgrade. The choice was crucial—potentially civilization-defining in its implications.
He could upgrade his cultivation base directly, skipping decades or centuries of advancement. Tempting, but ultimately shortsighted. Raw power without corresponding comprehension created unstable foundations. He'd seen that principle demonstrated countless times in the techniques he'd analyzed.
He could upgrade one of his EX-Rank talents—Primordial Inferno Concept, Infinite Momentum Concept, or Eternal Shadow Dominion. Each would become something transcendent, perhaps ascending to ranks beyond EX classification. But talents, however powerful, were still limited by his ability to understand and apply them properly.
He could upgrade his Eternal Cosmos Physique, accelerating its evolution to heights that should take millennia. Again tempting, but physique development required time and tempering. Forcing it through artificial enhancement might create unforeseen complications.
No. The choice had crystallized with absolute clarity.
Knowledge is the foundation of all power.
Comprehension ability determines how quickly I can learn, adapt, improve, create.
Everything else—cultivation, techniques, talents, physiques—depends on my capacity to understand and optimize them.
Upgrade the Divine Insight talent. Amplify my comprehension ability by ten thousand times.
That single enhancement will provide sustainable, exponential growth across every aspect of my path.
And there was another consideration, one that had been growing in his mind since the system first appeared.
I don't know who gave me this upgrade system. Where it came from. What their intentions are.
Systems that can be given can potentially be taken away.
But if I extract maximum knowledge benefit from it—if I upgrade my comprehension ability to heights where I can understand and recreate anything I observe—then even if the system vanishes tomorrow, I'll have gained something irreplaceable and permanent.
Knowledge, once truly comprehended, cannot be taken from me.
(AN: I know some people will disagree with me, and say he should have chosen luck, but honestly, comprehension is the best option.)
Vaelor opened his status screen, navigating to the upgrade function that had appeared upon reaching Tier 2.
[Tier 2 Advancement Reward: 100,000x Upgrade Available]
[Select target for amplification:]
[Current eligible targets detected...]
The list populated with options—cultivation base, talents, physiques, techniques, equipment. Everything he possessed that the system could quantify.
His consciousness reached out, selecting with deliberate precision:
[Target Selected: Divine Insight (Divine-Tier Talent)]
[Confirm 100,000x amplification? This action cannot be reversed.]
[YES] / [NO]
Vaelor's golden eyes blazed with rainbow luminescence—his current Divine Insight already operating at maximum capacity, analyzing potential outcomes, calculating risks, confirming the logic of this choice.
Every analysis reached the same conclusion: This is the optimal path.
He reached out mentally and selected [YES].
For a single heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the universe moved.
The Metamorphosis Begins
The change started in his consciousness—not his body, not his spiritual sea, but in the fundamental substrate of awareness itself.
Vaelor's perception exploded outward, expanding from its normal range to encompass—
—Everything.
For a fraction of a second, he experienced omniscience. Every law, every principle, every truth of existence laid bare before his suddenly transcendent awareness. The fundamental equations governing reality itself became visible, comprehensible, obvious.
Then the information density exceeded what his current mental architecture could process, and his consciousness began its emergency evolution.
A spatial crack manifested in the air above Vaelor's seated form—a fracture in dimensional barriers, appearing spontaneously as the upgrade system accessed something beyond mortal realm. The crack was small initially, no larger than a fingernail, glowing with impossible colors that human eyes weren't designed to perceive.
From that crack, pure origin essence began flowing.
Not qi. Not mana. Not any energy source available within this universe's normal operation.
Origin essence—the primordial substrate from which all other forms of energy and matter derived. The fundamental "stuff" of creation itself, undifferentiated and infinitely potent.
The essence poured into Vaelor's consciousness first, his mind, soul, and spirit drawn into transformation. His awareness, already expanded beyond normal limits, began undergoing metamorphosis at the conceptual level.
It feels like...
Vaelor's thoughts became fragmented as his mental processes restructured themselves.
...like being a newborn. In the warmth of a mother's embrace.
Safe. Protected. Nurtured.
Being remade from the foundation upward.